Dukes, Actually: 12 Dukes of Christmas #5 Read online

  “Pear tarts are my favorite,” she said to Mrs. MacDonald.

  “They are?” The housekeeper frowned. “But the kitchen hasn’t made pear tarts since…”

  “Add a little cheese, if you would, please.” Carole’s stomach rumbled in anticipation. “And some walnuts, if we have them.”

  The housekeeper’s gaze softened. “Just like your mother used to do.”

  Carole cleared her throat to hide the impact of those words. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  Mrs. MacDonald hurried back to the kitchen.

  Carole opened the door and strode out into the sunlight before anyone else could stop her.

  She made it almost to the main road when her eyes caught sight of a happy couple strolling arm-in-arm. Penelope, and her new husband Nicholas.

  Carole immediately dropped to one knee as though she were retying her boot. If she held this position long enough, they wouldn’t spot her behind the hedgerow and would keep on walking toward the castle.

  It wasn’t jealousy, she assured herself. The pang she felt every time she saw a married couple wildly in love with each other was just… heartburn. That was it. Too much coffee with breakfast. Not a twist of longing for something she did not need and would never have. This afternoon’s uncharacteristic display of temper aside, she knew her place. It was at home. With her father. He couldn’t lose her, too.

  After counting to one hundred, she eased to her feet... and came face-to-face with the Skeffington twins, Annie and Frederick.

  “Can we make crowns of flowers, Miss Quincy?” Annie asked.

  “Bor-ing,” her brother singsonged. “Hoops are better.”

  “All hoops look the same,” his sister scoffed. “Every flower is different.”

  Frederick tugged at Carole’s skirts. “Do you want to trundle hoops with me?”

  Any other day, the answer would have been yes. Yes to flowers, yes to hoops, yes to anything. She loved children, but more importantly: when one was in want of a distraction, a pair of indefatigable ten-year-olds could be just as entertaining as a circus.

  But Azureford’s letter had clearly specified “afternoon.” If she dallied any longer, Carole wouldn’t make it before night fell. She had to hurry before Azureford stumbled across the sketchbook himself.

  “Tomorrow,” she promised. “Hoops and flowers, first thing after breakfast.”

  Before they could argue, Carole all but sprinted up the duke’s stone path toward his front door.

  Just as her fingers closed about the brass knocker, Judith materialized breathlessly at her side.

  “How… dare you,” she panted, shoving a silver ringlet from her damp forehead. “I’m your… chaperone.”

  Silver ringlets? Judith had stopped to curl her hair before chasing after Carole?

  “You’re my lady’s maid,” she said firmly, although they both knew she really meant surrogate mother.

  Carole hadn’t been older than Annie and Frederick when the fever stole her mother away. As her father retreated more and more into himself, Judith quickly became the only constant Carole could count on.

  “I was letting you rest,” she added. “You said your knee was hurting because it was about to rain, and—”

  “Shh!” Judith swatted a hand at her in horror. “Never mention arthritis where someone might hear you.”

  Carole rolled her gaze skyward. “Who would even care whether or not you—”

  The door swung open, revealing Swinton, the Duke of Azureford’s authoritative, unflappable, recently coiffed butler.

  Her heart sank. He was never going to let them in.

  Chapter 4

  “Why, Mr. Swinton,” Judith cooed, twisting a silver ringlet about her finger. “Every time I see you, you look more handsome than the last.”

  Carole tensed. That was it. Swinton was going to toss them both into the street. Or the closest madhouse.

  Instead, he preened—and immediately tried to hide it with a cough. “I felt it time for a new coiffure.”

  He felt it time for a new coiffure? What in the world?

  Carole looked from her blushing lady’s maid to the stoic white-haired man blocking the doorway and back again.

  Oh, for the love of geometry. The Duke of Azureford’s butler was flirting—or rather, carefully not flirting—with the maid Carole had known since childhood. Or thought she knew. Apparently, there was a cure for seasonal arthritis after all: The next-door neighbor’s butler.

  Carole flashed the letter she’d received from Azureford. “May we come inside?”

  “Of course.” Swinton stood to one side to allow them passage.

  Carole stepped past him quickly, eager to be on her way to the duke’s library.

  Judith oozed into the entranceway, accidentally-on-purpose brushing her every ample curve against the increasingly flustered butler.

  “You are everything that is kind and thoughtful,” she fawned with a flutter of silver eyelashes.

  “I was summoned,” Carole hissed behind her hand. “He had to let us in.”

  But the truth was, Judith’s not-exactly-unrequited infatuation was fortuitous indeed. Rather than hover like a mistrustful chaperone, Swinton would be too distracted by Judith’s attentions to bother trailing after Carole.

  In fact… A smile tugged at her lips as she inched away from them toward the library. Just because Carole had determined to live the life of a spinster, didn’t mean Judith was destined to share that fate. The man had visited a barber on the off chance the neighboring housemaid might drop by. It wasn’t exactly posies and roses, but it was as good a first step as any. If this was love, Carole wouldn’t stand in the way. She—

  A wall of tall, solid man blocked her path.

