Chapter 5
Two weeks had passed since Eveline began her work at Everleigh Manorf, and she'd settled into a rhythm as comfortable as her oldest pair of slippers.
The library had become her domain between nine and four, a kingdom of dust motes and leather bindings where she could mutter in Latin without anyone suggesting she needed medical attention.
She'd grown accustomed to the peculiar silence of the place—not empty, but filled with the whispered conversations of thousands of books waiting to be properly organized.
This morning had begun like all the others, with Graves greeting her at the servants' entrance with his customary expression of dignified suffering, as if her very presence caused him physical pain.
She'd climbed the back stairs, already mentally cataloguing the section of German philosophy she planned to manage, when she pushed open the library door and froze.
The Duke was there, seated in the wingback chair by the fire with a stack of correspondence balanced on the arm, his long fingers holding a letter that he appeared to be reading with the kind of focus usually reserved for death warrants.
Morning light from the tall windows caught the sharp angles of his face, making him look like a portrait of aristocratic concentration, if portraits could radiate barely contained irritation.
"Your Grace," she managed after a moment of simply staring. "I didn't realise you would be using the library today."
He looked up slowly, his grey eyes conducting a survey of her that lasted perhaps three seconds too long for comfort, taking in her practical wool dress, the leather portfolio clutched in her arms, and the pencil she'd already tucked behind her ear in preparation for the morning's work.
His gaze lingered on a curl that had already escaped her careful morning arrangement, and something shifted in his expression that she couldn't quite identify.
"You look at me as though I were a puzzle written in Greek," she blurted, immediately wishing she could stuff the words back into her mouth where they belonged.
The corner of his mouth twitched in what might have been amusement or annoyance; with him, the distinction was often academic. "Better that than a book I have no wish to open."
The words hung between them like a challenge, and Eveline felt heat rise to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the fire crackling in the hearth.
She turned to her work with perhaps more enthusiasm than strictly necessary, pulling out her notebooks and arranging her supplies with the kind of precision that suggested the fate of nations depended on the exact placement of her pencils.
The truth was, she'd heard things about the Duke that morning that made his unexpected presence feel weighted with new meaning.
She'd arrived early, a habit born of her disastrous first day, and had overheard two maids gossiping in the hallway with the kind of breathless excitement usually reserved for particularly good scandals.
"Three years next month since Lady Juliette's defection," one had whispered while pretending to dust a portrait. "The Cook says His Grace always turns black as thunder around the anniversary."
"Can you blame him?" the other had replied, glancing around nervously as if the Duke might materialize from the wallpaper. "Leaving him practically at the altar for that Earl, and now the papers say she's increasing again, another child with the man she chose over our duke."
"They say he truly loved her," the first maid had sighed with the romanticism of someone who'd never experienced heartbreak firsthand. "That he's never recovered from the betrayal."
Eveline had known about the broken betrothal, of course, but hearing it discussed by his own servants, learning that this week marked some sort of terrible anniversary, gave it a weight she hadn't expected.
It made her wonder if his presence in the library wasn't coincidence but rather escape from whatever demons the date conjured.
She set to work organizing the philosophy section, deliberately keeping her back to him, though every nerve seemed attuned to his presence.
The scratch of his quill pen across paper, the occasional rustle as he set aside one letter and picked up another, the way he shifted in his chair with a soft creak of leather.
..all of it created a symphony of distraction that made her work seem even more impenetrable than usual.
He's just a man reading his correspondence, she told herself firmly while trying to decipher a particularly damaged spine. A man who happens to be a duke, who happens to employ you, who happens to look like Byron's more attractive older brother when the firelight catches his profile just so...
"You're muttering again," his voice cut through her thoughts like a blade through silk.
"I'm translating," she corrected without turning around, though she could feel his gaze on her back like a physical touch. "This edition of Descartes has margin notes in Latin, French, and what appears to be someone's attempt at German, though I use the term loosely."
"My grandfather," he said after a pause that suggested he was debating whether to share the information. "He fancied himself a polyglot but never quite mastered German grammar."
"That's rather evident from his attempts to conjugate certain words" she replied, finally turning to face him with the book in question. "He seems to have invented at least three new tenses that don't exist in any language I'm familiar with."
Adrian had abandoned all pretense of reading his letters and was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite decipher.
She has brought order to these shelves, Adrian thought, watching her clutch the philosophy text like a shield, yet disorder to my peace.
"Perhaps linguistic innovation runs in the family," she continued, needing to fill the silence that stretched between them like a taut wire. "After all, you've managed to turn sarcasm into an entirely new dialect."
"Have I?" He set aside his correspondence entirely, giving her his full attention in a way that made her wish she'd kept her observations to herself. "And what would you call this dialect of mine?"
"Defensive Latin," she said before her better judgment could intervene. "All classical structure and emotional distance, designed to keep the barbarians at the gates."
"The barbarians being?"
"Anyone who might actually want to know you rather than just Your Grace, the Duke of Everleigh, seventh of his name, master of all he surveys, friend to none."
The silence that followed her pronouncement was profound enough that she could hear the library clock ticking from two rooms away.
