Chapter 6 #2
“Why are you here?” she asked him again as she sank into the chair that Sarah had vacated. If he was going to come into her home, she wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. “I can only assume that, since you are here, you had something to do with what happened at the Bassetts this morning?”
The louse didn’t even have the audacity to look ashamed.
“I told you that Bassett was not worthy of the name ‘gentleman,’” he reminded her. “My conscience would not have allowed me to let you remain under his control.”
“Your conscience,” she scoffed.
“I do have one,” he said mildly.
She didn’t believe this for a moment.
“I suppose you were right about him,” she sighed, leaning her elbow on the table and propping her chin in her hand. “I don’t suppose it would have been a pleasant place to work, not if he was so… open about things.”
She had expected the duke to look satisfied at the admission that he had been correct. Instead, he looked thunderous.
“Did he touch you?” he asked, voice dangerous.
His sudden intensity startled her.
“What? No,” she said hastily, but he didn’t look as reassured as she might have suspected. “No, he just made comments. Unsavory ones.”
She had been furious about it herself, and it was revolting, but something about the duke’s clear anger disarmed her. Didn’t he know that things like this happened all the time? And that men like him never did anything about it?
“Hm,” he said, and the grunted syllable sounded distinctly ominous.
Letitia felt a flutter of nerves in her belly—not at being alone with him, which she suddenly realized she absolutely was, but at…
Well, she didn’t quite know. He was still interfering and high-handed. But it was nice that he seemed to care, at least a little.
But that brought them back to why.
“Again, I must ask,” she said, a little less patiently than she’d been before, “what it is that you are doing here.”
The duke was still sufficiently angry that, when he tried to put his charming mask back in place, she was able to see the cracks.
“I am certain that must be obvious,” he said, a touch of strain in his smooth voice. “I am here to offer you employment.”
He said this with a grand air, as though expecting a dramatic reaction.
Letitia just crossed her arms.
“You already offered me a job,” she said flatly. “And I already said no.”
“Ah,” he retorted, holding up a finger in illustration. “But that was when you had another offer.”
Her temper flared. “Which you ruined!”
“I was doing you a favor,” he said. “At the very least, I saved you the trouble of re-packing your bags once Bassett let his true character show.”
Privately, Letitia agreed. And privately, she was a little pleased that the duke assumed—correctly, she might add—that she would have left a position where such an expectation was part of her employment.
She didn’t judge those who didn’t, of course; the fault was wholly in the hands of the gentlemen who abused their positions, not the women who lacked the resources to get free.
But it was still nice.
Not that she intended to let any of that show on her face.
“How did you know?” she asked instead. “About Lord Bassett, I mean. His proclivities can’t be widely known, not if the Duchess of Godwin recommended him to me.”
The duke waved a dismissive hand. “No, of course not. Helen would never stand for such things. Bassett keeps his villainy under wraps, since his wife’s family is the one with all the money.
But I make it a point to know the kinds of things people want kept quiet.
It has the way of making my life a great deal easier to navigate. ”
He said this in a very matter-of-fact sort of way, but it still caught Letty’s attention.
“So, you like to keep secrets, but not share them,” she said, still letting annoyance color her tone.
Frankly, the duke should have stormed out of here about four peevish comments ago, she reckoned.
Or, no—he should not have come here in the first place, but since he had, he should have been put off by her bad attitude.
But instead of making a fuss over their relative social positions, the duke smiled a little crookedly.
“You make a fair point,” he said. “Fine. I will be more forthcoming. But I must ask for your absolute discretion.”
Letty was too surprised to do anything but nod.
The duke sucked in a long breath, as if steeling himself.
“Right. Well, the child—Iris, as she told you—appeared at my doorstep about a week ago. I do not know who she is or where she came from, but she possesses an emblem that suggests she is somehow affiliated with my family. Before exposing her to the chaos of the family at large, I wish to have some information—and, I will admit, to give her some time to adjust. The only person she has spoken to, in any capacity, is you, Miss Knightley. I understand that I cannot keep her hidden away forever. Therefore, I propose the following: you agree to work with her for a month. Encourage her to speak more. Learn who she is and how she came to be at my doorstep. If you do those things, I will not bother you further. Indeed, I will use all the information in my not inconsiderable arsenal to aid you in finding a position that suits you.”
He said all this in a rush, as if being the one to share his secrets physically pained him.
Letitia regarded him for a long moment. It was, after all, a great deal of information.
“You really have no idea where she came from?” she asked eventually. “You aren’t just keeping more secrets?”
The duke put a hand over his heart, a mockery of a vow.
