What the Duke Doesn't Know by Jane Ashford Page B

James walked up as she completed the sum. “More than a thousand years?” It was difficult to think of so much time, and of all the life that had passed before these walls.
    The old man nodded like a schoolmaster pleased with his pupil. “This present building was consecrated in 1093, however. Saint Swithin is buried here, as well as a number of Saxon kings.”
    Kawena was looking confused. James wasn’t much better off. “The ones before the Norman Conquest,” he ventured, and saw that this didn’t help her.
    â€œIt took them fourteen years to build it,” said their volunteer guide with satisfaction. “They say the stone came all the way from the Isle of Wight. Later bishops added bits on, here and there. The priory was demolished because of all that nonsense with Henry VIII.” He didn’t appear to approve of this revolutionary monarch.
    The old man came with them as they strolled through the cathedral. James tried to hint him away once or twice, but he was oblivious. Thus, he was at Kawena’s side when they stopped to contemplate a wall of carved images.
    â€œThat looks rather like a temple in India,” she commented.
    â€œIndia?” said the old man.
    â€œNo, it doesn’t,” said James, noting the stiff saints and figures praying with clasped hands. It was nothing like the twisting, posturing dancers in India, particularly not those engaged in…activities that would scandalize any local churchgoer.
    â€œThey’re all in rows, one above the other,” Kawena argued. “Just like—”
    â€œNot the same,” James interrupted, afraid the old priest was going to ask for details. “We must get on the road.” The design did have similarities, he admitted as he pulled her away, though of course the ideas behind it were totally different. He didn’t think he would have noticed that on his own.
    Travel was slow that day, as they hit a long stretch of muddy road, turned to mire by recent heavy rains. Twice the chaise bogged down, and the second time James had to join the post boys in putting a shoulder to the rear of the carriage to help the team pull it out. Kawena offered to push beside him, but there James drew the line. Some things women simply did not do. It was enough that one of them should be spattered with muck, he told her as he scraped what he could from his boots.
    At last they made it through to drier surfaces and passed into Southampton, near the end of their journey.
    â€œIs this Portsmouth?” Kawena asked, looking out over the many boats moored in the harbor.
    â€œNo. Those are mostly rich men’s yachts, not navy vessels.”
    â€œYachts?” She hadn’t heard the word before.
    â€œIt’s what they call pleasure craft.”
    â€œWhy?”
    James shrugged. “It’s just the name used for boats kept for the occasional sail out into the Channel. Perhaps a run to France, now that it’s open to us again.”
    It seemed a waste, keeping a boat as large as some of these to be used so seldom. Not even for fishing. But Lord James spoke as if it was commonplace. “Does your father, the duke, have a yacht?”
    He turned from the carriage window to look at her. “No. Why would you think so?”
    â€œI supposed he was a rich man.” She’d been thinking about such matters as the trip continued, all the similarities, and differences, between them. Their backgrounds could hardly be more unlike—their families, upbringing, expectations. They might have tastes in common, but the more time she spent here, the more she saw that English society would never see them as equal. The idea was annoying, and curiously disturbing. She wondered how he saw it.
    Lord James shrugged off the question of riches. “He has no interest in keeping a yacht.”
    â€œYou are the only one of your family who likes boats then?”
    He laughed. “On the contrary, we had a