The Duchess Read online

  Claire didn’t move. For all his hostility, for all that she sincerely disliked this man, oddly enough she didn’t feel half as unwelcome here as she’d felt when she tried to enter the library. “Are you staying here?”

  “I don’t have time to talk to little girls. I have work to do.”

  “Oh? What are you working on?”

  “Nothing you’d understand,” he snapped.

  She stood where she was, warming her hands, wanting very much to see what was on the tables. They were certainly an odd assortment of tables: two were Jacobean, one a Queen Anne, one that looked as though it had come from the gold drawing room, two tables that had obviously been outside in the rain for quite some time, while the others were from every time period in between. Some were quite valuable, some worth little more than firewood.

  As he sat at the far table, his back to her, she leaned as far forward as she could without taking a step that he might hear and tried to see the papers on the nearest table.

  He turned abruptly and stared at her. Claire straightened and tried to act as though she hadn’t been prying. She tried to cover her nosiness with a little smile, but her red face gave her away.

  He picked up his tea cup, sipped at it, then replaced it in its saucer before he spoke. “Why aren’t you eating? Isn’t a meal being served now?”

  “I missed luncheon again.”

  “Again? Have you missed it often?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. I can’t seem to calculate my walking so I get back in time to change for luncheon. But I’m sure I’ll eventually learn.”

  He gave a little snort at that, a snort that let her know he had doubts she’d ever learn anything. “In the meantime you starve.” He turned back to his writing. “I guess it’s one of the fees you’ll pay for being a duchess.”

  Claire made a little face at his back after he turned away. She knew she should leave but she couldn’t think what she’d do if she did leave. She didn’t like this man, didn’t want to be near him, but the sight of books and papers was too intriguing to her. She couldn’t leave.

  Very slowly, without making a sound, she reached out to pick up a paper off the nearest table. It was covered with writing. She no more than had the paper in her hand when he snapped at her.

  “Put that down!”

  She dropped the paper so suddenly that it fell to the floor. She stood still for a moment, shaking like a child, but then she smiled at his back. He was acting as though he were ignoring her, but he was aware of every movement she made.

  “What are you writing?” she asked.

  “If I’d wanted you to know what I was writing I would have invited you to a reading.” Still with his back to her, without so much as a glance at her, he got up and moved to another table and instantly began writing again.

  Claire started to tell him that he’d left his cup of tea behind but then she seemed to become fascinated with it. It was still steaming and it looked like the best cup of tea she’d ever seen in her life. “I have no intention of disturbing you,” she said and found herself walking toward the table with the cup on it. “I was merely out for a stroll and I saw the door open and I went inside. Harry, I mean, His Grace, said I could explore all that I wanted.”

  At the end of this speech she had reached the table with the teacup on it and she had the cup in her hand before she realized what she was doing. She was aware that as soon as she had put her hand on the cup Trevelyan had spun about in his chair to look at her. Feeling quite defiant, she continued moving the cup toward her lips. She was tired of being hungry and of no one seeming to care. She drained half the cupful, then was sure she was going to die.

  “It was whisky,” she gasped, her hand to her throat.

  “Scotland’s finest,” Trevelyan said, amused.

  Claire staggered backward toward him, clutching tables as she moved.

  “If you’re planning to collapse, might I suggest that you do it on a chair. The floor is quite hard.”

  In spite of a throat and a stomach that were on fire, she managed to give him a look that told what she thought of his not coming to her aid. She caught the back of a chair and sat down on it hard.

  “I…could have been killed,” she at last managed to say.

  “Stealing a man’s whisky is an offense, but hardly punishable by death. At least not in most countries. Of course there are the moral implications of stealing anything.”

  “Would you please be quiet? Can a person die from that much whisky?”

  “Not likely.”

  He was watching her with his intense eyes, and after a moment she began to relax against the chair. “My goodness,” she said. “I do believe this is the first time I’ve been warm since I came to this country. I feel rather…” She trailed off.

  “Drunk is what you feel.” With that he clapped his hands twice and almost at once there appeared a man in the doorway.

  Claire, in spite of her relaxed state, widened her eyes. He was the tallest man she had ever seen, several inches over six feet and dressed in a strange white outfit. He wore a tunic that reached his knees and beneath the tunic were trousers that were tight about his ankles. A wide sash edged in pale gold fringe encircled his waist. His face was dark brown, with black eyes, a thin mouth, and a large nose that looked sharp enough to cut metal. Wound about his head was a round bundle of white cloth and in the middle was pinned an emerald that had to be two inches square.

  “Oman,” Trevelyan said, making the name sound like Ooomahn. “Food for our drunken guest.”

  “I’m not—” Claire began but stopped. She certainly did feel as though she were floating. “How very pretty the fire is. How pretty the tables are. Does Harry know you’re here?”

  Trevelyan turned away from her and went back to his writing. “I have His Royal Highness’s permission if that’s what you mean.”

  Claire giggled. “Not His Royal Highness. It’s His Grace. Not that my mother can remember.”

  Trevelyan turned back around. “What does your mother call Harry?” His eyes were intense; he looked as though he were exceedingly interested in her answer.

  “Whatever comes to mind.” She couldn’t help laughing. “Yesterday she called him Your Sereneness.” Claire put her hand over her mouth. “Harry thought it was very funny. He’s such a good sport.”

  “Perfection, is he?”

  “I rather think he is,” Claire said in wonder. “He’s kind and considerate.” She held up her left arm. “Under here is a bandage. Harry made sure that I stayed in bed one whole day after I hurt my arm.”

  “Alone?”

  At that Claire started to stand. “I will not remain here to be insulted.” But as she stood her head began to spin, and she sat back down.

  Trevelyan looked up as Oman reappeared in the doorway. “Food is through there,” he said and turned back to his writing.

  Unsteadily, Claire stood and walked through the doorway and into a bedroom. It was a beautiful room, the walls hung with gold-colored silk brocade, beautiful Persian carpets on the stone floor, and in the middle of the room was the most astounding bed she had ever seen. It was enormous, with two deeply carved posts at the foot that had to be a foot and a half square. The headboard and the top of the bed were also heavily carved. The big bed itself was draped with plush red silk velvet.

  She had an impulse to jump onto the bed, but then she saw that a plate of food had been set on a table against one wall and she went to it. But it wasn’t food she had ever seen before. There was a bowl of white creamy stuff, boiled potatoes, thinly sliced meat, and a bit of green stuff in the middle of the plate. There were tomatoes and sliced cucumbers also. It was not the same kind of food that she’d eaten since she came across the ocean, or before that for that matter.

  She sat down, picked up the spoon, and dipped it into the bowl. Was it soup or was it, for some reason, a bowl of cream? She smelled it.

  “It’s called yoghurt,” Trevelyan said from the doorway. “Fermented milk.”

&n