“From Lady Cecily’s home,” Catriona corrected, still focusing on her food. She couldn’t look up. She really couldn’t. The way Marilla was shaking about, she was terrified by what she might see.
“Still,” Marilla said, with a touch less sweetness and light than the “still” she’d directed at the duke. “Whatever shall we do to occupy ourselves?” she continued.
“I believe Miss Burns suggested tossing a caber,” Bretton remarked.
Marilla blinked. “Oh, but you cannot be serious.”
Catriona looked up just in time to see him give a falsely modest shrug. “I don’t see why I couldn’t give it a try,” he murmured. “Besides, did you not just praise my fine sense of sportsmanship?”
“But Your Grace,” Marilla said. “Have you ever seen a caber?”
“Miss Burns tells me it’s a log.”
“Yes, but it’s— Oh!”
“Oh my heavens, I’m so sorry,” Catriona said. “I have no idea how my jam flew off my spoon like that.”
Marilla’s eyes narrowed to slits, but she said nothing as she picked up her serviette and wiped the red blob off her chest before it slid into the deep, dark crevasse between her breasts.
If the duke thought that a caber was a simple little log, Catriona wasn’t going to let Marilla tell him otherwise.
“Oh dear me,” Marilla said, leaning toward the duke. “I can’t reach the butter.”
Bretton dutifully reached out for the butter, which was to his right, and Catriona watched with amazement as Marilla scooted even closer to him while he wasn’t looking at her. When he turned around, she was just a few inches away, batting her lashes like butterfly wings.
If Catriona hadn’t disliked Marilla for so many years, she would have been impressed. Really, one had to give the girl credit for persistence.
The duke shot Catriona a look that said clearly, Save me, and she was trying to figure out precisely how she might accomplish this when they all heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Lord Oakley arrived on the scene, and Bretton shot to his feet to greet his friend.
“Oakley!” he said, with enough enthusiasm that Lord Oakley’s expression took on a vague tinge of alarm.
“Bret,” Lord Oakley said slowly, glancing about the room as if waiting for someone to jump out and yell, “Surprise!”
“Join us,” the duke ordered. “Now.”
“Good morning, Lord Oakley,” Marilla said.
Oakley glanced down at her and flinched.
“You remember Miss Marilla,” Bretton said.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Marilla said with a laugh that set her all a-quivering. “How could he possibly forget any of us?”
Lord Oakley made haste to the sideboard, piling his plate with food.
“Miss Burns and I were just finishing,” Bretton said quickly.
Catriona felt her lips part, and she almost said, We were?But the duke shot her a look of such desperation, all she could do was nod and grunt, “Mmm-hmm,” over the giant forkful of eggs she’d just thrust into her mouth.
“You may keep Miss Marilla company,” the duke said to Lord Oakley.
Catriona shoveled two more bites of food into her mouth, watching Marilla as she eyed Lord Oakley assessingly.
The poor man was an earl, Catriona thought with a twinge of guilt. Marilla was going to be on to him like . . .
Well, like she’d been on to the duke.
Still, Catriona couldn’t be expected to save everyone from Marilla, and the duke had asked first . . .
Silently, but still. She’d got his meaning.
“Miss Burns?” the duke said, holding out his arm impatiently.
She nodded and held up a hand in a just-one-moment gesture as she gulped down the rest of her tea.
“We’re going for a walk,” the duke said to Lord Oakley.
“That sounds lovely,” Marilla said.
“Oh, but you must finish your breakfast,” Catriona said quickly. “And keep Lord Oakley company.”
“I would love that above all things,” Marilla said. She turned to Lord Oakley, who had taken a seat next to her, and smiled seductively at him over her bosom.
Catriona thought she might have heard Lord Oakley gulp. But she couldn’t be sure. The duke had already taken her arm and was hauling her toward the door.
Chapter 5
Bret did not let go of Miss Burns’s arm until they had put three full rooms between them and Marilla Chisholm. Only then did he turn to her and say, “Thank you.” And then, because once was not even remotely enough: “ Thank you.”
“You’re quite welcome,” she said, looking down at something in her hand.
“You brought a scone?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I was still hungry.”
His fault. But surely she’d forgive him.
She glanced toward the door through which they’d just come. “I think I may have left a trail of crumbs.”
“My deepest apologies,” Bret said, “but I—”
“There is no need to apologize,” Miss Burns said, “as long as you don’t mind if I finish eating while we’re standing here.”
“Please.”
She took a dainty little bite, then said, “I thought Marilla was going to attack you.”
“Is she always so . . .”
“Forward?”
A kinder version of the word he might have used. “Yes,” he said.
“No,” Miss Burns admitted. “But you’re a duke.” She looked up from her food, her eyes large and filled with the same amusement that played across her lips. “Sorry.”
“That I’m a duke?”
“It can’t be a good thing at times like this.”
He opened his mouth to say . . .
What?
His mouth hung open. What had he meant to say?
“Your Grace?” She looked at him curiously.
“You’re right,” he said. Because as lovely as it was to be a duke, and it was—really, what sort of idiot complained about money, power, and prestige?—it still had to be said, with Marilla Chisholm on the prowl, life as a stablehand was looking rather tempting.
“I’m sure most of the time it’s delightful,” she said, licking strawberry jam from her fingers. “Being a duke, I mean.”
He stared, unable to take his eyes from her mouth, from her lips, pink and full. And her tongue, darting out to capture every last bit of sticky-sweet jam.
Her tongue. Why was he staring at her tongue?
“You needn’t worry about me,” she said.
He blinked his way up from her mouth back to her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Dangling after you,” she explained, sounding somewhat relieved to get it out in the open. “And I think you’re safe from Fiona as well.”
“Fiona?”
“The elder Miss Chisholm. She’s as unlike Marilla as, well, as I am, I suppose. She has no intention to marry.”
Bret regarded Miss Burns curiously. “Does that mean that you don’t, either?”
“Oh no, I do. But I don’t intend to marry you.”
“Of course not,” he said stiffly, because a man did have his pride. His first marriage rejection, and he had not even proposed.
Her eyes met his, and for the briefest moment, her gaze was devoid of levity. “It would be very foolish of me to even consider it,” she said quietly.
There didn’t seem to be an appropriate response. To agree would be a grave insult, and yet of course she was correct. He knew his position; he had a duty to marry well. The dukedom was thriving, but it had always been wealthier in land than in funds. The Duchesses of Bretton always entered the family with a dowry. It would be highly impractical otherwise.
He hadn’t given marriage much thought, really, except to think— not yet. He needed someone wellborn, who came with money, but whoever she turned out to be, he didn’t need her right away.