Chapter 3 #2
“Retainer,” he repeated. “What an interesting prospect. I wager you would be a marvel at managing my life.”
She lifted her chin and said proudly, “I am quite good at managing many things, but I do have a funny feeling that you are unmanageable, Your Grace.”
“And why do you think that?” he asked, rather surprised by her comment.
Most ladies he knew wanted to manage him. They kept trying to marry him, which was quite normal for an unmarried duke. She clearly had no interest in setting her cap at him, so to speak, likely because she was too sensible.
Which ironically made him suddenly wish she would.
“There’s a wildness about you, Your Grace,” she said simply, “that tells me that if any lady attempts to put the bridle upon you, she will be severely disappointed.”
He rolled up his cuffs, baring his forearms. “You’re perceptive,” he said.
“I have to be,” she said, her eyes flicking to his wrists and the muscles between them and his elbows. “To know what to keep and what to let go, one must be able to deduce a great deal from very little.”
“Ah,” he mused, taking a step towards her. “And me? Will you keep me or let me go?” he asked playfully, though, much to his surprise, there was a sudden ache in his chest as he awaited her reply.
“For now,” she began, “I will keep you. Letting you go would be a terrible decision. I need this work,” she said.
“You need it?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” she said swiftly. “Anyone who seeks employment needs work. Most of us don’t do it just for fun.”
“I rather think you are doing this for fun,” he said softly.
Her brows rose. “Well, I am good at it,” she said without apology or overt humility, “and I am lucky that I enjoy it too.”
“That is luck,” he agreed, “to enjoy what one gets paid for.”
“And you?” she asked. “Do you enjoy what you do?”
“Again, bolder and bolder,” he marveled.
She jerked her chin back. “If you dislike it, of course, I shall dim my boldness and go to organizing things immediately.”
“I don’t mind it at all,” he assured. “I realize that you and I are to be more intimate than most because you are about to see a part of my life that no one else has ever seen. You will see what my father was like, and that will, no doubt, tell you a great deal about me.”
And he hated it.
God, how he hated it. How he hated having to let anyone that close to him and see just how hard it had been with his father, no matter how much he had loved the old man, no matter how much the old man had loved him.
But there was a shame in it, a pain in it, the fact that his father had not been as well as he had wished, and that Pierce could not fix him.
He wished he could have been the perfect son who healed his father.
Perhaps Pierce could not be fixed either. Perhaps one day he would wake up and begin collecting things or showing some strange attitude towards the world, just as his father had done. But he would not think of that now.
“I think I should go downstairs,” she said. “This is most—”
“Yes?” he asked, taking another step forward.
And then she glanced behind him and took a quick step to the side. “I came here to see your rooms,” she said. “Will you let me?”
“You want to survey my rooms?” he asked softly.
“Yes, if you would but absent yourself from them.”
He hesitated and stepped back, wishing to make her feel at ease. “If I stay, I can answer your questions better.”
She nodded and stepped farther inside. “You have nothing in here but a bed,” she said, stunned, “and a trunk.”
“Yes, for my clothes.”
“How does your man keep them?” she blurted.
“I don’t have a man,” he replied.
“What do you mean you don’t have a man?” she gasped. “You’re a duke. Surely you have a vast collection of things. Who polishes your boots?”
He laughed. “I have but five sets of clothes. I have a few shirt pins, and I can keep those in my trunk. I polish my boots. I don’t have to. But I like it. It keeps me calm.”
“What about all your books?” she all but yelped. “What about all your—”
“I don’t keep books,” he cut in, knowing this was shocking, considering how much he desperately loved stories.
“You don’t keep books?” she asked again, the concept to her apparently as appalling as he feared it might be.
He drew in a breath, ready to explain. “I buy a book. I read it. I give it away. I buy another. I read it. I give it away. And if I want to read it again, I buy another one because I think it is a great gift to the author that I can do so.”
“I don’t know if I could live without books surrounding me,” she breathed, though she looked less horrified than a moment before.
“If you had lived like I did with books nearly entombing you, you could,” he said. “How many copies does one need of Plato? A hundred? A thousand?”
She nodded. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.”
“You didn’t. You just don’t understand.” Sorrow welled up in him, and he felt a burn in his throat and eyes. “Even if you do this work for other people, you can’t really understand what it’s like to live with someone who…” And then he cut his own voice off.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Make me tell you so very much about how I feel.”
She smiled, looking about the quiet room then said, “Ah, I can never tell you that. It’s my secret skill, after all.”