Mina had managed only a few winks of sleep and her nerves jangled like the set of household keys hanging from her belt. Especially now, with Nicholas Lyon’s heated bulk at her back.

He followed, two steps behind, as she led him along the wind-whipped path of Enderley’s parapet, an old stone walkway above the house’s rear facade.

He’d surprised her by arriving in her office early, wishing to have a look at the roof and exterior wall of the ballroom. Mina intended to take the opportunity to lead him on a tour of the estate’s gardens and most interesting features. If her plan was to get him to appreciate Enderley, showing him its beauty seemed a good strategy.

Unfortunately, it also meant he’d spy all the signs of dilapidation. She was prepared to address those too. Notes tucked in her pocket contained estimates of how much the most urgent repairs would cost.

Under their feet, the stones were weathered, the mortar worn away, but the walk had endured for hundreds of years. Surely it would hold for one more day.

Mina told herself the path was safe, but down, down, down , the edge seemed to urge. Being so high had always unnerved her. She had the constant sense of tipping over the edge, as if she possessed some rogue avian instinct to jump off and take flight.

Glancing back at the duke only worsened her sense of vertigo, and she stumbled.

His hand locked at her waist. “Have a care, Miss Thorne,” he barked, his breath a heated gust against her cheek. “Are you steady now?”

“Yes, thank you.” Mina nodded, and he released her instantly. She kept her eyes averted from the edge as they continued toward the west side of the house.

The duke didn’t acknowledge her expression of gratitude.

After five days’ acquaintance, she’d learned the man was exceedingly surly in the morning. She wondered if he slept as poorly as she had since his arrival. The skin under his eyes had taken on a darker pallor, but the color only served to highlight the cool shade of his eyes.

Glancing back, she caught him staring at the hem of her skirt. When he looked up, his eyes were shadowed, his sensuous lips pressed in a grim line.

“Are you not fond of heights either?” she asked, wondering if he was feeling the same dizziness that plagued her.

“I don’t mind heights,” he said with mock cheerfulness. “I just prefer them to be in London, where the sea air doesn’t chill you to the bone.”

“Just a bit farther.” Mina infused her tone with as much sunniness as she could manage. Her stomach quivered, not because she was afraid of tipping over the side, but because she was about to give the new duke a good deal more to be grumpy about.

“I know the way.” His voice dipped low and raw. “I was born in this godforsaken house.”

“Of course.” She let out a sigh and hoped he didn’t hear.

Mercy, the man was taciturn. Too unpredictable. If he’d been this moody as a boy, perhaps it was why he’d been sent away. She’d resolved to be kind, to show him Enderley’s charms, yet the two of them seemed to begin each day at odds.

“The maze has been maintained, I see.”

Mina followed the direction of his gaze toward the enormous hedge maze that had been laid out by his ancestor nearly a century before.

“I’m afraid it’s rarely used.” With no master in residence and no parties or social events at Enderley, the winding avenues of neatly trimmed shrubs stood empty, unless Mina or a servant decided to take a stroll.

“Why not cut it down?” the duke asked emotionlessly. “Seems to do nothing but create work for the gardener.”

Mina bit her tongue, but she couldn’t keep silent. “I believe the maze was quite beloved by your mother.” And by Mina too. She’d spent many a day wandering its paths, enjoying its shade. When her father became irritable because the duke was in one of his black moods, the hedge maze had been a safe, quiet place to retreat to. “Of course, it’s yours now to do with as you wish, Your Grace.”

When she glanced back, the man had the audacity to smirk.

“Is that the game now? I set off your short temper and you call me Your Grace as punishment?”

“I’m not short-tempered,” she said as blithely as one could past clenched teeth. Then she began thinking of far worse punishments than using his honorific. Maybe mucking out the stables. The image of him stripped to his shirtsleeves, his skin glistening with sweat as he worked, distracted her for several minutes.

Mina stopped and turned to face him. “Is there nothing about Enderley you approve of?”

The duke studied her intensely, searching her face as if she held the answer. “Why do you love it so much?” he finally asked.

Not at all the question she expected, and one she didn’t anticipate being so difficult to answer. “I’ve known Mr. Wilder and Mrs. Scribb since I was a child. My father loved Enderley.”

“I asked about you. Not them.”

“Enderley is what I know.” Mina looked out across the fields rather than into his watchful eyes. His gaze followed her movements, steady and curious.

“You’re young, Miss Thorne. I suspect you could set your mind toward any number of pursuits.”