“I enjoyed revealing myself just a little that one time, Miss Knightley. I would not put myself in a position where I need to do it again.”
That rang true enough, and that distracted her enough that her pert tongue got away with her before she could think the better of it.
“Yes, I could see how that might hurt a man like you,” she commented absently, then caught herself.
But curse the man if he wasn’t smiling, a crooked kind of smile, like he actually was enjoying himself.
She decided to press her luck a little further. She had little power in this position, but she wouldn’t have any more power if she let him walk away from what was apparently the bargaining table.
“And what if I don’t do the things you ask?” she inquired delicately. “What if I still refuse?”
He gave her a thoughtful nod.
“To be perfectly frank with you, Miss Knightley, I am in rather desperate straits. So I would like to believe myself a gentleman enough to take your refusal at face value, but...” She tensed herself against a threat.
“I daresay I am more likely to come asking you again. I can be quite annoying if I put my mind to it.”
She was so shocked that she ignored the perfect opportunity for a rebuttal that he had given her.
“I... that’s it?”
His frown shifted until it was more perturbed than thoughtful.
“Well, yes,” he said. “I am not going to abduct you. But—and I know it’s impolite to mention it—but this place is not precisely marvelous.
” He waved a hand around the dilapidated flat.
“If this is what you could afford when you were working for Helen, I can’t imagine that it will take too long before your straits are rather dire. ”
“No, not that,” she said dismissively, waving her hand. Yes, she was poor. It wasn’t shocking news. “But… you know my secret.”
He jerked a thumb toward the door in a rather un-ducal gesture.
“What, your friend? Not to insult her, but she’s hardly a secret. I tend to deal in things a bit more dramatic than ‘two young women live in ugly rooms.’”
Letitia blinked. She’d spent so long worrying, looking over her shoulder for anyone who could trace her back to her past, that she’d forgotten that there wasn’t any inherent scandal in what she and Sarah were doing.
It was just that one redheaded woman and one one-handed woman together were so… visible.
Also, if the duke thought this was her secret, it meant he didn’t know about her other secret. She didn’t realize how heavily that had weighed upon her until that weight suddenly lifted.
She was almost tempted…
But no.
“I am sorry,” she said, shaking her head.
“If I work with you for a month, then I shall have only a few weeks before I find myself in the same position I am now. Only then, if anyone happens to learn that I was working for you, they will wonder why you dismissed me so quickly. I need a position that will last longer.”
The duke cast his eyes at the ceiling, as if seeking patience from divine intervention. The motion made the light shift on his face, and she noticed that he looked weary. Worn. As if he really did care about this little girl.
“First she doesn’t want to stay, then she wants to stay longer,” he muttered upward.
Then, he looked back down at her. “Fine,” he said, a touch of exasperation in his words.
“How about this. If, at the end of a month, we are both happy with the arrangement, you can stay until Iris needs a lady’s companion.
You needn’t look at me with such shock, Miss Knightley,” he added peevishly.
“I am not a monster. Of course, I want the girl to have a good life. She is under my care now. I will provide for her as well as I am able.”
Letitia had no words for this. And maybe he read her stunned stare as hesitation because he let out a huff and added, “I will even hire your friend. What can she do? It doesn’t matter. I am sure we’ll find a place for her.”
He said it so effortlessly—without even mentioning Sarah’s hand—that Letitia knew she had no resistance left.
“Fine,” she said, then quickly added, “But even if you dismiss me, you cannot let Sarah go unless she gives you cause on her own merits.”
He huffed. “What do you take me for, woman?” He ran his hands over his face. “Fine. Fine. Yes. I agree. Are you quite happy now?”
He sounded annoyed, but something about the set of his shoulders made Letty think that he was… enjoying himself. She didn’t trust that. She’d been the subject of gentlemen’s enjoyment more times than she wanted to be.
But what he was offering was too good.
“I suppose so,” she said cautiously.
He held out a hand for her to shake, which was absurd, because he was a duke and she was a woman, but what about this whole situation had not been absurd?
Letitia shook his hand. It was warm and uncalloused, aside from where he might hold reins. The hands of a gentleman. She felt a spark go through her when their palms touched.
And that was before he smirked at her, drew their joined hands to his lips, and brushed a kiss against the back of her knuckles.
She felt her eyes go wide, and the duke chuckled. He got to his feet before she could react further.
“Good day, Miss Knightley. I shall see you tomorrow morning; I know that your bags are already packed. I am certain this shall work out splendidly for us all.”
And then he swept out the front door, leaving an utterly gobsmacked Letitia in his wake.
Oh dear Lord, she thought to herself, her voice sounding faint even inside her head. What on earth have I gotten myself into?