Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What is wrong with you?”
Joan looked up at the door and realized then that the Duke had been watching her, or listening to her, at least. Even with his impaired vision, he seemed to notice everything.
She had been at the Duke’s estate for nearly two hours now, working through the quarterly accounts despite the throbbing ache that seemed to worsen with each passing minute.
Just a few more entries, she told herself. Then I can rest.
The orange cat—she had learned its name was Archimedes, of all things—was cradled in his arms, purring contentedly.
Despite her pain and fatigue, Joan felt her face brighten. She had developed an absurd fondness for the creature over the past weeks.
“Good afternoon, Your Grace,” she said.
The Duke set Archimedes down, and the cat immediately bounded across the room to Joan. It leaped onto the desk began winding around her arms, purring loud enough to be heard across the room.
Joan couldn’t suppress a smile as she stroked Archimedes with her good hand. The cat’s warmth was oddly comforting, and she felt some of the tension ease from her shoulders.
She returned her attention to the ledger, attempting to continue her work while simultaneously petting the cat. But after only a few words, pain lanced through her wrist with such intensity that she had to stop. She set down the pen and rubbed at the bandage, biting her lip against a gasp.
He asked again. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, Your Grace,” she said quickly. “I’m perfectly well.”
“Archimedes.”
The Duke’s whistle cut through the air. The cat’s ears perked up, and it immediately abandoned Joan to pad across the desk toward its master.
As Archimedes moved, one paw landed on Joan’s injured wrist.
“Ah!” The yelp escaped before she could stop it. Pain radiated up her arm, sharp and intense, and her eyes watered despite her best efforts to maintain composure.
Archimedes, startled by her cry, leaped gracefully onto the Duke’s lap and settled there with an air of wounded dignity, as though Joan had offended him personally.
“Miss Sinclair.” The Duke’s voice held a note of command. “What happened to your wrist?”
Joan pressed her lips together, torn between her instinct to deflect and the knowledge that lying would be pointless now. “It’s nothing, Your Grace. A minor accident, that’s all.”
“What manner of accident?”
“I… sprained it.” Joan spoke reluctantly, aware of how foolish the story would sound. “A friend, he was helping a girl who had gotten stuck in a tree trying to rescue her cat. When they were climbing down, the girl slipped, and I attempted to catch her.”
“Friend?” The Duke’s voice sharpened on the word. “What friend?”
Heat flooded Joan’s cheeks as she realized how that must have sounded.
“Please don’t misunderstand, Your Grace.
He is a perfectly respectable man with a family.
He was helping me speak to the villagers about the school, and we came across this girl, the vicar’s daughter, in a tree with her cat.
Mr. Anderson climbed up to help her down, but the cat squirmed and the girl lost her grip, and I tried to catch her before she hit the ground. ”
She was speaking too quickly now, words tumbling over each other in her haste to explain. “I managed to break her fall, but I landed badly on my wrist. It’s only a sprain, nothing serious. The girl was unharmed, which is what matters.”
The Duke leaned back in his chair, stroking Archimedes. His expression, what she could see of it around the black silk scarf was utterly blank.
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Miss Sinclair,” he said. “I could not care less about your misadventures. I have already kept my end of the bargain by providing you with the hall. I expect you to keep yours by continuing your work here, regardless of minor injuries.”
Absolutely cold-hearted, Joan thought bitterly.
“I intend to keep my end of the bargain, Your Grace,” she said aloud, her voice stiff with poorly concealed hurt. “I would never—”
“Jenkins!”
The Duke’s voice carried easily through the study. Within moments, the butler appeared in the doorway.
“Your Grace?”
“Bring the medicine box. The one from the cabinet in my chambers.”
Jenkins’s eyebrows rose fractionally, but he bowed. “At once, Your Grace.”
The Duke turned his attention back to Joan. “Come closer.”
Joan hesitated, her heart suddenly beating faster. “Your Grace?”
“I said come closer, Miss Sinclair. Unless you would prefer to continue working with an injured wrist that will only worsen if left untreated.”
Slowly, Joan rose from her seat and moved her chair closer to the Duke’s desk. The scent of sandalwood and bergamot grew stronger as she approached, making her pulse quicken in a way she refused to examine too closely.
