Anyone But a Duke Read online

  Chapter Two

  “Another coal-black one. Not a speck of white,” Sarah said, looking down at the foal struggling to gain its feet only minutes after being born. She stood in the door to the box stall in Betancourt’s stable, watching as the mare that had given birth hovered nearby, overseeing her offspring’s efforts. “Dancer blood breeds true.” She turned to Eddie, the young hand recruited from a local farm to assist the aging horse master with Betancourt’s growing stable of horses. “How many does that make?”

  “Twelve, milady,” Eddie said, gazing fondly at the newborn. “Twelve coal black. Never heard of such a thing.”

  The mare, whom Sarah had dubbed Lady Maker, snorted and nudged her foal to try for his feet again. When his wobbly legs steadied and held his sturdy little body upright, Sarah laughed and was so desperate to hug somebody that she threw her arms around Eddie. The young stable hand stood wide-eyed and motionless in her embrace until she released him.

  “Our father was a heckuva horse breeder,” she said, gazing fondly at the foal again. “Brought in Friesian and Arabian stock to combine with our western saddle horses and improved confirmation and endurance in Silver River stock. Midnight Dancer was probably the best stallion that ever came from our ranch. Of course, Daisy claimed him straightaway and brought him across the pond with her.”

  “Daisy, milady?” Eddie looked down, struggling with embarrassment.

  “My oldest sister. She married Ashton Graham, the old duke’s younger brother . . . who may be . . . who is the current duke.”

  “I thought you was th’ duchess. Ain’t that what Mister Edgar says?”

  “Edgar has me confused with my sister, and I gave up on correcting him.” She smiled tightly. “Edgar is confused a lot these days.”

  “Ain’t that th’ truth.” Eddie winced, clearly familiar with the aged butler who rambled the great house, forgetting where he was each time he turned a corner.

  Sarah headed down the alley between rows of box stalls filled with mares and foals that came to the gates of their stalls to greet her. Eddie followed, drawn by her vivacious presence and her uncanny way with beasts.

  “Our spread in Nevada was called the Silver River Ranch. I was just a young girl, ten years old, when we left there.” She paused to pet a few velvety noses. “But already I had to saddle my own horse and curry and feed her and see to it she met with the farrier regularly.”

  “You, milady?” Eddie seemed genuinely astonished. “They made ye haul yer own tack an’ feed yer own horse?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at his dismay. “Westerners pride themselves on self-sufficiency. Out West, you have to be able to do things for yourself or you don’t survive. My sisters and I were each assigned chores on the ranch, to teach us the value of work. I learned from the ranch hands how to drive cattle, find water for the herd, and build a fire at night. Then there were orphaned calves to feed, and dogs to train, and chickens and ducks to tend. That was the start of my love for animals.”

  But it was not the start of their love for her. From the day she was born she had seemed to have a remarkable effect on animals of all kinds. They recognized something in her and accepted her presence and attention as if she were one of their own.

  They reached the cross alley outside the tack room, and there, in a large wooden box on the floor, lined with straw and old blankets, were Nero’s mate and puppies.

  “Look! They’re climbing all over each other. They’ll be walking soon and then running.” She rushed to the box, but tempered her enthusiasm as the mother sat up anxiously. “It’s all right, mama, I’m not going to bother your little ones.”

  She knelt by the box and cooed to the puppies, who responded by turning in her direction. With each soft and musical word the mother relaxed more and before long was stretching her nose toward Sarah. She let the dog sniff and then stroked the collie’s head and massaged her ears, sensing that a relationship had just been born.

  “We’re going to have to give you a name, girl,” she said with a chuckle. “How about . . . Nell? Nero and Nellie. Sound good to you?” Another lick of her hand sealed it.

  When she exited the stable, there were four dogs, two young goats, and a pair of escaped piglets waiting for her. They had heard her voice and were waiting by the door for her. Each pat and fond word left tails wagging, twitching, or curling. She made sure each animal got some attention, and then handed the piglets off to a surprised Eddie with instructions to return them to their pen. As she struck off up the drive for the main doors of the great house, she could see Eddie holding the piglets and shaking his head at the four-legged parade she led.

