“Get on your way!”
Olivia, seated at the desk in the duke’s study, tilted her head to listen. That had been Polly just now, out in the hall.
“Oh, come on now, don’t pretend to be cross.”
And that was Vickers. With a sigh, Olivia laid down the letter—the fourteenth she had opened today that was addressed to the duke. For a fortnight she had been going through these letters, making annotated lists that Marwick received without comment and, so she suspected, never bothered to read.
In other times, other places, she might have been frustrated at her work being so summarily ignored. But the list of his correspondents read like the index in a book of modern history. Reading these letters felt as pleasurable as eavesdropping in a palace. It was not seemly for a secretary to take such private and personal interest in her work.
Then again, she wasn’t a secretary, was she? She was a housekeeper, which meant the argument in the hall—now growing progressively shriller—was her business to squash.
As she started for the door, she heard Vickers say, “I saw how you looked when Muriel came up to me before. A bit green at the gills! Jealousy, what?”
“Ha! You think I care if a trollop and a dunce—hey! Get your hands off me or I’ll pop you.”
Olivia opened the door. Vickers had Polly crowded up against the wall, sandwiched between the suit of armor and a hip-high Chinese vase. “Mr. Vickers,” she said sharply.
The valet sprang around. “Here now!” He gave a sheepish rub to his bald spot. “I was looking for you, ma’am. Cook wants your approval on the next week’s meals—”
“My foot you were looking.” Polly gave him a hard shove, and he stumbled toward Olivia, who sidestepped him neatly. He spilled onto his knees.
Olivia looked down at him. His bald patch was cherry red. “Have you no work to do, Mr. Vickers?”
“What work?” Polly cried. “He thinks he’s the duke himself, he does. Loiters like a pasha, and imagines us his harem girls!”
Sputtering, he clambered up. “Nonsense. Say now, Mrs. Johnson, you saw her shove me. That’s not right.”
Polly came violently off the wall. “You’re lucky all I did was shove. I’ve had enough of you, you lout.”
“See?” Vickers skipped backward. “She’s out for me. Always hanging about; I can’t take a step without finding her underfoot—”
“That’s a lie,” Polly shouted.
“—and for that matter, I’m not the only man she dangles after,” Vickers said. “Ask about the lad that turns up every night, just begging for a glimpse of her. Ask how quickly she runs to him.”
Polly turned white. “You hush up.”
“Say!” Vickers grabbed Olivia’s wrist. “A regular rags-and-patches production, that ruffian. I’d wager he could use a batch of truffles to sell.”
Polly gasped. “Why, you . . . He’d never!”
Olivia gave a pointed look at Vickers’s hand. He snatched it back. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
She turned her look on Polly, who was shaking like a fence post in a gale. “Polly,” she said evenly, “you—”
“Of course you’d believe him,” Polly cried. “You’ve disliked me since the day you set foot here. But how was I to know you’d not come for the maid’s position? I couldn’t guess—”
“Polly!” Olivia set her fists on her hips. “You will go back to your duties.”
Polly gaped like a beached fish. And then, with a poisonous look divided between Olivia and Vickers, she snatched up her skirts and raced off.
Olivia rounded on Vickers: short, plump, with the coloring of a dirt patch after a drought. “I must say, Mr. Vickers, you make a very poor Romeo. If I catch you harassing the maids again, you will lose your post.”
“Hey now!” He squared his shoulders, a posture that would have seemed far more impressive had Olivia not topped him by several inches. “I am His Grace’s own man. My position here—”
“And what is that position, precisely?” She did not bother to scrub the coolness from her voice. Snitches might prove handy for housekeepers, but that did not mean she must like the breed. “For by my understanding, a valet is to tend to his master’s personal needs—and I have never once seen you in his presence.” She narrowed her eyes. “Indeed, perhaps that’s the problem. For it would take only a single look at His Grace to understand that he has no valet at all.”
“That’s unfair!” He blew out a breath, cheeks billowing. “I know he looks unkempt. But you can’t imagine. The last time I ventured into his bedroom, he took the shaving kit and threw it at the wall.”
“And when was that?”
