Chapter 3 #2
The duke tapped his fingers on his knee. “But Xander and Helen are going back to Belgium. And you aren’t going with them?”
Even the word ‘Belgium’ was starting to make Letty’s pulse flutter with anxiety.
“I am not,” she said. “I plan to remain in England.”
“Why?” he asked with the blatant entitlement of a man who thought himself privy to everyone’s personal histories.
She gave him a thin-lipped smile.
“Because that is what I wish,” she said, not bothering to soften the cut of the words.
The duke was smiling now, but it was a dangerous kind of smile, one that should not have looked so handsome upon his face.
“You,” he accused gleefully, “have secrets.”
Letitia felt the last of her temper slip from her grasp.
“So do you,” she returned sharply. “I have known your cousin for quite some time. I didn’t place your name at first, but now that I have, I know that you aren’t married. So...” She lifted her chin. “Why do you need a governess?”
He regarded her for a long moment. Surely now he would throw her out.
But he didn’t.
“I like you,” he said.
“What?” she demanded. Was it possible that this man was insane? The Lightholders were all a bit odd, granted, but it was mostly in a pleasant sort of way, like how all the men were so tied up in knots over their wives. But this seemed potentially like genuine madness.
“I like you,” he repeated, as if the issue was that she had not heard him clearly.
“And I have no problem staying in England. In fact, I plan to stay in London. So, I see no reason why we should not move forward with our discussion. I will remind you, however, that everything we discuss here is a matter of the utmost confidentiality.”
“What?” she repeated, this time even more incredulous. He could not possibly still be considering her.
“Tell me,” he asked, this time ignoring the question, “what did you do before you were with Clio?”
Her bewilderment was swept away by a wave of panic.
“I... I was with her twice,” she said. She felt very cold all of a sudden.
“Yes.” The duke was watching her far too carefully. “But between those two roles. What did you do?”
She wouldn’t answer that. She could not. Not without risking… everything.
“Your Grace.” The title came out choked.
“I have given you my letter of reference, but I am certain that we both agree that this interview has not gone particularly well. You do not trust me with your secrets; that is fine. However, we need not keep up this charade. Let us just accept that this was a failed experiment, and go about our way. I am sure we will have no reason to encounter one another again.”
There. Enough was enough. She stood and smoothed her skirts briskly.
“Secrets…” the duke repeated again, apparently to himself. Then, his gaze sharpened. “And what will you do, if not work in my household?”
“I have another offer,” she said primly. She should have just accepted that. That would be the first place she went after she left here. If this whole escapade wasn’t a lesson in asking for more than she was due, she didn’t know what was.
“With whom, might I ask?”
Letitia wanted to snap that no, he could not ask, but there was some level of ingrained manners that she just could not quite shake.
“I have been offered employment in the home of Lord and Lady Bassett,” she said through clenched teeth.
“No.”
The word was like the crack of a whip. Letty felt her eyes go wide.
“Excuse me?”
The duke was on his feet now, too, his expression steely.
“You can’t work for Lord Bassett,” he said. “He... he isn’t a good man.”
Letitia felt strange, as if this were happening to someone else. It was all too bizarre to be real, otherwise.
“The Duchess of Godwin recommended that I speak with his wife,” she pointed out. There wasn’t anything that the Duke of Rutley could say that would make her question Helen’s judgment.
“That’s because Helen is a nice person—her insane decision to marry my cousin aside—and doesn’t know the things I know,” the duke countered, sounding frustrated and… Was he worried? No, that truly would be madness.
She narrowed her eyes. “What do you know?”
He pressed his lips together. “I know that Bassett is not the kind of person to be trusted with a young woman alone.”
Her mouth went dry. She knew what he meant. Every woman in service knew what that meant.
“I don’t have any assurances of your character, either,” she said, though she likely should have kept this thought to herself. “The duchess didn’t send me to you.”
He didn’t seem to have an argument about this, but he didn’t back down either.
“Don’t accept that offer, Miss Knightley,” he said firmly. “You will be sorry that you did.”
She clenched her jaw. He didn’t understand. No man like him ever could. Being a woman in service always meant courting regret. All she could do was choose the safest option, even though she knew she could never be entirely sure she would be safe.
But she trusted Helen. She had to let that trust bear out.
“Good day, Your Grace,” she said. She wouldn’t win an argument with him, so the only thing to do was to just leave. “I wish you luck finding a governess. But it will not be me.”
* * *
Ezra was, by nature, a schemer. He schemed. He plotted. He planned.
He thought very quickly about how he might keep Miss Knightley.
Many men of his status—the ones with fragile egos—would have hated the way she’d stood up to him. So few people outside his family ever did that, cowed either by his title or his connections.
But Miss Knightley had not wilted like a flower. She’d blossomed with defiance.
He had been telling the truth when he told her that he liked that. That he liked her.
And Christ knew he could not let her go live with that scoundrel Bassett.
He needed to move quickly, though. As he pushed to his feet, considering what he would say when he caught up with her, something went right for the first time in a very long time.
“Oh, goodness,” he heard Miss Knightley say. “I didn’t see you there. Good afternoon.”
Nobody responded, which could only mean one thing.
Miss Knightley was speaking to the child.
She was definitely a little girl. Her bath had confirmed that.
Not only had the housemaid who helped her reported as much, but with the layer of dirt washed away, she looked perhaps four or five years old.
That was all he had learned about his new charge, however. For she still had not uttered a word.
He crept to the door of the parlor and watched.
Miss Knightley knelt down to be at the same eye level as the child. She was smiling sweetly, and although the girl didn’t return the smile, she seemed slightly less guarded than usual. Ezra stayed hidden out of sight.
“My apologies for nearly bumping into you,” Miss Knightley went on breezily, not acting as though she found it the least bit odd that the girl was staring at her silently.
“I was woolgathering—though I have always thought that a silly phrase, since I would think, if I were shearing a sheep, I would pay very close attention indeed.”
This was nonsense. The woman was talking utter nonsense.
But the girl…
She nodded.
Everything in Ezra went very still.
“But look at me again, forgetting my manners,” Miss Knightley went on with a little self-deprecating laugh. “My name is Miss Knightley. I have just come from a meeting with the duke. Do you have a name?”
She asked it so lightly and sweetly that somehow, even Ezra was almost unsurprised when the little girl answered.
“Iris,” she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper.
He could hear the smile in Miss Knightley’s voice as she went on, speaking as though this—the first word the girl had spoken in days—was not monumental in the least.
“Iris,” she repeated. “What a lovely name! Well, I am afraid that I have to be off, Miss Iris, but it was very nice to meet you.”
The girl—Iris—didn’t reply, but she nodded again, which was more than Ezra had ever gotten out of her. More than any of the other applicants for the role had gotten out of her.
He knew then, no matter what she might say, that he could not let Miss Knightley just leave. Unfortunately, she was, at the moment he had thought, standing up to leave.
Only cads and bastards chased after women who were trying to get away. Ezra was neither.
Except, right now, he was absolutely chasing after a woman who was trying to get away.
He didn’t even stop to get his hat.
“Miss Knightley!”