"You think that's what I'm asking of you? To be less?"
"Aren't you? You lock away books you deem inappropriate, you worry about my reputation as if I'm too foolish to understand the consequences of my choices, you summon me to lectures about propriety..."
"I'm trying to protect you!" The words erupted from him with surprising force. "You think you understand the consequences, but you don't. You've never experienced true social exile, never had doors literally closed in your face, never watched former friends cross streets to avoid acknowledging your existence."
"You have," she said quietly, understanding dawning.
He turned away, jaw clenched. "After Juliette's defection, I became a pariah. Not permanently, as title and wealth provide certain immunities, but for months, I was treated like I carried some disease that might infect anyone who came too close. The whispers, the speculation, the constant scrutiny of every word and gesture... It nearly drove me insane."
"But you survived it."
"I'm a duke. I have estates to retreat to, wealth to help me survive, a titlethat demands eventual acknowledgment regardless of scandal." He faced her again, his expression intense. "You have none of those protections. If you're ruined, truly ruined, there's no recovery."
"Then I'll be ruined with purpose rather than wither away in respectability," she said firmly. "At least here, doing this work, I'm using my mind for something meaningful. Out there, in their world of teas and gossip and endless judgment, I'm dying by degrees."
He studied her in silence for so long that she began to fidget, uncomfortably aware of how his gaze seemed to see through her carefully constructed defenses.
"You're remarkable," he said finally, so quietly she almost missed it. "Frustrating, impossible, completely without proper self-preservation instincts, but remarkable."
Heat flooded her cheeks. "Your Grace..."
"Adrian," he corrected. "In private, at least. If we're going to be the subject of scandal regardless, we might as well dispense with some formalities."
"That seems... unwise."
"Everything about this situation is unwise," he replied with a bitter laugh. "Hiring you was unwise. Keeping you on after the gossip started was unwise. Standing in a darkened library at midnight, wanting nothing more than to..." He stopped abruptly, running a hand through his hair in that gesture she'd come to recognize as frustration.
"We agreed that didn't happen," she said carefully, though her pulse quickened at the memory.
"We agreed nothing of the sort. We simply fled in opposite directions before we could do something irreversible." He moved to his desk, creating physical distance between them that did nothing to ease the tension in the room. "The question now is how we proceed."
"I continue my work, you continue... whatever it is dukes do when not lecturing their employees about propriety, and we both ignore the gossips until they find something more interesting to discuss."
"That simple?"
"Why shouldn't it be?"
He laughed again, but this time with genuine amusement. "Because nothing about you is ever simple, Miss Whitcombe. You're a complication I neither expected nor wanted, and yet..."
"And yet?"
"And yet I find myself looking forward to Mondays with an anticipation I haven't felt in years," he admitted, then seemed to catch himself. "The library is beginning to show real progress. Your organizational system is quite ingenious."
The abrupt shift to professional topics was so obvious that Eveline almost smiled despite the chaos of emotions swirling through her. "Thank you. I should return to it, actually. The philosophy section won't catalogue itself."
"Eveline." Her name on his lips stopped her at the door. "Be careful. The ton can be crueler than you imagine, and I... I would not like to see you hurt because ofyour association with me."
"I'm tougher than I look," she replied, managing a small smile. "All that wrestling with Cicero builds character."
Chapter 9
Eveline hadn't heard him enter.
She was balanced precariously on the library ladder, several heavy folios clutched against her chest while young Mary, the housemaid assigned to assist her, steadied the base with nervous hands. Latin phrases tumbled from Eveline's lips as she catalogued each volume, her attention wholly absorbed by a particularly damaged binding that would require immediate attention.
"Oh, this poor thing," she murmured to the book as if it could hear her, running her fingers along its cracked spine with the tenderness usually reserved for wounded creatures. "Someone's been thoroughly unkind to you, haven't they? Mary, could you hand me the..."
The girl's sudden intake of breath made Eveline glance down, nearly losing her grip on the folios in the process. Adrian stood in the doorway, immaculate in dark blue attire and cream breeches, his presence somehow making the vast library feel suddenly smaller. Mary had dropped into such a deep curtsey that she'd released the ladder entirely, leaving it to sway alarmingly.
