Free How to Tame Your Duke by Juliana Gray

had always considered himself a decent judge of character, with a few glaring exceptions, but he could not quite make out the young man. He had a certain freshness about him, a dewy innocence. His fair hair gleamed beneath a layer of sleek pomade; his skin still radiated surprise at Ashland’s unexpected entrance. Were it not for those whiskers, curling luxuriously about the young man’s jaw, he might have seemed like a youth, hardly older than Freddie himself.
    And his eyes. Ashland angled his head, watching the two of them. Grimsby was explaining some point of Latin conjugation to Freddie’s bored and sloping body, and his blue eyes narrowed with seriousness, causing a few lines to invade the skin between his eyebrows. An old soul, Ashland’s mother would have said, nodding her head. Old and wise.
    Again, Ashland thought of Grimsby in the taproom last night, brandishing his chicken leg, face ablaze with determination.
    Grimsby, straightening his lapels a moment ago, as Ashland observed them noiselessly from the doorway. Speaking in his sturdy voice:
Then she is a fool.
    An older fellow, Freddie’s last tutor. Seventy at least, with thinning hair and a querulous tone, complaining about Frederick’s lack of attention here and Frederick’s lack of discipline there.
I cannot be expected
and
these conditions
and that sort of thing.
    Ashland adjusted his arms at his chest, keeping his empty cuff hidden, relieving the slight pressure on the stump from his opposite forearm. Grimsby’s voice was low, a bit gruff, almost intentionally so, as if he were making up for his lack of years with a manufactured resonance. Determination, patience, intelligence. This young man was nothing like the other tutors, who had left after two days, a week, three weeks, fed up with Freddie’s quicksilver brilliance and the incessant howling bleakness of the landscape.
    Which begged the question: Why had Olympia sent Grimsby to Ashland Abbey, instead of putting the young fellow to use himself?
    Olympia, after all, did nothing without reason.
    Ashland rose abruptly. “Thank you, Mr. Grimsby,” he said. “I shall leave the two of you in peace.”
    He walked from the room and back down the stairs to his private study. He had a great deal of estate business to work through before venturing out tonight.

FIVE

    B y afternoon, Freddie’s restless body was nearly bursting through the walls of the schoolroom, and Emilie, sensing opportunity, prescribed a spell of outdoor exercise. A message was sent down to the stables, and in short order they were trotting from the stable courtyard, wrapped up against the weather in coats and woolen caps.
    “You ride well,” said Freddie, sounding rather shocked.
    “Of course I ride well. I’ve ridden nearly every day of my life.” Emilie kept her head rigid as she said this, but the remark warmed her innards. True, she had begun riding horses nearly as early as she could walk, but she’d only ridden astride for those two preparatory months at the Duke of Olympia’s remote Devon estate. Even now, the leather felt odd and rather chafing along her inner thighs, though she liked the intimate feel of the horse’s body moving between them. She felt closer, more connected to the animal’s mind and motion.
    “Well, it’s a good thing,” Freddie said. He motioned with his riding crop at the swilling grass around them. “Riding’s about the only thing doing around here, without going into town.”
    “Where’s town?”
    Freddie pointed. “About four miles in that direction. You come to a track, after a bit. Then there’s the Anvil, which of course you know from last night’s doings, and then the railway station, which you know as well, and then there’s the town proper.” He sighed. “Not much to that, either. Dull factory, turning out crockery, and not even any discontented workers to liven things up since Pater took it over a decade ago. Everybody’s so happy, you’d think they were piping in opiates