Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) Read online

  Her fingers ran over the only row of symbols she understood. Some ancestor, leaving his mark, had carved the family motto into the stone.

  “Briarley contra mundum,” she whispered.

  Briarley against the world. It would have been more accurate to say they were against each other, but she understood the logic of it.

  A crack sounded in the undergrowth behind her. A flurry of wings destroyed the stillness. She dropped her hand and twisted, expecting to see her mare bolting — and instead found a man watching her.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing toward the pillar with his walking stick. “Or impressive for Devon, at least. I find Stonehenge at Salisbury far more intriguing.”

  His voice seemed condescending, not threatening. Still, Callie didn’t care to discover what his intentions might be. She walked toward her horse, conscious that it would bring her closer to him than she was comfortable with. But the mare was her only means of escape.

  “You startled me, sirrah,” she said, feigning confidence. “I thought these woods were quite safe.”

  “‘Sirrah’?” he repeated. “Did you learn your English from a book, or are you one of the ghosts Maidenstone is known for?”

  Callie flushed. He had stopped a couple of yards from her horse, choosing to lean against a tree at the edge of the clearing rather than continuing his advance. She supposed it was meant to put her at ease. But alone, in unfamiliar terrain, she couldn’t take any comfort from the gesture.

  She didn’t want to show any fear, so she chose to banter instead. “I have better manners than to converse with a stranger in the woods,” she said. “Particularly one who would give me insult.”

  She reached the mare, putting on her glove before unwinding the reins. But she couldn’t mount without a step, and the only promising rock was on the edge of the clearing. She tugged the reins. The beast moved four steps, but not toward the rock; instead, it chose to sidle away and return to grazing.

  “A ghost would be similarly unable to guide a horse,” the man observed. “But your accent tells me my theory about books is more likely.”

  Callie stiffened her spine. “I am neither a ghost nor a simpleton. And I am a competent rider when given the proper mount.”

  “Then I would like to see you properly mounted.”

  She wasn’t a simpleton — but even a simpleton wouldn’t miss that intended joke. There was a hint of something in his voice…surely it wasn’t heat? He sounded too cutting for something like a flirtation.

  She looked at him more fully. He was tall, his height further extended by a hat that even she knew must have been frightfully expensive. His dark hair curled just a bit beneath it, brushing against an expertly tied cravat. His attire was meant for the City, not the woods. The gleam of his boots was too sharp for a peasant.

  But a gentleman wouldn’t have said something like that to her.

  “You are not welcome to continue conversing with me if you cannot show more respect,” she said.

  He shrugged. The roll of his shoulders was elegant, like the soft swell of the sea. “If you want to find someone proper, turn yourself around and return to whatever backwater you’ve washed up from. I assure you that Maidenstone is full of only the worst sorts of fortune-hunters and miscreants.”

  Callie mostly didn’t hear anything after the word ‘backwater.’ The roaring in her ears made it too difficult to parse out single words from the overall feeling of being slapped. Every person she’d met in England so far, from the overbearing captain of the ship that had brought her from Havana to London, to the driver she’d hired to bring her to Maidenstone, to her odious cousin, had made her feel like she didn’t belong. But hearing such a sentiment from a strange man in the woods was really too much.

  “I am from Baltimore, not a backwater,” she said through gritted teeth. “And if you are an example of what awaits in that house, then I thank you for warning me away.”

  She tried one more time to guide the mare into the clearing. She would leave the mare behind if she couldn’t drag it with her.

  The horse refused to take another step.

  She eyed the stranger again. The man didn’t move, other than to raise an eyebrow. But she was conscious of the danger she had strayed into — and it took more willpower than usual to think that the mare’s behavior hadn’t been an omen. On horseback she would have had a chance of escaping him.

  She couldn’t outrun him if he gave chase on foot.

  “You would be better off selling that horse for meat,” he observed.

  She tugged at the horse’s bridle. The stupid animal shook its head and ignored her.

  “Would you care to buy it?” she asked. “I will give you a fair price.”

  The man smiled. “You are pretty enough to sway me, my dear. But I only make bargains that are useful to me. Willfulness is not a trait I cherish in horses or women.”

  Callie stared at him. He had called her pretty enough. But had he really just said…?

  She dropped the reins. “I’ll give her to you as a gift.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  She smiled as sweetly as possible. “If you’re at Maidenstone, you must be one of the fortune-hunters. Sell the mare with my compliments and buy yourself a ticket on the next stage to London, if the country air makes you so ill-tempered.”

  His stare gave her a chance to see his eyes. When surprise widened them, they were a startling emerald green — eyes that seemed capable of every seduction.

  The pleasure of surprising him, combined with those brilliant eyes, provided a sharp thrill she hadn’t expected to find with their conversation. But his slow, unexpected smile tipped the balance entirely in his favor. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle, made the arch of his dark brows seem conspiratorial rather than judgmental.

  It made all the thoughts leave her head.

  He was beautiful. He might have preferred the word handsome, but that wasn’t strong enough. His was a harsh, masculine beauty, but it was beauty nonetheless. He was perhaps thirty-five, although his attitude made him seem older and his smile made him younger. But the experience carved into his skin somehow enhanced his appeal.

