CHAPTER EIGHT
“His Grace’s preferences for the evening menu have been noted, Miss Grace.”
The words came from Mrs. Kemp, spoken over the afternoon tea that had become a daily ritual between the governess and the housekeeper.
They were discussing household matters, as they often did during this quiet hour when the children were occupied with their rest period and the house settled into temporary calm.
Mel’s teacup paused halfway to her lips.
Mrs. Kemp’s face went white. She had caught herself, but too late. The confession now lay between them, heavy with years of silence and secrecy.
“His Grace,” Mel repeated. Her voice was perfectly calm, though something cold had begun to spread through her chest.
“You said ‘His Grace.’”
“I misspoke.” Mrs. Kemp’s hands were trembling slightly as she set down her own cup.
“I meant Mr. Langford. Of course. Mr. Langford’s preferences.”
“You did not misspeak. You said His Grace. That is a form of address reserved for dukes.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Mrs. Kemp stared at her teacup as though it might offer salvation. Mel stared at Mrs. Kemp as though she might offer explanation.
Neither woman spoke.
“Mrs. Kemp.” Mel set down her own cup with careful precision, the click of porcelain against porcelain unnaturally loud in the quiet room.
“I have been employed in this household for three months. I have cared for those children, taught them, and cherished them deeply. I have earned the right to know who employs me.”
“Miss Grace, I cannot…”
“You can. You will.” Mel’s voice remained steady, but there was steel beneath it now.
“I have built trust with those girls. I have given them stability and consistency and the promise that I would not leave. If that trust was built on a foundation of deception, I have a right to know.”
Mrs. Kemp’s composure crumpled. She was a woman who had served this household faithfully for years, who had protected its secrets with the loyalty that came from genuine devotion. But she was also a woman who could see the truth when it was spoken, and Mel was speaking truth.
“It is not my secret to tell,” she said finally.
“You must ask him yourself.”
“I intend to.”
Mel rose from the table and walked out of the kitchen without another word. Behind her, she heard Mrs. Kemp exhale, the sound of a woman who had just watched something inevitable begin.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of professional competence that required all of Mel’s considerable discipline to maintain.
She conducted the children’s lessons with her usual precision.
She supervised their afternoon walk with her usual attention.
She read them their stories and arranged Viola’s curtains and settled Brutus on Thistle’s pillow with her usual care.
But beneath the surface, her mind was working.
His Grace, a duke, and not a wealthy gentleman with a comfortable income, but a peer of the realm. One of the most powerful men in England, if wealth and title were the measures of power.
She thought back over everything she had learned about him. Everything he had told her, and everything he had carefully not told her.
He had introduced himself as Mr. Langford. He had presented himself as a benefactor, then admitted to being the children’s father. He had shared his guilt, his grief, his struggle to be present. He had asked her to call him Rhys.
But he had never mentioned a title. Never hinted at a position in society that would have changed everything she understood about this situation.
Why would a duke hide his identity from his children’s governess?
The answer, when it came to her, was obvious and infuriating.
Because he was hiding his children from society.
Because illegitimate daughters of a duke would face scrutiny that illegitimate daughters of a gentleman would not.
Because the higher the father’s position, the greater the scandal, and the greater the scrutiny that would be directed at anyone associated with that scandal.
Including the governess.
She had been kept ignorant to protect the secret and to ensure that if she ever left this position, if she ever spoke to anyone about her time at Hartfell, she would not have information damaging enough to matter.
She had been a potential liability, managed through careful deception.
The realisation burned.
After the children were asleep, their breathing settled into the rhythms of peaceful slumber, Mel made her way to the study as she knew he would be there. He was always there in the evenings, waiting for their conversations, waiting for her.
She had looked forward to these conversations because she had allowed herself to believe they meant something.
Now she wondered what else had been a performance.
She knocked once, sharply, and entered without waiting for permission.
Rhys was seated by the fire with a book in his hands, looking for all the world like the gentleman she had believed him to be. He looked up at her entrance, and something in his expression shifted when he saw her face.