  Carole narrowly avoided smashing face-first into his snowy white cravat. Perhaps that was why her nose hovered next to his broad chest for an extra second, breathing in the warm scent of sandalwood and spice, before she jerked backward to properly greet her host.

  “Your Grace.” Was that a curtsy? It might’ve been a curtsy. Right now, her legs felt too much like a wooden marionette to register whether she’d bent her knees or not.

  “Miss Quincy.” His voice was aloof and cold, just like the impression he’d always given her… until today.

  After being that close to his chest, today it seemed like inside all that ice was a core of molten heat.

  “Sorry about the curtsy.” There. Whether she’d made a terrible one or none at all, he deserved an apology either way. “Shall we remove to the library?”

  “After you.” He stepped out of her way.

  Carole expected to be able to breathe again, but the added arm’s length of distance only meant she could see him even more clearly.

  Azureford had not procured a new coiffure. His dark locks curled over his forehead with careless abandon. He was a duke, she reminded herself. He did not have to try to be handsome. When he rolled out of bed each morn, his black waves did their careless thing, his soulful brown eyes did their… soulful thing, and those gorgeous cheekbones—

  “Or we can stand here in the corridor all afternoon,” came Azureford’s dry voice.

  The library. She had forgotten.

  Shoving past him to hide a fiery blush, Carole hurried down the corridor to the library. She was not Judith. She’d never been one to fawn or coo or giggle. And she wasn’t interested in Azureford, for heaven’s sake. She just happened to be awake, and conscious people found the duke’s randomly inherited features handsome. Flowers were pretty, too, and she’d never flirted with them. This was going to be fine.

  She headed straight to the first shelf and scanned the volumes in search of her sketchbook.

  Azureford leaned one of his wide shoulders against the closest wall. “Are you afraid your earring somehow lodged onto the spine of a book?”

  “You don’t know my methods,” she snapped. “Are you going to loom over my shoulder as I look?”

  “Long-distance looming,” he mused, his v
oice droll. “I had no idea that was one of my talents.”

  All right, fine. He was at least six feet away. Not far enough.

  Carole scanned the rest of the tomes before her as quickly as she could, then turned to a different set of shelves so Azureford was no longer visible in the corner of her eye.

  Too light a blue… Too dark a hue… The right blue, but not her sketchbook…

  She heard scuffing from somewhere behind her. Then a thud. And another thud. Carole whirled around.

  Azureford was piling books into a wooden crate.

  “What are you doing?” She dashed to his side, heart pounding.

  “Putting those books—” He pointed. “—in here.” He pointed again.

  That much was obvious. How could she stop him before he accidentally stumbled across her sketchbook?

  “Can’t you assign a servant to the task later?” she stammered.

  “I can assign a half-dozen footmen to the task right now.” He reached for the bell pull. “Will that make you happy?”

  No, it would not. Carole’s hand shot out to cover Azureford’s hand before he could signal his staff.

  Both snatched their fingers away as if scalded.

  She swallowed hard. “What’s the hurry?”

  “I’m donating these books to the castle library tomorrow.” He arched a brow. “What’s your interest?”

  He was giving all his books to a public circulating library? Tomorrow? Her stomach bottomed in panic. If she didn’t find her sketchbook in time, someone else would. Not only was the telltale Q embossed on the front cover, each illustration had been captioned in Carole’s distinctive handwriting. Her curly script would give her away to any who had ever received an invitation or quick note from her—which was essentially everyone in the entire village.

  The only thing worse than His Grace stumbling across her irreverent illustrations would be him donating it to a public place where anyone and everyone in Carole’s village could find the sketches.

  She pointed a trembling finger. “May I see those volumes?”

  “I assure you, none of them are earrings.” He turned to the closest shelf and withdrew another armful of books. “Carry on with your search. I’ll do mine. I need to set aside my favorites before the castle footmen arrive.”

  Carole’s heart pounded and her chest tightened alarmingly, but there was nothing to do but take his advice. Continuing to argue would only cast more doubt on her story, and she could not afford to be tossed out. Even if it meant limiting her search to a partial set of books whilst being silently judged by the Duke of Azureford.

  Maybe this was a good thing, she told herself. Azureford would be so distracted by finding the books he cared about that he wouldn’t notice her sketchbook if it bit him on the nose.

  Then again, Azureford wouldn’t know which books in his collection were the ones to keep unless he was familiar with all of them. Which meant her strange little volume would stand out at first glance.

  He spun toward her just as she whirled toward him.

  “Let me help you find your earring,” he commanded at the same time she begged, “Let me help you with your books.”

  They stared at each other without moving.

  Carole blinked first.

  “We need to document the inventory,” she babbled. “Surely you cannot mean to donate so many volumes without a master list to aid the castle librarians.” Did the castle have librarians? “At the very least, an index of titles and descriptions would do. I’ll help. I’m an expert on cataloguing books.”

  Carole was not an expert on books. She owned thirty of them, half of which were tomes on mathematics and logic, and the other half of which were filled with drawings of her own creation. She was not even an apprentice at cataloguing books. But she was desperate. And desperate people would clutch at every straw they could find.

  “Like a ship’s cargo list in the captain’s log?” he asked dryly.

