Chapter Two
THE GRAND GALLERY IS even more beautiful than the photographs showed, and I’m in full professional mode, checklist in hand, making sure every display case is perfect, when I feel him before I see him.
I don’t know how I know he’s there. Maybe it’s the way the air shifts, or maybe it’s just that my body has decided to betray me by developing some kind of Veil-radar, but I know he’s entered the room even before I hear his footsteps on the marble floor.
Don’t turn around.
Just keep working.
You’re a professional.
I adjust the lighting on the display case in front of me, a gorgeous collection of Victorian-era fountain pens with mother-of-pearl inlays catching the light, and make a note on my checklist: Case 3: lighting angle needs minor adjustment.
There. See? I can absolutely focus on work and not on the stupidly attractive duke who is definitely walking closer because I can hear his footsteps now, and they’re getting louder, and—
Focus, Evianne!
I woke up this morning determined. No more spiraling.
No more thinking about Joseph or Glenda or how my entire life fell apart at the airport.
No more noticing how blue Veil’s eyes are or how his voice does that thing where it sounds like he’s amused by everything I say.
I’m here to do a job, a job I’m actually good at, a job that makes sense, and I intend to do it well.
Lady Hampton had signed to me over breakfast, ‘The exhibition setup should take most of the day. Don’t worry about being perfect. Just do your best.’
And I’d signed back, ‘I’ll make it perfect anyway.’
Because that’s what I do. I organize and coordinate and ensure every detail is exactly right. It’s the one thing I’m confident about, the one area of my life where I know I’m not boring or inadequate or any of the other things Joseph spent three years making me believe I was.
“Miss Evianne.”
I spin around too fast, nearly dropping my clipboard, and there he is.
Veil.
Standing maybe ten feet away, hands in the pockets of his dark jeans, wearing a charcoal sweater that looks like it was made for him, looking like he just stepped out of a magazine spread titled “Dukes Who Will Ruin Your Life.”
Stop it, Evianne.
“Your Grace,” I manage. “Good morning.”
“Veil,” he corrects mildly. “Remember?”
Right.
Veil.
Not Your Grace.
Just the first name of the man who probably thinks I’m here to throw myself at him like apparently every other assistant his mother has ever hired.
“Veil,” I repeat. “Sorry. I’m just—” I gesture vaguely at the gallery around us. “Making sure everything’s ready for tomorrow’s preview.”
He walks closer, and I have to actively stop myself from taking a step back. “Mother mentioned you were in here early,” he says, glancing around the gallery with what looks like genuine interest. “I thought I’d see if you needed any help.”
Help.
From a duke.
“Oh, that’s—you don’t have to—I’m fine, really, it’s just—”
Stop babbling, Evianne!
I take a breath and try again. “Thank you, but I have everything under control.”
His lips curve. “Do you?”
“Yes?” I wince internally at the way that comes out as a question.
Veil moves past me to examine the display case I was just adjusting, and I catch a hint of his cologne, something expensive and woody and entirely too distracting. “The lighting’s off,” he observes.
My cheeks warm. I was literally just about to fix that. “I know. It’s on my list.”
“Mm.” He’s still looking at the case, not at me, which should be a relief but somehow isn’t.
“My father collected many of these pieces personally. This one,” he taps the glass above a stunning pen with intricate gold filigree, “he found it at an estate sale in Bath. The owner had no idea what she had.”
Despite myself, I’m curious. “What makes it special?”
“It’s a Mabie Todd Swan. 1920s. One of only a few dozen ever made with this particular design.” He finally looks at me. “Would you like to see it up close?”
I should say no. I’m busy and professional and definitely not interested in spending more time with him than necessary. “Yes,” I hear myself say. “Please.”
Traitor.
Veil produces a key from his pocket and unlocks the display case with practiced ease. The way he moves is efficient, precise, completely unbothered by the fact that he’s handling irreplaceable antiques. He lifts the pen carefully, reverently even, and holds it out to me.
“Go ahead.”
I take it from him, trying very hard to make sure our fingers don’t touch, but they do anyway because the universe apparently hates me, and the brief contact sends a jolt of awareness up my arm that I absolutely do not have time for.
The pen is heavier than I expected. Beautiful too. The gold filigree catches the light, creating intricate patterns that must have taken hundreds of hours to complete. The nib looks hand-crafted, the kind of detailed work you just don’t see anymore.
