The door opened with Graves's particular combination of professional dignity and deep personal disapproval.
"Miss Whitcombe, Your Grace."
She hurried in like someone had lit a fire beneath her, curls escaping from what had probably started as a respectable arrangement, cheeks flushed from exertion or cold or possibly embarrassment. Her pelisse was askew, her hem was damp with morning dew, and she was breathing rather harder than strictly proper.
Damnation. She is late, disheveled, and utterly unsuitable.
The way her chest rose and fell with those hurried breaths, the way a particular curl had plastered itself to her throat with moisture, the way her lips were slightly parted...
And yet.
"Your Grace," she began, dropping into a curtsey that nearly sent her portfolio sliding across the floor. "I apologise for my tardiness. The coach overturned on Piccadilly and I had to..."
"In this household, Miss Whitcombe," he said, forcing his tone into arctic regions that would have sent lesser mortals fleeing, "time is measured by mine, not yours."
He expected contrition, possibly tears because he'd made more than one assistant weep with that particular tone. At the very least, stammered apologies and promises to never transgress again.
What he got was a woman who looked around his library like she'd personally been insulted by its condition.
"No wonder Your Grace requires assistance," she said, apparently forgetting she was supposed to be groveling for forgiveness. "This is an abomination, not a collection."
She dares lecture me, in my own library. Insolent little bluestocking.
He felt his lips twitch before he could stop them, quickly schooling his expression back to dual disapproval. But something in his chest had loosened, the black mood that had clung to him since reading about Juliette's maternal glow, lifting slightly.
She looks alive here, fire in her eyes. Not a simpering debutante, but a woman intent upon battle.
"I wasn't aware I'd hired you to provide commentary on my organizational methods," he said dryly.
"You haven't got organizational methods. You've got... archaeological layers. Look at this..." She moved toward the nearest shelf with the determinationof a general surveying enemy positions. "You've got Herodotus next to... is that a treatise on animal husbandry? And here, Catullus shelved with… my goodness, is that a cookbook?"
She was muttering now, half in English, half in Latin, pulling books out and examining them with the kind of focus usually reserved for religious experiences. When she reached for a higher shelf, stretching up on her toes, her bodice pulled taut in ways that had no business affecting a man who'd spent the morning reading about his former betrothed's fecundity.
Heavens. A scholar should not be so... distractingly female.
Those ink-stained fingers of hers, which should have been off-putting as ladies didn't have ink stains, Juliette certainly never had, instead made him wonder what else those fingers might touch with such careful attention.
Those ink-stained fingers ought to repel, yet I find myself wondering how they would feel against my skin.
He raked a hand through his hair, irritated with himself and the entire universe. He was the Duke of Everleigh. He did not have inappropriate thoughts about employees. He certainly didn't have them about sharp-tongued bluestockings who showed up late and immediately began insulting his possessions.
"Miss Whitcombe," he said sharply, needing to regain control of both the situation and his own ridiculous reactions. "Perhaps we should discuss the terms of your employment before you completely dismantle my library."
She turned, still clutching what appeared to be a first edition of something expensive, her face flushed with the kind of excitement most women reserved for jewels or marriage proposals. "Of course, Your Grace. Though I should mention that dismantling might be the only solution. This isn't organization...it's bibliographic anarchy."
"Anarchy." He leaned back in his chair, affecting the kind of bored aristocratic pose that usually made people nervous. "How dramatic."
"How accurate. You have multiple copies of the same volumes scattered across different rooms. I saw at least three copies of the same book on my way up here, none of them together. Your novels are mixed with your histories, your sciences with your sermons. It's as if someone took a library, threw it in the air, and shelved books wherever they landed."
"That's essentially what happened. My father was an enthusiastic collector but not an enthusiastic organizer."
"And you?"
"I've been otherwise occupied."With being jilted, becoming a social pariah, and avoiding anything that reminds me of my spectacular failure."The rules, Miss Whitcombe. You're to work Monday through Friday, nine o'clock—and I do mean nine o'clock—until four. You're not to remove any volumes from the house without permission. The rare manuscripts are to be handled with appropriate care..."
"Obviously."
"Do not interrupt me."
