Page 60 of The Dueling Duchess

Was it a dream? Was that where she was? In her bed, dreaming?

“Please,” he said softly, no longer smirking or confident.

In fact, Cecile saw an expression on his face she’d never seen before: worry.

“I promise I will give you excellent value for money. I will work hard, and I will do anything you tell me to do.”

Cecile latched on to that word. “Anything?”

Guy opened his mouth, closed it, visibly undergoing an internal struggle before he nodded and said, “Anything.”

Cecile felt an unpleasant smile curve her lips. “I will want you to be onstage—every time I perform.”

* * *

So much for holding that idea in reserve, Guy thought.

He opened his mouth to say he’d do whatever she wanted when the voice in his head stopped him.

Don’t give in too easily or it will make her suspicious.

He grimaced and shuffled from one foot to the other, trying to look as if he wouldn’t willingly get on stage every night—in front of men he’d gone to school with—stark naked and covered in marmalade, if that’s what she wanted. “Er, you mean I have to be in your act all six nights? That seems a bit—”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“I suppose that sounds fair,” Guy said, struggling to hide his elation.

“And Blade’s routines, too.”

That gave him a genuine moment’s pause, although why he hadn’t expected her demand, he didn’t know.

She gave a wicked, throaty laugh. “To have the Darling of the Ton as the butt of our jests will sell tickets,” she said, her eyes sparkling at the thought of all that money. “A great many tickets.”

Guy knew that. He wasn’t conceited—all right, so perhaps he was a little conceited—but his erstwhile contemporaries would flock to see him. They would find a morbid sort of glee in seeing him brought so low. It was a thought that had hovered at the back of his mind ever since he’d come up with this plan, but this was the first time he’d looked the idea square in the face.

All his mates from school, his relatives, men he liked, men he didn’t like, men whose wives he’d cuckolded . . .

It would be excruciating.

“Yes,” she said, her black gaze riveted to his face. “I see you understand what I meant.”

“Oh God.” Guy pinched the bridge of his nose as he realized what he’d committed himself to.

“Have you changed your—”

“No!” His head whipped up and he met her mocking smirk. “No, I have not changed my mind. I will be your assistant. I will clean chamber pots. I will do whatever you contrive.” And he knew quite well just how much she could contrive when left to her own devices.

Her gaze was heavy and brooding, but guy knew that she would agree to it. Not just because she was a savvy woman of business, but because she was only human, and who wouldn’t want to exact their pound of flesh after what he’d done to her?

“Very well, Mister Darlington. I will hire you—but on a trial basis. After thirty days, if you do not obey and give satisfaction, you will have to find another job. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“You will earn the same money as Jemmy, but you are not to touch a hammer this time.”

Jemmy was a junior carpenter, so it wasn’t as insulting an offer as he’d expected.

As for the comment about the hammer? Well, he couldn’t blame her for that. The last time he’d attempted to do some carpentry—when they’d been traveling through France—he’d accidentally nailed the corner of the main curtain to some stage light rigging and had almost set the entire theater on fire.