My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1)(39)

Her smile was triumphant. “Then let’s ask Wilson to find some umbrellas.”

She was right about the rain; it barely made a sound against the ground as they stepped out under the portico. Mrs. Campbell drew a deep breath—-of relief, he realized—-and exclaimed, “How beautiful it is!”

Jack pulled his greatcoat collar closer around his neck and squinted at the sky. It was lighter today, a pale pearl color instead of the sullen pewter it had been. Perhaps that was a sign the rain was ending.

Wilson appeared with two umbrellas, but Jack took only one. He gave the butler a look, and the man promptly bowed and went back into the house, still holding the second umbrella. Mrs. Campbell, gazing at the wet garden, had her back to the door and missed the exchange. Jack opened his umbrella and stepped forward. “Shall we?” He offered his arm.

She looked at him, then at his arm. Her face stilled for a moment before she curled her hand around his elbow. It was the lightest of touches, but Jack felt it echo through every nerve in his body. He raised the umbrella overhead, and they walked out together.

“Who planned the gardens?” she asked as they passed the roses, the petaled heads drooping heavily in the mist.

“My great--grandmother, originally. I confess I don’t know much about the gardens. Mrs. Gibbon could no doubt recite an entire history.”

“Has she been here long?”

He nodded. “Thirty years or more—-as long as I can remember, at any rate.”

“How loyal,” she murmured.

“Not everyone finds my family appalling.”

She gave a gasp of indignation. “I never said that.”

“You called my great--grandfather beastly. You remarked with disapproval on my grandparents’ arranged marriage. You said my brother would make a wretched husband, and you called me terribly vexing and accused me of kidnapping.” Somehow the recitation of charges made him want to smile. Perhaps it was the nonplussed expression on her face.

“Yes,” she rallied to say, “one must only suppose you pay extraordinarily high wages, to have such loyal servants.”

“So one would work for an ogre, if the wages were high enough?” he asked, affecting deep thought.

“Well, if you can’t marry for money, you must work for it.” She tilted her head and gave him a saucy look. “Foreign as that thought might be to a duke.”

“You’re entirely correct,” he said. “I work for no wages at all.”

She stopped. “I didn’t mean—-” She pursed her lips, and Jack found himself openly staring. He even found himself thinking how easily he could lean over and kiss her, here in the garden while the rain came down and she stood there looking so beautifully contrite with her mouth perfectly shaped for a kiss. “Philip says you work a great deal.”

Mention of his brother doused Jack’s contemplation of kissing her. He looked away from her ripe pink mouth. “Yes. Alas, Philip has yet to express any interest in seeing that the servants’ wages are paid, or the rents are collected, or any of the other dull things I do.”

“I didn’t—-” She stopped. “I didn’t intend any slight,” she said in a softer tone. “Quite the contrary! Philip is an irresponsible scoundrel, which makes for an amusing companion but not for an admirable man. I only meant . . .” Again she turned, taking in the house, the gardens, the rain--dewed lawns. “Working for servants’ wages is a world apart from this. When one worries about having money for food and shelter and medicine, then . . . yes—-one would work for an ogre, if he paid extraordinary wages.”

The spark of irritation had faded as she spoke. Jack realized something: she had been poor. What’s more, she had worked for wages. She had worried about the cost of food and shelter.

It was not difficult to put together a history wherein her parents died and left her, still only a child, with very little. Her disapproving grandfather—-the Ogre, she’d called him—-hadn’t done well by her, and it seemed her husband hadn’t, either. It was odd how she never spoke of him. But it formed a picture of a woman trying to forge her own way in the world by necessity. And gambling, he must admit, was more respectable than some ways she could have earned her keep, particularly when she did it so artfully.

“I try not to be an ogre,” he said at last. “Not all the time, at any rate. You must ask Mrs. Gibbon if I ever succeed.”

A smile broke out on her face, pure shining relief. “I have no doubt she’ll browbeat me for even implying you might be! The evening we arrived, she assured me with great confidence that I’d been entirely safe with you, walking a mile in the storm.”

Safe was hardly what Jack felt right now. He was deep in lust with his unexpected guest, and remembering that he was a gentleman was becoming increasingly difficult. If he spent much longer strolling in the garden with her like this, her hand on his arm and her mouth so temptingly near, he might go mad and do something idiotic like kiss her. But she wanted out of the house, and the carriage axle was still being repaired.

Then it came to him. “Do you ride?”

Her brows went up. “Yes. But I haven’t a habit.”

Jack noted she was wearing the housemaid’s dress again, the one with the low neckline, and nodded once. “I think we can solve that.”

It took Mrs. Gibbon quite some time to unearth an old riding habit from the trunks in the attics, but she did it. Jack took himself off to the stables while Mrs. Campbell changed. The days when Alwyn had housed a dozen or more fine horses were in the past, but he still kept a few mounts here.