Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” Lucy said slowly, quite certain she had misheard him. “You want me to what?”
Rowan did not rise from behind his desk.
He merely exhaled, long and resigned, as though the very act of asking had cost him something.
Sunlight fell across the papers before him, illuminating a desk arranged with military precision, an order that did nothing to soften the faintly beleaguered look in his eyes.
“Coach me,” he said. “In the social sense. I am told the word teach suggests optimism.”
Lucy stared at him. Then she laughed once, sharply, before she could stop herself.
“You have spent weeks informing me, at length, that society is tedious, balls are theatrical nonsense, and that no amount of instruction could make you palatable to a room full of strangers,” she said.
“You dismissed the entire enterprise of improving your prospects as.... what was the phrase you used?” She paused to think.
“Ah, ‘a polite form of humiliation’ if I recall correctly.”
“I remain fond of that assessment,” Rowan replied. “Unfortunately, events have conspired against me.”
Lucy folded her arms, skepticism written plainly across her face. “Then pray, enlighten me. What has changed?”
He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “You.”
She blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the suddenness of his eyes on her. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”
“You arrived,” he continued, unhelpfully calm. “You arrived, Miss Crampton, and suddenly my household contains a matchmaker. A professional one. Which means that, quite without my consent, the ton has concluded that I am trying.”
Lucy winced. “I did not announce anything.”
“You existed,” Rowan said dryly. “That was quite sufficient. Now every well-meaning acquaintance believes I am on the brink of matrimony and merely require encouragement, preferably in a ballroom under chandeliers while being examined like a horse.”
Despite herself, Lucy smiled.
“So,” he went on, “I am being invited. Pressed. Cornered. Lady Harrington has informed me that my absence from her ball would be ‘remarkable,’ which I understand to be a threat.”
“So you wish to attend,” Lucy said, “in order to appear cooperative.”
“I wish to attend...” Rowan corrected, raising a finger, “without becoming the evening’s cautionary tale.”
She studied him then, this man who had resisted every suggestion of improvement as though it were an insult, now asking, however reluctantly, for help.
“But why me?” she asked. “You could hire any number of tutors. Dancing masters. Charm specialists.”
He tilted his head. “They would attempt to fix me.”
Lucy’s brow arched.
“You...” he said, “... strike me as someone more interested in preventing disaster. I mean, given that you have your... status as a matchmaker and single lady of the ton to lose if you don’t find me a match.”
Lucy bit her lower lip. “You have a point.”
She stepped closer, her expression thoughtful now. “Very well. But you must understand, what you are asking is not that I give you mere instructions. It is an adjustment.”
“I have no desire to become agreeable. Merely tolerable,” he explained.
Lucy nodded once. “Then we shall begin with that aim.”
She paused, then added lightly, “Also, Your Grace? If you intend to survive this ball, you will need to stop looking as though the room has personally offended you.”
His mouth curved faintly. “A great deal of it usually has.”
“Yes,” she said, “but we shall teach you to look amused instead. Amusement disarms. Severity terrifies.”
Rowan considered her for a moment, then inclined his head in mock solemnity. “Very well, Miss Crampton. Save me from my own reputation then.”
Lucy regarded him for a moment longer than politeness required, her gaze thoughtful rather than timid, as though she were deciding whether this particular battle was worth engaging.
“Your tone,” she said at last with the careful restraint of someone attempting not to sound instructional too soon. “It is precisely the problem. I do not mean any offense by this, Your Grace, but it is what makes you quite... intolerable.”
Rowan lifted a brow. “I fail to see how a tone, which I have used to conduct estates, discipline staff, and survive Parliament, has suddenly become objectionable merely because it must now endure a ballroom.”
“That is because…” Lucy replied, unfazed, “... a ballroom does not reward authority or precision. It rewards ease, warmth, and the illusion that one is enjoying oneself, even when one is not.”
He exhaled quietly, the sound bordering on amusement. “You are asking me to pretend.”
