She sighed. Her parents had died when she was just eight. Her father, she admitted, she didn’t miss often. He had been a distant and often unpleasant presence in her life, and Hugh had stepped into his role with grace and ease and kindness, even when she didn’t feel she deserved it.
But her mother? Oh, how Lizzie missed her. And the garden, which had been the prior duchess’s passion project, reflected her mother. Lizzie saw her in every flower, in every carefully trimmed shrubbery.
What if she managed it the wrong way? What if she planted something her mother hadn’t intended? So she pored over the old, faded plans from decades ago and worried over it endlessly.
It made her restless here, and that was not something she enjoyed when it came to the sanctuary of home.
She let out a sigh as she trudged up the back stair onto the terrace that overlooked the garden. Through the glass doors that led to the parlor, she saw servants bustling and rushing. It could mean only one thing.
Hugh was home.
She smiled and pushed through the doors and into the house. In a few steps she was to the foyer and out the front door where servants were collecting in order to retrieve trunks and boxes.
She blushed because Hugh had already exited his carriage. He stood on the bottom step, arms around Amelia, and the two were kissing enthusiastically, regardless of the bustle around them. She was happy for them, of course. Amelia had been bereft without him for the past week. Lizzie had felt how her friend forced frivolity at times and watched the clock ceaselessly. Hugh had to have missed her, too. They were rarely parted and Lizzie knew how deeply he adored her.
But seeing the way they smiled at each other as they parted…it made Lizzie feel something darker. Something she hated in herself. She was jealous. Always jealous of her brother’s happiness. Which made her a terrible person, she knew.
“And Amelia, this is Morgan Banfield,” Hugh was saying as he motioned toward the carriage. A man was exiting it, and Lizzie’s stomach leapt.
He was tall, broad shouldered and lean. When he unfolded himself from the carriage, it was a smooth, confident movement. And when he looked up the stairs, first at her brother and Amelia, and then past them toward Lizzie…
Well, her heart all but stopped. He was exceedingly well favored. He had light brown hair that was thick and slightly mussed, like he’d been running his fingers through it, and dark chocolate eyes that swept over her in one motion. He also sported a beard, a shade lighter than his hair. The facial hair was most definitely not in fashion, so it surprised her to see it. But it certainly suited him and highlighted the angles of his jaw and cheekbones.
A tiny smile tilted one corner of his lips, and then he winked at her. The motion broke the spell and she jerked her gaze away, lifting her hands to cover her hot cheeks.
This libertine had just winked at her. And it threw her back to four years before, when her world had been torn to pieces by a man who was equally handsome and charming. Well, perhaps not equally.
What was wrong with her?
“Lizzie!” Amelia called out, glancing up the stairs at her. “Come and join us.”
She stayed frozen on the top step for a moment, and then somehow forced herself to move. She made her way to the drive, where she kissed her brother’s cheek in mute welcome and then girded herself for the inevitable introduction to the devil who had just placed himself on her family estate.
“Lizzie, this is Morgan Banfield,” Hugh said. “My new man of affairs. Mr. Banfield: my sister, Lady Elizabeth.”
“My lady,” Mr. Banfield drawled as he extended a hand in greeting.
She didn’t want to take it, but propriety and politeness did not allow her to refuse. She extended her hand. He took it, his ungloved fingers folding over her own bare skin, and she was enveloped in warmth for a moment. His hands weren’t calloused, but they were a bit rough and she hated how the dichotomy of her soft skin against his sent a shiver of awareness up her spine. Feelings such as this brought nothing good.
She pulled her hand away and shoved it to her side. “Mr. Banfield. Welcome to our home.”
Amelia smiled and everyone else seemed unaware of Lizzie’s tangled feelings. Including Mr. Banfield, who looked away from her toward her sister-in-law.
“We have a chamber prepared for you, Mr. Banfield,” Amelia said. “And I assume Hugh has been talking your ear off with details about the estate for three days. So I offer you a respite from his voice while you settle in.”
“Well now,” Hugh said with a teasing affront to his tone. “I thought you liked my voice.”
Amelia linked her arm through his. “And I never asked for a respite from it.”
They laughed and Banfield along with them. Lizzie somehow managed a smile even though the blood was rushing in her ears.
“There is much to learn, Your Grace,” Mr. Banfield said with an incline of his head. “But I assure you, I’m up for the task.”
“I think he might be,” Hugh said with a quick glance at him. “And you’ll have plenty of time to settle in and explore the grounds. Robert and Katherine will join us in a few days, as well.”
Amelia smiled. “I received word just before you arrived that Ewan and Charlotte also intend on arriving at almost the same time.”
“The Duke and Duchess of Donburrow,” Hugh explained. “Old friends. A better man, I could not name.”
“Then we will be a happy party, indeed,” Mr. Banfield said, and shot Lizzie another brief look.
She refused to return it and instead stared at a loose thread on the cuff of her gown. If the house was filled with friends, she had to be pleased for that. Not only would she enjoy their company, but it would likely give her a barrier between her and this unwanted newcomer. He would be busy with learning the estate, she would be playing hostess at Amelia’s side.
“Why don’t we go into the house, then?” Amelia said. She squeezed Hugh’s arm and slid her hand through the crook of Lizzie’s elbow. Lizzie felt herself guided away, into the house, away from the interloper that came to test her resolve.
But this time it was a test she intended to win.
Morgan couldn’t help but stare as the most beautiful woman he’d ever encountered was drawn inside by her sister-in-law. It was an odd thing to think of Lady Elizabeth as that, since she was so different from the woman who normally caught his eye.
He normally liked flashy women. Ones with confidence and experience like the ones he encountered in the hells. It was easier with them. They understood the boundaries of whatever arrangement he would enter with them. Most of them appreciated those boundaries as much as he did.
But Elizabeth? Well, this was not a woman you played about with. This was a lady, and not just because she was a duke’s sister. No, she was fully of her station, that was clear from the way she held herself: a bit distant, standoffish. She had a delicacy to her, like a beautiful little bird who had been happily trapped in a cage all her life. She wouldn’t understand a man like him. She would be shocked by him if she allowed him past the surface. Which she had been trained all her life not to do.
But she was utterly enchanting regardless of the imprudence of his attraction. She had pale blonde hair, done up in a simple fashion that framed her slender face perfectly and brought attention to blue eyes the color of a clear summer’s sky. There was something sad to those eyes, something hollow and even a little pained that he marked and set aside in his mind.