Chapter Three #2
“Well?” His voice was harsh. “You have seen me now, Miss Hartwell. Does the reality meet your expectations?”
Josie swallowed. “I had no expectations, Your Grace.”
“Liar.” The word was soft, but sharp. “Everyone has expectations. The servants whisper. The villagers gossip. I am certain you have heard the stories. The monster of Greymont Hall.”
“I have heard gossip,” Josie said steadily. “I gave it no weight.”
His mouth curved into a bitter semblance of a smile, tugged askew by the scar. “How noble.”
“It was not nobility, Your Grace. Merely common sense. Gossip is seldom truth.”
“And yet here I stand.” He gestured sharply toward his face. “Scarred. Hideous. Precisely as the stories suggest.”
Josie’s fingers tightened in her skirts. She saw the challenge in his eyes—he was waiting for denial, for platitude, for false comfort.
She would not insult him with any of those.
“You are scarred, Your Grace,” she said quietly. “That much is true. But hideous?” She shook her head. “That is your word, not mine.”
His eyes narrowed. “What word would you choose, Miss Hartwell? Since you appear fond of choosing your own.”
“I would say you are a man who has been wounded.” She held his gaze. “A man who survived something terrible. That is not the same thing as being hideous.”
For a moment, he did nothing but stare at her.
Then he turned away sharply, crossing to the window with quick, restless strides. He braced one hand against the frame, his back to her once more.
“You know nothing of what I survived,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“No, Your Grace. I do not.”
“Then do not presume to speak of it.”
“I did not presume,” she said gently. “You asked my opinion. I gave it.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh—or a curse. His shoulders were rigid, tension radiating from him.
Josie waited. The room felt suddenly too vast, the space between them unbridgeable.
“Your father never saw me here,” the Duke said abruptly, still facing the window. “In all the years he served as vicar, he never once spoke with me in private.”
She blinked. “I did not know that, Your Grace.”
“I made it clear I did not receive visitors. Carrick conducted all estate business with him. Your father respected that boundary.” A pause. “You, it seems, have no such reservations.”
“I am not a visitor,” Josie said, lifting her chin. “I am here because you summoned me.”
His head turned slightly—not enough to face her, but enough that she knew he listened.
“And you came,” he said softly. “Without hesitation.”
“I did not have a choice, Your Grace.”
“No.” He straightened, his hand falling from the window frame. “You did not.”
He turned then, slowly, and crossed back toward the centre of the room. He did not approach her—stopped several paces away, maintaining the distance between them like a physical barrier.
Up close, she saw more: the scar’s reach beneath his collar, the slight droop at the outer corner of his left eye, the asymmetry it gave his face. And yet—his jaw was firm, his presence commanding.
He was not hideous. He was not a monster.
He was simply a man who had been hurt.
“The work you are doing,” he said at last, his tone carefully neutral. “Carrick tells me you are thorough. Efficient.”
“I am trying to be, Your Grace.”
“Some of those letters waited months for a reply. Your father…” He stopped, recalibrating. “Your father was slower in his final year.”
Because he had been stretched thin, Josie thought. Because he had taken on too much and believed he could manage it all.
“I am doing my best to address the most urgent cases first, Your Grace,” she said aloud.
“The Fletcher woman. You deferred her rent.”
It was not a question, but Josie nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. Her husband is gravely ill. She has three children and no income.”
“You were correct.” He cut her off. “It was the proper decision.”
She blinked. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Do not thank me. It was your judgment. I merely…” His jaw tightened. “Approved it.”
Silence settled again.
“You will continue the work,” he said. “Carrick will provide whatever resources you require.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You will report to Carrick. Not to me.”
“I understand.”
“This meeting,” he said, seeming to struggle with the words, “was an aberration. It will not be repeated.”
“As you wish, Your Grace.”
He nodded once, curt and final. “You may go.”
She curtseyed—belatedly—and turned toward the door.
“Miss Hartwell.”
She stopped, her hand on the latch.
“You did not flinch,” he said quietly. “When I turned. You did not look away.”
“No.”
“Why?”
The question hung in the air between them. She could feel the weight of it, the challenge and the confusion and something else she could not quite name.
“Because you are not a monster, Your Grace,” she said softly. “No matter what you believe.”
His expression shifted—something raw and wounded flashing across his face before he turned away, presenting his back to her once more.
“Go, Miss Hartwell,” he said, his voice rough. “Before I reconsider this arrangement.”
Josie slipped from the library, closing the door behind her with unsteady hands.
Mr Carrick stood waiting in the corridor, his face carefully neutral.
“Miss Hartwell. I trust all is well?”
“Yes.” She steadied herself. “His Grace enquired after the correspondence. I believe he was… satisfied.”
Mr Carrick studied her briefly, then inclined his head. “Very good. I shall see you back to the estate office.”
They walked in silence.
Josie’s thoughts reeled, replaying every word, every glance.
You did not flinch.
No. She had not.
And somehow, she knew that mattered more than anything else she might have said or done.