He pursed his lips and made no reply.
“Not recently, I take it.”
“I never got the kit back,” he said sullenly. “And I can’t help it if he refuses my services—”
“Yes, you can. You can insist upon them, Mr. Vickers.” God in heaven, she had managed to get Marwick into his sitting room, hadn’t she? Must she do all the rest, too? At this rate it would take a year to get Marwick out of his quarters.
“I can’t overrule him. Who do you think I am? He’s the bloody master of the house!”
“Watch your language,” she said. “And if he will not let you shave him, then at least you might hold up a mirror.”
He frowned. “For what purpose?”
“To show him his appearance. He looks like an overgrown sheepdog.”
His jaw set. “There’s no point. It’s hopeless. I’m sorry you can’t see it, but I won’t be made to risk myself—”
“Then I will.” She turned on her heel and marched toward the stairs. “Are you coming?” she said over her shoulder. In reply, he folded his arms. She clicked her tongue in disgust. “No, of course not.” Useless, the lot of them.
The sitting room was empty, but the door to the duke’s bedroom stood open. Olivia flew through it and found Marwick reading in a wing chair by the window. “Put your valet to work or sack him.”
He did not look up from the book. “All right.”
All right? She stood there a moment, confused. “Well? Which is it?”
He shrugged. The afternoon light fell lovingly across his face, gilding his skin and picking out the laugh lines around his mouth. When he had earned those, she could not begin to guess. He was the least laughing kind of man she’d ever met.
“Will you not answer?” she said. Despite herself, her attention began to wander the room. The maids had stacked up all the papers and placed them on the bookcase—barring a few that littered his dressing table.
He looked up, following her gaze. “Yes,” he said curtly. “As you see, the maids came this morning. That fulfills the extent of your obligations here, Mrs. Johnson. If you have a complaint about Vickers, take it up with Jones.”
She huffed. “Jones will not sack him without your approval.”
“Well, then. There you have it.” He settled deeper into his chair and held up his book with a pointed air: I am busy.
On a stroke of daring, she walked to the dressing table and made a show of straightening the papers. To her disappointment, these were fresh notes, observations on political items in the newspapers that he’d been reading so regularly of late.
“What are you doing there?”
She hastily dropped the papers. “If the maids came in this morning, what is all this mess?” The marble countertop held a terrible jumble of rumpled cravats and apothecary bottles.
“I am not in the mood for banter,” he said coldly. “You will—”
“I’m looking for your shaving kit.” She pushed aside the cravats, uncovering a hand mirror and other sundries. “Vickers said he hasn’t seen it since you hurled it against a wall, and I—ah!” She picked up a tortoiseshell comb. “Behold this remarkable invention. You might wish to try it sometime.”
He stared at her, a faint line between his brows. And then, mouth flattening, he turned back to his book.
His inattention suited her. Picking up the hand mirror, she drifted, oh so very aimlessly, toward the bookcase. The stack of documents piled on the middle shelf was a foot thick. The uppermost page was a letter, dated 1883, in Marwick’s handwriting, to Lord Audley—
“The kit is not on the bookcase,” he said flatly.
She held up the mirror. “Here, have a look at yourself.”
Ignoring her, he turned a page.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure that book is only two or three hundred years old,” she said. Sarcasm might be the lowest form of humor, but certainly it was also the most satisfying. “You were content to keep it on the floor, but now you can’t spare a single moment before reading onward.”
“Hardly so old.” He held it up so she could see the spine: The Count of Monte Cristo, by Dumas.
“Ah, a tale of revenge. Are you seeking inspiration?”
He gave her a rather threatening smile. “So far, our hero seems spineless.”
“You must be in the early section, then. I assure you, after Dantes spends years and years locked away, growing into a ragamuffin, he emerges quite deadly. Why, the first thing he does is to cut his hair.”
He slammed shut the book. “You are peculiarly deaf to the cues most servants know to listen for. Was there some purpose to your visit? If not, you are dismissed.”
She held up the mirror again. “Here is my purpose: you look like a wildebeest. If your valet—”
“I don’t believe you know what a wildebeest looks like,” he said mildly.