“It’s gorgeous,” I whisper, because whispering seems appropriate when you’re holding something that’s almost a hundred years old.
“My father always said fountain pens were the last bastion of craftsmanship in a disposable world.”
I look up at him, and he’s watching me with an expression I can’t quite read. Not the cynical amusement from last night. Not the cool politeness from when we first met. Something softer, almost.
“He sounds like he was a good man,” I say.
“He was.” Veil’s voice is quiet. “He would have liked you.”
The words catch me off guard, and I don’t know what to say, so I just look back down at the pen in my hands because that’s safer than looking at him when he’s being unexpectedly genuine.
“Here.” Veil reaches past me, close enough that I catch that cologne again, and grabs a piece of paper from the nearby desk. “Try it.”
“Try...writing with it?”
“That is what pens are for.”
He’s teasing me. The Duke of Veilcourt is actually teasing me.
I uncap the pen carefully and touch the nib to the paper. The ink flows smoothly, effortlessly, creating a line that’s somehow both delicate and bold. “Oh,” I breathe. “That’s...”
“Worth the two hundred thousand pounds my father paid for it?”
I nearly drop the pen. “Two hundred—that’s—this is—”
“Breathe, Miss Evianne.”
I’m going to kill him. I’m holding a pen that’s worth a small fortune and he’s amused that I’m panicking about it.
“Here.” His hand closes over mine, warm and steady, helping me set the pen down safely on the desk. “See? No harm done.”
Except his hand is still covering mine. And he’s standing close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating from him. And he’s looking at me with those blue eyes that should be illegal.
I pull my hand away. Too quickly. He notices, because he notices everything, and I’m starting to realize that might be a problem.
“I should—” I gesture vaguely at my clipboard. “There’s still a lot to do before the preview tomorrow.”
“Of course.” He steps back, giving me space.
“Though I was hoping to show you some of the private collection pieces we brought over from the family estate in England. They’re in the study at the house, too valuable for public display, but Mother thought you might appreciate seeing them. For research purposes.”
Research purposes.
Right.
Because this is definitely about research and not about him testing whether I’ll follow him back to the house like every other assistant apparently has.
I should say no. I should absolutely say no. I should tell him I’m too busy, that I need to finish the gallery setup, that I don’t have time for private viewings of anything.
“That would be lovely,” I hear myself say. “Thank you.”
His smile is slow and entirely too knowing. “Excellent. Shall we?”
He gestures toward the door, and I’m already moving, already following him, already making terrible decisions less than forty-eight hours after catching my fiancé cheating.
And then his hand settles on the small of my back, just lightly, just guiding me through the doorway, but I feel it like a brand through the thin fabric of my blouse, and my breath catches, and he must notice because his fingers press just slightly firmer for half a second before he removes them.
Breathe, Evianne. It’s just a polite gesture. It doesn’t mean anything.
The walk from the Grand Gallery back to the house is brief, and I use it to remind myself of every reason this is a terrible idea.
He’s my employer’s son. I caught my fiancé cheating yesterday.
I’m an emotional wreck who cried on a private jet for four hours.
I have no business following a stupidly attractive duke anywhere, let alone to his private study.
And yet here I am. Walking beside him across the grounds while the Wyoming sky stretches endlessly overhead and my heart does things it has absolutely no business doing.
He opens the study door and gestures for me to enter first.
“Oh,” I breathe, stopping just inside the doorway.
The study is beautiful. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line three walls, filled with leather-bound volumes that make my fingers itch. A massive desk dominates the center of the room, and behind glass on the far wall, a collection of fountain pens catches the light.
“This is...” I trail off, because I don’t have the words for what this room is.
I move toward the shelves without thinking, drawn to the spines, running my fingers along them, reading the titles.
“You can take them down if you’d like,” Veil says from behind me.
I turn to look at him, startled. “Really?”
“They’re books. They’re meant to be read.”
“But they’re—some of these are first editions—”
“All the more reason to handle them properly.” He moves to stand beside me, pulling down a leather-bound volume.
“This is a first edition of Pride and Prejudice. 1813. We brought several of the rarer volumes over from England for the duration of the campaign. Mother thought they’d complement the exhibition. ”
My eyes widen. “That’s over two hundred years old.”
“Two hundred and thirteen, to be exact.” He holds it out to me. “Go ahead.”