  The front court had seen some changes in the months since she arrived. She paused with her arms folded to examine the impressive face of the venerable brick and stone mansion. She’d had the beautiful long windows re-glazed and cleaned; they sparkled in the morning sun. The weathered front doors had been sanded and painted a dignified black, with new brass fittings applied. On each side of the entry were topiary shrubs in large stone planters that she had found under the dovecote and restored to use. Tidy new gravel paved the front court and trailed off toward the stables and barns. It looked like someone lived here now. Someone important.

  Her first glimpse of Betancourt, as a fourteen-year-old girl fresh from New York, had struck her speechless. She was awed by the thought of being connected, even tangentially, to such a place. Daisy was there, dressed like a princess, and there were the duke and his handsome brother Ashton, who became her brother-in-law.

  She and her sisters had been treated like royalty. The duke even took her hand for a dance as her sister Cece played the violin one evening. A real duke, but he was kind and mannerly and a little funny, though he didn’t seem to know it. She was saddened to think that his gentle presence was gone from the world. No one had heard a word from him since he set off on his travels. After five years—by the duke’s own decree—the Meridian title and property had reverted to his younger brother, Ashton. She was now sister to a duke, albeit by marriage.

  A low rumble from the village road set the dogs barking, and she turned to find a pony cart racing up the long drive, headed straight for the doors of Betancourt. The driver’s shoulders were hunched forward as he slapped the reins and the pony dug in with determination. The pair were clearly on a mission. Sarah waded through the excited animals to meet the driver at the front doors.

  “Duchess!” It was Thomas Wrenn, a tenant who farmed Betancourt land, down by the river. To augment his income, he delivered flour and feed from the local mill to the village, and his route took him by Betancourt’s front gates on a daily basis. As he halted the cart near the front doors and jumped down, it was clear he had more than flour in his cart.

  A man lay sprawled atop the sacks packed into the wooden bed of the vehicle. Thomas beckoned, out of breath, and looked frantic as he rushed to the rear of his cart. She picked up her skirts and bounded up onto the wheel spoke to see what had happened.

  “Found him on the road a ways back and brung him as fast as I could,” Thomas declared, breathing hard. “I think he’s been shot.”

  Had he ever. Thomas lifted the old blanket he’d covered the fellow with to reveal a nasty hole in the man’s left shoulder. The front of his shirt was wet with fresh blood, but there was older, dried blood on his sleeve and down his side. Her gaze swept to his face and for an instant she froze. It was the long-haired stranger who had helped defend her dog the day before.

  Again and again, the previous evening, she’d found herself wondering who he was and telling herself it was the shock of the unthinkable incident that etched him so deeply in her thoughts. But, clearly, she hadn’t just imagined that chiseled, sun-burnished face, or those broad shoulders and neatly shaped frame. She looked up to find Thomas staring strangely at her, and she blushed and made a show of feeling for a pulse in the stranger’s neck.

  Thankfully he had one, though it was slow, and she realized with a start that it was up to her to mak
e sure that stalwart heart kept beating.

  “He needs tending right away,” she muttered, then jumped down to run to the door and call for help.

  There wasn’t much help to be had. Edgar and another aging houseman by the ironic name of Young Ned, tried to lift the wounded stranger from the cart, but even with Thomas Wrenn’s help, they had difficulty moving him. Sarah growled, hiked her skirt to climb up onto the bags of grain, and had the men turn him onto his side while she rolled the blanket and shoved it beneath his back. When they rolled him back toward her and unrolled the rest of the blanket beneath him, the blanket became a makeshift stretcher.

  The poor man was carried, bumped over the sill of the front entry, and then lugged through a pack of curious dogs to the stairs. Mazie and Deidre, two house women in mobcaps and aprons, were pressed into service and the six of them managed to get him up the main stairs without doing too much additional damage to his body.

