Chapter 7
The wretched man was standing directly behind her.
Thalia cleared her throat, concentrating on the papers. He was so close that she could feel the warmth of his body. Perhaps if he wasn’t so ludicrously tall and large, he wouldn’t be quite so imposing.
“I shall read better without you looming over me, you know,” she remarked thinly.
“I am not looming.”
She twisted around, squinting up at him. “No?”
He peered down at her, face blank. “No.”
She gave up. They had already argued enough. Besides, she needed his carriage to get home safely. It was too far to walk, to say nothing of the fact that it was midnight.
I’ve never been out so late, not unless I was at some ball.
And the parties, of course, were so well chaperoned that she was doubtless safer than if she were in her own room at home.
For example, at those parties, she would never be alone with a man in a room with the door closed at such a late hour. She would be beyond ruined if it were discovered.
Even the butler who showed me in here gave me a strange look. I wonder if he escorts many ladies into the Duke’s study after dark?
That thought gave her an odd feeling. A sort of crumpling in her stomach, an uneasy tingle that came out of nowhere and refused to dissipate.
She cast a quick, uncertain look at the Duke. His gaze was now fixed on the papers, a faint line resting between his heavy eyebrows.
There could be no denying that he was a handsome man. Surely, he must have gotten the nickname Lord of Scandal from… well, a scandal. Men were allowed to misbehave, weren’t they?
“Your driver barely looked at me when I got into the carriage,” Thalia heard herself say.
He glanced at her, unblinking. “I beg your pardon?”
“He seemed entirely used to picking up young women from their homes in the dead of night,” she stated. “Can I assume that you often entertain ladies alone after hours?”
His eyes narrowed, but Thalia did not allow herself to look away.
“No,” he said shortly. “I do not.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t require you to believe it. What I require, my dear Lady Thalia, is that you look at these papers and translate them.
My grasp of the German language is poor enough that the only conclusion I can draw is that it is German.
That, my dear, is why you are here. This is not an Ann Radcliffe novel.
I do not have nefarious schemes against your person.
Do as I ask, and you’ll soon be on your way.
Save your musings on my habits and scandals for later if you please. ”
Thalia flinched. A flush spread down her neck at this scolding. A dozen sharp retorts jumped to her mind, but she cleared her throat, refusing to allow them to come out of her mouth.
The Duke was, after all, right. The sooner she translated the papers, the better for everybody.
She tore her gaze away from his unblinking stare and glanced down at the papers once more.
“They are excerpts,” she noted, “from novels.”
The Duke blinked. Clearly, he had not expected this.
“Novels?”
She nodded, tapping the middle paper. “Es ist eine allgemein anerkannte Wahrheit, dass ein Junggeselle im Besitz eines schonen Vermogens nichts dringender braucht als eine Frau.”
He frowned. “And that means what, exactly?”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,” Thalia quoted and saw understanding dawn on the Duke’s face.
“The opening lines of Pride and Prejudice,” he murmured. “A fine book, I won’t lie. And what of the other quotes?”
“They are from the same book, I believe, but the opening line is the one I immediately recognized.”
“Why on earth would she write down translated lines from a novel, only to hide them?” he wondered aloud, frowning.
Thalia glanced back at the papers. “I am wondering the same thing. There must be some significance. I know that Laura used to translate various pieces of literature into German and preferred to read German novels. It helped her better understand the language.”
The Duke frowned. “I had no idea that she did any of this.”
Thalia tilted her head. “Really? I cannot understand why not. My brother knows just about everything I do. Of course, he utilizes that knowledge to make sure I don’t embarrass him in public, but I suppose we were close once.”
She’d said the wrong thing; that was immediately evident.
The Duke reared back, head snapping up, and his lips tightened. “I know my sister suitably well,” he snapped. “I simply did not realize she had a penchant for German literature. I am a busy man.”
Thalia didn’t bother to point out that, apparently, he knew very little about his sister. But Laura spoke highly of him, as if they had once been friends. Was it his absence that changed things?
That seemed likely. She’d heard of the Duke’s long absence.
For the first year, his family had said that he had gone on a Grand Tour, a fairly normal thing for a young man to do.
