Read Online Never Deceive a Duke by Liz Carlyle - Free Book Online

force rumors can be,” he answered coolly. “In this case, I suggest we pay them all the heed they are worth—which is nothing.”
    But as he left her standing by the door, he was not at all sure his suggestion was a good one. There was something strange and a little otherworldly about the Duchess. Something haunting in her eyes. But a murderess? He was utterly certain she was not, though why he felt such confidence, he could not have said.
    Unfortunately, in her world—the world of the ton —that sort of rumor could be worse than ruinous. Perhaps he was beginning to comprehend why she might prefer to shut herself away in a lonely, ramshackle place like Knollwood rather than return to that world and try to build a life for herself.
    But none of this was really his problem, was it? He had come here merely to look over the estate, and make certain it was being profitably run. He was not here to save the world—not even the duchess’s elite little corner of it.
     
    Upon her return, Nellie greeted Antonia at her bedchamber door. “You’ve come back!” she said, as if she’d expected her mistress to have been eaten alive. “What was he like, ma’am, the new duke?”
    Antonia gave a grim smile. “Arrogant,” she said, tossing her black shawl onto the bed. “Now pack up my things, Nellie. We’re going—”
    “Oh, ma’am!” the maid wailed. “He must be heartless! Truly!”
    “—back to the ducal suite,” Antonia finished.
    Nellie’s mouth dropped shut. “Well, bless me!” she said after a moment had passed. “Back to your old rooms, then? That’s right and proper of him, if I do say so myself.”
    Antonia had crossed the room to the window. It was clear Nellie wished to hear more about the meeting, but Antonia drew away the sheer drapery and stared down at the graveled forecourt. She was inexplicably reluctant to allow the maid to gauge her mood just now. She was not perfectly sure she understood it herself.
    What had just happened to her in the morning room? Something…strange. She felt oddly aware—but aware of what? It was as if she was shaking—or perhaps the word was aquiver? As if something inside her had been stirred up.
    She had expected, really, to dislike the new Duke of Warneham, not that she had cared much one way or the other. At her very first glance, the man had appeared high-handed and arrogant—which he was. He had looked every inch the haughty aristocrat, with his form fitting coat and snug breeches. His golden gaze had seemed to pierce her. His jaw had been too hard, his nose too aquiline. His leonine mane entirely too luxurious. And inexplicably, she had found herself almost spoiling for a fight. That was not like her. It truly was not. There was no longer anything worth quarreling over in life. Was there?
    And that spate of temper! Where had it come from? She had not raised her voice to anyone since. well, in a very long while. But something about the duke had provoked her. The man had seemed so cocksure. So…apparently comfortable in wielding his new power. And in the end, to her shock, he had been almost kind. He had believed her, she thought.
    She had expected, she supposed, that he would be rough-edged and ill-mannered; a rustic who would have gazed about his easily-got gains in gaping stupefaction. She had not expected him to look so young, and she had assumed that his years drifting about in the navy and the colonial islands would have rubbed off any bit of bronze which had been left from his brief life at Selsdon. But he was not like that at all. He was something far more dangerous.
    “Yes, Nellie, the new duke said everything which was proper,” Antonia finally responded. “I do not believe him a warmhearted man by any estimate, but I have hope that he is just.”
    Nellie touched her lightly on the arm. “But he was arrogant, you said?”
    “Yes…” Antonia was not sure how to describe it. “Perhaps it really is bred in the blood, Nellie? I think this man would