“I am asking you to soften,” she corrected. “At present, you speak as though every sentence carries consequence when in society most remarks are designed to carry none at all.”
“That sounds like an extraordinary waste of breath.”
Lucy smiled faintly. “It is. Nevertheless, it is how connections are made.”
She stepped closer, angling herself directly into his line of sight. “When someone greets you, Your Grace, you respond as though they are welcome, not as though they have interrupted something sacred.”
“They usually have,” he said without apology. “You did the exact same thing the day you waltzed into my estate.”
“Will you take my advice or not, Your Grace?” Lucy snapped and crossed her arms.
Rowan regarded her, something wry flickering behind his eyes. “Fine. What if I fail to disguise my irritation?”
“Then you will only confirm every rumor already circulating about you, which will undo the very purpose of my employment.”
Silence followed.
“So,” he said at last, “I am to smile more than instinct allows, temper my honesty, and offer remarks that mean nothing to people I do not know, all in the hope that one of them might agree to spend a lifetime in my company.”
“Yes,” Lucy replied simply. “That is the general idea.”
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Marriage is a remarkably elaborate deception.”
“Why do you speak as though you haven’t been married before?” she asked, confused by his remark. “In fact, I find it quite odd that you need my help. How did you manage to charm the late duchess?”
“You are digressing,” he said plainly, locking eyes with her.
“I am not. It is important that I know.”
“It is not,” he retorted.
“I think it is,” she said back.
“You’re forgetting your place, Miss Crampton,” he said quietly now, lowering his head only so slightly. “Coach me. That is what you’re here to do.”
Lucy held his gaze for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, though her thoughts had already drifted elsewhere, pulled, against her better judgment, toward the conspicuous silence he kept around his late wife.
In the weeks since her arrival, she had learned the rhythms of the household, the tempers of the children, even the precise degree of stiffness with which the Duke of Langridge took his tea, yet that particular subject remained carefully sealed, revealed only in fragments and half-acknowledged pauses.
She told herself, repeatedly, that it was not her concern, that she required no such knowledge to carry out her task, and yet the curiosity lingered, as though some part of her wished to understand the man behind the title, even when she had no right to ask.
In the end, she forced the thought aside, recognizing that some doors were not meant to be opened forcefully.
“You are quite right, Your Grace,” she said evenly, refusing to rise to the deliberate gravity of his tone. “Well, since I am here to coach you, I propose we abandon theory altogether.”
His expression did not change, though there was a faint sharpening of interest in his eyes. “Abandon it in favor of what, precisely?”
“Practice,” Lucy replied with a composure that surprised even herself. “A conversation conducted under the conditions you are most likely to encounter.”
He studied her with squinted eyes. “All right, and whom am I meant to be conversing with?”
“With me, of course,” she said simply. “I shall stand in for a lady of respectable standing, mild curiosity, and a willingness to be charmed, provided you do not frighten her within the first few moments.”
A pause followed before Rowan’s mouth curved, not quite into a smile. “You are asking me to... flirt with you?”
Lucy resisted the urge to look away. Averting his gaze at that very moment would have been too dangerous. “I am asking you to attempt it, Your Grace,” Lucy corrected.
His gaze lingered on her face. “You are remarkably fearless for a woman whose employment depends on my goodwill.”
She met his look without flinching. “On the contrary, Your Grace. I am practical. If you cannot manage this with me, you will not manage it with anyone.”
“Very well,” he said at last, his voice deliberately mild. “Begin.”
Lucy did not oblige him at once. Instead, she moved a few paces away, positioning herself closer to the window as though she were already part of a larger room, her posture shifting subtly into something more formal, more distant, as though the air between them had grown crowded with unseen guests.
“No,” she said. “Not from where you are sitting behind your desk.”
Rowan’s gaze followed her, faintly puzzled.
“In a ballroom...” Lucy continued, “... you would not remain rooted to the floor like an offended statue. You would notice a lady from across the room, decide she caught your attention, and then, most importantly, act upon it.”
She lifted her chin slightly. “Stand, Your Grace. Then approach me.”