She turned back to the shelves, her face burning with the knowledge that she'd overstepped rather spectacularly, when she realized she needed the large folio of Aristotle's complete works that sat on the highest shelf—directly behind his chair.
The sensible thing would be to ask him to move, but sensibility had apparently fled along with her employment prospects, so instead she approached with what she hoped was professional determination. "I need to retrieve something," she said, gesturing vaguely at the shelf behind him.
He didn't move, just watched as she attempted to reach around him, which proved impossible given the chair's position and her unfortunate lack of height.
She tried standing on tiptoe, stretching until her bodice pulled taut against her chest and her hem brushed against his boot with a whisper of fabric against leather.
Without warning, he rose from the chair in one fluid movement, suddenly far too close in the small space between furniture and shelves. She could smell his cologne and feel the warmth radiating from his body as he reached above her for the folio.
Their hands met on the spine of the book, his fingers covering hers with unexpected heat that sent a jolt through her entire arm.
She looked up to find him looking down at her, his grey eyes darker than usual, his face mere inches from hers in the shadowed space between shelf and sunlight.
She could see the faint line of a scar near his left eyebrow that she'd never noticed before, could count his individual eyelashes if she were so inclined, could feel his breath ghosting across her cheek.
"I assure you, Your Grace," she managed, her voice embarrassingly breathless, "I am quite capable of reaching a book without ducal intervention."
"And yet," he murmured, his voice low and close enough that she felt it as much as heard it, "you did not succeed."
He pulled the folio down but didn't immediately step back, leaving them trapped in a tableau that would have had the maids gossiping for weeks.
Eveline's throat felt dry as parchment, and she found herself muttering the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be a rather colorful Latin phrase about the inadequacy of library arrangements.
"What did you just say?" His eyes narrowed with interest rather than offense.
"Nothing of consequence," she said quickly, clutching the book to her chest and stepping back so quickly she nearly tripped over a stack of unsorted volumes.
"You just called my library arrangements something that would make a Roman soldier blush, and you claim it's of no consequence?"
"You speak Latin?" She couldn't hide her surprise, as most gentlemen's classical education extended to a few memorized quotations.
"Fluently, as it happens," he said with the kind of satisfaction that suggested he'd been waiting for this particular revelation. "So I'm quite curious what else you've been muttering these past weeks while thinking yourself unobserved."
"Nothing that bears repeating," she said firmly, though her burning cheeks rather undermined the denial. "Shouldn't you return to your correspondence? I'm sure the matters of the realm require your attention more than my cataloguing commentary."
"The matters of the realm can wait," he said, settling back into his chair with the air of someone preparing for entertainment. "Tell me, Miss Whitcombe, why does a woman of your obvious intelligence remain unwed?"
The question was so unexpected and so inappropriate that for a moment she simply stared at him. "Why does a duke of your obvious eligibility remain unmarried?" she countered when her voice returned.
"Correct," he acknowledged with a slight incline of his head. "Though the answer to mine is rather public knowledge, wouldn't you say?"
She knew she should leave it alone, should return to her cataloguing and pretend this conversation wasn't happening, but something about the way he said it, which was bitter and defensive and achingly hollow, made her bold.
"Cynicism is a shield, not a philosophy," she said quietly, meeting his gaze directly.
"You wouldn't wear it so tightly if you had never been wounded. "
His eyes hardened to flint, and for a moment she thought he might actually dismiss her on the spot. "And a lady who has never been wed speaks with curious authority on the subject of wounds."
"One needn't be married to understand betrayal," she replied, thinking of all the small betrayals that came with being too much for her world.
Too educated, too opinionated, too unwilling to shrink herself into acceptable dimensions.
"Though I imagine being abandoned at the altar provides a rather more dramatic education in the subject. "
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees despite the fire. "You've been listening to servants' gossip, Miss Whitcombe?"
"One can hardly avoid it when they discuss it directly outside the library door," she said, refusing to be cowed by his arctic tone. "Besides, your romantic misfortunes are hardly secret as the papers rehash them with depressing regularity."
"How gratifying to know my humiliation provides such reliable entertainment for the masses."
"That's not..." She stopped, frustrated by his deliberate misunderstanding. "I only meant that hiding from the world won't change what happened, any more than Lady Juliette choosing someone else means you're unworthy of being chosen."
"Only a man who once cared deeply could be capable of such bitterness," she added more gently, watching something flicker across his face.
For a heartbeat, he looked genuinely unsettled, the careful mask of ducal indifference slipping to reveal something raw beneath.
His jaw clenched, and his fingers tightened on the arm of his chair until his knuckles showed white, but he said nothing, which somehow spoke volumes more than his usual cutting remarks.
"Your work requires no further interruption," he said finally, his voice controlled to the point of strain. "I have business elsewhere."
He rose from his chair with careful precision, gathering his correspondence with movements that suggested he was holding himself together through will alone.
At the door, he paused without turning back.
"In future, Miss Whitcombe, perhaps confine your observations to books rather than your employer's character. "
"Books are far simpler to read," she agreed, unable to resist the final word. "They don't actively resist comprehension."
She thought she heard him exhale, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, before the door closed behind him with a decisive click that reverberated through the silent library.