The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Twelve

Harriet would later look back upon her first day in Lady Powlis’s employment as less of a trial period than as a sort of honeymoon. And a shorter-lived honeymoon no woman in English history had yet to endure, unless it had been her misfortune to marry Henry the Bride-Beheading King. For a few blissful hours, Harriet convinced herself that she had transcended this miserable world and gone directly to heaven. Was there a better position in London? Could anyone hope for a more benevolent employer?

Lady Powlis demanded so little of her that she felt guilty for accepting the generous wage she was given in advance. All the lonely old woman asked was that Harriet accompany her on a brisk drive in the duke’s curricle to the dressmaker’s and describe her experiences as a young actress. As her experiences treading the boards had been brief and marked with infamy, and her employer appeared in need of immediate entertainment, Harriet decided it would be a forgivable deceit to embellish what little of that time she could recall. Unfortunately, Lady Powlis sensed omissions in Harriet’s tale and begged for more.

Only a fool gave everything away at the first offer.

“I will never divulge your secrets, Harriet.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

“I will be patient, though.”

Patient Lady Powlis might be. Unfortunately, by the end of that first day, Harriet had learned that her employer was also manipulative, tyrannical, and easily bored. No wonder the duke had warned her that she wouldn’t last before he closed himself up in his library.

For the next four days, Harriet wore her feet off running up and down the stairs to answer the beldame’s every request. Tea, milk, biscuits, magazines. Being of sound body, Harriet might not have bemoaned the exercise had, in between those random demands, the duke not emerged from his lair to frown at her in his forbidding way.

As if it were her fault that his aunt expected a companion to provide services as a circus entertainer, confidante, and fashion consultant at the same time. Not that Harriet knew a thing about the latest in French costumes and whether her employer should purchase French knickers or not.

“Must you thump about the house at all hours?” he finally demanded, dark and moody again, his cravat rakishly askew and his gaze following her every move.

She curtsied at his shadow. If he intended to act as though he’d never kissed her, well, so would she. He wouldn’t know by her professional demeanor that she thought about it morning, noon, and especially at night, when she fell, bone-dead, into bed. He’d never guess by her impervious air that she yearned to feel that wicked mouth of his against hers again or that, even when he was in a mood, his melodious voice raised warm shivers on her skin. She knew what a man wanted from a woman in her position. Let him want. Let them both want. And let them pretend to completely ignore each other. It was much better this way. He stayed in his room. She stayed out of his way.

“Well?” he said, lifting his brow.

She bit her lip. “Your grace must forgive me. My mind was wandering. Did you ask me something?”

“Yes, I did,” he said with a vexed scowl. “Why is it that every time I sit down at my desk, I am distracted by your banging up and down the stairs? I cannot write a letter, open an account book, or close my eyes for a moment without hearing you.”

“Unless his grace knows of another way to placate her ladyship, I have no choice but to obey her.”

He pushed off the wall. Harriet held her breath. All her senses went on the alert. What was he going to do? He had that intense expression on his face again, as if he were about to… whisper a secret in her ear. Or something else. She stood, immobilized, trapped in a delicious tension. Touch me again. Wrap me in thunder.

And then, like the voice of an enraged goddess roaring down from Olympus when another god was threatening her favorite mortal, Lady Powlis shouted, “Hurry up, Harriet! It looks to be a rainy day all of a sudden. We’ll be soaked before we get in the carriage.”

“She’ll drive us both mad, I swear it,” the duke said, his eyes burning into hers. “No companion has ever stayed for long.”

Harriet sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I believe you.”

He stared at her. “Do you?”

“Yes, but I cannot help wondering-”

“Go on.”

She frowned, shaking off her fatigue. “No. It is not my place to wonder.”

“But it is my place to make you finish what you started to say. In fact, you may not go upstairs until you do. And then she’ll bellow at both of us.”

“Fine.” She lowered her voice, caught in his playful conspiracy. “I was just curious how you managed before. Was she this difficult in the castle?”

He leaned his head to hers. “She was worse.”

“Then how-”

“-did we stand it? The aunts live in the east tower. We live in the west. The castle is quite large and has countless hiding places.”

“No wonder she’s in the habit of shouting.” She turned, resolving to escape before she asked anything else she ought not.

“Another fortnight, that’s all you will last. I would bet on it.”

And somehow Harriet suspected he wasn’t referring as much to the challenges of her position as a companion as he was to the temptation she felt whenever she looked into his eyes.