Chapter 7 #2
She’d meant to be as earnest as he had been.
Indeed, she was grateful. She knew that Sarah chafed under the idea that she was useless because of her hand, that she hated relying on Letitia’s income for support.
When Letty had told her that she would be working as a maid in the duke’s house, you might have thought Sarah had heard she was being elevated to the peerage herself; that’s how pleased she was.
But in the end, she added a wry little note because the duke’s flicker of vulnerability had caught her off guard, and that was not a place she liked to be. She was relieved when familiar mischief went back into his eyes.
“She did seem best pleased,” he said. “But what about you, Miss Knightley? Are you pleased? I can assure you that the accommodations will meet your standards. You shall be near the nursery, which is in the family wing—just down the corridor from my own rooms. It gets fine light and—”
“The nursery is down the hall from you?” she asked. “That is… unusual, isn’t it?”
In her experience, gentlemen preferred that children—with their noise and their mess—be far, far away from their own space. Of course, this particular child was distinctly not noisy, but still.
“Where else should I put her?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. It was annoying that he could do that and still be handsome. “The stables? Goodness, Miss Knightley.”
The duke looked surprised in a way that reminded Letitia that he was a bachelor and, as far as she recalled, without any brothers and sisters of his own, not that she kept a personal copy of Debrett’s on hand to check. But he wouldn’t be used to dealing with children.
And yet, here he was, bringing Iris into his hope, seeking out a governess, keeping her right down the hall from him—in the family wing.
She felt a deeply unpleasant pang of tenderness toward him. It was almost affection.
Fortunately, he ruined that feeling almost immediately.
“Besides,” he said cheerfully, “the proximity will help me assess if you are likely to meet our month’s deadline. If I hear the cheerful chatter of children’s voices, I shall know you were as good as Helen says. If not, I shall have to wonder where on earth I went wrong, seeking you out for Iris.”
“So, your argument,” she said, smiling acerbically, “is that the important thing about the deadline—which determines my livelihood, mind you—is whether or not you were right about me?”
“Oh, naturally,” he said. There was nary a flicker in his grin. “I am a duke. We are dreadfully self-absorbed. Haven’t you heard? Nearly everything is about me.”
She could not help it; she rolled her eyes. When she looked at him again, he was still beaming, but now he was leaning in her direction a bit more.
“You will not let me down, will you, Miss Knightley?” he purred. “You’ll work very hard to please me, will you not?”
He sounded flirtatious, but it wasn’t the kind of flirtation that made her feel uncomfortable. Instead, it was casual, cheerful, as if he was simply so overfull with rakish energy that it flowed out of him like water.
Letitia knew dangerous gentlemen. Their flirtation—if it could be called such a thing—didn’t feel like this. It certainly didn’t happen when Letitia was in a room with an open door, a door that would let her back away from the duke easily. And the smiles they gave weren’t cheerful. They were cruel.
It wasn’t about happiness; it was about control.
But for all that the duke was leaning in, his hands weren’t reaching, grasping, or controlling. They were still behind him, propping him up on the edge of a table.
And, most importantly, he made Letitia want to smile back.
She didn’t, of course. He might not be a dangerous man, but God only knew that he didn’t need any encouragement. It was clear that far too many people in his life had told him he was charming.
“You seem to forget,” she said, squaring her shoulders in the way every governess learned to do as soon as they had their first angelic-looking child, the kind that knew their sweet face could get them out of all kinds of trouble, “that you were the one who begged me to come here.”
Why did her bad manners seem to delight him so much?
“I don’t know that I would call it begging, Miss Knightley,” he said, standing up straight.
She pretended to think about it.
“Harassing,” she supplied brightly.
“Employing,” he returned, taking a step forward.
“Badgering,” she offered, looking up at him defiantly.
“Convincing,” he articulated each syllable carefully—and it was then that Letitia realized that she’d been looking at his mouth.
She should have looked away the instant it occurred to her.
She should have taken a step back, left the room, thrown herself into her work, and avoided this duke as best as possible for as long as possible.
She should have stayed away from him. But she didn’t.
Instead, her eyes stayed where they were, and she felt her breath hitch, just a little.
She forced her gaze upward and realized…
He was looking at her, too, his eyes darting around her face, but definitely, absolutely lingering on her mouth.
Why didn’t she feel any danger? Was it just because he was looking at her mouth—and not her breasts or her backside? Was she really so easily swayed?
But she must have been, because when he leaned just a little bit closer toward her, she did too.
Her hand twitched at her side, and she almost—almost—reached out to him. His smile got a little softer. She bit her lip, then watched him track the movement. He sucked in a breath.
And then, miraculously, she remembered herself.
She took a step back, blinking rapidly as if she was shaking off some kind of magic spell.
He looked nearly as startled as she felt, and, despite everything, she felt a flicker of satisfaction that she wasn’t the only one affected by… whatever that had been.
She didn’t waste any energy trying to describe it. What she needed to do was just get out of here. Focus on Iris, like she had been hired to do.
“Right,” she said, sounding a bit too breathless. “I will go get settled in and then meet with Iris. Thank you again for the opportunity, Your Grace.”
She didn’t make eye contact as she curtsied, and she didn’t wait for him to reply before she fled. If that made her a coward, so be it. Better a safe coward than an imperiled intrepid.
She had learned that lesson long, long ago.