Birdie and the Beastly Duke by Sofi Laporte
Chapter 7
Gabriel Eversleigh, Duke of Dunross, found himself in an odd situation.
He’d married a girl and had expected her to leave right after the wedding.
Except she didn’t want to.
Maybe he shouldn’t find that so surprising, since they’d been married for not even three hours. When one married, the wife, under normal circumstances, tended to stay. For life. That was commonly accepted to be the purpose of marriage.
She’d said that she wanted children. Sweet, pudgy babies that smelled of milk and sunshine. That would cling to his legs and call him Papa. Then they would grow up and go to war and kill and get killed.
He got up so quickly that the chair toppled over and crashed to the ground.
“Never.”
The girl looked up from her bowl, surprised. A smear of porridge stuck at the corner of her mouth. “Never?” she echoed dumbly.
“This whole thing, this whole marriage, is only to fulfil a vow, to take care of you. Nothing more.”
“And what about your vow to me? You made it barely two hours ago.” Her eyes bore into his. He felt himself breaking out in a sweat. She’d made him say it, hadn’t she?
“To love and honour him ’til death do us part…” she whispered the words as he recalled them in his memory. “That is a very serious vow to make.” She propped her elbow on the table. “I think that vow supersedes the one you made earlier. It encompasses the previous vow as well.”
Love. There it was again. She’d not only made him take a vow of love, but she insisted he kept it.
It was insupportable.
Mumbling something unintelligible, Gabriel backed away, hit his legs on the stairs, and stumbled up the staircase.
“We can discuss this later if you want,” he heard her call after him. “Are you going to be here for luncheon?” He grabbed hold of the bannister and hauled himself up three steps at a time.
Away.
Away from her.
She had to leave immediately.
Well.
That had been the oddest conversation in her entire life.
Birdie looked down at her bowl. And that had been the horridest porridge she’d ever had, even if she’d ended up eating two bowls. The cold porridge sat like a stone in her stomach. Clearly, the cook wasn’t the best. The poor meal lowered her spirits. Or perhaps she was feeling rather upset about the conversation she’d just had.
If she was going to be duchess here, she was going to have to do something about the lack of servants, the degenerate state of the entire place, and the food––most definitely, the food.
Suddenly, Higgins appeared in front of her. Birdie jumped in her seat.
“Higgins.” She pressed her hand on her racing heart. “You gave me a fright.”
“I have brought the beer, Your Grace,” the man said.
“Thank you, Higgins, but I won’t be needing it.”
He set the tankard down in front of her regardless and remained standing next to her chair.
“Is there anything else, Higgins?” Birdie asked.
“The carriage is here, Your Grace.”
“Send it away.”
He shuffled away, nodding. “Tell it to stay.”
That wasn’t exactly what she’d said, but it was good enough. The coach wasn’t leaving today, for sure.
Something occurred to her. “Higgins. May I have one moment?” she called after him.
He tilted his grey head the other way.
“I want to ask you something,” she said loudly and slowly.
Higgins nodded.
“What happened to His Grace?” She pointed to her face.
“The face?”
“Yes.”
“The war, Your Grace.”
Of course.
“Waterloo?”
He nodded.
“How terrible.”
Higgins shuffled away, muttering. “He’s the only one who survived.”
Birdie wondered whether he’d meant that metaphorically. Either way, the man must have scars inside as well. No wonder he was rather antisocial.
“Higgins, what about dinner?” she called after him. She didn’t want to have to spend a second evening in that frightful kitchen, cooking away on her own.
“There’s haggis in the village,” he mumbled.
“Don’t we have a cook?”
Higgins shook his head.
“Who’s been cooking all along?” Birdie pressed on. “You?”
Surprisingly, he’d understood her. He bared his yellowed teeth in a grin.
“We’re going to have to do something about that,” Birdie mumbled.
He shouldn’t have toldthem to hold the right flank.
It was a logical decision. A decision made from his gut. Usually, his gut led him right. It had helped him survive.
He’d thought they could take cover in the orchard trees. They were camouflaged behind the foliage and shrubbery.
It had been a disastrous choice.
He should’ve sent them to the left.