Hesitantly she lowered the mirror. He was right; she hadn’t the faintest idea what a wildebeest looked like. “Well, you look how a wildebeest sounds like it should look.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” He opened his book again. “ ‘Sheepdog’ was the better choice.”
She glared at him. “Do you enjoy being likened to a dog? Shall I bark at you again?”
He closed the book on his finger and leaned back to look at her. “Do you wish to bark, Mrs. Johnson? Yes, you seem to be feeling particularly canine today—at least, you’ve got your hackles up.” Eyes narrowing, he considered her. “The shrillness does remind one . . . But no, a poodle is too feminine.”
She sucked in a breath. “How rude. Are you implying—”
“An Irish setter? A fine match for your hair. But no,” he said regretfully, “I believe the only answer is a Chihuahua: all irksome bark, and no bite.”
She cast aside the mirror. “I have been reading your letters,” she said through her teeth. “Do you know how many of your friends wish to see you? Imagine what they would make of you if they saw you in this state.”
Mistake. His face tightened. “A fine thing that I am not receiving.”
“Your valet is harassing the maids. Have you no concern for the innocent women in your employ? Only give him something to do. That’s all I ask.”
“In exchange for what?”
She hesitated. “What do you mean?”
He put aside the book, and she felt a quick pulse of panic as he gave her his full and undivided attention. Something mocking and untrustworthy had stolen over his expression; his smile looked distinctly unkind. “Why should I give him something to do? How would it possibly benefit me?”
She gaped at him. “The welfare of your household would benefit you. And—ha!” She pointed triumphantly at his hand, which had just risen to brush hair from his eyes. “A haircut would benefit you directly.”
“And give you far too much satisfaction,” he said. “You do realize, Mrs. Johnson, that you take a very unseemly enjoyment in harassing me? It isn’t at all fitting for a domestic.”
“You misunderstand. I don’t enjoy it at all.” But an uneasy feeling gripped her. Why, he might be right: she had lost track of her purpose here. Lulled into a false sense of security, she had allowed herself to be distracted by putting the household to rights—and the sheer challenge of prying this mule from his rooms.
“I don’t enjoy it,” she repeated fiercely. But the quicker she lured him out, the quicker she could see her mad plan through. And certainly no gentleman would ever dare set foot from his private quarters as long as he looked like a wildebeest sounded as though it should look, and a sheepdog certainly did look. “I assure you, I find my duties most distasteful.”
His smile spread. It suddenly seemed to bode ill for her. “Do you? Very well, I believe you. Your manner suggests a very put-upon feeling. If you wish so much to see my hair cut, you may do it.”
“What?” She took a step back. “I never—that’s absurd. How would I know to cut a man’s hair? I’d make a terrible hash of it.”
He made a tsking noise, all mocking sympathy. “Duty can be so onerous. A very good thing I pay you for it, no?”
“Let me ring for Vickers.” She turned for the bellpull. “He’ll be here in a blink—”
“Absolutely not. You will wield the scissors, or no one shall.”
Something serious had crept briefly into his tone. Turning back, she tried to laugh. “Surely you’re not saying you don’t trust him—”
He reached for his book again. “Enough.” All levity had left him. “Leave me be.”
She stood there, gripped by the conviction that she was right: for whatever reason, he did not trust Vickers enough to let him do it. “Perhaps Jones could—”
“Get out.”
“Fine!” She set her fists on her hips. How difficult could it be? “I’ll cut your hair.”
He laughed curtly. “I was not serious.”
“But you made the offer, and I accept it. What—are you frightened that I’ll slice your throat?”
He looked up, narrow eyed. “Don’t be a fool.”
“Then tell me where the kit is.”
After a long moment, he shrugged. “The wardrobe.”
It took a bit of rummaging to locate the leather case. When she unbuckled it, she saw evidence of Vickers’s story: all the utensils, the scissors and badger-hair brush and razor, lay in a jumble, dislodged from their compartments. The case had truly taken a beating at its master’s hands. But somehow, a little stoppered vial had survived intact.
