Chapter 8 #2
"His Grace's personal affairs are none of my concern," Eveline said firmly, though the memory of his fingers tracing her jaw, his voice rough with desire in the candlelit library, made her words feel like lies.
"How remarkably discreet," Lady Thornwood observed. "Though discretion does suggest there's something requiring... discretion, doesn't it?"
"Or it suggests that Miss Whitcombe possesses the radical notion that her employer's private life is actually private," Harriet interjected, her patience clearly wearing thin.
"If His Grace sought amusement, he could have any lady in London.
The fact that he chose to hire Miss Whitcombe for her intellect, a quality few here would dare acknowledge, let alone possess, speaks to his priorities rather more clearly than your insinuations. "
The table fell briefly silent at Harriet's boldness, several ladies exchanging glances that ranged from shocked to admiring or to calculating. Eveline squeezed her friend's hand in gratitude, though she could feel the weight of every gaze in the room pressing upon her like a physical thing.
"Well," Lady Ashford said finally, setting down her teacup with a decisive click, "this has certainly been an illuminating afternoon. Miss Whitcombe, do give His Grace our regards when next you... catalogue for him."
The dismissal was clear, and Eveline rose with as much dignity as she could muster, her mother following suit with the expression of someone who'd just survived a particularly harrowing naval battle.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Ashford," her mother managed with admirable composure. "The tea was delightful."
"Was it not?" Lady Ashford replied with a smile that suggested she'd enjoyed every moment of the social carnage.
They made their escape with Harriet in tow, none of them speaking until they'd gained the relative safety of the street outside. The afternoon sun seemed harsh after the calculated dimness of Lady Ashford's drawing room, and Eveline blinked against it like someone emerging from a cave.
"That was a disaster," her mother said flatly once they were out of earshot. "An absolute, unmitigated disaster."
"I thought it went rather well," Eveline replied with false brightness. "No one actually threw anything, and I managed not to quote Latin even once."
"Eveline, this is not a matter to jest with," her mother said, her voice tight with worry. "The things they were implying..."
"...were exactly what we knew they would imply the moment I took this position," Eveline interrupted gently. "Mother, you knew this would happen. We discussed it."
"Discussing it in theory and experiencing it in Lady Ashford's drawing room are rather different things," her mother replied, pausing at the corner where their paths would diverge. "I must pay a call on Mrs. Morrison. Harriet, would you see Eveline home?"
"Of course, Mrs. Whitcombe," Harriet replied, linking her arm through Eveline's as her mother hurried off with the determined gait of someone preparing for battle.
They walked in silence for several minutes before Harriet spoke, her voice quieter than usual. "I defended you today, but gossip spreads like fire, Evie. You must think carefully about what you're doing."
"I'm cataloguing a library, nothing more."
"You know that's not true," Harriet said gently. "I saw your face when they mentioned him. There's something there, isn't there? Something beyond books and professional arrangements?"
Eveline thought of the locked cabinet, of forbidden texts scattered across a reading table, of Adrian's hand cupping her jaw and his voice rough with desire. "It doesn't matter if there is. Nothing can come of it."
"The ton doesn't care about books, Evie. They care about whispers. And whispers grow louder with each passing day." Harriet stopped walking, turning to face her friend directly. "A duke's interest, even professional, can ruin a woman. A duke's personal interest? That's complete destruction."
"Then I'll be destroyed," Eveline said with a firmness that surprised them both.
"Better dust and Latin than lace and poison smiles.
I cannot survive in the world those ladies demand, Harriet.
I've known it for years, but today simply confirmed it.
They'll never accept me as I am, so why should I contort myself trying to fit their mold? "
"Because the alternative is complete social exile," Harriet said urgently.
"You think you can live without society, but what happens when your family suffers for your choices?
When your mother can no longer show her face at gatherings?
When Charles finds his own prospects diminished because his sister is considered ruined? "
The questions hit like physical blows, each one finding its mark with painful accuracy. Eveline had been so focused on her own desires, her own frustrations, that she hadn't fully considered the wider implications of her choices.
"I should quit," she said quietly, the words tasting like ashes in her mouth. "I should write to His Grace tonight and resign my position."
"You should," Harriet agreed, though her expression was sympathetic. "But you won't, will you?"
Eveline thought of the library, of the thousands of books still waiting to be organized, of the medieval manuscripts that needed proper preservation, of the joy she felt every morning when she entered that sacred space.
And indeed, she thought of Adrian too; his rare smiles, his unexpected vulnerabilities, the way he looked at her like she was both a puzzle and a revelation.
"No," she admitted. "I won't."
Harriet sighed, squeezing her arm affectionately. "Then at least be careful. The gossip today was cruel but relatively tame. If they scent real scandal, they'll tear you apart like hounds with a fox."
"Let them try," Eveline said with more bravado than she felt. "I have eighteen thousand books to organize. I don't have time for their petty concerns."
But as Harriet left her at her door with a final worried embrace, Eveline couldn't shake the feeling that the afternoon's confrontation had been merely the opening salvo in what promised to be a much longer and bloodier campaign.
***
Monday morning arrived grey and drizzling, matching Eveline's mood as she made her way to Everleigh Manor. She'd spent the weekend alternating between defiant determination to ignore society's whispers and nauseating anxiety about facing Adrian after their charged encounter in the library.
She'd barely removed her damp pelisse when Graves appeared, his expression even more disapproving than usual, if such a thing were possible.
