She glanced out the window. “I’m not a lady.”
He hadn’t used the term in reference to an aristocratic position, but she’d obviously taken it that way. “It was my impression noble birth wasn’t required for membership.”
Her gaze slid back to him, and he liked having it there, focused on him. “I don’t think I’d really enjoy gambling. I work too hard for my money to risk losing even so much as a tuppence on the turn of a card.”
“It sounds as though you have a monster for an employer.”
Her light laughter floated toward him and swirled through his soul, creating havoc there. “He has his good qualities.”
And his bad. He was well aware he wasn’t the easiest of men to get along with, had very exacting standards he expected others to meet. She excelled in that regard. Still, he was amazed she’d stayed with him as long as she had. “How goes the hunt for my duchess?”
She gave a little scoff. “You make it sound as though she’s to be your prey.”
“Hardly.”
“Still, duchess sounds so impersonal. Would it not be better to be searching for a wife, a partner . . . a soul mate?”
“Can you imagine what a woman whose soul mirrored mine would be like?” Cold, haughty, unbearable.
“One of the ladies has claimed she is a master at fencing, but I fear with her you might find yourself skewered.”
He laughed darkly. “So you do find me difficult.”
After taking a long, slow sip of her brandy, she said, “The servants are terrified of displeasing you.”
“Are they?” He knew he was a hard taskmaster, had little patience for mistakes. But terrified seemed a bit of an overreaction. “It’s not as though I flog them.”
She lifted a delicate shoulder. “You’re a duke. That alone is unnerving for some.”
“You’re not afraid of me.”
She held his gaze, and he recognized a bit of a dare in those green eyes. “No, but then, I have placed myself in a financial position to be able to walk away without looking back, without worry, should I find myself more than periodically miffed at you or consider myself ill-treated.”
Something in her tone, a forced lightness with an undercurrent of warning, caused a fissure of unease to score his gut. Had she been forced to run, to escape, to go into hiding? Was that the reason the men he’d hired had been unable to find any evidence of her existing before she stepped into his office? Once he’d determined he didn’t care about her past, he’d never delved into her personal life or asked about anything other than what she’d shared during her interview. He’d relegated their relationship to business only. In his obsession with amassing a fortune, of ensuring he could provide for his family and the estates, he may have been remiss in devoting the proper amount of attention to her. With earnestness, he leaned forward. “Before you came into my employ, did you experience an occasion where you couldn’t walk away?”
She glanced back out the window, and he wondered if she was contemplating running now. Tell me, tell me who you were before you were my secretary. It suddenly seemed vital to know.
“Don’t you think everyone has moments like that?” Her attention landed on him so solidly he felt it like a blow. “Even you. Surely the mantle of duke sometimes feels like a shroud rather than a cloak woven of silken threads.”
Sometimes it felt like a coat of iron dragging him down into the mire. Not that he was going to admit that. Admiring her ability to deflect, he settled back and decided to pursue what he sought more subtly. “What part of Kent are you from?” She’d told him at least her county of birth during her interview.
“A little village you would have never heard of.”
“Where your father is the vicar.”
The corners of her mouth turned up provocatively. He liked this late-into-the-night-sipping-brandy-not-working Pettypeace. “You knew that for the lie it was.”
“I did, yes.”
“But you hired me anyway.”
“If I ever needed you to lie for me, I knew you had the talent for it. Most would have been duped by your forthright delivery, but I have a tendency not to trust the surface of things and to look a little deeper. What was your father’s occupation?”
“I was born in Kent, but we moved to London when I was quite small.”
Apparently, she didn’t want to talk about her father. He rarely spoke of his but suspected they avoided the topic for different reasons. “You know, Pettypeace, you can trust me with your secrets.”
“Once told, it’s no longer a secret.”
He couldn’t argue with that assessment. “You do harbor one, then.”
“Everyone has secrets. I imagine even you have one or two. You can trust me with yours.”
It wasn’t a matter of trust but rather of shame. He wondered if the same could be said of hers but wasn’t going to press. “This reminds me of a game I played with the stablemaster’s daughter when I was four-and-ten: show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
Even from this distance, with so little light in the room, he saw the pink hue darken her cheeks, signaling she’d caught his innuendo. Of course she had. Often he didn’t have to finish a sentence before she knew where he was going. Quite frequently they were of the same mind. “You are naughty, Your Grace. Do you require naughtiness in a wife?”
A bit of teasing edged her tone, but on this matter, he needed to be honest. “I require a woman who will not come to love me.”
She visibly stiffened. “Earlier you claimed to have no heart. Do you not want her to love you because you will be unable to love her in return?”
“Because loving me, eventually, will bring her naught but heartache.”
“You’re not a particularly jolly sort, but I think perhaps you judge yourself too harshly.”
“Trust me, Pettypeace, I do not.”
“I find it difficult to believe you would intentionally set out to wound her, to hurt her.”
“It would not be intentional, but—”
The unexpected echo of stomping feet drew his attention to the doorway. The servants tended to move about in unobtrusive silence. When King had returned to the residence, he’d dismissed his butler and any lingering footmen for the night, and so he was surprised to find himself with the possibility of guests now, especially as he knew the manor was locked up tight.
Appearing quite disheveled, his brother entered the room, two bruisers lumbering on either side of him. King didn’t like the looks of the other fellows. They appeared to be trouble, and he did hope he wasn’t going to regret giving his brother a key so he could come and go as he pleased. Setting his snifter aside, King calmly came to his feet, even as every aspect of his being was on excessive alert. Pettypeace rose as well, and he couldn’t stop himself from stepping in front of her, providing a barrier between her and the trio making their way across the room toward him and Pettypeace. “Go out through the doors that exit onto the terrace,” he quietly ordered her.
“I will not.” It took everything within him not to growl at the stubborn wench. “Besides, others could be waiting in the garden. They look the sort who travel in a pack. I feel considerably safer staying where I am.”