She opened and sniffed it: Castile soap, lavender, and perhaps the slightest hint of salt of tartar. Essence of soap for shaving, no doubt.
She glanced up and found his brow cocked. “You’ve no idea what you’re doing,” he said.
How insightful of him. If he wanted expertise, he could ring for Vickers. But if he was daft enough to let her do this, she certainly would not shy away from the opportunity. His hair was atrocious. “Take a seat at the dressing table, please.”
He rose, eyeing her. But to her surprise, he folded himself without argument into the chair in front of the mirror.
She took the towel from the rail on the washstand and spread it out behind him. Then she took up the scissors. They seemed quite small for scissors, did they not? She sawed them experimentally.
When she glanced up, he was watching her in the mirror, the smirk on his face revealing how very much he was enjoying her discomfort. “I prefer the Parisian style,” he said. “With a touch of the Italian on top.”
What on earth did that mean? She decided to brazen through it, lest he change his mind. “I would have thought the German would suit you better.”
He paused. “Hanoverian, do you mean? Or the Berliner? They’re so often confused.”
She stared at him for a moment, undecided, and then caught the slight twitch of his lips. He was funning her! He was making these terms up. “Whichever is shortest,” she said severely, and gave a threatening snick of the blades.
“Very well,” he said, and bowed his head.
A little shock bolted through her. She stared down at his head, all that luxuriantly waving blond hair, and suddenly felt unable to move. This job required her to touch him. To plunge her hands through his hair and . . . handle him.
For no apparent reason, she suddenly recalled the feel of his hands on her wrists. His thumbs slipping across her pulse. Her stomach somersaulted.
She pressed her lips together and took a sharp breath. How bizarre. Clearing her throat, she said, “It isn’t too late to call Vickers.” Why did her voice sound so high? “He’ll be so glad to serve you—”
“Is your spunk only for show, Mrs. Johnson? Do I detect a whiff of cowardice?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s your head.” On another deep breath, she plunged her fingers through his hair.
It was soft. Silken, even. A gentleman’s hair was as soft as a woman’s. Who would have guessed?
His shoulders jerked. She glanced up and discovered him silently laughing at her. “Your face,” he said. “So shocked. Does ducal hair feel like some strange new variety?”
“Sit still,” she snapped—and then frowned. “There’s a pun in that somewhere, but I can’t find it. Ducal hair, ducal heir . . .”
“Oh, but I’m not an heir,” he murmured. “I’m the genuine article, I assure you.”
Why that should make her blush, she had no idea. Something in his voice . . .
She went down on her knees to remove her face from his view. Her job here was not to amuse him. She pinched up a piece of his hair—really, it was softer than her own—and snipped it off.
There. Done.
Gaining confidence, she grabbed a larger piece, and lopped that off. Much better. Very quickly now she progressed the scissor across the back of his neck.
“Uncovering a talent?” he said.
She ignored him. Sitting back, she surveyed her progress.
Oh, good Lord! His hair looked like the ragged hem of some thrice-patched shift.
All right, then. It would require a bit more care. She slid her fingers through his hair to take a good, firm grasp, and felt him jolt slightly.
“Have a care with those blades,” he said softly.
“Don’t move, and I will.”
She had trimmed hair before—her mother’s, once a month, always on Sundays; and she had also done so for friends from the typing school on occasion. But cutting a man’s hair—the Duke of Marwick’s hair—began to feel quite . . . different.
As she gathered up his locks, her fingers brushed along the base of his neck. His shoulders were solid muscle—even here, at their tops. She could feel them flex a little beneath her fingertips, and the sensation made her redden.
She shifted her hand up, to avoid that muscled bulk. But now her knuckles skated along the nape of his neck, and his bare skin was startlingly warm, very smooth. Three snips bared his nape—and she found herself staring, somehow startled by it: the whole strong shape of his neck, thick and muscled, corded as he bent forward to allow her better access.
His spine made a hard knob of bone at the base of his neck. In public, his collar would always hide this nexus of muscle and bone, even when his hair did not. It was a secret, intimate, vulnerable place. How many eyes had beheld it? His valet . . . and his late wife. Perhaps she had kissed it. It seemed like a spot one would enjoy kissing, were one his lover.
