Chapter Three
“Miss Hartwell. His Grace wishes to see you.”
Josie’s hands stilled on the edge of the desk. For a moment, she could not draw breath.
Mr Carrick stood in the doorway between the two offices, his expression as unreadable as ever. He waited, hands clasped behind his back, while she struggled to compose herself.
“Now?” The word emerged smaller than she intended.
“Yes, Miss Hartwell. Now.”
She rose slowly, her legs unsteady beneath her skirts.
Her fingers found the back of the chair and tightened there, as though she needed something solid to anchor herself.
The Duke wished to see her. Why? She had only just begun the work.
Had she displeased him already—answered something too freely, presumed too much?
Or has he simply reconsidered the arrangement altogether?
“Of course,” she said at last, forcing steadiness into her voice. “I shall come at once.”
Mr Carrick stepped back into his office. Josie followed, smoothing her skirts with hands that would not quite cease their trembling. She had worn her second-best mourning gown that morning—plain black muslin, modestly cut, the cuffs showing faint wear where she had mended them more than once.
She pushed the thought aside. The Duke would scarcely notice such details. He had not troubled himself to notice his correspondence for months.
Mr Carrick led her from the estate office and along a corridor she had not yet traversed. The walls here were darker, panelled in rich wood that swallowed the light from the tall windows. More portraits lined the passage—generations of Greystone ancestors gazing down with stern, unsmiling eyes.
Josie’s heart hammered against her ribs. She fixed her attention on the rhythm of her steps, on keeping her breathing even.
They passed a footman stationed near a doorway. His gaze flickered toward her and away again, his expression carefully blank—yet his fingers tightened briefly at his side.
Even the servants were uneasy.
Mr Carrick stopped before a heavy oak door at the corridor’s end. He lifted his hand to knock, then hesitated and turned to face her.
“Miss Hartwell.”
She met his gaze.
“His Grace is…” For the first time, Mr Carrick seemed to search for words, which only sharpened her unease. “He is unaccustomed to company. You would do well to remember that.”
It was not quite a warning. But it was close enough.
“I understand,” Josie said quietly.
Mr Carrick studied her for a moment longer, then nodded and knocked once.
“Enter.”
The voice was the same she had heard the day before—low, rough, edged with something that put her in mind of winter storms. Yet hearing it now, knowing it was meant for her, made her stomach tighten.
Mr Carrick opened the door and stepped aside.
Josie drew a breath and entered.
The room was a library—vast and imposing, lined floor to ceiling with books.
Leather-bound volumes filled every shelf, their spines catching the firelight.
The ceiling soared overhead, ornately plastered, and tall windows at the far wall looked out upon gardens she had not yet seen.
A fire burned in an enormous marble hearth despite the mildness of the spring morning.
And standing before it, his back to her, was a tall figure dressed in dark cloth.
“Miss Hartwell, Your Grace,” Mr Carrick said from behind her.
The man did not turn. Did not move, save for the slow rise and fall of his shoulders.
Josie stopped just inside the doorway, acutely aware of Mr Carrick’s presence behind her, of the weight of silence pressing down upon the room.
“Leave us, Carrick.”
The words were quiet—but absolute.
“Your Grace.” Mr Carrick bowed; she heard the faint rustle of his coat as he withdrew. The door closed with a soft click that echoed in the cavernous space.
She was alone with the Duke of Greystone.
Her pulse roared in her ears. Josie folded her hands at her waist to keep them from shaking and waited.
The Duke remained motionless before the fire. Light played across his broad shoulders, the dark fabric of his coat. His hair was dark—nearly black—drawn back severely at the nape of his neck. One hand rested on the marble mantel; long fingers spread against the pale stone.
The silence stretched.
Josie’s throat tightened. Should she curtsy? Speak? She had no notion what protocol required when one was summoned alone into a duke’s private library.
“You are the vicar’s daughter.”
The abruptness of his voice made her flinch. It was not a question.
“Yes, Your Grace.” She steadied herself. “I am Miss Josephine Hartwell.”
“I know who you are.”
Silence again. The fire shifted, a soft crack sending sparks up the chimney.
“I did not summon you to confirm your identity, Miss Hartwell.”
Heat crept up her neck. “Of course not, Your Grace. Forgive me.”
He made no reply. He stood rigidly before the fire, as though she were scarcely present.