  Callie was dazzled.

  It was a singularly unpleasant realization. She hadn’t come to Devon to be dazzled. And this man, whoever he was, was not husband material.

  But she wasn’t so dazzled as to miss the moment when his smile turned from genuine amusement to calculation. “Baltimore, you say?”

  “Did I say that?” she asked.

  “You will learn that I have an excellent memory,” he said.

  “It seems unlikely that I would learn such a fact, since I’ve no wish to continue our acquaintance.”

  He shrugged again. “At least you admit we are acquainted. Although it would be in your best interests to pretend you’ve never seen me when we meet again.”

  “Why are you so sure we’ll meet again? You do not know my business in the neighborhood.”

  “You must be the Baltimore heiress, Miss Briarley. I had begun to wonder if you would arrive in time. I suspected you were dead, incompetent, flighty, or some combination of the three. No woman with an ounce of sense would miss this opportunity.”

  “The opportunity to converse with a gaggle of idle aristocrats?”

  The man smiled. “You are charming, Miss Briarley. You’ll need extensive lessons, of course, but that can be arranged.”

  “I do not need lessons,” Callie said. “I’ve been out of the schoolroom for years.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of your advanced age. But it was a Baltimore schoolroom. I doubt you learned anything useful for the life you shall have here.”

  Really, the insults. She wasn’t sure whether to be more offended at the comment about her age — as though twenty-three had any comparison to his own age — or her schooling. She drew herself up. “I speak French, read Latin, can calculate a row of sums faster than my father’s business manager, and have mastered all the ancie
nt histories. That’s a far sight better than what I’ve heard your spoiled English misses can do.”

  “My sisters might take offense at that,” the man said mildly. “Probably not, though. Too well-bred to care what an American thinks of their skills. But while I find your education…interesting, it’s hardly useful. I will arrange for lessons.”

  She gaped at him. He looked her over — a slow, roving gaze that made her blush. His eyes tracked down, lingering on her chest, then tracing over her waist to take in her divided skirt and booted feet. She was still dusty from her interminable journey on the road from London. Her riding skirt was the only clean garment left in her trunks after months at sea, save for her evening dresses. She wished, fervently, that she had worn something else — something more flattering.

  Then she told herself to stop being stupid. The man was awful. Did it matter what he thought of her?

  “Perhaps a modiste as well,” he murmured, almost to himself. “I shall consider whether one from Bath will do, or whether to wait the extra days for a better one from London. Tell me you have a maid capable of dressing your hair and she just forgot to use her skills.”

  Her hand curled into a fist. Her father had taught her how to hold it so that she wouldn’t break her thumb — perhaps the most worthwhile lesson he’d given her — and she was tempted to give the stranger a demonstration. “You will arrange no such things, sirrah. I do not know you, and I sincerely hope I shan’t see you again.”

  “Willfulness,” he said, sighing. “Still better than your cousins, I suppose. I’ve heard no redeeming virtues for either of them.”

  “What is your name?” she demanded.

  He tsked. “We haven’t been introduced.”

  She would have to murder him. It wouldn’t be the first blood spilled in the clearing. She counted to ten in her head, trying to calm herself. Finally, she said, “We’ve broken enough rules in this conversation to fill a broadside. Surely telling me your name won’t hurt.”

  He unfolded himself from his chosen tree and strolled toward her. He gripped his walking stick, carrying it like a weapon. There was a devilish gleam in his eyes and a new smile playing on his lips, one she hadn’t seen yet.

  One that seemed anticipatory.

  She backed up until she brushed against her horse. The mare didn’t move. And the man’s brilliant green eyes held her pinned.

  He took her fist, pulling it away from her side as though she’d offered it to him. He bowed over it, grazing a kiss across her knuckles. But his eyes never broke contact with hers.

  “Miss Briarley, a pleasure,” he murmured.

  Her heart fluttered. She would have cursed it, but any air she had for words had already left her.

  He straightened and let her hand slip from his grasp. She realized that her lips were slightly parted, that she probably looked as shocked as if he’d bashed her in the head with a rock. But she couldn’t find her composure.

  Then he tipped his hat to her. “I bid you good day, Miss Briarley.”

  He turned away from her. He took three steps, then five…then it became clear that he was really leaving.

  “But you didn’t tell me your name,” she said.

  She was still stunned enough that it was almost a whisper. He looked back over his shoulder. “In good time, my dear. It would really be for the best if no one knew we had met here. That would certainly ruin you. And I assure you that you would not like to be forced into wedlock with me.”

  The part of her that was still dazzled by him disagreed. But the part that needed a husband who would serve as a mere figurehead, who would let her rule herself…

  That part thought she should run from this man and never look back.

  “I think my simple American tongue can refrain from betraying our acquaintance,” she said.

  He grinned, a fleeting little bit of amusement that dazzled her again. “I knew you were trainable. Practice your curtsey, if you never used it in the colonies. I look forward to seeing it when we meet.”

  He walked away, not waiting for a response. Which was just as well, really — Callie didn’t think her slackjawed stare would have won her any points in their verbal battle.

