She tried not to squirm. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. It was sparse, but also tidy. “Yes.”
“It’s very cozy. Charming and unexpected, just like you.”
She blushed. “Thank you.”
“Why don’t you live in the Hall? Isn’t that where you grew up?”
“It is, yes.”
“But your uncle.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Exactly.”
Something hard flashed behind his eyes, quickly followed by determination. And something very close to vengeance.
“Meg, is there a barrister in the village?” He asked. “Or better yet, a bank?”
“Yes, though the bank is in the next town. Why?”
“I have an idea.”
It was severalhours later that Meg paused on the front step of her childhood house, the warm yellow stone towering above her. Dougal looked calm, as if he did battle every day. He smiled down at her when she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, hesitating. “This will work,” he said softly.
“My uncle is not a… good man.”
“He’s a bully.”
“Yes.”
“Can’t say I’m fond of bullies.”
She had to smile. “Neither am I.”
“Let’s have at it then, love,” he said, extending his arm as though they were about to step through into a ballroom. She placed her fingertips over his sleeve, finding comfort in his strength and the sudden grim, devil-may-care quality to his smile.
The entrance to the house was an assault on the senses, as always. Gilt glinted on every accessible surface, crown molding to frieze to the grooves of the wood wall panels. Silver gleamed, crystal flashed from a chandelier, statues crowded together. One of them wore a sort of crown, made of rough-cut rubies and pearls. Dougal was faintly baffled. “Devil’s tits, it’s a bit much.”
“Meg, that you?” Her uncle shouted from the main drawing room. “Damn gel.”
Meg tensed. Dougal glanced at her. “This is the very last time you ever have to see him, if that’s what you want.”
An option she had never even thought possible.
“He’ll be awful to you,” she warned him.
He grunted. “I can handle a toff.”
In his study, Uncle Dermot reclined in his favorite chair, looking bored. Also, looking too much like her father, as ever. The color of the eyes, the shape of his nose. It hurt. It always hurt. “Fire’s gone out,” he snapped at Meg. A collection of diamond-studded snuffboxes lined the mantel behind him. “And the grate needs cleaning. See to it.”
He was in a mood. He always set her to difficult or disagreeable tasks when he had a rotten head from a long night. She didn’t mind the grates so much and had taken pains that he should never realize it. “We have a guest, Uncle,” she said, mildly.
“Who’s this, then?”
“The Duke of Thorncroft,” she replied.
He made an effort to correct his tired slump. “A duke, eh? Welcome, welcome. Come for the party, have you? Excellent, excellent.”
Dougal did not incline his head in recognition of the greeting. “I’ve come for your niece,” he said bluntly. “We are getting married tomorrow.”