"I assure you, Your Grace," she managed, her voice embarrassingly breathless, "I am quite capable of reaching a book without ducal intervention."
"And yet," he murmured, his voice low and close enough that she felt it as much as heard it, "you did not succeed."
He pulled the folio down but didn't immediately step back, leaving them trapped in a tableau that would have had the maids gossiping for weeks. Eveline's throat felt dry as parchment, and she found herself muttering the first thing that came to mind, which happened to be a rather colorful Latin phrase about the inadequacy of library arrangements.
"What did you just say?" His eyes narrowed with interest rather than offense.
"Nothing of consequence," she said quickly, clutching the book to her chest and stepping back so quickly she nearly tripped over a stack of unsorted volumes.
"You just called my library arrangements something that would make a Roman soldier blush, and you claim it's of no consequence?"
"You speak Latin?" She couldn't hide her surprise, as most gentlemen's classical education extended to a few memorized quotations.
"Fluently, as it happens," he said with the kind of satisfaction that suggested he'd been waiting for this particular revelation. "So I'm quite curious what else you've been muttering these past weeks while thinking yourself unobserved."
"Nothing that bears repeating," she said firmly, though her burning cheeks rather undermined the denial. "Shouldn't you return to your correspondence? I'm sure the matters of the realm require your attention more than my cataloguing commentary."
"The matters of the realm can wait," he said, settling back into his chair with the air of someone preparing for entertainment. "Tell me, Miss Whitcombe, why does a woman of your obvious intelligence remain unwed?"
The question was so unexpected and so inappropriate that for a moment she simply stared at him. "Why does a duke of your obvious eligibility remain unmarried?" she countered when her voice returned.
"Correct," he acknowledged with a slight incline of his head. "Though the answer to mine is rather public knowledge, wouldn't you say?"
She knew she should leave it alone, should return to her cataloguing and pretend this conversation wasn't happening, but something about the way he said it, which was bitter and defensive and achingly hollow, made her bold. "Cynicism is a shield, not a philosophy," she said quietly, meeting his gaze directly. "You wouldn't wear it so tightly if you had never been wounded."
His eyes hardened to flint, and for a moment she thought he might actually dismiss her on the spot. "And a lady who has never been wed speaks with curious authority on the subject of wounds."
"One needn't be married to understand betrayal," she replied, thinking of all the small betrayals that came with being too much for her world. Too educated,too opinionated, too unwilling to shrink herself into acceptable dimensions. "Though I imagine being abandoned at the altar provides a rather more dramatic education in the subject."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees despite the fire. "You've been listening to servants' gossip, Miss Whitcombe?"
"One can hardly avoid it when they discuss it directly outside the library door," she said, refusing to be cowed by his arctic tone. "Besides, your romantic misfortunes are hardly secret as the papers rehash them with depressing regularity."
"How gratifying to know my humiliation provides such reliable entertainment for the masses."
"That's not..." She stopped, frustrated by his deliberate misunderstanding. "I only meant that hiding from the world won't change what happened, any more than Lady Juliette choosing someone else means you're unworthy of being chosen."
"Only a man who once cared deeply could be capable of such bitterness," she added more gently, watching something flicker across his face.
For a heartbeat, he looked genuinely unsettled, the careful mask of ducal indifference slipping to reveal something raw beneath. His jaw clenched, and his fingers tightened on the arm of his chair until his knuckles showed white, but he said nothing, which somehow spoke volumes more than his usual cutting remarks.
"Your work requires no further interruption," he said finally, his voice controlled to the point of strain. "I have business elsewhere."
He rose from his chair with careful precision, gathering his correspondence with movements that suggested he was holding himself together through will alone. At the door, he paused without turning back. "In future, Miss Whitcombe, perhaps confine your observations to books rather than your employer's character."
"Books are far simpler to read," she agreed, unable to resist the final word. "They don't actively resist comprehension."
She thought she heard him exhale, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, before the door closed behind him with a decisive click that reverberated through the silent library.
Chapter 6
"These volumes are not for a lady's eyes."
Graves delivered this pronouncement with the kind of finality usually reserved for death sentences or declarations of war, standing before the locked cabinet like a particularly disapproving angel guarding the gates of paradise. Eveline had been innocently cataloguing the geography section when she'd noticed the elaborate mahogany cabinet tucked into an alcove, its brass lock gleaming with the particular shine that suggested regular polishing but infrequent use.
"I beg your pardon?" She straightened from where she'd been kneeling beside a stack of atlases, her tone carrying enough frost to rival January. "I was hired to catalogue the entire library, Mr. Graves, not merely the portions deemed appropriate for my delicate sensibilities."
The butler's expression remained the same, though she detected what might have been satisfaction lurking in the depths of his eyes. "His Grace's instructions were quite specific regarding this particular collection, Miss Whitcombe. They are to remain undisturbed."