Mina glanced back at him, shocked by the sincerity in his tone.

No, not today. She couldn’t let him fill her head with fanciful nonsense about her adventurous spirit. She was supposed to be convincing him to do his duty, not allowing him to persuade her to abandon hers.

“Enderley is all I have, Your Grace. Not good breeding or a title, nor a proper education. And I’ve no plans to marry.” No prospects either.

Her cheeks heated despite the chilling breeze. He was the last man with whom she should be discussing anything as personal as a lack of marriage prospects.

“My father taught me that devoting oneself to Enderley is a worthy endeavor.”

In fact, he’d been so devoted that at times Mina feared he cared for the estate more than her. But that wasn’t why she and the new duke were standing atop three stories of old stones as a brisk wind whined across the parapet.

“Also,” she added, remembering her purpose, “the house’s architecture is beautiful.”

He quirked his lips and crossed his arms. “There are far finer country estates in England.”

“Well, I’ve never seen them.”

That earned her another twitch of his broad mouth. Not quite a smile. “Have you ever been outside of Sussex?” The question amused him far too much.

“No. I’ve rarely had any reason to leave.” He didn’t need to know that the old atlas in the library had been one of her favorite books or that she’d occasionally entertained childhood fantasies of running away to the city. Now a London man of business turned miserable duke thought her a simple country miss, and she told herself not to care. But his opinion did matter.

Stupidly, she blurted, “I went to Brighton once.”

That earned her smile, but it was such a brief flash of white Mina wondered if she’d imagined it. “Still in Sussex, but lovely seaside. No doubt you went to enhance your freckles.”

The dusting of spots along her nose and cheeks snagged his attention, and the longer he stared, the more potent the heat that spread from her face to her neck.

“How did you find the seaside, Miss Thorne?” He looked her up and down, one brow peaked in curiosity. “Was the sand warm under your feet? Were you daring enough to venture out into the icy water? Somehow I suspect you were.”

Two dimples appeared when he smiled, one on either side of his mouth. Mina couldn’t look away. She could barely recall the question he’d asked while she’d gotten stuck staring at his mouth.

“I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

“Too long, I imagine. You should go back. I’m overdue for a visit to the seaside myself.” He sounded wistful and so intrigued by the prospect that Mina half expected him to suggest they hitch a carriage and head off directly.

But, of course, he didn’t.

The gulf between them and their desires was an enormous one. He was a duke and could hie off to Bath or Brighton or anywhere he pleased. Mina’s life didn’t work that way.

“My place is here, Mr. Lyon.” Unless he or whoever leased the estate dismissed her. “At least for now.”

He worked his lower jaw like he was chewing on a retort but said nothing more. Clearing his throat, he scanned the fields beyond the maze. “Is that Eustace’s horse, the one involved in the accident?”

Mina bit her lip when she spotted the ebony stallion. The wounded racehorse was healing quickly. Mina visited every morning, taking him apples and checking his wounds, but she’d yet to decide what to do with him.

“Not my father’s either,” he said decisively. “His favorite was white and bulky as a prize fighter.”

The odd sense of falling while she was standing perfectly still swept over Mina, and she took a quick step back from the ledge. She struggled to slow her breathing.

“You truly hate heights.” The duke reached for her upper arm to hold her steady.

Mina looked up to find him close, the flaps of his overcoat brushing her skirt, his eyes locked on hers.

“Is he yours?” he asked softly.

“None of the horses in the stable are mine.” One deep breath for courage and she confessed, “He’s not a Tremayne horse.”

Just as Mina expected, the duke’s glower deepened. He tensed his grip on her arm. “I don’t understand.”

“I found him wandering the field near the copse on the night you arrived.”

“But where does he belong?”

“Here,” Mina said emphatically. “For now.”

“Miss Thorne, who does he belong to?”

Mina chewed the inside of her cheek. “Lord Lyle of Stebbing Hall. His estate’s just outside the village.”

“I know the man. Or my father did.” He waved toward the field. “Have Tobias return Lyle’s property to him immediately. His lordship is not an even-tempered sort.” The duke started past her on the walkway, carefully sheltering her from the edge.

When Mina didn’t follow, he glanced over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

“I won’t return the stallion to Lord Lyle.”

Shock made Nicholas Lyon look younger, softening the striking aspects of his sharp-angled face. The lines of worry between his brows melted. The grim tension in his full lips eased. Shadows faded from his dark-lashed eyes. Then one black brow shot up and clashed with the wave of hair that had dipped down to dangle over his forehead.

