Chapter Two

"Ididn't ask you to join me back in England, so you could be my manservant, Lomax," Albion grumbled, loathing the tilt and rock of the carriage. He much preferred the freedom of riding a horse, but his mother had insisted on the landau, and as a show of good faith, he had relented to some of her wishes.

Visiting Lady Matilda just happened to be another one of those concessions. He had still doubted the wisdom of exchanging a debt for a wife, but his mother had leaped at the opportunity, almost like she had already known of the entire arrangement and made up her mind to make it proceed as planned before Albion had even set foot on English soil again.

"A Duke must have a Duchess," she had urged, parroting the solicitor. "The transition will be easier with a wife at your side, and this way, we do not have to parade you—I mean, we do not have to bother with as many society gatherings."

His scars offended his mother, and she had made it clear with her accidental words that she did not think he would find a bride any other way but through an arrangement because of his appearance.

Ben shrugged. "I'm enjoying myself."

"I'm pleased someone is," Albion said with a sigh.

"It's not every day I get to see you attempt to woo a fair maiden, Captain. Who wouldn't want to be at your side to witness the excruciating awkwardness?"

Albion had to laugh. "You're not helping at all."

"I didn't say I was here to help. Indeed, you just said I wasn't here to help you." Ben grinned, and Albion envied his friend for that ease and affability.

Just like being any sort of respectable member of high society, those things were not attributes that Albion had been born with.

"Do you think you'll actually do it?" Ben asked, balancing his ankle on his opposite knee. "Marry her, I mean."

Albion grimaced but hid it quickly. "I don't see why not." He paused. "It's a duke's duty to marry. I'm a duke now, whether it feels real or not. As such, I must abide by the expectations that are resting on my shoulders, and though I don't entirely trust my mother's motivations, I can't deny that she's right; it'll be quicker and simpler if I am married by arrangement. One task out of the way."

"One task out of the way? You hopeless romantic, you," Ben teased.

"Romance has nothing to do with this," Albion replied sincerely. "I am upholding my duty and completing a transaction that my brother began for reasons that he deemed important. And if he deemed them important, considering his years of preparation for the role, so should I. He was the Duke; he was going to do this. I am the Duke; I must do this."

Ben's smile faltered. "You miss him."

"I miss him." Albion allowed himself a moment to be himself. "Today, most of all."

As if he was an actor upon the stage, his words signaled their arrival at the gates of Montale House. They passed between sandstone pillars topped with sculptured vases, the carriage making its way down a winding driveway of white gravel, flanked on either side by mature mulberry trees. The plump fruits glistened in the summer sunshine, begging to be picked.

"Don't even think about it," Albion warned, noting the shine in Ben's eyes.

He raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to do anything. Believe me, I know we're not a law unto ourselves anymore. My own brother almost had my hand off for picking apples from the trees in the town square." He leaned forward. "What do you think she'll be like? What are you hoping for?"

"I hope she's… nice," was all Albion could think to say.

"Nice?" Ben pulled a face. "You can do better than that."

Albion shrugged. "Quiet, maybe. Shy. A… good woman. Not someone who is bound to cause me a headache. Someone decent. ‘Nice' is the best word I can think of. That's all I require. Someone nice."

Many of his men had been married, and though a couple had been happily married, eager to see their wives and children again as soon as possible, there had been plenty of cautionary tales and awful stories of unfaithful or demanding wives who made his men's lives miserable, even countries apart.

He did not want one of those, especially as he would not have the chance to return to the battlefield and be countries apart from his wife.

The carriage finally came to a halt outside a beautiful manor of slate gray stone with diamond-hatched windows that winked in the sunlight—a blend of Tudor and Georgian styles, so seamless and charming that it made Whitecliff Manor feel like a desolate, unwelcoming prison.

Stepping down from the carriage, Albion took a moment to further enjoy the sights and scents that surrounded him. Orchards stretched away to the left, heavy with fruit, while walled gardens surged with life to the right of the manor house; butterflies, birds, and bees fluttering upward, offering a glimpse before returning to the flowers below. He could not see the flowers, but he could smell them, their perfume rich and inviting.

Now, this I did miss. There was nothing as beautiful as the English countryside in the summertime.

"This Lady Matilda doesn't have a disgraced cousin, does she?" Ben whispered, his eyes wide with awe.

"You'll have to ask her," Albion replied, his mood and hopes vastly improved as he made his way up the marble steps to the porch. Surely, only a sweet, nice woman could live in such a sweet, nice place as this.

The front door opened before he could even raise his knuckles to knock, but it was not the butler or the housekeeper who welcomed him. Instead, sharp blue eyes surveyed him from head to toe, belonging to a strange creature dressed in men's trousers and a man's shirt, who had her hair tied up in what appeared to be a dishcloth.

