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The first shock came from realizing she had already met Archibald, the Duke of Enveigh. They’d been introduced at Almack’s and later shared a country dance at the Duchess of Ashton’s ball. He’d been one of the few gentlemen who’d shown genuine interest in her discussions of natural philosophy rather than dismissing them as unseemly. Fortunately he hadn’t mentioned either the dancing or her interest in the sciences, so she would just have to hope he neither remembered nor recognized her.

The second shock was James aiming a charged pistol at herself and then at Sophie. Ice had flooded her veins as every muscle in her body went rigid, her breath catching somewhere between her throat and lungs. The sensations she’d known all too well from the feel of Bartholomew’s fingers painfully digging into her wrist.

The third shock came from the Duke of Eccess’s angry explosion. For the past week she’d watched him struggle to find his equilibrium, the humor he’d been full of on the night they’d met. Her first impression of him had been witty, brooding, and composed; her understanding of him as the children’s governess was bitter, distant, and aloof. But this was something far beyond his recent melancholy. Perhaps she’d been right…he’d been running away from ghosts… Had they finally caught up with him?

And yet Temperance could not deny that James had been her responsibility. The duke had given her the test to see if the children could behave in polite company today and James clearly couldn’t. She’d been running after them both in a desperate attempt to repair what she’d broken.

And what she saw in the study made her heart sink further.

The Duke of Eccess was rummaging in one of the drawers of his desk and then removed a bottle of what looked like cognac and found a cork opener. Rather than face whatever tormented him, he was choosing the familiar escape of drink—and after she’d spent a week with the children, she knew how they worshiped him and emulated him, James especially.

“Your Grace, I thought you had stopped drinking,” she said, and his head shot to her, his face flushing with the guilt of discovery.

As she marched across the room towards him, the man before her began to retreat like a chastened child. He stepped backwards until the wall blocked his escape, and still she advanced, her arm stretching out for the bottle.

“Give it to me,” she said.

The duke glared. “Miss Fields, you’re forgetting yourself. I am your employer and you work for me.”

And there he was, one step away from her. As Temperance grabbed for the bottle, her hand closed around empty air. He rushed in the opposite direction and she ran after him.

They circled the study like children. Her long, heavy skirts tangled around her ankles, hampering her steps. Despite his height and size, he was fast, with a kind of animalistic grace just like when she’d seen him ride his chestnut horse.

But as Temperance rounded the desk, his leg caught and he stumbled—and that was all she needed. She grasped the cold glass neck of the bottle, shocked at her own success against someone as strong and fast as him, wrenching it from his hands.

“Give it back, Miss Fields,” her employer growled.

Clutching the bottle to her chest, she spun on her heel and fled, her skirts swishing as she darted between furniture, dodging chairs and side tables.

His heavy steps behind her, she could almost feel the heat of his body. Her heart was ramming against her rib cage, and a hand grasped her by the elbow and whirled her around.

Temperance hastily hid the bottle behind her back.

The Duke of Eccess was like a mountain over her, as breathtaking and as intimidating. He walked her backwards until she felt a bookshelf press against her back. He loomed over her, at least one head taller, like a predator finally upon his prey. His eyes were wild, shimmering from brown to almost black, intense, glimmering with the hunger and need she had already observed within him.

Despite having her cornered, Octavius kept his hands at his sides, making no move towards the bottle Temperance clutched behind her back, though his long arms could have easily snatched it from her grasp with a single motion. Instead, there he was, completely disarming her with that sense of safety and security she had felt in his arms the dark night when they’d first met.

Temperance tried not to think, but that meant feeling, and she most certainly shouldn’t be doing that. He leaned closer and she inhaled the wonderful masculine musky smell of him: leather and sandalwood and vanilla. Closer and closer his lips approached, and she remembered the decadent, luxurious feel of them pressed against hers. Air disappeared from her lungs, her whole being concentrated on her lips.

But she couldn’t give in to those desires, not again. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t allow him to cross that line.

As his mouth was drawing closer, behind Temperance’s back both of her hands were working the cork out of the bottle. Just before his lips touched hers, she uncorked the bottle, turned it over, and poured it straight on the floor.

The room filled with the splashing of the liquid against the carpet and the sharp scent of expensive cognac.

The Duke of Eccess growled as he tried to get the bottle from her, to save the last drops of cognac, but it was all gone.

Only then did he step back, his face transforming into the mask of desperate rage.

“Do you know how precious that was?” he raged. “I had to smuggle that from France through several completely unreliable parties, risking my reputation, and you pour it on the floor like slop?”

“Your ward just pointed a loaded weapon at Sophie,” snarled Temperance in return, her hands shaking, “because he’s learned from you that when things get difficult, we act without thinking of who might get hurt. You race through streets with fireworks, he waves pistols around children—he’s becoming you, Your Grace!”

She expected him to argue but he fell silent, then hung his head and nodded. “I know.”

His sudden submission, the complete lack of fight was somehow more disarming than any confrontation.

The Duke of Eccess shook his head, and as he raised his eyes, they seemed haunted. “It’s just—it’s this damned season, Christmas—it’s—I can’t…”