But as the first year bled into the second, followed by a third, people began to whisper.
It wasn’t usual for a young man to stay out of the country for years on end, especially when he was the only son and heir to a dukedom.
He had only returned after the old Duke had died, and of course, a great deal of censure came with that.
Thalia recalled her brother reading about his return in the papers, sniffing to himself, and remarking that a dutiful son would have been by his father’s side till the end.
For once, Thalia found herself inclined to agree.
Certainly, the Duke did not seem to be the sort of man to weep by his father’s bedside.
But neither did he appear hard and unfeeling.
His worry for his sister seeped out of every pore, his movements keen and jerky.
The very fact that she was here, that he’d agreed to their pseudo-engagement simply to secure her help, told her that he was worried about Laura.
And perhaps he should be. I am worried about Laura, too.
“Laura has books in her room, doesn’t she?” she said. “Might I see them?”
He eyed her. “You’re prepared to wander the house at night with only my company? Into a bedroom, no less?”
She sniffed. “I think it is rather late to worry about my reputation, don’t you? I want Laura found just as much as you do.”
“Very well. Follow me.”
Without another word, he seized a candle and strode out of the room, leaving her to follow. She scuttled along the dark hallways after him, keen to outpace the shadows.
At home, Jonathan kept candles and oil lamps burning in the hallways.
Rooms like the drawing room and library were locked after bedtime, but the halls were left open.
He was keen on keeping them well-lit. To discourage mischief, he said, whatever that meant, but Thalia suspected the profusion of light was to keep her from getting up to no good.
Not that there was much naughtiness one could get up to in the hallway.
Here, shadows filled the corners of every room, black and imposing.
They passed open doors with absolute darkness beyond, so impenetrable that she could not guess what lay behind the doorway.
The Duke’s rapid footsteps did not leave her much leisure to stop and stare.
She almost ran to keep up with him, breathless already.
“There is no night footman on duty,” he remarked suddenly, making her flinch. “But if we are noisy, the housekeeper might come to investigate. Or a maid, perhaps. I suggest we keep our voices down.”
“Your servants are gossips, I take it?” she whispered.
“All people are curious. It’s hard to blame them.”
Thalia blinked. “I suppose. I had not thought of it like that.”
He did not reply. They climbed a staircase, a thick red carpet muffling their steps.
A round landing waited at the top, with various hallways opening up like spokes from a wheel.
Without hesitation, the Duke turned right, briefly plunging her into darkness when he took the candle with him down the narrow corridor.
“I apologize for the long walk,” he offered. “I have suggested to my sister that she take a larger room in the west wing. My own room and our mother’s room are there. However, she insists on keeping her childhood bedroom. I have no idea why.”
Thalia said nothing. Laura had told her once that her bedroom had plenty of hiding places. There were loose floorboards, wall panels that could be lifted to reveal alcoves behind, a hollow window seat, and so on. No doubt a larger, fancier bedroom would not have so many good places.
The Duke abruptly stopped before a door and pushed it open. Inside was darkness, but already, Thalia could make out the square shadow of a bookcase.
“Let me,” he murmured, stepping past her and setting the candle down on a low table.
She blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the flickering, buttery light. Laura’s room was still a little like a child’s—untidy and rather too small. There was not a surface that was not covered in clothes, paper, or books.
And the books!
“I don’t know why I bothered keeping a library,” the Duke commented wryly, eyeing the overflowing bookshelf. “It seems she has her own right here.”
“Pride and Prejudice,” Thalia murmured, hurrying towards the bookcase. “Something to do with these books.”
“There are at least three copies of Pride and Prejudice that I can see,” the Duke noted, baffled. “Why so many copies?”
“I can answer that. Laura makes her own translations. So, she likes to have several copies. She’ll have a pristine one for reading, and at least two spares for annotations, in case of ink blots and such.
” She paused, glancing up at him. “Laura has a great interest in translation. She has several German novels that she hopes to translate into English and vice versa. Did you not know?”
The Duke’s expression shuttered. “It hardly matters.”
But I think it does matter to you, Your Grace, Thalia thought, biting back a grim smile.