“The wound is still bleeding,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have a plaster about?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll just apply pressure until the bleeding stops. Allow me. I’ve dealt with this before.” She wadded the handkerchief about his fingertip and pinched hard. “There. Now we wait a minute or two.”
“I’ll hold it.” He wrenched away, applying the pressure himself.
Thus began the longest, most sensually charged minute of Izzy’s life.
In the past, she’d suffered through many an unrequited infatuation. But she typically lost her wits for pensive scholars in tweed or poets who sported tousled dark curls and woeful airs.
The Duke of Rothbury was unlike any gentleman she’d ever fancied. He was hard, unyielding, and even before his injury, he didn’t care to read. What was more, they were engaged in a property dispute, and he’d threatened to turn her out into the cold Northumberland night.
Nevertheless, her stomach was a giddy frolic of crickets and butterflies.
He was just so near. And so tall. And so commanding.
So male.
Everything female in her was rallying to the challenge. Perhaps this was how mountaineers felt when they stood at the base of a soaring, snow-crested alp. Exhilarated by possibility; awed by the inherent danger. A bit weak in the knees.
“Snowdrop,” he scoffed, leaning his weight against the table edge. “You ought to change her name to Lamprey. Who keeps a weasel for a pet, anyhow?”
“She was a gift.”
“Who gives a weasel as a gift?”
“One of my father’s admirers.”
“I should think it was one of his enemies.”
Izzy joined him in sitting on the table’s edge, resigned to explaining the whole story. It made a good illustration of how her father’s literary success and the public’s adoration never translated into much practical benefit.
“My father wrote an ongoing saga of knights, ladies, villains, sorcerers . . . castles. Anything to do with romantic chivalry. And the tales were all framed as bedtime stories told to me. Little Izzy Goodnight.”
“That’s why Archer was expecting a young girl?”
“Yes. They always expect a young girl,” she said. “The heroine of the tales kept an ermine as a pet. A fictional ermine, of course. One that was brave and loyal, and every bit as majestic, pale, and slender-necked as her mistress. And this fictional ermine managed to accomplish all sorts of clever, fierce, fictional deeds, such as chewing her mistress free of bindings when she was kidnapped, for the third time, by the fictional Shadow Knight. So a devotee of my father’s stories thought it would be a lovely gesture to give real-life Izzy Goodnight a real-life ermine to call her very own.”
Wouldn’t that be precious? the fool must have thought. Wouldn’t it be marvelous and adorable?
Well, no. It wasn’t, actually. Not for Izzy, not for Snowdrop.
A real-life ermine did not make a cuddly, brave, loyal pet. Snowdrop was sleek and elegant, yes—particularly when winter turned her thick coat white. But though she weighed a mere half pound, she was a vicious predator. Over the years, Izzy had suffered her share of bites and nips.
“A stupid gift,” the duke said.
She couldn’t argue with his assessment. Nevertheless, it wasn’t Snowdrop’s fault. She couldn’t help being a weasel. She was born that way. And she was ancient now, near nine years old. Izzy couldn’t just toss her to the wolves—or to the wolf-dogs.
“I can only imagine,” she said, “that Lord Lynforth was following a similar impulse. He thought it would be an enchanting gesture to give little Izzy Goodnight a real-life castle of her own.”
“If you don’t want his fanciful gift, feel free to refuse it.”
“Oh, but this gift isn’t the same as an ermine. This is property. Don’t you understand how rare that is for a woman? Property always belongs to our fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. We never get to own anything.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women with radical ideas.”
“No,” she returned. “I’m one of those women with nothing. There are a great many of us.”
She turned her gaze to the floor. “When my father died, everything of value passed to my cousin. He inherited my childhood home, all the furnishings in it. Every dish in the cupboard and every book in the library. Even the income from my father’s writings. What do I have to my name? I have Snowdrop.”
Her hands began to tremble. She couldn’t help it; she was still angry with her father. Angry with him for dying and angry with him for dying this way. All those years she’d helped him, forgoing any life she might build for her own, and he’d never found time to revise his will and provide for Izzy should the worst occur. He was too busy playing the role of doting, storytelling father.
The duke didn’t seem to appreciate the injustice of her situation. “So you do have somewhere to go. You have a cousin. He can support you.”
“Martin?” She laughed at the suggestion. “He’s always despised me, ever since we were children. We’re speaking of the same boy who pushed me in a pond when I was eight and stood laughing on the bank while I sputtered and thrashed. He didn’t throw me a rope that day, and he won’t now. There’s only one thing I can do. The same thing I did then.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Learn to swim,” she answered. “Quickly.”
His wide mouth tugged to one side. She couldn’t decide if it was an appreciative half smile or a belittling smirk. Either way, it made her anxious.
“Listen to me, prattling on.” She tilted her head and peeked under his makeshift compress. “I think the bleeding has stopped.”