His skin looked smooth, unblemished. Her thumb strayed over that hard knob of bone to test her hypothesis. Yes: smooth. How solid his bones felt. She pressed with the pad of her thumb. He must be so much heavier than her. His entire frame was built on a different scale, long and lean and tightly knit, but solidly strapped with muscle. The densely packed breadth of his shoulders strained through the lawn of his shirtsleeves, even now, when he was undernourished. And she could feel—
She snatched her hand away. She had been massaging his shoulders.
Appalled, her face flaming, she put the scissors to work again. She prayed, prayed that he had not noticed. But how could he not have noticed?
She heard him loose a soft breath. She dared not look in the mirror.
The silence felt thick, charged. She wanted to wince and curl into a ball. Instead, she snipped very quickly, not taking much care. The main thing was to shorten his hair without stabbing him. If it looked awful, it only served him right; Vickers could fix it later.
At last, of necessity, she finally had to move into his view again. She kept her gaze trained on his hair; she would not have met his eyes now for a hundred pounds. She was probably still flaming with color. Thinking of it made her flush hotter. Drat it!
The hair that flopped into his eyes—she would have to cut that. It had provided her the cause for goading him into this business to begin with. She braced herself, breath held, before stroking the hair away from his temple.
He was staring at her.
She could feel his attention like a hot brand against her cheek. She would not let herself look, but she could envision his eyes, so intensely blue, like subsuming oceans. His breath coasted over her arm, hot, soft. As she leaned in, her wrist brushed against his cheek, and she felt the roughness of his beard. Her mouth went dry.
No. This was not happening. She snipped as quickly as she dared. This close, she could smell the soap on his skin. A clean, fresh musk. Her heart was tripping now; she could not quite manage a steady breath.
She was not the kind of woman to feel this. No intimacy existed between them. She was not helping him because she cared for him. She had a mercenary, selfish heart and a criminal intent. She was not attracted to him. Olivia Holladay did not have her head turned by any man—least of all this one.
“There,” she said finally, with great relief. But she knew that laying down the scissors would not put an end to this moment. She would have done better never to have touched him.
He tipped his head, then turned it from side to side, examining himself in the mirror. Or so she sensed—for she still could not look at him directly. “Well,” he said at last. “That’s quite . . . awful.”
A giggle exploded from her. She slapped a hand to her mouth, appalled by the vapid sound. “Yes,” she said—or gasped, rather, for she wanted to laugh again, simply from nerves. “I’m afraid it—” Another giggle slipped out, mortifying, bizarre, belonging properly to some dimwitted flirt. She made herself meet his eyes in the mirror; her own were wide, dazzled; they belonged to someone else. “I’m afraid it is.” He looked like a shorn lamb.
His lips twitched. And then, wonder of wonders, he began to laugh, too. “And now the stakes rise, for if you’re as bad at shaving—”
“Oh, no.” She stepped backward. “I won’t be lifting a razor to anyone’s throat. I’ve never done it, and I—” She turned away.
He caught her by the wrist. Her stomach flipped; it did flip upon flip, like a child’s hoop, as she slowly turned back.
“But what of Mr. Johnson?” he murmured.
She swallowed. “There is none, as you already know.”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “But only now do I begin to think that a pity.”
She must be misunderstanding him. Surely he did not mean that to be as suggestive as it—
His thumb made a slow stroke down her wrist. That again. She sucked in a breath, then yanked her hand free. “I will—I will go find Vickers, to fix it—”
“What needs fixing?” he said lazily. “I believe this has been quite a success.”
She fled. Only halfway down the stairs did she finally figure out what he had done—and then she came to a stop, mortified, wishing the ground would swallow her.
The duke was not trying to seduce her. No, he was far more nefarious. For what he’d done, at long last, was find a way to drive her from his rooms. He’d made a mildly suggestive remark, and she’d startled and fled like a rabbit.
She gritted her teeth. The low, cunning, loutish beast—
He would regret embarrassing her. Oh, yes. For she would not fall for that ploy again.