  She nodded. Certainly. A cargo list. At this point, she’d agree to anything if it increased her chances of intercepting the sketchbook before someone else did.

  To her surprise, Azureford shrugged.

  “All right, Captain.” He handed her a brick-red volume. “See if this works.”

  She opened it to the first page. It was blank. So was the second, the third, the fourth. It was a blank journal. He was saying yes. She hugged it to her chest.

  His eyes narrowed. “That’s an unusual bracelet.”

  Who cared about the bracelet? She glanced down at the slender gold bands encircling her wrist. “It’s several twisted together.”

  “Several, as in… five?” His voice dripped with suspicion. “Are those five golden rings?”

  “I don’t know.” Why was he making a fuss? She frowned at the twisting bracelet. One two three four— “Yes, five. How did you know?”

  “Because it’s obvious!” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “Why are you conspiring with Madame Edna of Essex?”

  “With… who?” she asked faintly.

  “The fortuneteller,” he said with obvious exasperation. “The one who met me at the castle and gave some fiddle-faddle about ‘dukes, actually’ and following the five golden rings.”

  “You went to a fortuneteller?” she repeated in disbelief.

  Nothing could have proven how wrong they were for each other more clearly. Carole believed in logic and rationality. She only trusted what she could verify with maths or confirm with her own senses. And the aloof, powerful Duke of Azureford…

  She stepped backward in horror. “Please don’t tell me Parliament relies on magic.”

  Azureford’s fierce expression went from accusing to embarrassed to droll.

  “Essex magic,” he assured her. “The very best. Only fools trust magic from ‘the old country.’”

  She burst out laughing. “What other insights did this extremely reputable clairvoyant share with you?”

  “That I take myself too seriously,” he said with a sigh. “And probably her, too. She was my first fortuneteller.”

  “Will you try again?”

  “Never.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I’ve been a madman for two days, seeing signs where there aren’t any.”

  “Magic isn’t real.”

  “I know that.” He wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. “Now I can go back to normal.”

  Normally, you don’t talk to me, was on the tip of Carole’s tongue. She welcomed this burst of abnormality. Or was it? Which version was the real Azureford?

  She tilted her head to consider him. Logic dictated that things were often exactly as they seemed, if one knew how and where to look. It was a matter of simplifying the extraneous and following the pattern to its core.

  Fact: At his party, the host hadn’t spoken a single word to her.

  Fact: At his party, Azureford hadn’t spoken to anyone.

  Fact: When she’d burst back into his life unexpectedly, he’d been flustered—but he’d spoken to her.

  Fact: They’d teased each other about magic. Teased, as in jokes. Like friends.

  Fact: Despite her flimsy story and even feebler claim of masterful library cataloguing skills, Azureford had handed her a blank journal and welcomed her to stay.

  Conclusion: The Duke of Azureford wasn’t an arrogant, disdainful prig.

  He was shy.

  “You hate small talk,” she said in wonder.

  “I like small talk,” he protested despite the immediate flash of panic in his brown eyes.

  She couldn’t believe one of the most powerful men in England was intimidated by something as innocuous as conversation. His party must have been hell on earth to him.

  “Did the fortuneteller advise you to give away your library for some reason?”

  He shook his head. “I’m putting in a billiard room.”

  Her mouth fell open. She had not seen that explanation coming. “You’re swapping books for billiards?”

  “Books are something
you read by yourself.” His gaze seemed far away. “Billiards are something that must be played with others.”

  Ought to be played with others, she mentally corrected. She’d long ago perfected the art of the one-person billiard tournament.

  “Who are you hoping to play with?” she asked with interest.

  “Everyone,” he said shyly. “It’s a game men and women can play. Since the game is so fast and there’s only two players at a time, everyone will have to pay attention and rotate turns and…”

  “…and speak to each other?” she finished. It wasn’t a bad plan.

  He nodded.

  She could not help but like him for it. “Your goal is to make friends with… villagers?”

  “My goal is… London.” He set his jaw. “If I can do this here, then I can do it there.”

  “At the House of Lords?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “In the marriage mart,” she said in realization. “Of course. A man in possession of a fine billiard room is undoubtedly in want of a wife.”

  He didn’t argue.

  That settled it.

  “I can help,” she told him. “I know everyone in a ten mile radius. I can help you throw the best billiard party the Marriage Mart has ever seen. I even know someone who writes for the local gazette. She can pen a column that will make your party sound like the biggest crush in Christmas history.”

  Azureford hesitated. “In exchange for what?”

  Carole blinked. She never offered to help someone in exchange for anything at all, and was a little offended he thought her so mercenary. Then again, they scarcely knew each other. And… every encounter they’d had this year had been staged on false pretenses.

  Fine. His instincts were excellent. And if he was in a mood to barter, she wouldn’t let this golden opportunity get away.

  “Let me help,” she begged impulsively.

  His brow wrinkled. “You want to help in exchange for helping?”

  “Not just with the party,” she said in a rush. “I’m good at that, but I’d be great at designing your new billiard room.”

  It would be as though her sketchbooks came to life. An actual project, combining her two best talents: architecture and billiards. A match made in heaven. The first step would be—