And, oh, my, he was handsome. She hadn’t forgotten that. The candlelight made gold of his hair and deepened the blue of his eyes to midnight. His features were regular, his nose straight and his chin squared, but to her disappointment she saw none of the warm kindness or concern in his blue eyes that she’d remembered. Instead, his smile now seemed distant, impersonal, almost aloof, as he gazed down at her.
“Are you feeling better, miss?” he asked. “If anyone can wrest you back among the living, then it’s Gristead here, though he’s hardly pleasant company while he does it.”
The physician’s frown deepened, as if to prove the gentleman’s words true. “She still does not appear to know her name or any details of her situation, Your Grace.”
Jenny gasped. “You—you are the Duke of Strachen?”
“Ah, Gristead, mark how she does know what’s important!” exclaimed the gentleman she now realized must be the very duke himself, his gaze still so intent on Jenny that she felt her pale cheeks warm. “You should know who I am because I told you myself, there under the trees this morning.”
Her flush deepened. Already she’d misstepped, and all she’d spoken was a single sentence to the duke. The duke. How had this man become a duke, anyway? Oh, her head still hurt far too much for sorting out puzzles like this one! Dukes were supposed to be old and gray and dozing in their places in the House of Lords. They weren’t supposed to be young and appallingly handsome and wear dashing silk waistcoats with Chinese dragons.
“I wish to thank you for your largesse, Your Grace,” she said finally with a wan smile. “Largesse” was one of those words that Rob always made sure to use: it was fulsomely French, and sounded much more impressive and flattering to the largesse’s possessor. “You have been most kind to me, and I promise not to take advantage of your hospitality any longer than is necessary.”
“You shall remain here at Claremont Hall as long as is necessary,” he declared with a lordly sweep of his hand. “You’ll stay until you are quite recovered or your friends or family have fetched you away.”
“Or until you tire of me, Your Grace.” She sighed sadly, taking her hands away from her forehead to better display her bruise—which, if it looked even half as hideous as it felt, would be an undeniable way to prove she’d no business going anywhere. “I won’t burden you, Your Grace. I’ll leave myself rather than do that. I’m not your prisoner, and you can’t keep me here against my will.”
Most gentlemen—especially the gentleman she remembered rescuing her this morning—would have made a gallant protest against her even considering leaving, but not this duke.
“You’re not my prisoner, sweetheart, no,” he said evenly, his expression not changing even a fraction. “But since you met your misfortune on my land, you are my responsibility, until someone else comes forward to claim it, and you.”
“But to be a mere tedious responsibility!” She sighed dramatically. She hoped he wasn’t truly as chilly and arrogant as he seemed. Chilly gentlemen were never generous, and again she wondered sadly what had become of the kind gentleman with the dogs.
“Tell me for yourself, Your Grace,” she continued, striving to sound pitiable enough to rekindle that well-hidden kindness. “How should you like being deemed no more than a charitable obligation?”
“Consider before you speak to His Grace, young woman!” scolded the physician, his brows bristling severely beneath the front of his wig. “You are unwell, true, but that is no excuse for such…such familiarity. His Grace would be perfectly within his rights to send you to the almshouse!”
But the duke himself did not seem to agree. Instead, for the first time, his smile seemed genuinely amused as he studied her with new interest—interest enough that Jenny felt her cheeks blushing all over again.
“Oh, don’t frighten the lady, Gristead,” he said softly. “And you don’t listen to him, Miss—Miss—now whatever am I to call you if we don’t know who you are?”
“But indeed we do know her name, Your Grace,” said Mrs. Lowe, eager to help. “This was tucked in her shift when we undressed her earlier.”
Jenny let out a little sigh of relief as the attention shifted away from her, even if only for a moment. The woman was holding a folded handkerchief out to the duke, and she’d turned it so the letters stitched in red thread in one corner were neatly facing toward him for his convenience. But the duke was far too important to bother to read the name for himself, brushing the handkerchief back toward the housekeeper with an impatient flick of his hand as he looked once again at Jenny.
“Tell us all, Mrs. Lowe,” he said with that same smile seemingly for Jenny alone, as if the request were more of a secret jest between the two of them. “Enlighten us as to the lady’s name.”
“Corinthia, Your Grace,” volunteered Mrs. Lowe promptly. “It’s stitched right there, plain as can be. A lady’s name on a lady’s handkerchief. It’s next to new, likely from her having so many of the same, the way ladies do. You can see how fine the linen is, Your Grace, and this lace trimming—that’s the kind the French nuns used to make in the convents over there, what can’t be bought now for love or coin.”
“All that knowledge from a single scrap of linen, Mrs. Lowe?” The duke studied the handkerchief and shook his head with wry amazement. “I must take care with my own belongings, lest you begin spinning tales about my cravats. But if ‘Corinthia’ marks her linen, then Corinthia her name must be. Would you agree, Miss Corinthia?”
“I—I suppose it must be so, Your Grace,” said Jenny, marveling at how much the housekeeper had concluded from the single handkerchief. None of it was right, of course, but every wrong guess helped build her credibility as a true-born lady. “My name must be Corinthia.”
“It’s a start, Miss Corinthia,” said the duke as he idly smoothed the ruffled cuff on his shirt. “Or perhaps I should rather address you as Lady Corinthia, the way Mrs. Lowe so desperately desires?”
“The given name is sufficient to begin inquiries, Your Grace,” said Mrs. Lowe firmly. “Discreetly, so as not to upset her family any further. Although a lady’s name must not be made common, surely there cannot be too many Corinthias gone missing in Sussex last night.”
“That would be most kind of you, Your Grace,” murmured Jenny. To the best of her knowledge, there hadn’t been any Corinthias gone missing last night, but Mrs. Lowe’s discreet inquiries would serve to let Rob know where she was, and that she was safe. For that matter, she wished she knew if and how he’d escaped the jealous grenadier, and as she thought of her brother, the sum of her family, she felt a single and quite genuine tear slide down her cheek to splat upon the sheet.
“There now, Your Grace, you’ve made her unhappy,” said Mrs. Lowe, reaching over to blot away the tear with Corinthia’s handkerchief. “The poor creature might not be able to recall her home or family, but she still can pine for them.”
Not that the duke cared.
“Tell me, Miss Corinthia,” he said. “Are you hungry?”
“You cannot, Your Grace!” sputtered Gristead indignantly before Jenny could answer. “Given this young woman’s perilous condition, it is not wise for her even to consider eating!”
“And I say it is unwise for her not to,” said the duke with the easy assurance of someone accustomed to always having his own way. “Especially when I’m so hungry myself. Mrs. Lowe, have a table brought, so I might dine in here with the lady. What would you like, Miss Corinthia?”
“Tea, if you please,” she said, realizing she was in fact very hungry, indeed. “And toast, with jam, if that is possible.”
“Anything is possible at Claremont Hall,” declared the duke.