He heard the gunshots again, the battery blast above his head; flames leapt, and chunks of mud, wood, and metal catapulted through the air. The smell of smoke, blood, and scorched flesh engulfed him.
He buried his head in his hands and gagged.
Left.
It should’ve been the left.
Amidst the smoke, a voice.
“Your Grace.”
Smith, Blake, Brown, Merivale to the right.
Merivale. Merciful heavens! Merivale …
Someone shook his arm.
“Your Grace. She won’t leave.”
He lowered his hands from his wet face. Higgins was in front of him. He was in his castle, not on the battlefield. He was safe.
“What?” His voice was rough.
“The girl. She won’t leave.”
Higgins. The odd man always showed up when one least needed him.
What did he say about the girl? The girl he’d married not three hours ago.
The girl who’d screamed in terror when she’d seen his face, ran, then returned and married him, only after she loudly professed that she would declare her vows if she could include the phrase “love”, demanding in return that he “loved, obeyed and served” her as well. He’d said the vow.
A shudder ran through his body. It was as if that vow almost physically tied his fate to hers, to that girl who said he should call her Birdie, a name that oddly suited her. She tilted her head sideways when she looked at him like a bird.
He’d never met a stranger creature.
He’d carried her to the hall after she’d fainted. She hadn’t been exactly a lightweight, for she had a full, womanly figure. But he’d carried heavier, stiffer bodies in the past. As she lay there, she’d looked frail and beautiful, and he’d carefully wrapped a plaid blanket around her as if she were a precious piece of porcelain.
She could be all too easy to love.
The sooner she left, the better.
And now Higgins was saying she wouldn’t leave?
“What do you mean, she won’t leave?” Gabriel asked.
“Been working again in the kitchen.” Higgins scratched his head. “I thought it was the pixies who fried the sausages, but it was the girl. Now she’s baking. Baking!” He sounded outraged.
Gabriel fingered a scar on his cheek thoughtfully. “She’s supposed to take the carriage back to her home.”
“Yes, yes, she’s alone,” Higgins muttered and left.
Dash it, the man had phases when he understood perfectly well, followed by episodes where he seemed entirely deaf and senile.
Gabriel hadn’t had the heart to dismiss him. He’d been working for three dukes of Dunross. When Gabriel inherited the dukedom, Higgins had shown up at his doorstep in London and stuck to him with more persistence than mud stuck to his Hessians. He’d followed him here to Dunross castle. He’d become his shadow.
“I serve the Dukes of Dunross,” he’d stubbornly repeated and refused to leave. He’d been half deaf back then already. Though sometimes Gabriel suspected the man was faking it and selectively choosing only what he wanted to hear.
Higgins was one thing. The bigger problem was: what on earth was he going to do if the girl refused to leave?
Why on earth would she want to stay? She had his name. She had a title. He’d guaranteed her financial support. He’d fulfilled his promise to her father. He had nothing else to offer. The castle was a dump of stone; there were no servants. The food was ghastly, and he himself looked like a veritable gargoyle. Even in the old days, when he’d apparently looked reasonably attractive, he never relished being out in town and about in society.
He’d been semi-relieved when his father asked him to marry his colleague’s daughter. He wouldn’t have to go courting.
He was a military man. He knew how to order a company around the battlefield. Or he had thought he did. He did not know what to do with ladies. He could hardly order her around like his soldiers, could he? He had no idea how to talk to a woman, least of all court one.
Especially one who had a sprinkle of fairy freckles on her nose and a quizzical glint in her hazel eyes, and who was now his wife.
He was thoroughly ruffled.
Her hands had been icy cold when he had placed her on the sofa. He’d looked down at her. A complete stranger. His wife. Yet he felt like he’d never carried a more precious bundle in his arms.
He shook himself. No, no, no, no. This wouldn’t do. The girl had walked into his life a mere twenty-four hours ago, and he already worried about her.
He needed to get rid of her immediately, but didn’t know how to go about doing that without forcefully carrying her into the carriage.
Suddenly, a tremendous crash reverberated through the castle.
He jumped.
By Jupiter. What was that?
Either the place was being invaded, or the girl was taking the castle apart.
Since he was relatively sure he’d helped defeat the French in battle five years ago, it must be the girl.
With a feeling of foreboding, he left his tower room.