Josie waited, her fingers aching from how tightly she clasped them. She forced herself to loosen her grip, to breathe.
“Carrick informs me you have begun work on the correspondence,” the Duke said at last.
“Yes, Your Grace. I have answered thirty-two letters thus far, and noted several others that require reference to the estate accounts before I can—”
“Thirty-two.” He cut her off. “In one day?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Your father would manage perhaps a dozen in a week.”
She blinked. She had not known that—had not realised how far the work had fallen behind even before her father’s death.
“I have more time to devote to it,” she said carefully. “My father’s duties as vicar were many.”
“Indeed.” The word was clipped. “And now you occupy his place. How convenient.”
The injustice of it stung. Josie felt her spine stiffen before she could stop herself.
“Convenient is not the word I would choose, Your Grace.”
One of his shoulders shifted—slightly. Surprise, perhaps. Or displeasure.
“No?” His voice lowered. “What word would you choose, Miss Hartwell?”
She ought to retreat. To apologise. To choose safety.
Instead, she thought of Thomas’s hollow eyes. Of Lily’s tears. Of the debts that would have crushed them all.
“Necessary,” she said quietly. “I would call it necessary.”
Silence fell again, heavier now.
Her heart thudded painfully. She had gone too far.
Yet the Duke did not turn.
“Your father,” he said at last, his voice strange and distant, “was a fool.”
Josie’s breath caught. Anger flared hot and sudden in her chest.
“My father,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level, “was a good man.”
“A good man who died penniless and left his children destitute.” His fingers tightened against the mantel. “A good man who forgave debts he could not afford to forgive and gave away money he did not possess.”
Each word struck like a blow.
Josie felt tears gather and blinked them back fiercely. She would not cry. Not here.
“My father helped people,” she said tightly. “He saw suffering and eased it where he could. Perhaps that is foolishness in your eyes, Your Grace, but I call it goodness. I call it mercy freely given.”
“You may call it what you please.” His voice flattened. “It does not alter the fact that you are here because of his choices. Because he valued others’ comfort above his own children’s security.”
“He valued mercy over wealth,” she said before she could stop herself. “And I would rather be my father’s daughter, standing here in debt, than—”
She stopped, biting hard at her cheek.
“Than what, Miss Hartwell?” His voice was soft again—dangerously so. “Finish the thought.”
She could not. Would not.
To say ‘than be you’—alone, embittered, hiding from the world—would be unforgivable.
“Nothing, Your Grace,” she whispered. “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.”
“You did.”
He still had not turned around. Still stood facing the fire as though she were not even in the room.
Josie stared at his back, at the rigid set of his shoulders, and felt something shift within her chest. Anger, yes—but beneath it, something else. Something uncomfortably like pity.
This man had summoned her here to what end? To insult her father’s memory? To remind her of her insignificance? To assert his authority over her family’s fate?
Or simply to speak to another human being, even if only to wound?
“Why did you wish to see me, Your Grace?” she asked quietly.
The question seemed to catch him unprepared. His hand shifted against the mantel.
“I wished to know,” he said at length, “what manner of woman would accept such an arrangement. Who would enter a stranger’s house and work for a man she has never seen.”
“A desperate woman, Your Grace.”
“Yes.” He exhaled, the sound almost a laugh, though emptied of humour. “Desperation. That, at least, is honest.”
Josie said nothing. What answer could she offer?
The Duke was silent for a long moment. Then, abruptly, he straightened—and turned.
Josie’s breath caught.
She had heard the whispers. Had listened to Lily’s wide-eyed speculations, to Mary’s anxious hints. Yet nothing had prepared her for the man who now faced her across the library.
He was tall—taller than she had imagined—broad-shouldered and powerfully built despite the tension held in his frame. His coat was impeccably tailored, his cravat simple and precisely tied. Dark hair framed a face that would have been striking, even handsome, were it not for the scar.
It ran from his left temple, down across his cheek to his jaw—a livid, raised line that drew the corner of his eye and twisted his mouth slightly on that side. The skin was paler there, uneven, poorly healed.
But it was not the scar that tightened Josie’s chest.
It was his eyes.
Grey—cold as winter stone—and fixed upon her with an intensity that seemed to demand a reaction. A gasp. A flinch. Revulsion.
She did not give him one.
She met his gaze and held it, though her heart thundered and her mouth had gone dry.
Something flickered across his expression—too swift to name. Surprise, perhaps. Or suspicion.