With his teeth, he tore a strip of linen from a corner of the handkerchief and wrapped it around his finger, carefully folding under the ends and knotting it tight.
“I know you don’t want to leave Gostley Castle,” she said. “Perhaps we can agree on a quarterly rent.”
Surely the rents on a property this size would be enough to secure her a well-appointed cottage somewhere. Izzy didn’t need much. After several months as an itinerant houseguest, she yearned for the smallest comforts. Curtains, candlesticks. Sleeping beneath linens embroidered with her own monogram.
Just something, anything, that she could call her own.
“That’s madness,” he said. “I’m not paying rent on my own property.”
“But this property isn’t yours. Not anymore. The Earl of Lynforth purchased it, and he left it to me.”
He shook his head. “Lynforth was gulled. Some swindler must have drawn up false papers just to bilk a dying man out of his money. I employ more than a dozen stewards and solicitors to manage my affairs, and they would not sell property without my consent.”
“Are you very sure?” Arching her eyebrow, she surveyed the expanse of unopened letters and envelopes. “How can you know if you haven’t gone through the post in months?”
She plucked an envelope from the pile and turned it over in her hands. “I could help you read and answer these, if you like. I served as my father’s secretary for years.”
“I don’t want your help.”
He said it so sharply, she dropped the envelope.
“Let me give you a little history lesson, since your father was so fond of those. My ancestors were granted a dukedom because they successfully held the Scottish border. For centuries. And they didn’t do that by throwing up their hands and saying, ‘Very well, then’ whenever someone knocked at the gate and claimed this castle was theirs.”
Izzy laughed a little. “But I’m hardly a marauding band of Scotsmen. And we aren’t living in the sixteenth century.”
“No, we’re not. We have laws and courts. So if you mean to stake a claim on this castle, go find a solicitor. Have him look over the papers and write to my solicitors. The two can argue back and forth. Chancery will hear the case eventually. Perhaps as soon as three years from now. That’s if you’re lucky.”
Three years?
Izzy didn’t have three years. If forced to leave, she wasn’t sure how she’d manage for the next three days. And she didn’t have money for solicitors—much less solicitors qualified to take on a duke.
She had no choice but to stand her ground. Behave as though the place was hers. If he succeeded in removing her today, she would never get her toe in the door again.
“If your solicitors would care to come here and examine the documents, they are welcome. But I’m not leaving.”
“Neither am I.” The unscarred half of his brow furrowed. If he could properly glare at her, Izzy surmised, he’d be giving her a glare hard enough to chip diamonds.
“It’s no use being stern,” she told him. “Glower all you like, but for heaven’s sake, you gathered me into your arms and carried me in from the rain. I could swoon all over again just thinking of it.”
“Don’t mistake that for chivalry.”
“Then what was it?”
“Practicality. I couldn’t have simply left you there. You would have attracted vermin.”
She smiled. “Oh, dear. All this and a sense of humor, too.”
Apparently, no one had given him a compliment lately. He looked as though he’d been thrown a grenade. Or a wet kitten.
He might be wealthy, powerful, angry, and big. But on at least one score, Izzy had him outmatched. Buoyancy. She knew how to handle prickly creatures, and she knew how to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.
When thrown in the pond, she learned how to swim.
“This isn’t such a quandary as it seems,” she said. “You want to stay. I want to stay. Until the legal matters are settled, we’ll share.”
“Share?”
“Yes, share. This is a vast castle, built to house hundreds of people. I’ll just take a spare tower or wing for my own. You won’t even notice me.”
He leaned close. “Oh, I’d notice you, Miss Goodnight. I’d notice you. There’s no castle big enough to keep a man like me from being aware, every moment, of a woman like you. You don’t have to speak a word. I can hear the rustle of your petticoats. I can smell the scent of your skin. I can feel your heat.”
Heavens. If he could sense her heat, he must feel it right now. She was hot everywhere.
“I’m not Lord Archer,” he went on in that low, seductive rumble. “I’ve never read your father’s soppy stories, and you’re not some little girl to me. I’ve run my hands all over your body. And these hands have an excellent memory.”
Oh . . . goodness.
She hadn’t known. She couldn’t have known, sheltered as she’d lived, and he couldn’t have guessed. But he’d just articulated everything she’d been wanting for so long. To be noticed. Not merely known as a girl in some precious stories, but noticed, as a woman.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she breathed. “And you’re mad if you think I’ll back down from this now.”
They stood in tense silence.
“That’s it,” he said, at length. “You’re leaving this place the same way you came in.”
He ducked, caught her by the legs, and threw her over his shoulder—with the ease of a man who’d tossed many a woman over his shoulder. This was definitely not his first go at lady-tossing.
But it was definitely Izzy’s first time being tossed, and she had no idea how to respond. Beat her fists against his back? Kick and scream? Later, she’d think of a dozen things. Witty retorts and clever rejoinders. Right now, all the blood was rushing to her head, and her mind was a hot, throbbing blank.
