Chapter 6 Operation Ducal Departure
Operation: Ducal Departure
Eleanor had never considered herself particularly devious. Strategic, certainly. Determined, without question. But as she sat at her writing desk the morning after her dinner with the duke, quill poised over a fresh sheet of paper, she embraced a new quality: creative malevolence.
“One month,” she murmured, carefully writing the heading at the top of the page. “Operation: Ducal Departure.”
The grandfather clock in the hall struck nine, which meant His Grace was likely still abed after their late dinner. Perfect. She had at least two hours to set her plans in motion before he emerged to plague her household with his insufferable charm and distracting forearms.
She hadn’t missed how the servants had fawned over him. Even Mrs. Wright, who had served the Sinclair family for twenty years and prided herself on maintaining proper distance from all gentlemen, had blushed like a schoolgirl when the duke had complimented her selection of table linens.
“Traitors, the lot of them,” Eleanor muttered, though she couldn’t entirely blame them. The duke wielded his smile like a weapon, precision-targeted and devastating in its effect.
Well, two could play at that game. If Damien Westmore thought to win this battle of wills with his green eyes and casual disregard for proper attire, he would soon discover that Eleanor had weapons of her own.
She dipped her quill and began to write, her instructions flowing across the page in precise, determined strokes.
After completing her masterful planning, Eleanor slipped into the library seeking refuge from the chaos of her morning—the housekeeper was having vapors about the evening’s menu, the butler was annoying her with accolades about the newly arrived master, and her lady’s maid had somehow managed to scorch her favorite morning dress.
All she wanted was twenty minutes of peaceful solitude with her correspondence.
She froze in the doorway.
Her most inconvenient husband sat sprawled in the leather chair by the window, boots propped on the ottoman with casual disregard for propriety, reading what appeared to be her copy of the Times.
He looked annoyingly comfortable, as though he’d been there for years rather than the mere day since his unwelcome arrival.
Eleanor’s jaw tightened. This was her sanctuary, the one room in the house where she conducted her most important business.
Where she’d spent countless hours after George’s death, rebuilding her finances and planning her independence.
The duke had no right to colonize it simply because he’d decided London suited him.
She considered retreating, but something in his posture—a studied casualness that seemed almost too deliberate—made her suspect he’d heard her approach. The man was probably waiting to see if she’d flee.
Well, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. If he thought he could drive her from her own library, he was sorely mistaken.
Eleanor swept into the room with her head held high, settling herself at the writing desk with an emphatic rustling of skirts.
She withdrew her correspondence with an unnecessary snap of the paper, arranged her pen and ink with military efficiency, and began writing with deliberate scratches of her nib.
Damien didn’t so much as glance up from his reading.
Eleanor pressed harder with her pen, producing a satisfying screech across the paper. Still nothing. She cleared her throat—a delicate, ladylike sound that she hoped managed to convey her profound irritation.
The duke turned a page with maddening leisure.
Very well. If he wanted to play this game, she was more than equipped to win.
Eleanor rose and walked to the bookshelves, her heels clicking against the marble floor.
She selected a volume—Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women—and returned to her seat, dropping the book onto the desk with a satisfying thump.
Damien’s eye twitched almost imperceptibly.
Emboldened, Eleanor opened the book and began reading aloud in a voice dripping with virtue: “The modest virgin, the prudent wife, the careful matron—these are the characters which a good woman will successively aspire after…”
Finally, his studied indifference crumbled. “Fascinating choice of literature,” Damien observed without looking up. “Though I confess surprise that you find Fordyce’s views on feminine submission particularly relevant to your situation.”
Eleanor snapped the book shut. “I was merely refreshing myself on proper deportment. A concept with which you seem unfamiliar.”
“On the contrary, I’m intimately familiar with proper deportment.” He finally lowered his periodical, fixing her with those infuriating green eyes. “I simply choose to ignore it when it suits me.”
“How refreshingly honest,” Eleanor replied with false sweetness. “Most people attempt to disguise their lack of breeding.”
“And most people attempt to disguise their attempts at manipulation,” he countered smoothly. “Yet here you are, reading moral treatises at me like some sort of literary weapon.”
