Page 15 of From Duke Till Dawn
Wisdom was a hard-won gift. She’d become wise at a very young age.
Send him away,her mind whispered.Protect yourself.
Never let him go,cried her heart.
But who would she listen to? Her heart or her brain?
Sadly, she knew the answer.
“I made a promise,” she said at last. “Mr. Hamish is relying on me.”
“He’s using you,” he answered bitingly. “He’s thinking only of himself, not your honor. Not your welfare.”
Part of her already understood this. Martin had been kind to her, but only as far as it benefitted himself. She couldn’t fault him for his selfishness. Generosity for its own sake didn’t exist, not in her experience. Though it did—with Alex. It was one of the reasons why she’d gone to his bed.
“I know,” she replied. “But I gave him my word, and I am always true to my word.”
A muscle flexed in Alex’s jaw. She knew he didn’t care for her response, even if some part of him respected her code of ethics.
“How long do you intend to work here?” he demanded.
A little bit of truth helped shore up a lie. “Mr. Hamish doesn’t plan on keeping the hell open for more than a month. We’ve got thirteen days left, and then the operation closes. He intends to use his earnings to open a more-permanent establishment in Edinburgh.”
“You’ll follow him to Edinburgh?” He seemed to push these words out as if rubbing sand into an open wound.
She shook her head. “With my saved wages, I plan on going to a town somewhere up north and teaching deportment to mill owners’ daughters.”
“Every step is planned out.” He released her hand and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Life is a chess game.” She pursed her lips. “All moves are thought out well in advance, or else disaster follows. I made that mistake with my cousin, and it can’t happen again.”
He exhaled as he glanced away. “This... is intolerable. You must allow me to help you.”
The duke was completely in her control. She could ask anything of him now, and he’d give it to her.
She imagined the luxurious apartments that could be hers, silk and satin and beauty everywhere she looked. Jewels for her ears and throat. Food cooked by her own French chef. Plenty of fine things to wear or look at. Every one of her youthful dreams brought to bear.
She didn’t want any of that anymore. Where once her mouth might have watered with greed, now she tasted ashes.
“Must I?” She smiled.
He looked rueful. “Of course, you have to do what you think is right.”
“Thank you.”
A corner of his mouth turned up, the most she had ever seen him smile. What would it take to get him to grin, to laugh aloud?
She wouldn’t know. She shouldn’t know.
“I have to dosomethingto assist you,” he insisted.
Nodding toward the doors that led back into the building, she said, “Spend extravagantly.”
“I am not given to extravagance,” he said drily.
Oh, how she longed to flirt with him. To finger the diamond solitaire winking in his cravat and tell him that he wasn’t always so restrained. To coax more smiles and laughter from him, those rare, intoxicating sounds. But why torment herself with what she couldn’t have? That way lay pain and disappointment—two emotions she knew too well.
“Try,” she urged him. “For me,” she could not resist adding.