Tendrils of dark brown hair framed a red-cheeked face, fallen free of the peculiar, dishcloth bonnet, and her rolled up sleeves revealed sun-browned arms that matched the bronzed shade of her face, her cheeks and nose speckled with freckles.

"I am here to see Lady Matilda," he said in his gruff captain's voice, wondering why a maid in such unusual attire would be answering the door. "I believe she's expecting me."

The woman's eyes narrowed further. "No, I am not expecting anyone today."

"You are Lady Matilda?" Horror clenched around his chest.

"Miss Elkins," she corrected. "I cannot abide all of those honorifics. They serve only to raise some above others, and I am convinced that is society's greatest failing, dividing instead of uniting. But if you are supposed to be meeting with Lady Matilda then I am—I suppose—her. That being said, I have no appointments, so you are clearly mistaken. Good day to you."

She said everything without taking a breath, and before Albion knew it, she was trying to close the door in his face.

Instinctively, Albion put his foot in the way, refusing to wince as the door bounced against it. "I do have an appointment with you, Lady Matilda, and I won't be sent away until I've had it."

Although, it was immediately clear that this lady was woefully unsuitable and not at all the sweet, nice woman he had been hoping for. Indeed, if his mother met her, he was certain that forgetting the betrothal might be the only thing they would ever agree upon.

"I've come far, and I deserve the respect of being welcomed and given refreshment at the very least," he added, trying to get a better look at her in the gloom of the entrance hall.

She was not unpleasant to behold, just unusual. Some might have considered her unbecoming, but society held many peculiar beliefs when it came to beauty. Hers was a rare sort, her features angular, her lips full, her nose slightly crooked, her eyes perhaps too big for her face, but when viewed all together, the sum of her parts made for something quite extraordinary.

As did her attire, demeanor, and her obvious, immediate dislike of him.

Matilda would never become accustomed to being spoken to rudely in her own home, despite James's best attempts, but she certainly would not tolerate curt language from strangers. Especially those who insisted they had an appointment with her when she knew she had none.

"I do not know you. You have not introduced yourself. You could be a thief for all I know, using an ‘appointment' as a ruse to gain entry to this household," she shot back, observing the man again.

He did not look like anyone who would have a meeting with her, even if it was one she had forgotten. He did not look or speak like a scholar or a gentleman. Indeed, he resembled a ruffian though his garments were, admittedly, of obvious high quality.

His face might have been very handsome once, but it was now covered in small silver scars, alongside one rather glaring one that twisted from the top of his right eyebrow to the top of his left cheek. A lucky scar, perhaps, considering the initial injury had missed both of his dark blue eyes.

She could not tell if the scar was the reason he seemed to have a perpetual frown upon his face, even before she had tried to close the door in his face. And though his clothes were very fine, his night black hair was rather aggressively shorn at the back and sides while the longer, top portion had clearly not seen a comb in a very long time, not with any thoroughness anyway.

"I beg your pardon," the man said stiffly, his frown deepening.

"You could be anyone. Am I supposed to trust your word, merely because you say I am to?" she replied, wondering how hard she would have to stomp on his foot to get him to move it.

He stared at her with an intensity that she was unaccustomed to, his blue eyes, the color of sapphires, giving nothing away. He did not look angry or amused or insulted but utterly, chillingly blank.

It filled her with an urgent need to look away, but she sensed that if she did, she would lose some challenge she had not known she was part of. So, she kept right on staring back, holding that unnerving gaze, feeling a prickle of frustration shiver through her.

Why will he not relent? She hated to lose, but a few more minutes of this, and she would have no choice but to drop her gaze. For such cold eyes, they were making her sweat.

"What is the meaning of this?" James's voice echoed through the entrance hall, giving Matilda a welcome excuse to roll her discomfited eyes so hard that, for a moment, she worried she had permanently dislocated one.

"There is a coarse stranger here who claims he has an appointment with me. I am, as politely as I can, trying to explain to him that he has no such appointment and must leave at once," Matilda replied. "I do not need your help in removing him, but I might need your help in removing his foot from the doorway."

James hurried to the door, muscling past Matilda. "Your Grace, I offer you a thousand apologies for the behavior of my cousin," he said, bending so violently at the waist in a bow that a seam popped at the back of his tailcoat. "She was aware of your visit but not of the day. That is my fault entirely. Please, accept my sincerest apologies. A thousand apologies."

"You said that already," Matilda muttered, finally seeing the trap, a moment too late to escape the snare of it.

This ‘ruffian' must have been here for the matter that James had insisted he was going to take care of, sooner rather than later. The matter of Matilda's marriage and freeing himself of her presence in ‘his' house.

If he thought it was going to be as simple as ambushing her and everything falling into place for him as she meekly bowed down and accepted the fate that he had decided for her, he was about to be very sorely mistaken.

Indeed, if anything, he should have known better.