“Stretch out your hands,” the Duke commanded.
Joan did so slowly, extending her arms across the desk. Her bandaged left wrist looked pitiful next to her undamaged right hand.
“It’s already bandaged,” she felt compelled to point out. “Mr. Anderson wrapped it quite carefully.”
“I’m certain he did.” The Duke’s tone was dry. “But there are better treatments than simple binding.”
His hands moved across the desk, fingers trailing along the polished wood until they encountered her arm. Joan suppressed a shiver at the contact. Even through the fabric of her sleeve, she could feel the warmth of his touch.
His fingers were long and elegant, hands that had clearly never engaged in manual labor. They moved with surprising gentleness as they traced up her forearm to her wrist, feeling the contours of the bandage.
The Duke’s fingers paused at her wrist, pressing gently against the bandage. “Here?”
“Yes,” Joan whispered.
Without thinking, she reached out with her good hand and guided his fingers to the exact location of the worst pain. The moment their hands touched, Joan felt a jolt of sensation that had nothing to do with her injury.
The Duke’s fingers pressed carefully against her swollen wrist, testing the extent of the damage. “Does it hurt?”
His voice had dropped lower, become softer. Joan found herself leaning closer without quite meaning to.
“Yes,” she breathed.
They stayed that way for a moment, her hand guiding, his fingers gentle against her injury.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor broke the spell. The Duke withdrew his hand and sat back as Jenkins entered carrying a polished wooden box.
“The medicine box, Your Grace.”
“Leave it on the desk. You may go.”
“Your Grace.” Jenkins set down the box and departed, though not before Joan caught the flicker of curiosity in his eyes.
The Duke reached out, his hands finding the box. “Open it and remove the green bottle. It should be in the upper left corner.”
Joan did as instructed, her fingers slightly unsteady as she worked the latch. Inside, the box was divided into neat compartments, each containing different bottles and tins. She located the green bottle, made of thick glass with a cork stopper, and lifted it carefully.
“Yes. Give it to me.”
Joan placed the bottle in his outstretched hand, watching as he worked the cork free. A medicinal scent filled the air.
“Your wrist, Miss Sinclair.”
Joan extended her arm once more. The Duke’s fingers found the edge of the bandage and began unwrapping it with surprising skill. The linen fell away, revealing her swollen, discolored wrist in all its glory.
“This will hurt a little,” the Duke said, tipping the bottle to coat his fingers with the thick ointment inside.
Before Joan could brace herself, his fingers pressed firmly against her injury, rubbing the medicine into her skin with heavy strokes.
Pain exploded through her wrist, worse than the initial injury. Joan let out an involuntary yelp, her whole body going rigid.
“Your Grace! Please, be gentle!”
The Duke continued his ministrations, his expression serene. “I am being gentle, Miss Sinclair.”
“No, you are not!” Joan protested as another wave of pain made her gasp. “Can’t you hear me? This hurts terribly!”
Archimedes, disturbed by Joan’s cries, leaped from the Duke’s lap and padded across the desk to her. The cat settled in her lap, purring sympathetically and rubbing its head against her free hand.
The Duke’s mouth curved into what could only be described as an evil grin. His fingers continued their torture of her wrist, rubbing the ointment in with what seemed like unhurried thoroughness.
“I apologize, Miss Sinclair,” he said, his voice dripping with false contrition. He handed her the bottle, his fingers brushing against hers as she took it. “Put this back in the box. The medicine will take effect in a few minutes. The pain will fade, and the swelling should decrease by tomorrow.”
Joan fumbled the bottle back into its compartment, her cheeks still burning. She closed the box with more force than necessary and set it aside, acutely aware of the Duke’s continued amusement.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she managed stiffly.
She reached for the ledger, intending to resume her work and hopefully salvage some dignity from this mortifying encounter. But the Duke’s voice stopped her.
“I am a fair man, Miss Sinclair. You may rest for a while. At least until the medicine begins to work.”
Joan settled back in her chair, cradling her wrist, which did, admittedly, already hurt slightly less, and stroking Archimedes with her good hand.