  By the time they reached the head of the stairs, Edgar looked ready to faint and Young Ned, who had always had a touch of the asthma, was wheezing like a leaky bellows.

  “Let’s just . . . get him . . . to the nearest bed,” Sarah ordered, spotting a nearby pair of ornate doors. “In there,” she declared, nodding toward them.

  “But that’s . . . that’s . . .” Edgar stammered, looking horrified.

  “The nearest bed,” she answered with a finality that even Old Edgar understood.

  It was in fact the duke’s bedchamber, which had lain abandoned for more than three years . . . since Daisy and her husband, Ashton, returned to New York. The group half carried, half dragged the man across the room and with heroic effort hoisted him up and onto the bed. Fortunately, the blanket remained between his bloody clothes and the elegant silk counterpane Daisy had chosen when refurbishing the duke’s chambers.

  Sarah’s back was aching and her sore hand was throbbing as she lifted his shoulder enough to find the other bullet hole. In one side and out the other, she realized, and forced herself to focus on that bit of luck. According to her medical books, “through and through” was the best kind of bullet wound. At least she wouldn’t be doing more damage by fishing around in his flesh for a hunk of lead.

  She sent Mazie and Deidre for her medicine chest, boiling water, and bandages, and then opened his ruined shirt to inspect the wound. She winced. Thomas’s good deed and all of the jostling had started the poor man bleeding again. But the fact that the bleeding had slowed or stopped before said there was hope. She pressed the wound with her own bandaged hand and asked Edgar and Young Ned to remove the man’s shirt.

  “Really, mi-milady . . . should you be . . .” Edgar looked to Young Ned, seeming shocked to indecision. Or incapacity. Neither of which took much.

  “I-I can help, milady.” Thomas had retreated toward the door, gripping the hat he had doffed in deference to his opulent surroundings, but he came forward now.

  “Please,” Sarah said, nodding to him. He hurried to the bed and as he began to remove the man’s shirt, she turned away to give Young Ned orders. “I’ll need more light. Pull the drapes all the way. And get his boots off.”

  When the sunlight bloomed around them and she heard boots hit the floor, she turned back to her patient and gasped aloud. The stranger’s uninjured shoulder was covered by an intricate pattern inked into his skin.

  A tattoo.

  She had read about them—she read about everything—but had never expected to see one in person. On impulse she ran her fingers over that ornate skin, expecting to feel a difference in texture. But his tattooed shoulder was as sleek and smooth as the rest of him. From what she’d read, sailors got tattoos in exotic ports of call—the Far East, the Spice Islands, Indonesia, New Zealand—cultures where men reportedly wore them as badges of honor and experience.

  She blinked. He didn’t look like an exotic islander. He looked like an Englishman who had been left out in the sun too long. His skin was baked to a turn beneath his shirt . . . the same color as his face and arms. Clearly, he’d spent time outdoors. Shirtless. She picked up his bruised left hand and on his knuckles found fresh scratches and bruises, and on his palm some calluses that spoke of manual labor. But there was a knob near the tip of the middle finger of his right hand. A writer’s bump . . . he had also spent time with a pen in his hand.

  Her exploration was cut short by Mazie’s and Deidre’s arrival with her medicine chest, hot water, and bandages. After removing her own now bloody bandage and washing her hands, she donned an apron and cleaned his wound. Her own special honey and herb plaster came next, and then she bandaged it as tightly as she dared.

  “It’s fairly neat, as bullet wounds go,” she told Thomas and Young Ned, who helped her lift and position her patient for binding. In truth, she had little to compare it to outside of books. This was her first real bullet wound. “The bleeding has almost stopped. We’ll watch him round the clock for the next day or two and see he gets nourishment when he wakes up.”

  She grabbed a bar of strong soap and had Mazie pour the last of the hot water over her hands. Hand washing, she had read recently, was key to avoiding putrefaction. As she dried her hands, she turned back to her patient and studied his strong profile and finely honed muscularity.

