Grace.’
Perplexed, Nicholas ran a hand through his hair. ‘Is she married already?’ he said suddenly.
‘No, your Grace.’
‘Betrothed?’
‘No, your Grace.’
‘Then you would agree that she’s free to make up her own mind about whether or not to see me?’
Sir Michael shifted uncomfortably, giving the impression of a man who was backing himself into a quickly approaching corner. ‘Yes.’
‘Then please give her this.’ Taking out another card, Nicholas wrote on it in haste. ‘I would very much like a reply.’
Nodding, Michael De Lancey clutched the paper in his fist and Nicholas watched him call for his coat and hat and take his leave.
Brenna rose the next morning early, dressing in one of her customary dark-blue velvet gowns, then hurried downstairs to the breakfast room, coming to a halt as she saw her uncle already seated and looking very perturbed.
‘Good morning,’ she said, favouring him with a smile as she took the seat opposite and poured herself some tea.
He cleared his throat. ‘Brenna, I need to talk to you.’
‘Mmm, what about?’ She glanced up as he took a card from the table in front of him, and placed it before her.
‘That!’ he stammered as she raised the gilt-edged card to her eyes.
NICHOLAS PENCARROW
DUKE OF WESTBOURNE
‘Who is he?’ she returned quietly, a premonition of disaster seeming to emanate from the words themselves.
‘Read the back.’ With dread she flipped it over, her heart beating faster as she placed the context of the message: Would you permit me to say thank you in person for your help at Worsley?
Unsure eyes surveyed her uncle. ‘I didn’t tell you. I thought it might make you worried.’
‘But you’ll tell me now?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes,’ she answered, giving him a blow-by-blow description of the whole episode.
Her uncle was silent when she finished, phrasing his next question only after much thought. ‘Did you talk with him at Airelies?’
‘No.’
‘Did you see him properly, Brenna?’ The words came hesitantly.
‘No. Why?’
‘I think he could be persistent, you see, as well as both powerful and stubborn. The whole of London treads carefully in his wake and it seems he owns almost half of it.’
‘The wrong man to rescue, you mean?’ Brenna quipped. ‘I should have left him to an untimely end, especially now if he’s going to harass me.’
Michael De Lancey grimaced. ‘I do have a feeling about this man. I think you should at least meet him. Be as dour and miserable as you want. It is the mystery that is making him interested. I know his type. It is only the thrill of the chase that he craves and there are plenty of women in London who will attest to that truth, or so I’m told.’
The words made sense, though already Brenna’s heart beat painfully at the thought as his gold-green eyes and dark copper hair came fully to mind. With a rising irritation she stood and pulled at the plait that hung across her shoulder. She knew better than to allow herself such feelings.
‘I thought I’d finished with all this, Michael. That season in London was by far enough. I’m twenty-four now, a happy spinster and a woman in my own right and I don’t want the Duke of Westbourne to come and call on me.’
Michael frowned. ‘Well then, let’s get it over with. I’ll have Kenneth take over your reply this morning and with any luck we can have him out of our lives by this evening.’ He stood then, searching in a drawer on one side of the room for paper and pen. ‘Here, write to him and say you could see him at three o’clock. I’ll come home at three-thirty and remind you of an appointment we have at four. That way we can have the whole thing finished within under an hour.’
Reluctantly, Brenna took the page and wrote a very brief and very formal invitation to Nicholas Pencarrow, hating herself for having to do it while mentally calculating all the things she’d need to put off till the morrow now that she had him to deal with today.
A reply had come from Pencarrow House by noon: Nicholas Pencarrow would be pleased to call on her at three o’clock p.m.
At half past two Brenna made her way upstairs to prepare her hair in the most unappealing style she could arrange, buttoning her velvet dress up to the collar and placing upon it the shapeless blue oversmock, which she often wore at the orphanage. At five to three she was sitting stiffly in the wing chair near the fire in the small dining room, hands primly in her lap, when she heard his carriage pull to a halt outside. She resisted the urge to go to the window. He’d seen her at the curtains once before and she had no wish for him to think her remotely inquisitive about him. Instead she stood facing the door and waited until it was opened by Polly, the serving maid.
‘The Duke of Westbourne, Miss Brenna,’ the young girl announced breathlessly, shepherding him in before going out again and closing the door.
Brenna’s widening eyes came up to his, all the handsomeness of each reckless libertine who’d ever pursued her across countless nightmares rolled into one. At Worsley with blood on his face and a split upper lip he had still seemed well favoured. Today, dressed in tapered trousers, a double-breasted jacket and silk hat and gloves in hand, he emanated pure masculine grace and style—and something else a lot more unsettling.
He registered her fright and the dress all at once. Today she seemed different and his glance was drawn to her fingers, which turned a handkerchief nervously this way and that.
‘Miss Stanhope,’ he began quietly as cold violet eyes stole up to his, a flinty hardness in their depths, which he could not comprehend.
She fears me, a warning voice came from deep inside. ‘I am Nicholas Pencarrow and I thank you for receiving me.’
‘You did not have to come,’ she spoke now for the first time, her velvety voice exactly as he had remembered it.
‘But I wanted to,’ he replied. ‘May I sit down for just a moment?’
Nodding, she indicated a chair furthest from where she sat. She seemed older today, her hair bound up into unbecoming braids at each ear and drooping down across her neck. He couldn’t recollect ever seeing anybody’s hair put up quite like that and wondered why she should have fashioned it in such a way, knowing he was to call. The truth hit him suddenly even as he pondered it. She wanted him to see her like this: the clothes, the hair, the lack of a welcome, they were all mixed somehow in a puzzle he could not even vaguely begin to comprehend.
Nicholas shifted in his seat and began softly. ‘I wanted to thank you personally for your help last month outside of Worsley.’ Wary eyes flickered briefly to his and then away. ‘If you had not come when you did, I am sure I would not be