Her mind churned with worries about the school, about the empty hall waiting for students who refused to come, about her failure to convince the villagers of her sincerity.
“You should mind your business more carefully,” the Duke said into the silence. “It would save you from such injuries.”
Joan looked up, surprised by the comment. “Your Grace, would you abandon a child stuck in a tree?”
He wouldn’t, she thought with sudden certainty. As cold as he pretends to be, I don’t believe he would leave a child in danger.
The Duke was silent for a moment. “How is your school progressing?”
The question caught Joan off guard. She hadn’t expected him to ask, she hadn’t thought he would care.
“Not very well,” she admitted quietly. “Only one child has attended so far. My friend's son. The villagers don’t seem to trust me. My friend says it’s not personal. People are just wary.”
“Your friend is quite perceptive.” The Duke placed unusual emphasis on the word ‘friend,’ and Joan couldn’t tell if he was mocking her or something else.
“Don’t try so hard,” the Duke continued. “It’s nothing personal, as you said. Hardworking folks are naturally suspicious of outsiders.”
He leaned forward slightly, his fingers drumming idly on the desk.
“You could establish a school in London, you know. It would be less acceptable for a woman to run such a business there, the ton would have opinions about it, but I suspect with your determination, you could win them over eventually.”
Joan smiled softly, though the expression held more sadness than joy.
“I dare not do that in London, Your Grace. My brother’s reputation has already suffered considerably.
Opening a school, taking on such an unconventional role, would only make matters worse.
And it would affect my younger sister even more, making her prospects for marriage even bleaker than they already are. ”
The Duke tilted his head, his unfocused gaze somehow still managing to feel piercing. “Miss Sinclair, you have a tendency to worry about everyone but yourself. Do you realize that?”
“I lost my parents when I was twelve,” she said, her voice soft. “My brother was fourteen, and my sister was only eight. We had to raise ourselves, in many ways.”
She looked down at Archimedes, who had curled into a ball in her lap. “I suppose I grew accustomed to putting their needs before my own. It became… natural. I don’t know how to be any other way.”
Joan risked a glance at the Duke and found his expression was still the same.
“What about your family, Your Grace?” she asked before she could think better of it. “Were you close with your parents?”
The Duke’s expression shuttered immediately. His jaw clenched, and for a moment Joan was certain she had overstepped badly, she had asked something she had no right to ask.
But then, surprisingly, he answered.
“Nothing special,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. “They were a normal family. My parents doted on me, loved me as parents do. But they died early.”
“I’m sorry,” Joan said softly.
The Duke’s mouth twisted. “Why? Your parents died too, did they not?”
“Yes, but I had my siblings. We grieved together, supported each other.” Joan felt her throat tighten with unexpected emotion. “You were all alone. That must have been terribly hard.”
Without thinking, she reached across the desk with her good hand, her fingers stopping just short of his.
It must have been so lonely, she thought.
Her fingers moved the last few inches, coming to rest gently on the back of his hand. The Duke went very still.
Joan became acutely aware of how close they were, of the way his thumb had shifted, almost imperceptibly, to rest against the side of her palm. On the way her own pulse hammered in her throat. She tried to pull her hands away but he caught it and he leaned forward slightly.
“Your Grace.”
Jenkins’s voice from the doorway shattered the moment like glass. Joan tried to snatch her hand back, but the Duke’s fingers closed around hers, holding her in place.
“Yes, Jenkins?” The Duke’s voice was perfectly calm, betraying nothing.
“Your guest has arrived, Your Grace.”
Joan’s heart hammered against her ribs. Jenkins stood in the doorway, his eyes registering their clasped hands on the desk.
Oh God, Joan thought. He saw. He definitely saw.
The Duke released her hand with his thumb brushing across her knuckles one final time before letting go.
“Show him to the drawing room,” the Duke said. “I will join him shortly.”
Jenkins bowed and departed, but not before Joan caught the glint in his eyes.
The Duke turned his attention back to Joan. “You should go home and rest, Miss Sinclair. Give your wrist time to heal properly. I will see you in two days’ time.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Joan rose quickly, perhaps too quickly, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste. “Thank you for the medicine.”
And she found herself fleeing, again.