Izzy leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand. This story was getting rather exciting. And it seemed Duncan was relishing the chance to tell it at last. Poor man, confined here for months with all this melodrama and no one to talk to. And very few stains.
“Lady Shemily,” he said, his voice oozing dramatic tension, “had eloped.”
“Eloped? But with whom?”
“A tenant farmer from the Liverpail country estate. Apparently the two had been concealing their affections for years.”
“What a scandal. What did Ro—” She shook herself. “What did Mothfairy do?”
“Nothing prudent. He should have let the silly chit run off and ruin herself. Loudly disdain her upbringing to all who asked, joke cleverly about his close escape. And then next season, find a new bride. But his pride wouldn’t allow it. He rode off in furious pursuit.”
“Without his trusty and distinguished valet?”
He sighed testily. “Dinkins followed in the coach. And Dinkins fell, sadly, more than a day behind. Too late to stop the tragedy unfolding.”
She bit her lip, already cringing. “Did the duke fall from his horse?”
“Oh, no. Some twenty miles south of the Scottish border, Mothfairy came upon his would-be bride and her lover in a coaching inn. A confrontation ensued, blades were drawn . . .”
She winced, as though she could feel the full length of Ransom’s scar burning from her scalp to her cheekbone. “I think I can imagine the rest.”
“You will have to imagine it. I can’t tell you precisely what occurred. I wasn’t there.” Duncan dropped all pretense of storytelling. He braced his hands flat against the worktable. “When I found him, he’d spent two nights in a closet at that damned coaching inn. No surgeon had been called. The innkeeper was simply waiting for him to die. I had to stitch him myself.”
“Unconscionable,” Izzy said. “What about his intended bride?”
“Already gone. Little flibbertigibbet.” He shook his head. “He wasn’t well enough to risk traveling back to London, so I brought him here. It’s been more than seven months. He refuses to leave. He refuses to even let me perform my duties as a valet. His appearance is an embarrassment.”
Izzy hedged. “I don’t know that I’d say that.” She rather liked the duke’s rugged, unkempt appearance. And a dozen sighing handmaidens couldn’t be wrong.
“Half the time, he refuses to wear a cravat. It’s shameful.”
“Shameful indeed,” she echoed. She could agree on that point. The duke’s open collars gave her quite shameful thoughts.
Duncan set the iron aside and held up her pristine shawl for examination. “This little task has preserved my sanity for another day,” he said. “Thank you. You can’t know how unbearable it is to spend your life on one profession and then be forced to abandon it.”
Izzy didn’t reply. But she could understand that feeling better than he might think. When her father died, her work had died, too.
He folded the shawl and handed it to her. “I’ve been so out of sorts, it’s driven me to . . .”
“To what?”
“I don’t even know. That’s the problem, Miss Goodnight. I’ve tried a half dozen different vices, and none of them satisfy. Cheroots are revolting. Snuff isn’t much better. I can’t abide the taste of strong spirits, and I don’t like to drink alone. What’s left? Gambling? With whom?”
She shrugged. “I suppose there’s always women.”
“Unoriginal,” he declared. “In this house, that particular vice is taken.”
An idea came to her. She dug into her pockets and handed him a clutch of paper-wrapped sweets. “Here. Sweetmeats.”
He looked at the sweets in her hand.
“Go on,” she urged. “You’d be doing me a favor. People foist the things on me in handfuls. After my morning with the handmaidens, I have more than I could possibly want.” She pointed to one. “I think this one’s a honeyed apricot.”
He took the sweet, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. As he chewed, his shoulders relaxed.
“Better?” she asked.