Mina pushed away the notion that she should aim to surprise him more often.

“Are you defying me?” His voice rasped low. Little more than whisper.

“I suppose I am.” A gust swept a lock of her hair from its pins, and Mina pushed the strand back behind her ear. “Lord Lyle, or someone in his stables, beat that horse bloody. There were deep stripes on his haunches when I found him.”

She steeled herself. He’d tell her what she already knew. Lyle’s cruelty didn’t matter. Property mattered. Ownership. Especially here in the countryside. Lyle was known for his interest in horseflesh and betting on races. He’d want his fine stallion back.

The duke said nothing. One narrowed blue eye, a tightening of his jaw, and he seemed to come to a decision he didn’t plan to share with her.

Another burst of wind swept the tail of his coat out behind him and pulled more of her hair loose.

“Let’s have a look at the damage and get off this bloody roof.” He waved his arm to urge her over. His manner had gone as gruff and cool as the wild weather.

“There.” He pointed to a spot in the sloping roof tiles, a bit darker than its neighbors. “The depression runs down toward the wall.” He lowered himself, balancing on his haunches.

Mina approached but didn’t dare get near the wall’s edge.

He noticed her wobble and glanced up, all the earlier warmth in his gaze gone. “Go back inside. I can do this on my own.”

“I prefer to stay with you.”

He turned back slowly, then stood to face her, their bodies inches apart on the narrow walkway. “Are you worried I loathe this place so much I’ll fling myself off the side?” He stared down at the multistory drop between them and the ground. “Or are you hoping I will?”

“Of course not.” Mina risked a glance and immediately regretted it. A wave of nausea hit and she reached out, her fingers grabbing his coat lapel.

The duke gripped her arm. A comforting heat, sheltering her from the parapet’s edge. “You’re all right,” he said softly, as gently as she’d murmured to the shying stallion. “I’ll have a quick look and we can get back on solid ground.”

Mina nodded, and he let her go to examine the damaged tiles again.

If they ever got off the roof, she wanted to show him the gardens and the folly near the pond. Enderley’s groundskeeper had created topiaries that hadn’t existed when the duke was a child.

“I’m not sure what good we can do up here. Wouldn’t a mason have far better knowledge of the structural integrity of a centuries-old wall?”

He turned back to her, a smirk softening the sharp peaks of his upper lip. “You underestimate me, Miss Thorne. I do know a bit about old walls.”

Mina squinted skeptically. “Don’t tell me you’re a bricklayer and a gambling club owner.”

His chuckle was deep and appealing, and far too brief. “When I found the site of my club, it was a shambles. I learned more about masonry and plasterwork and the fine art of window glazing than you could ever imagine.”

“You did all the work yourself?”

“No.” He snorted and the left side of his mouth slashed upward. “I hired the best I could afford. But I insisted on knowing everything. Overseeing the work closely. Lyon’s is the only thing I’ve owned, and I wanted to understand every part.”

“You really don’t trust anyone, do you?”

“There are a few people I trust.” He narrowed an eye at her, and she was uncomfortably reminded that she’d already proven herself faithless in his eyes. More than once. “I can count them on three fingers.”

“They must be extraordinary.” It irked Mina that she’d never be counted among those Nicholas Lyon trusted. “Why did you choose a shambles as the site for your club?”

He shrugged. “Good location.”

Mina waited. There had to be more.

The duke let out a sigh. “I saw something others hadn’t. What it could become. I saw potential.”

Mina felt a strange fluttering inside, as if a cage of sparrows had been freed inside her. “So you are capable of hope.”

Shock softened his features again. A bit of warmth lit his eyes. “Only very occasionally.” He pulled back the lapels of his overcoat and shrugged the garment from his shoulders. “Would you hold this? Or, better yet, put it on and keep yourself warm.”

Mina gathered the woolen coat in her arms, sinking her hands into the warmth he’d left behind. His scent wafted up, bergamot and something darker.

Down on one knee, he braced his hands on the sloping roof tiles to get a closer look, and the crisscross pattern of bricks beneath him shifted.

“Careful.” Mina hadn’t imagined the movement. The bricks beneath her feet shifted too. The slightest of movements.

“Speaking of hope, I suspect that’s all that’s holding these bricks together. The mortar’s gone,” he said tightly. The bricks beneath him began to bow out toward the parapet edge, and a piece of the limestone facade emitted a terrible scratching groan as it moved.

