Chapter Two
The summons came at precisely nine o'clock the following morning.
Eliza had been expecting it; one did not arrive at a ducal estate without being inspected by the duke himself, but she had hoped for at least a few more hours to prepare.
Perhaps time to tame her hair into something approaching respectability.
Mayhap time to rehearse the sort of demure, agreeable responses that employers generally expected from governesses and time to remind herself, repeatedly and firmly, that she was a professional who did not form opinions about employers within the first five minutes of meeting them.
Instead, she had spent the morning with Henry, coaxing him through a breakfast he barely touched and watching him arrange his toast soldiers into formations rather than eating them.
The boy had been quieter than yesterday, as if the night had reminded him that governesses came and went and there was no point in getting attached.
He had answered her questions with polite monosyllables, had executed his bow with perfect precision when she arrived, and had retreated behind that careful mask that made her heart ache.
"His Grace requests your presence in his study," Blackwood announced from the nursery doorway, his tone suggesting that "requests" was a generous interpretation of the actual message.
The butler's face betrayed nothing, but Eliza thought she detected a flicker of something in his eyes: sympathy, perhaps, or warning.
Eliza set down her teacup and rose, smoothing her skirts with hands that were not, she told herself firmly, trembling. "Of course. Lord Henry, I shall return shortly. Perhaps you might practice your letters while I'm gone?"
Henry nodded, already reaching for his slate with the mechanical obedience of a child who had learned that compliance was safer than questions.
He didn't ask when she would return. He didn't ask if she would return.
He simply accepted her departure with the resignation of someone who had learned not to expect permanence.
It made something in Eliza's chest ache. Six years old, and already so careful. Already so alone.
She followed Blackwood through the labyrinthine corridors of Northmere Hall, past more closed doors and draped furniture, and past portraits of stern Ravenshaws who seemed to judge her with every step.
The house wore a different aspect in the morning light—no warmer for it, yet touched with a deeper melancholy, as though the pale sunshine served only to reveal how much shadow still lingered within.
Dust motes danced in the shafts of light from the windows, and Eliza found herself wondering when these halls had last known laughter, warmth, or the chaos of a family actually living in them.
They descended to the ground floor, turned down a corridor paneled in dark oak, and stopped before a door that looked considerably more imposing than any door had a right to look. It was just a door, Eliza reminded herself. Wood and brass and hinges. Nothing to be intimidated by.
The door, she suspected, would beg to differ.
"The study, miss." Blackwood knocked once, received a curt "Enter," and opened the door for her with the air of a man sending a soldier into battle. "Good luck," he murmured, so quietly she might have imagined it.
Eliza lifted her chin and walked in.
The study was precisely what she had expected from everything she had seen of the house: large, imposing, and meticulously organized.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls, their contents arranged with military precision, spines aligned so perfectly they might have been measured with a ruler.
A massive mahogany desk dominated the center of the room, its surface bare except for a neat stack of papers, an inkwell positioned at exactly the right angle, and a single candle that burned with steady, controlled flame.
Heavy velvet curtains had been drawn back to admit the morning light, and had probably cost more than Eliza would earn in a decade of working as a governess.
And behind the desk sat the Duke of Northmere.
He did not rise when she entered.
Eliza had heard descriptions of His Grace, of course. Cold, the servants whispered. Distant. Handsome as sin and unapproachable. A man who smiled approximately once per decade and considered that excessive. But descriptions had not prepared her for the reality of Alistair Ravenshaw in the flesh.
He was tall, she could tell even with him seated, with the broad shoulders and lean build of a man who rode hard and fenced harder.
Dark hair, immaculately combed, without a single strand out of place, as if even his hair had been trained to obey.
A jaw that might have been carved from marble, currently set in an expression of studied neutrality that probably took years to perfect.
Everything about him spoke of control: the precise angle of his shoulders, the careful stillness of his hands on the desk, the way he held himself as if any relaxation would be a sign of weakness.
And his eyes…
Good heavens, his eyes.
They were gray. Not the soft gray of morning mist or the warm gray of a dove's wing, but the cold, hard gray of winter storms. They swept over her now with the detachment of a man appraising livestock at market, noting her plain dress, her sensible boots, her general state of presentability, and finding her, she suspected, adequate but unremarkable.
Then his gaze reached her hair.
Something flickered in those winter-storm eyes.
Something that appeared and vanished so quickly she might have imagined it.
It was a flash of heat, of intensity, of something that looked almost like hunger before it was ruthlessly suppressed.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, and his fingers, resting on the desk, flexed once and then went deliberately, forcefully still.
And then he looked away, as if the sight of her offended him. As if her hair, that wretched, impossible hair that had never learned to behave, was somehow a personal affront to his sense of order.
"Miss Harrow." His voice matched his eyes: cool, controlled, utterly devoid of warmth. "Please, sit."
She lowered herself into the chair across from his desk, folding her hands in her lap with what she hoped was an appearance of calm competence. Inside, her heart was hammering. Not from fear, she told herself. From... anticipation. Professional anticipation of a challenging employer.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the Duke of Northmere was, quite possibly, the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever seen.
Handsome and cold as winter, which was precisely the sort of combination that sensible governesses did not notice and certainly did not find compelling.
Sensible governesses, she reminded herself firmly, focused on the job.
"Your references were adequate," he began, shuffling through a stack of papers without looking at her.
His voice was clipped, efficient, the voice of a man who had a schedule to maintain and considered this interview an unwelcome deviation from it.
"Four previous positions. Two dismissals, two voluntary departures. "
"Yes, Your Grace."
"The dismissals." He glanced up, those gray eyes pinning her like a butterfly to a board. "Care to explain?"
Eliza met his gaze steadily. If he expected her to wilt under his scrutiny, he would be disappointed.
She had faced worse than disapproving dukes.
She had faced Lady Hart’s lectures on feminine propriety and the Ashby twins' arsenal of creative torments.
One handsome, frozen aristocrat could not possibly intimidate her.
"The first dismissal was from Lady Hart, who objected to my teaching her daughters Shakespeare.
She felt that exposure to literature beyond the Bible would corrupt their moral character and give them ideas above their station.
The second was from the Ashby household, where I was let go for encouraging the children to climb trees. "
"Climb trees?"
"It was an excellent tree, Your Grace. Very climbable. Strong branches, good footholds, just the right amount of challenge. And the children learned a great deal about botany in the process. We identified seven different species of lichen."
Did his mouth just twitch? No. Surely not. The Duke of Northmere did not twitch. The Duke of Northmere was carved from ice and disapproval and probably hadn't smiled for ages.
"And the voluntary departures?" he asked.
"One family relocated to London, and I chose not to accompany them. The other..." She hesitated, watching his face carefully. "The other involved an employer whose hands were not content to remain in appropriate locations. I removed myself from the situation before it could progress further."
His jaw tightened. Something dark flickered through his expression—anger, certainly, and perhaps disgust, though not directed at her. His hands pressed flat against the desk as if he were physically restraining himself from some reaction.
"I see." His voice had gone even colder, if such a thing were possible.
"You will not encounter such difficulties here.
I have no interest in..." He stopped. His gaze drifted to her hair again, caught the morning light turning it to copper and gold and something that looked almost like flames, and snapped away as if burned. "In anything inappropriate."
"I am relieved to hear it, Your Grace."
He cleared his throat and returned his attention to the papers before him, as if they contained information of vital importance rather than, Eliza suspected, a convenient excuse not to look at her.
Whatever had flickered through his expression was gone now, buried beneath layers of control so thick she wondered if even he remembered what lay beneath them.