Page 2 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“I have come to offer you employment.” He paused, and when he continued, his tone held something very like a warning. “I would not spend the next several minutes insulting the only person here who has approached you with kindness.”

She inclined her head, conceding the point. “Then you have the advantage of me, sir, which I imagine is a condition you find agreeable.”

“I am Wexford.”

The name arrived with weight. Everyone had heard it; the Duke of Wexford who kept to his estates and his committees and was said to have buried whatever softness he owned in the same year he buried his father. She had not expected him to be so young. Four-and-thirty at the outside, and looking at a dismissed companion as if her answers were worth collecting.

“Then I am fortunate that you overheard my disgrace,” she said, “since a duke can have no possible use for a debating society either.”

“On the contrary. I have a sister who is sorely in need of one, and a house that has grown too quiet to argue with itself.” He turned slightly towards the window. “Will you sit?”

He indicated a small table set apart from the others, half concealed by a potted palm which some optimist had placed there in the hope of lending the room the air of a conservatory. Selina hesitated.

“You do not know my name, Your Grace.” She made no move towards the chair.

“You gave it as Gray.”

“I did.”

“Then let us begin there.”

He sat and waited for her to do the same. Selina took the chair opposite him. The palm cast its ragged shadow across the cloth in long, divided fingers. She folded her hands in her lap, beneath the table where he could not see them, and prepared to lie.

“How long have you been seeking a position?” he asked.

“Six months.” She had the answer prepared, yet it still cost her something to give it.

“And in that time?”

“Three offers, two of them withdrawn. Ladies find me unobjectionable until they discover that I read, at which point they conclude I must be concealing an opinion, which I generally am.”

“And the third?”

“It came from a gentleman whose intentions proved not to be secretarial. I declined in language he found memorable.”

His expression did not change. The set of his shoulders did.

“And before those six months?”

Selina straightened the cuff of her glove, though it required no attention. It had been darned twice at the wrist. The work was neat, but she covered it with her other hand nonetheless. “A situation in the country. Suffolk.”

“Doing what?”

“Acting as companion to an elderly lady who neither went out nor received visitors. I read to her. I answered such letters as came, which were few, and wound the clocks, of which there were a great many.”

“For how long?”

“Three years.”

“And the situation ended?”

“She died.” Selina allowed the two words to rest between them for precisely as long as they were worth. “Her family had no further use for me. They were very civil about it. A character, a fortnight’s wages, and a place on the carrier’s cart as far as the Norwich road. The gate had shut behind me before the horse had even turned.”

He waited, but she did not fill the silence. Three years stood behind that account, and none of them belonged to him. She had no intention of handing them across the table while the salary remained unnamed.

“You do not care to speak of Suffolk,” he said.

“There is nothing in Suffolk to speak of. That is rather the point of Suffolk, Your Grace.”