The duke got to his feet slowly, widening his stance for balance. Mina started forward and reached out a hand.

“Don’t come closer,” he hissed. “Back away. Quickly.”

Mina took one tentative step back but couldn’t make herself retreat any farther. She couldn’t leave him balanced on the edge of a crumbling stretch of stones.

“Take my hand.” She bundled his overcoat under one arm and leaned forward, trying to find an extra inch of length in her arm. A vertigo swirl of dizziness pulled at her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the duke.

“Stubborn woman,” he grumbled. Taking one long stride, he placed his boot closer to hers. “This patch is solid beneath my feet. Now turn around and head back to the stairs.”

Mina looked down at the dark grooves between the stones where mortar should have been. She wasn’t at all certain the pathway wouldn’t crumble. “Just take my hand,” she insisted.

If he fell, at least she’d have a hold of him. She stretched again, lifting off her boot heel, and lost her balance. Her body responded like metal to a magnet’s pull and she tipped toward the ledge. A scream burst from her throat.

Her body went weightless, unbearably heavy, as her foot slid off the edge.

Then Nicholas Lyon was there, leaning over, his hand latched onto her arm in a vise grip. “Hold on to me. And drop the bloody coat.”

She let the overcoat fall and reached to grasp his shoulder. He immediately wrapped a hand around her waist and heaved her up.

They landed in an awkward, half sitting, half reclining pile far too close to the edge of the three-story drop. Mina didn’t want to let go of him. He was warm and solid, and it was far preferable than focusing on the way her heart thrashed painfully.

“I’ve got you,” he said, his breath coming fast. He settled his chin on the top of her head a moment, then cupped her cheek, tilting her face toward his. “Are you all right?”

His gaze settled on her mouth, and he slid his thumb gently against her cheek.

Mina watched as he studied her. For a man who seemed to know exactly what he wanted, he moved hesitantly, taking such care as he lowered his thumb to her mouth and traced the outline of her lips.

She felt delicate under his tender exploration. Desirable. And she recognized the look in his eyes. The hunger and need. She felt it too. And she desperately wanted to touch him, to trace his mouth as he had hers and then replace her fingers with her lips.

Mina’s pulse rushed in her ears as she held her breath, waiting, hoping. Yearning for what she couldn’t have.

Then he shocked her. Lowering his head, he pressed his mouth to hers. One too-brief taste and he pulled back, then kissed her forehead. “Let’s get inside,” he whispered against her skin.

He untangled himself and stood, keeping hold of her hand. “I’ll go first. You stay close behind.” A single long step and they both stood on a solid part of the walkway. “You go ahead of me, Miss Thorne, so I can make sure you don’t try to heave yourself over the edge again.”

“Mina.”

“What?”

“Call me Mina.” The man had just kissed her, saved her, and she knew he hated the formality of titles and honorifics.

He said nothing and released her. Mina feared she’d made an error in judgment. Or the duke had. Problem was, she’d enjoyed the feel of his lips against hers too much to count the experience as anything but pleasure.

She followed him toward the doorway that led to an interior set of stairs. He encouraged her to go down first, but after descending only two steps, she turned back.

“Never mind the name. Such familiarity would be improper.” Mercy, she was a ninny. She’d embarrassed him and herself. He was duke. She was a steward. His steward. Perhaps throwing herself off the parapet walk would have been the better course.

Do try to be proper, Mina. Her father’s voice echoed in her mind.

“Sometimes propriety isn’t my first instinct,” she confessed.

A rich, infectious sound reverberated against the stone walls. “I’ve noticed that about you. I rather admire it.” He dipped his head so they were eye to eye. “In addition to your stubbornness, and, of course, your short temper.”

Did he truly like her for her failings? Her inability to behave as she ought, to be ladylike when she should. She still took umbrage at the bit about her temper.

But Mina found she liked hearing him laugh. And the smile that accompanied his amusement? Devastating. Somehow, his toothy grin, framed by deep dimples on both cheeks, managed to make him both more enticing and infinitely more dangerous.

“I fear we’d scandalize Scribb and Wilder if I call you Mina.” His forehead creased as if he was working out a thorny problem. “Of course, I’d insist you call me by my name too.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, as if daring her to say it.

Nicholas. Mina couldn’t bring herself to speak his name, but it echoed in her mind.

