“How do you take your tea?”
There was a beat of silence. She refused to look up at him. Eventually—finally—he spoke. “Sugar please.”
She nodded, still not looking at him, busying herself with pouring the beverage. A job that took her far longer than normal, perhaps. She glanced up when she handed him the cup and froze. His dark eyes were intent on her, a small line between his brows. She fought the urge to look in the mirror on the far wall to make certain she wasn’t sprouting feathers or something equally outrageous from her head.
“Is something amiss?”
“Not at all,” he hastened to assure her. But his strange perusal did not abate.
She cleared her throat, nervous fingers flying up to pat her hair. “Are you certain?”
“Perhaps you can help answer something for me.”
She blinked. “Ah, of course. What is it you wish to know?”
“If a person is set to inherit a title, and doesn’t want that title, how can he go about refusing it?”
Well, that was certainly unexpected. She frowned. “But…Peter has already accepted the dukedom.” There had been a time, of course, when her cousin had not wanted anything to do with her father’s title. But the wounds of the past had been healed, and he had taken to the position with a drive that had surprised everyone.
“I was not referring to Peter but to…someone else I know.”
“Someone from Boston?” she asked doubtfully. Truly, what were the chances of the man knowing two aristocrats in America who did not want to take up their responsibilities?
To her surprise he colored. “Er, yes. Yes, someone from Boston.” A pause. “You are a duke’s daughter, and so I thought you would know. I have been out of the country far too long and cannot recall the intricacies.”
His tone was calm enough, yet he looked at her with an intensity that the subject should not warrant. She flushed hot, clearing her throat, and leaned forward to prepare her own cup.
“If I am correct, one may simply not claim the title, and not refer to himself as such. That does not mean, however, that the title is not his. No one else may claim the title while he’s alive.”
“But if he doesn’t want it—” Frustration laced his voice.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m afraid,” she murmured, doing her best to appear disinterested as she stirred her beverage, though her insides burned with curiosity. Such an odd line of questioning, and such an intense reaction if his disheartened sigh was anything to go by. She glanced at him through her lashes as she settled back and saw that his shoulders were tense, his knuckles white as he gripped tight to the teacup. She imagined the delicate bone china shattering in his grip, so tightly did he seem to hold it.
“And so, despite his wishes, the title would just go on to his descendants after his death, should he have them,” he muttered almost to himself. “Which was why Peter was so damn adamant about remaining without issue before our previous visit. Ah, but pardon me.” He colored, his eyes apologetic as he glanced at her. The look quickly passed, his expression going distant again. “And to take up the title? If he wants it. Which I am sure he does not,” he said with a surprising amount of heat.
She took a sip of her hot beverage, not a little confused by his swift shifts in mood. “I suppose,” she said as she placed the cup carefully back on its saucer, “he must do as Peter did when he took up the title. He must apply for a Writ of Summons to the House of Lords.”
He looked positively ill. Then, bringing the cup to his lips, he drank it down to the dregs on one long swallow. Surely he must have burned his tongue, yet he didn’t so much as flinch.
An incredible thought came to her. Casting a quick glance at the open drawing room door, making sure no servants were within view, she leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Mr. Nesbitt, is it…are you the man in question?”
He blanched, looking at her with wide, pained eyes. Suddenly his expression shifted. He leaned toward her, his hands braced on his thighs. Tension swirled in the space between them, a space that now seemed incredibly close and intimate. She found herself swaying closer. He appeared about to speak—
A commotion in the front hall shattered the moment. She dragged in a shaking breath and sat back, putting as much distance between herself and the man before her as she could, brutally squashing the disappointment that sparked in her.
Mr. Nesbitt seemed to have forgotten her presence completely. He stood, not noticing his shin connect with the low table and rattle the tea set, his entire focus on the door to the drawing room. As Peter’s voice drifted to them he seemed to snap back into himself. “Pardon me,” he murmured. Then, with nary a glance her way, he strode from the room.
* * *
There had never been a time in Quincy’s life when he had needed Peter more. So much so that, as he barreled down the stairs to the ground floor, he conveniently forgot that his friend would not be alone.
He stopped in the middle of the gleaming marble floor, staring in incomprehension at the group of people before him. They were in conversation with the butler, handing over their outerwear, their voices a cacophony of cheerful sound. Not a one of them had noticed him. Thank goodness. Perhaps he could escape without being seen and return when his thoughts were not tangled like so much thread.
In the short time since leaving—no, fleeing—his mother’s house, he had been too shocked to fully make sense of his new reality. His brothers were dead? All of them? And he was the new duke? His mind could not contain the enormity of that. Surely his mother had been lying. This was some nightmare he would soon wake from, the coalescing of all his worst fears. Now that his life was finally his own, the very last thing he wanted was to be saddled with the responsibilities of a dukedom.
But no, the one small sane speck of his mind whispered as he inched back, trying to remain unobtrusive, this was all too real. In all his imaginings, he could never come up with something as heinous as this reality.
The group across the hall continued to chatter on, blessedly unaware of his presence. He would locate the servants’ entrance, run all the way back to Mivart’s, and not return until he was in full possession of his faculties.
That plan died a swift and complete death, however, when Lady Tesh turned and spied him.
“Mr. Nesbitt,” she called out in strident tones, her cane thumping like the beat of a death knell as she made her way toward him, “you are come at last. I must say, it took you long enough.”
Every eye in the hall turned his way. And chaos ensued.
Lady Phoebe and Margery reached him first, their excitement at his appearance something that should have given him happiness. But he could not find joy in it. Instead, with those ladies on one side, Lady Tesh on the other demanding his attention, and Peter approaching with Lenora, he felt the last tentative hold he had managed to keep on his emotions begin to snap. They congregated about him, closing him in. Making him feel as if he would break on the spot.
“Goodness, give Mr. Nesbitt some space.”
Lady Clara’s voice was like a balm over the group. Immediately they settled some, stepping back a fraction. It was as if a stormy sea had suddenly calmed, as if the furious rocking of the boat he was in had been put to rights. As if the sun had arrived.