  She waited until he was gone. The forest fell back into its usual rhythm. Without a predator lurking, the birds sang again. Sunlight filtered through the branches. She turned back to the Maidenstone. It was serene, bathed in sunlight — no sign that the devil had ever crossed its path.

  Callie shivered. The stranger was a man, not the devil.

  And he was best forgotten. Even if the idea of marrying a weak-willed, uninteresting man suddenly held less appeal than it had before.

  CHAPTER THREE

  An hour later, Callie had given her stolen horse back to the stables and returned to Maidenstone Abbey’s main entrance. But the staff’s welcome was still frosty. “How can you not have a room prepared for me?” Callie asked.

  The butler, a man of middling age and middling features, looked down his nose at her. She had given him nearly two hours, between her search for the Maidenstone and the time she had spent attempting to understand — or forget — the man she’d met there. But her ride had only made her dustier, especially since she’d led the mare nearly halfway back to the house before the horse would let her remount. She was sure more hair had escaped her pins than remained confined within them. And if she had smelled of sea and sweat before, she now smelled of horse as well.

  She probably looked every bit as wild as the British expected Americans to be. But she didn’t show her discomfort. She stared at the butler until he was forced to answer. “My mistress received no acceptance of your invitation,” he said. “You must understand that this party is one of the most important events in England this summer. We will have two dukes and an assortment of lords and ladies, not even counting all of the other guests.”

  He sounded as proud as if he had invited them himself. “I’m sure you’re all agog at the thought of bowing and scraping to such illustrious individuals,” Callie said drily. “But I assure you I am easier to maintain. I only need a room and a bath.”

  The butler sniffed. “Shall I show you to the conservatory, Miss Briarley? You may wait there while I consult with my lady.”

  He looked at her divided skirt as he said it — or, more likely, at the dirt flaking off her boots onto the tiled floor. The front entrance hall was a grand, overwhelming space that spanned the height of two stories. It was part of the wing that had been built most recently, in the style of the last three decades. Her father hadn’t seen it completed. But the wings beyond it — Jacobean, Tudor, and even remnants of the Gothic Maidenstone Abbey itself — might still be as he had described them to her.

  If she ever moved beyond the foyer.

  The curiosity that had driven her into the forest now demanded to see the rest of the house. And her pride required that she change her dress — particularly if that infuriating man she’d met in the woods was, as she suspected, another houseguest.

  Callie knew she didn’t have the most feminine outlook. But she still liked to feel pretty. And it was difficult to feel pretty when she hadn’t had a proper bath in months — even if the man in the clearing had looked at her as though he didn’t mind.

  She shoved the stranger from her mind again and gave the butler all the hauteur she usually used on arrogant sea captains. “I won’t risk missing dinner because you cannot find a way to accommodate me. Now, if you please, arrange for a room immediately, or I shall find one. I assume your lady would prefer that I not embarrass her by knocking on doors.”

  The butler looked as though he hated her. But before either of them could do something regrettable, her cousin Lucretia rushed into the foyer, with a young blonde woman following close behind her. “The duke’s entourage is driving up. Call the footmen to attention.”

  The butler clapped his hands. Callie looked over her shoulder and saw four footmen who had been waiting in the anteroom next to the great front door pour out and arrange
themselves on either side of it, with one of them ready to open the door as soon as steps sounded outside. The butler examined them, found everything to his liking, and turned back to his mistress. “And Miss Callista?” he asked. “Where shall I put her?”

  Lucretia glanced at her as though she was a street urchin begging for scraps. “The Tudor wing, I suppose. Have a scullery maid take her up. The upstairs maids are too busy, and we’ll need all the footmen for the duke’s baggage.”

  The butler reached out a hand to take her elbow. Callie wrenched her arm away. “This isn’t a very warm welcome, cousin,” she said, trying for a pleasant tone rather than an angry or wounded one. “Did you not intend to invite me?”

  Lucretia laughed. Her face was startlingly similar to Callie’s own, with dark eyes and a straight, aquiline Briarley nose. But laughter didn’t seem to come naturally to her. There was something too pained about it to think she found any joy in the sound.

  “You were invited, not that I had any say in the matter,” Lucretia said. “But this is still my house.”

  The blonde girl, whom Callie had nearly forgotten, took a step forward. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but the look in her eyes seemed older. She put a hand on Lucretia’s shoulder, as though to restrain her, and smiled at Callie. “What Lucretia meant to say, Miss Briarley, is that you must be in want of refreshment after your journey. Shall I take you to find your maid so that you may rest a bit before dinner?”

  Callie hesitated. She didn’t want to give in. She knew the Tudor wing was the least appealing of all of them, and Lucretia must have meant it as an insult. But this girl seemed nicer than Lucretia — nice enough that Callie wanted to accommodate her. And Callie did want a bath. Six months of seawater ablutions were enough to swear off ships forever.

  She had waited too long, though. The great doors swung open behind her, so well oiled as to be almost silent. A breeze teased its way through her wayward hair. Lucretia plastered a smile on her face that was too guarded to ever be sincere.