“Let’s get inside where it’s warm.”

That sounded good. She longed for a cup of Mrs. Scribb’s oversteeped black tea and a blanket, and for her heart to beat at a normal rhythm. But she hadn’t accomplished anything she’d wished to.

“I wanted to show you around the estate.” To showcase the beautiful parts, not the crumbling bits.

“I’ve seen every inch of Enderley.”

“But the garden—”

“—has been cut back for the winter, I suspect.” He descended to the stair step just above her.

Mina reached out to stop him going farther. Her palm landed on his chest, pressed against the buttons of his waistcoat and his firm muscles beneath. Mina dropped her hand, but she needed to stall him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Lord Lyle’s horse.” She’d planned to confess all to him eventually, but the guilt of her deception weighed on her mind now more than ever.

“You should have told me. Trusted me, as I must trust you. If you remain at Enderley when I leave, I’ll be relying on you to represent my interests, not engage in horse stealing.”

“You can trust me.” The reminder that he would soon depart made her heart squeeze if as a fist had been wrapped around her middle.

“No matter what I decide?” He pressed his hand against the wall next to her head. “What if I send the stallion back to Lyle? What if I told you to dismiss every member of the staff? ”

Mina’s throat tightened until she could barely breathe. “Why would you?”

“To start anew and be done with the past.”

“Emma’s nineteen. Hildy is sixteen. They have nothing to do with the estate’s past. They never knew the father you hate so much.” Mina pressed her lips together. She hadn’t meant to speak so bluntly.

“I see.” He huffed out a breath of frustration. “So you’ll do my bidding, and resent me for it every single day?”

“Most dukes don’t bother with what their employees think of them.”

Chuckling, he pushed off the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “What have I done to make you think I’ll be like most dukes?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “To be perfectly honest, I’d pass the title to Tobias if I could.”

“Tobias would be an awful duke.”

“Worse than me?” His voice had gone quiet, vulnerable. As if it mattered to him whether she thought he could embrace a role he loathed.

“Definitely.”

He lifted a shoulder. “That’s something, I guess.”

“If you wish to be a good duke, I could help you.” Mina’s father had once described a steward’s work that way.

“What would you suggest?” His gaze was wary, as if he’d agreed to a spoonful of medicine but was dreading the taste.

Enderley came to the fore of Mina’s mind, as it so often did. If he planned to do better than his father and brother, taking care of his birthright was where he needed to start.

Reaching into her pocket, she closed her hand around the list she’d prepared earlier in the morning.

“This would be a good place to start.”

Staring into her eyes, he reached for the folded list. Their fingers brushed and heat shot down Mina’s arm, then lower, to her middle, then her thighs. Like swallowing that bit of sherry he’d given her. One touch and her insides were warm.

“You need to let go,” he said in a voice so low it made her shiver.

Mina opened her fingers and took a step back. She was acting like a fool. Like that impetuous infatuated girl she’d once been. Such lovesick nonsense couldn’t happen this time. Her wayward heart would obey her.

The first man she’d set her sights on had been a bad choice, but the Duke of Tremayne was an impossibility.

As he examined her notations, both brows edged up his forehead. “This is a substantial list.” He flipped the page and found the rest. A muscle began pulsing in his cheek. “Might have been easier to note what did not require repair.”

She couldn’t blame him for hating the burden of what his brother allowed to founder. Sympathy for the man kindled on a bone-deep level. It wasn’t his fault the estate had been ignored. She yearned to show him some part of Enderley that deserved saving.

“There are things that aren’t on the list.”

“What else? Another rotting room? A wall on the verge of collapse?”

“Down here.” She descended the stairs and stopped at a small circular window set into the stones.

He joined her, sharing the same step so that their bodies were pressed side by side. Hunching his shoulders, he peered through the old bubble-dotted glass.

“Do you remember the tower? It’s the oldest standing piece of Enderley’s history.” Mina studied his profile and noticed his mouth tighten. “Some things here don’t need to be repaired. But they’re part of what makes the estate special.” Mina leaned in to peer over his shoulder.

He turned so abruptly, she slammed her back against the wall to avoid a collision. “I want it pulled down.”

“But—”

“Burn the wooden structure inside and have the stones removed from the estate. Every one of them.” The ice in his voice matched the glacial blue of his eye. There was no warmth left between them. Not a shred of the man who’d saved her, kissed her, smiled and laughed with her. “Do it, Miss Thorne. I never want to see that tower again.”