He knew. She could see it in the way his posture changed, the way his hands tightened on the book. He knew that she knew, and he was preparing himself for what came next.
“You’re not Mr. Langford.”
She said it flatly, without the question mark that might have softened it. She was not asking. She was stating.
Rhys set down his book. His movements were careful, deliberate, the movements of a man who understood that sudden gestures would be unwelcome.
“Your housekeeper called you His Grace.” Mel remained standing near the door, keeping distance between them.
“You’re not a gentleman with a comfortable income. You’re a duke.”
“I am the Duke of Trevane.”
The room went very quiet. Outside, the wind moved through the garden, rustling leaves and carrying the scent of approaching autumn. Inside, two people stood on opposite sides of a truth that changed everything.
“London’s most notorious rake.” Mel heard her own voice as though from a great distance, steady and cold.
“I have read about you. Everyone has read about you. The gambling, the women, the scandals that fill the gossip sheets every season.”
“Among other things.”
“The man who wagered five hundred pounds on a horse race while drunk and won.”
“It was a thousand.” Something flashed across his face that might have been dark humour. “And I wasn’t that drunk.”
“This is not amusing.”
“No.” The word came out heavy, stripped of the charm he usually employed.
“It’s not.”
“You have been insincere with me.”
“I withheld information.”
“That is a distinction without a meaningful difference.” She felt the anger rising now, pushing past the cold shock that had protected her since Mrs. Kemp’s slip.
“You told me your name was Langford.”
“It is Langford. It’s also Trevane. I have rather a lot of names.”
“You let me believe you were an ordinary man.”
“I am an ordinary man.” He rose from his chair, and she saw that he was holding himself very still, as though afraid that movement might shatter something fragile between them. “With a title I didn’t earn and a reputation I did.”
“An ordinary man.” The laugh that escaped her was harsh, nothing like the almost-smiles she had allowed herself over the past weeks.
“An ordinary man does not hide his identity from the woman he has employed to raise his children. An ordinary man does not construct elaborate deceptions to ensure that his governess cannot damage him if she leaves.”
“That’s not why…”
“Is it not?” She stepped forward, closing some of the distance between them, her anger propelling her past the caution she might otherwise have maintained.
“You kept me ignorant because ignorance made me safe. Because a governess who knows only about Mr. Langford’s illegitimate daughters is a minor scandal. But a governess who knows about the Duke of Trevane’s illegitimate daughters is a liability.”
“Mel…”
“Do not.” The word cracked between them like a whip.
“Do not use my name as though we are intimates. You have forfeited that right.”
He winced. It was subtle, barely visible, but she saw it. She had learned to read him over these past months, learned to see beneath the performances and the charm. And now she saw something she had not expected.
Pain.
Not the calculated performance of pain that a rake might deploy to manipulate a situation. It was real pain, the kind that came from watching something precious slip away.
“I should have told you,” he said. His voice was quiet now, stripped of defense.
“I know that. I told myself it was to protect the children, to protect the secret, but that was only part of it.”
“What was the rest?”
“You looked at me like a person.” The words came out rough, almost involuntary.
“Not like a duke, not like a scandal. Not like a conquest or a prize or a story. You looked at me and saw someone ordinary, someone who was failing at something important and trying to do better. It has been so many years since someone has looked at me like that.”
Mel stood very still. The anger was still there, burning beneath her sternum, but something else was pushing against it now. Something that recognised the truth when it was spoken.
“So you fabricated the truth to preserve how I saw you.”
“I withheld truth to delay the moment when you would see me differently.” He met her eyes, and she saw the resignation there, the expectation of rejection.
“Every woman I have ever known has wanted me to be a duke. The title, the fortune, the position. They pursue me for what I represent, not for who I am. You were the first person in fifteen years to look at me as though I might be worth knowing regardless of all that.”
“And now?”
“And now you know. And you’re looking at me differently already.”