“Not at all.” Goodness, he was smooth—like ice just before it sent you crashing down on your backside, the kind that stung your pride more than your body.
Sarah’s eyes returned to their darting motion. Letty, the duke, back to Letty. But now, she looked even more alarmed. Letitia needed to get him out of her flat.
“What did you need,Your Grace?” She tried to make his title sound like an insult. His smile grew wider. He likely got away with everything, with a smile like that and a title to back it up.
“Might we speak privately?” he asked.
Sarah looked absolutelydelightedto have an excuse to leave.
“Oh, I have been meaning to go out for some food for supper anyway,” she muttered to herself, not looking at either of them as she grabbed her basket and the small purse where they kepttheir coin. “So nice to meet you, Mr.—Your Grace. We shall talk when I return, Letty. Goodbye. I am leaving.”
The door shut behind her with a slam.
“She,” the duke said, gesturing toward the door, “is a delight. She did rather clam up when she learned I was a duke, but before that, she was telling me a simply marvelous story about a horse, a bishop, and a cask of wine that some smugglers had abandoned.”
Letitia pressed her lips together. She was not going to be charmed by this man, even if he had enjoyed one of Sarah’s favorite and most ridiculous anecdotes from the estate in Belgium where they’d both been raised.
“Why are you here?” she asked him again as she sank into the chair that Sarah had vacated. If he was going to come into her home, she wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. “I can only assume that, since youarehere, you had something to do with what happened at the Bassetts this morning?”
The louse didn’t even have the audacity to look ashamed.
“I told you that Bassett was not worthy of the name ‘gentleman,’” he reminded her. “My conscience would not have allowed me to let you remain under his control.”
“Your conscience,” she scoffed.
“I do have one,” he said mildly.
She didn’t believe this for a moment.
“I suppose you were right about him,” she sighed, leaning her elbow on the table and propping her chin in her hand. “I don’t suppose it would have been a pleasant place to work, not if he was so… open about things.”
She had expected the duke to look satisfied at the admission that he had been correct. Instead, he looked thunderous.
“Did he touch you?” he asked, voice dangerous.
His sudden intensity startled her.
“What? No,” she said hastily, but he didn’t look as reassured as she might have suspected. “No, he just made comments. Unsavory ones.”
She had been furious about it herself, and itwasrevolting, but something about the duke’s clear anger disarmed her. Didn’t he know that things like this happened all the time? And that men like himneverdid anything about it?
“Hm,” he said, and the grunted syllable sounded distinctly ominous.
Letitia felt a flutter of nerves in her belly—not at being alone with him, which she suddenly realized she absolutelywas, but at…
Well, she didn’t quite know. He was still interfering and high-handed. But it was nice that he seemed to care, at least a little.
But that brought them back towhy.
“Again, I must ask,” she said, a little less patiently than she’d been before, “whatit is that you are doing here.”
The duke was still sufficiently angry that, when he tried to put his charming mask back in place, she was able to see the cracks.
“I am certain that must be obvious,” he said, a touch of strain in his smooth voice. “I am here to offer you employment.”
He said this with a grand air, as though expecting a dramatic reaction.
Letitia just crossed her arms.
