“What happened to it?”
“It’s gained a hole.”
“Why must you do it, then? A footman or a groundskeeper ought to be the one, no’ you.”
Hamlin folded his arms and cocked his head to one side. “I beg your pardon, then, lass, but are you the lady of Blackthorn Hall now?”
She shrugged. “Cousin Glenna said dukes are no’ to work with their hands. Dukes are meant to think about important matters.”
“Well, this duke happens to like working with his hands, he does.” Hamlin put his hand on her shoulder and pointed her toward the door. “It’s time for your studies.”
“It’s always time for my studies,” Eula said with the weariness of an elderly scholar.
“Off with you, then, lass.”
Before Eula could skip out the door, Hamlin stopped her. “Are you no’ forgetting something, lass?”
She stopped mid-skip, twirled around, ran back to her vanity, picked up her slate and quit the room.
Hamlin walked in the opposite direction, striding down the carpeted hallway lined with portraits of Montrose dukes and their ladies. He swept down the curving staircase to the marble foyer and strode through the double entry doors a footman opened as he neared, and onto the portico.
He jogged down the brick steps and onto the drive, where he paused to look up at a bright blue sky. The summer had been unusually dry thus far, which created crystal clear days such as this.
He struck out, walking purposefully to a group of outbuildings that housed tools and a tack room. Men were waiting for him, their workbenches and tools arrayed around the edge of a storage building that had been damaged by a late spring storm.
“Your grace,” said his carpenter, inclining his head.
“Mr. Watson,” Hamlin said in return. “Fine day, aye?”
“’Tis indeed, milord.” He handed him a hammer.
Hamlin took it and ascended the ladder that had been placed against the wall. There was a time the servants of Blackthorn had spoken to him as if he were a person and not someone to be feared. Good day to ye, your grace. Been down to the river? Trout are jumping into the nets, they are.
When he had positioned himself on the roof, he leaned to his side. “A plank, Watson.”
“Aye, milord.” With the help of a younger man, Watson climbed the ladder with a plank of wood and helped Hamlin slide it into place. Hamlin held out his hand for nails. Nails were placed in his palm. He set them in his mouth save one, which he began to hammer.
He had not been entirely clear with Eula. It wasn’t the work he enjoyed, it was the hammering. He liked striking the head of a nail with as much force as a man could harness. He liked the reverberation of that strike through his body, how powerful it made him feel. Wholly in control. Capable of moving mountains and forging rivers. He’d not always felt that way. He’d not always been able to pound out his frustrations to feel himself again.
“Your grace,” Watson said.
“Hmm,” he grunted through a mouthful of nails.
“Your grace, someone comes, aye?”
Hamlin stopped hammering. He glanced up, saw a sleek little cabriolet behind a team of two trotting down the drive toward his house. He was surprised to see any conveyance coming down the road at all—no one called at Blackthorn now. There was no such thing as a social call. He spit the nails into the palm of his hand. “Who is it, then?” he asked of no one in particular.
“I donna recognize it,” Watson said.
Hamlin sighed irritably. He wanted to hammer nails. He wanted to repair this hole and feel as if he’d done something meaningful today. He wanted to feel his strength, and then his exhaustion. But he handed everything to Watson and climbed down the ladder, reaching the ground just as the carriage was reined to a halt...and not a moment too soon, as it happened. If the driver hadn’t reined when he did, the team would have run him over. As Hamlin waved the dust from his face, he squinted at the pair in the cabriolet. It was a woman who held the reins.
A gentleman, older than Hamlin by two dozen years or more, soft around the middle, climbed down, then held out his hand to help the driver. But that one had leapt like a stag from her seat on the opposite side of the cabriolet. The force of her landing knocked her bonnet slightly to one side, and he noticed she had hair the color of wheat. She righted her hat, then strode forward to join the older man.
There was something about the woman that struck Hamlin as odd. Perhaps it was the way she walked as they approached him and his men—confidently and with purpose, her arms moving in time with her legs. He was accustomed to women walking slowly and with swinging hips, in ways that were designed to attract a male’s eye. This woman moved as if she had someplace quite important to be and not a moment could be spared.
The other notable thing about her was that she looked him directly in the eye, and not the least bit demurely. She was not complicated, but rather easy to read. Women used to smile at him in ways that made him question if he knew anything at all. But this woman gave him pause—generally, when anyone looked at him with such undiluted purpose, it was to request something or to accuse him.
“How do you do, sir?” the older man asked.
Hamlin shifted his gaze to the gentleman.
“Be a good man, will you, and send someone to inform the duke we’ve called. Knox Armstrong, Earl of Norwood,” he said, and bowed his head.
Hamlin stared at him. Norwood. He was English, quite obviously. Should he know him? He didn’t recall the name and wondered what in bloody hell he was to be accused of now.
The woman cleared her throat.
“Ah. And my niece Miss Catriona Mackenzie of Balhaire,” he added.
Hamlin looked again at the woman. She smiled prettily.
A moment passed as Hamlin considered the two of them. Miss Catriona Mackenzie of Balhaire arched a brow as if to silently remind him he was to fetch the duke. And then, in the event he did not recall what he was to do, she said, “If you would be so kind as to tell the duke we’ve called, then.”
Her voice lilted with a Scottish accent. It was a lovely, lyrical voice, and he imagined her reading stories to children, soothing them to sleep. It was a voice quite at odds with her direct manner.
“You might tell him yourself,” Hamlin said.
Norwood’s eyes widened with surprise, and he exchanged a look with his niece. The two of them suddenly burst into laughter, startling Hamlin and his men.
“Good God, man, we cannot simply waltz into a grand house and announce our presence, can we? That is not the way things are done. One must inform the duke we’ve called, and he must decide if he shall receive us.”
“Is that how it is done, then?” Hamlin drawled, aware that the niece was looking at him with amusement shining in her eyes.
“Well,” the earl said, smiling jovially, “perhaps I should say that is how we do it.”
Aye, the English thought themselves superior in every wee thing. Hamlin folded his arms across his chest. “I am the duke.”
The niece looked startled, but Norwood seemed quite diverted by it, as if they were playing a game. “You are Montrose?”
“I am.”
He looked at the men behind Hamlin, and whatever he saw there convinced him that Hamlin was telling the truth. “The devil you say. Well, then!” he said, smiling broadly now. “A pleasure to make your esteemed acquaintance, your grace.” He bowed low. “You will forgive me for not recognizing you straightaway, but you can imagine my confusion,