  “It’s up to his constitution to do the rest.”

  That afternoon she assigned household staff to sit with him and watch for signs of pain or rising consciousness. She took the evening shift herself, bringing a book and four dogs with her into the duke’s precious sanctum.

  She moved a table and lamp close to the bed, and snuggled into a large stuffed chair beside it with Gwenny, a small terrier, and Lancelot, a mixed-breed hound, vying for space on her lap. Nero, as usual, was at her feet, and curly-eared Morgana—ever the sly and naughty spaniel—climbed right up on the foot of the bed to nestle against the stranger’s feet. Three times Sarah ordered her down, but three times she waited for Sarah to be absorbed in her book and climbed back up again. In the end, Sarah sighed and let the vixen stay there.

  Twice, her patient moaned and moved restlessly. She got up to check, and he seemed to grow warmer each time. She prayed there wouldn’t be an infection and fever. She wetted a cloth for his forehead, allowing her fingers to linger on his hair for a moment, which produced a curious feeling of familiarity in her. Had she seen him before somewhere? Bascom said he was a stranger in these parts, and no one in the household seemed to recognize him. Could she have seen him in London, before she fled—retreated—relocated—to the country?

  No, she told herself, she would remember him. That hair, those neatly carved features, and that intense stare were unforgettable . . . though, her attention had been otherwise occupied in those last days in London. She had been so caught up in—a surge of potent memories blindsided her, sending her spirits plummeting. Tall, dark, and refined . . . infectious smile and wicked wit . . . the heir to the Earl of Kelling, had listened to her and talked to her . . . shared her enthusiasm for books and nature. She came to hope—

  She yanked her thoughts back from that precipice and away from the events of that party—that awful moment when—

  She took a deep, furious breath, appalled by the still tender emotions that, she had consoled herself, would fade.

  Well, they weren’t fading quickly enough. She had left all of that behind, and behind was where it belonged. She was making a fresh start, making her own way, making a difference. She intended to have a life that was worthwhile, no matter what London’s malicious wags said.

  Propping her hands on her waist, she stood studying her mysterious patient, distancing herself, steeling her reserve. Her fascination with his unusual appearance and curiosity about his story had somehow roused those memories in her. That had to be it. He was utterly masculine; that in and of itself was enough to make him exotic.

  She had been raised in a house full of females, so males of the species were alien to her in nearly every respect. They were puzzles, and—Heaven help her—she never could resist a
good puzzle.

  That was it, she decided; he was a tantalizing unknown.

  Having that settled in her mind was reassuring.

  “Whoever you are,” she said to her enigmatic patient, “don’t get used to this.” She gestured to the large, regally draped bed he had landed in. “Because you’re headed upstairs to the old nursery as soon as you’re well enough to move.”

  Chapter Three

  By the next morning, Sarah had a crick in her neck from dozing in the chair and her curled-up legs were full of pins and needles. Her patient seemed to still be sleeping, so she called Mazie upstairs and installed her in the bedside chair with a pile of linens to mend, so Sarah could return to her daily rounds of the house and estate.

  As always, she was accompanied by Nero, Gwenny, Lancelot, and Morgana. The minute she stepped out the kitchen door, their troupe was joined by a number of ducks, a pair of feisty goats, and sundry barn cats that crept along in the shadows with a wary eye on the dogs.

  She was halfway through the stable, petting the noses extended to her as she passed, on her way to check on Nero’s puppies, when a rider reined up at the stable door and called out.

  “Milady?” She heard boots hit gravel as a man called, “Duchess?”

  She winced at the misapplied title and grumbled. “How many times do I have to say it: I am not a bloody duchess.”

  Lifting her skirts, she hurried back down the alley. “Who is calling?”

  At the door, peering into the dimmer stables was a figure she knew. Samuel Arnett—tall, lean, and sun-weathered—was a tenant from the west road who had heard of her medical acumen and twice before had prevailed upon her to come and treat his ailing mother, Old Bec.