Page 27 of My Deceitful Duchess
They might have worked anywhere else, upon any other surface. But he had chosenhere. For a reason, no doubt. And as she crossed the threshold at last, the warning bell that had shrilled at the back of her brain abruptly fell silent.
Yes. She had made her choice. A fatalistic sigh escaped her. Perhaps this had been meant to happen from the very moment he had first approached her. Perhaps every event in her life had been contrived specifically to lead up to this, her worst mistake. The one that she would no doubt rue until her dying day—which might well come sooner than she had hoped.
But she had had cheated death twice already, had been living on borrowed time for years and years. And if her time had at last run out…well, then—
C’est la vie.
∞∞∞
Sebastian pushed the plate of profiteroles across the surface of the desk as Jenny settled into the chair beside him. She was nervous. It wasn’t so much that he could read the nervousness on her face, but that he had seen the same jerky, uncoordinated movements in the suspects he had helped to apprehend. As if her body was not her own, and contrary to the effortless grace she usually exhibited, she lifted the ledger onto the desk and dropped it with just a little too much force. The sharp snap of the book hitting the desk resounded in his ears, and he suppressed a flinch.
Sheprattled, as people did when they knew not what else to say, ignoring the plate he’d positioned near her elbow though she had to be hungry.
“You understand that this information cannot leave this room,” she said. “Much of it was acquired through…less than legal means.” Her bright blue eyes snared him full in the face, and drifted away just as swiftly.
Oh, yes. Sheknew. She knew why he had brought her here, to his room. And she had come anyway. But the knowledge did not confer with it any degree of ease, and so he let her ramble on a bit, interjecting only so often with a bland question. People could talk themselves into most anything, so he had come to understand. And she was doing it with each moment that passed between them.
“May I see your list?” she inquired, her fingers sliding across the open pages of the ledger; an anxious motion she was helpless to disguise.
She would bury herself in this work if he let her, taking it all upon herself—and it would not comfort her. There was also the fact that people tended toward mistakes when they were agitated, and this investigation was too important to risk it. She might overlook something crucial.
Instead he stretched out his feet and leaned back in his chair. “Eat first,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
Her fingers trembled just slightly as she selected a profiterole. “Did you not procure anything for yourself?”
“I’ve eaten already.” He reached across the desk, to the tray containing a teapot and a couple of cups, and began the ritual of preparing her a cup of tea. “My housekeeper cooks my breakfast, and she arrives early.”
“She doesn’t reside here?” A flaky crumb of profiterole clung to her full lower lip, and she swiped her tongue out to remove it.
“No; there’s no need. It’s not a large house, and I don’t deal well with people in my space, generally.” People tended to come with accompanying noise, and he had never dealt particularly well with sounds that he could not anticipate and predict. Instead of the constant thrum of unnecessary noise that a live-in servant would have produced, Mrs. Barret’s presence of roughly an hour in the mornings—endurable because he knew when to expect her, and when peace would descend once more over his household.
He didn’t know how Jenny took her tea, but with her preference for profiteroles, he’d guessed with milk and a liberal amount of sugar. “In fact, Mrs. Barret comes only in the mornings to straighten up a bit and to cook breakfast. She’s left already for the day.”
Jenny accepted the tea, and her gaze flitted about the room. He knew what she was seeing—order, tidiness. Pillows arranged upon his bed at perfect angles; the counterpane straightened to sleek neatness, without so much as a wrinkle. Everything in its place, without a speck of dust or so much as a discarded stocking littering the floor.
“I’m…particular about my belongings,” he said, by way of explanation. “I think much more clearly when things are tidy.”
“I wouldn’t have expected it,” she said absently, over another sip of tea. “Your house is immaculate. Your…personis not.”
“Ah, well. I’m not fond of most clothes. They’re suffocating. Too many layers. Too many textures.” Sometimes he felt like a sausage stuffed into its casing, drowning beneath a surfeit of fabric tailored to fit as closely as possible when he would have preferred to let it hang a bit. In the worst of cases, sometimes he could feel seams scratching at his skin; an irritating, repetitive motion that threatened to drive him mad. “I dislike the sound made by shears, so I tend to put off haircuts as long as possible. I won’t wear certain fabrics, and I can’t bear the pleats and folds of a cravat beneath my chin. Shoes are especially grating to my senses.”
It was easier to suffer the judgment of society for a slovenly appearance than it was to suffer the torture of clothes made to suit their good opinion.
“Is that why you were naked at the window? Because you prefer not to be clothed?” The question seemed to have been pulled from her rather than consciously issued, and as if she had surprised herself with it, she swiftly returned her attention to her breakfast.
“No,” he said. “I knew you were watching. I wanted you to see me. Now you see me as I most often am.” Dressed for comfort, not style, with hardly any concession toward propriety.
“I see,” she said, picking at the remains of her profiterole. “So…you haven’t even a maid or a footman.”
“I’ve never seen much need for them. I like my house as it is. Quiet. Empty.” Devoid of the maddening bustle or chatter of someone else moving about the house, or constantly brushing elbows with servants lingering in hallways. His space wasjusthis, with no one to crowd it.
“So we’re alone.” It was a whisper, as if the mere suggestion was a sin that ought to have gone unacknowledged.
“Quite alone.” He dragged her plate away with the tip of his finger, and her hands curled around her cup in the absence of anything else with which to occupy them. “Does that bother you?”
“Perhaps it’s for the best.” Her shoulders settled at last from their tight pinch, like she had at last surrendered the tension in them. “I suppose it would hardly be beneficial if someone were to overhear our…investigation.”
Delicately phrased. She had relaxed somewhat, her spine no longer stiff as a plank. Acceptance, he thought—they had always been inevitable to his mind. Less so to hers. But he thought she might be reconciling herself to it, minute by minute. Softening. Chinks growing in her armor.