"His Grace requests your immediate presence in the study, Miss Whitcombe."
The study, not the library. That couldn't bode well.
She found Adrian standing by the window, his back to her, hands clasped behind him in a posture that radiated tension. He didn't turn when she entered, didn't acknowledge her presence for several long moments that stretched like centuries.
"Your Grace," she finally said, needing to break the suffocating silence. "You wished to see me?"
He turned then, and his expression was carefully blank, the kind of controlled neutrality that was somehow worse than anger. "I've heard about Saturday's tea gathering."
Of course he had. News traveled through London's aristocratic circles faster than plague through a rat-infested ship.
"It was a delightful gathering," she said with false brightness. "Lady Ashford serves excellent tea, though her choice in wallpaper leaves something to be desired."
"Don't." The single word cut through her attempted levity like a blade. "Don't pretend this is amusing, Miss Whitcombe. Your reputation teeters upon a knife's edge, and you're making jests about wallpaper?"
"Would you prefer I dissolve into tears? Beg your forgiveness for the crime of attending a tea gathering?" The words came out sharper than intended, her own tensions from the weekend boiling over. "I'm well aware of what's being said about me, about us, about this entire arrangement."
"Are you?" He moved closer, and she could see the shadows under his eyes that suggested he'd slept as poorly as she had. "Do you understand that association with me, given my history, makes you an even greater target for speculation?"
"Your history is not my concern..."
"It becomes your concern when Lady Juliette's name is invoked as a warning about what happens to women who entangle themselves with me," he said harshly. "When your name is linked with mine in ways that suggest... impropriety."
"Then dismiss me," she challenged, lifting her chin despite the way her heart clenched at the thought. "End my employment, send me away, solve the problem entirely."
Something flickered across his face which looked like pain. "Is that what you want?"
"What I want is to do my work without being treated like either a curiosity or a cautionary tale," she said, frustration making her bold.
"If knowledge is ruinous, then I embrace it gladly.
I could never survive in the world those ladies demand—the world of careful smiles and calculated conversations and pretending to be less than I am to avoid threatening masculine pride. "
"You think that's what I'm asking of you? To be less?"
"Aren't you? You lock away books you deem inappropriate, you worry about my reputation as if I'm too foolish to understand the consequences of my choices, you summon me to lectures about propriety..."
"I'm trying to protect you!" The words erupted from him with surprising force.
"You think you understand the consequences, but you don't. You've never experienced true social exile, never had doors literally closed in your face, never watched former friends cross streets to avoid acknowledging your existence. "
"You have," she said quietly, understanding dawning.
He turned away, jaw clenched. "After Juliette's defection, I became a pariah.
Not permanently, as title and wealth provide certain immunities, but for months, I was treated like I carried some disease that might infect anyone who came too close.
The whispers, the speculation, the constant scrutiny of every word and gesture. .. It nearly drove me insane."
"But you survived it."
"I'm a duke. I have estates to retreat to, wealth to help me survive, a title that demands eventual acknowledgment regardless of scandal." He faced her again, his expression intense. "You have none of those protections. If you're ruined, truly ruined, there's no recovery."
"Then I'll be ruined with purpose rather than wither away in respectability," she said firmly. "At least here, doing this work, I'm using my mind for something meaningful. Out there, in their world of teas and gossip and endless judgment, I'm dying by degrees."
He studied her in silence for so long that she began to fidget, uncomfortably aware of how his gaze seemed to see through her carefully constructed defenses.
"You're remarkable," he said finally, so quietly she almost missed it. "Frustrating, impossible, completely without proper self-preservation instincts, but remarkable."
Heat flooded her cheeks. "Your Grace..."
"Adrian," he corrected. "In private, at least. If we're going to be the subject of scandal regardless, we might as well dispense with some formalities."
"That seems... unwise."
"Everything about this situation is unwise," he replied with a bitter laugh.
"Hiring you was unwise. Keeping you on after the gossip started was unwise.
Standing in a darkened library at midnight, wanting nothing more than to.
.." He stopped abruptly, running a hand through his hair in that gesture she'd come to recognize as frustration.
"We agreed that didn't happen," she said carefully, though her pulse quickened at the memory.
"We agreed nothing of the sort. We simply fled in opposite directions before we could do something irreversible." He moved to his desk, creating physical distance between them that did nothing to ease the tension in the room. "The question now is how we proceed."
"I continue my work, you continue... whatever it is dukes do when not lecturing their employees about propriety, and we both ignore the gossips until they find something more interesting to discuss."
"That simple?"
"Why shouldn't it be?"
He laughed again, but this time with genuine amusement. "Because nothing about you is ever simple, Miss Whitcombe. You're a complication I neither expected nor wanted, and yet..."
"And yet?"
"And yet I find myself looking forward to Mondays with an anticipation I haven't felt in years," he admitted, then seemed to catch himself. "The library is beginning to show real progress. Your organizational system is quite ingenious."
The abrupt shift to professional topics was so obvious that Eveline almost smiled despite the chaos of emotions swirling through her. "Thank you. I should return to it, actually. The philosophy section won't catalogue itself."
"Eveline." Her name on his lips stopped her at the door. "Be careful. The ton can be crueler than you imagine, and I... I would not like to see you hurt because of your association with me."
"I'm tougher than I look," she replied, managing a small smile. "All that wrestling with Cicero builds character."