Eleanor bristled. “I wasn’t—”
“Oh, but you were.” Damien’s smile was pure mischief. “What’s next? Treatises on wifely duty? Shall I fetch you some needlework to complete the picture of domestic virtue?”
The man was persistently aggravating. Every strategy she employed, he deflected with that insufferable wit. “I don’t needlepoint,” Eleanor said stiffly.
“Of course you don’t. Too practical for such frivolities.” He leaned back in his chair, making himself even more comfortable in her sanctuary. “What’s your preferred method of intimidation? Mathematical calculations? Property law? I confess myself curious about your arsenal.”
Eleanor stared at him, her annoyance mounting. He was treating her attempts to reclaim her space like some sort of entertainment. “Are you always this insufferable?”
“Only when provoked,” he replied cheerfully. “And you, my dear duchess, are remarkably provoking when you’re plotting my discomfort.”
The fact that he saw through her so easily only increased her frustration. “I was simply trying to conduct my correspondence in peace.”
“By performing a one-woman theatrical production of moral superiority?” Damien raised an eyebrow. “How wonderfully subtle.”
Eleanor found herself caught between reluctant admiration for his quick wit and increased irritation that nothing seemed to rattle him. “You’re utterly vexing.”
“Completely,” he agreed with a grin on his smug face. “But I notice you haven’t actually asked me to leave.”
The observation struck too close to home.
She should simply order him out of the room—this was her house, after all.
But she’d already tried ordering him out of the house entirely and look how well that had turned out.
He’d simply smiled and made himself more comfortable, turning her own servants against her in the process.
Something about his casual confidence, the way he’d made himself so thoroughly at home, made her reluctant to issue commands she couldn’t enforce.
What if he simply refused again? What if he laughed at her—again?
“Perhaps,” Damien continued, folding his periodical with deliberate care, “you’re enjoying our little battle of wills more than you care to admit.”
“Enjoying?” Eleanor’s voice rose slightly. “I find you nothing but a nuisance.”
“And yet you’re still here,” he pointed out with maddening logic. “One might think a truly determined woman would have found more effective methods of removing unwanted occupants from her domain.”
Eleanor tried to hide her visage behind her correspondence as it threatened to shift into a smile. The insufferable man thought he’d won. Wait and see, Your Grace. I’m only getting started.
She kept her voice even when she spoke. “I refuse to be driven from my own library by some brandy thief.”
“Brandy thief?” Damien laughed, the rich sound filling the room and making her heart flutter inexplicably. Damn the man. “I prefer uninvited sampling expert, thank you very much.”
Despite herself, Eleanor felt her lips twitch, which only annoyed her further. The wretched man had no right to be charming when she was trying to dislike him. “Your presence here is entirely inappropriate.”
“According to whom? The same social conventions that would have left you at the mercy of your thieving executor?” His tone grew more serious. “Forgive me if I place little value on propriety that serves no one but predators.”
The unexpected acknowledgement confirmed that there was more to this maddening duke than frivolous charm. He almost sounded like he cared. Which was precisely the problem—she needed him to be simply awful, not… whatever he was.
“Regardless,” she said stiffly, “this is my private workspace.”
“Then by all means, work,” Damien replied, reopening his periodical. “I promise not to judge your correspondence too harshly.”
Eleanor stared at him in mounting frustration. Somehow, without conceding anything, he’d managed to claim victory in their standoff. He would remain exactly where he was, comfortable and unrepentant, while she sat there seething.
The truly maddening part was that a treacherous corner of her mind acknowledged his refusal to be cowed by her desperate tactics. But that only made him more dangerous, not less.
Eleanor returned to her desk with as much dignity as she could muster, her pen scratching furiously across paper as she composed increasingly creative threats to various business associates who’d failed to meet her expectations.
If she couldn’t intimidate her unwelcome husband, at least she could terrorize someone else.
The comfortable quiet that settled between them felt less like victory and more like an ominous truce—one that left Eleanor with the uncomfortable suspicion that she’d just lost the first major battle in what promised to be a very long war.