As the clock struck nine that evening, Vivian paused outside the door to the library. She ran a hand across her skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles from sitting on Thomas’s bed as she read him his bedtime story. Should she have changed her dress? She’d never bothered to change after dinner before. After all, her meals were always taken with Thomas, not the rest of the family.

She did not know the etiquette for sudden partnerships with dukes to prevent one’s death. Most likely, a practical appearance would be preferred, in case one had to flee suddenly.

She patted her chignon and prayed that she looked acceptable. She wouldn’t wish for beautiful, for at twenty-four she was close to spinsterhood. Her mind had always been her best feature. Age hadn’t dimmed her intellect; rather, she’d grown wiser.

Or at least she’d considered herself wiser until she’d scurried off to work here at the bidding of a murderer.

Vivian gulped down the lump of dread building in her throat. No point in worrying now. Her course of action had already been laid in. “Full speed ahead!” Papa had always claimed when he began a new business venture; that saying was one of her few memories of him.

She’d pretend she was ferocious. She was a Loren, and Lorens never gave up.

She pushed open the door to the library, somewhat taken aback by the sameness of the room. Somehow, she’d expected it to appear different when she entered at the duke’s request, and not a snooping burglar. But no, there were the supple red leather armchairs, the mahogany low table with Lyrical Ballads, and the dark cherry paneled cabinet with the silver crescent moon handles pushed up against the rich coffee-colored back wall. A gray stone fireplace broke up floor-to-ceiling dark mahogany bookshelves on the far left wall, a stodgy portrait of one of Abermont’s ancestors centered over the top of the mantel.

Vivian toyed with the simple locket charm she wore around her neck with a white ribbon. Evan had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday, and the ends of the ribbon frayed. She ought to change it out, but she couldn’t bear losing one more thing that connected her to him.

Abermont was probably used to women who wore huge rubies and pearls. Emeralds probably, for they were expensive too. Well, she couldn’t be anything more than what she was now—a governess. There was no point in trying to be anything different. Or in thinking that anything more could come from this partnership with Abermont. That was her old fanciful mind talking, from when she’d been younger, before her cousin had kicked them out of Trayborne estate.

Abermont was late. She ought to take advantage of his absence to choose her seat strategically. She could sit in one of the armchairs, thus avoiding close contact with Abermont. But would he think her closed off then? She didn’t want him to think she didn’t appreciate his offer of assistance, because oh, she did. For the first night in six months, she’d slept soundly, knowing that he’d manage everything in that powerful, commanding way he had.

It was just so blastedly wonderful to no longer be the only one looking for Evan’s killer.

She instead chose the pair of red and beige brocade sofas drawn in front of the fireplace with the low table placed in between. If she was going to work with the man, she needed to learn how to sit next to him without her mind muddling. Vivian fidgeted, tapping her foot against the carpet. Impatience picked at her. She poured herself a cup of tea from the sterling silver pot on the low table, and sat back down on the sofa.

When Abermont entered the room, she popped up from her seat, executing a hasty—albeit highly flawed—curtsy to him. “Your Grace.”

Instead of returning her greeting with his usual perfunctory nod, Abermont waved his hand dismissively. “We needn’t hold to such proprieties. In truth, I’ve never liked being curtsied to. Makes me feel rather uncomfortable.” He smiled, making her heart thump precariously. She’d shared her secret with him, and now he’d let her in on a confidence too—much smaller than hers, yes, but it was more to bond them together.

She nodded. “Very well.”

Abermont poured himself a cup of tea, adding cream and a lump of sugar. “I’d far prefer brandy in the evening, but I figured you’d like tea.”

She lifted her cup. “That was thoughtful of you, Your Grace.”

He sat down next to her, crossing one long leg over the other. “Please, James. Your Grace was my father.”

James. A perfect name for him. Somehow at once steadfast and intriguing.

“Vivian,” she said, though it felt so intimate to call each other by their first names. Partners, indeed.

“Well then, Vivian, I’ve set the wheels in motion for investigating your brother’s death. I have personally promised a substantial reward if they turn up information on Sauveterre’s location. I’m also looking into why your brother was targeted.” He spoke with the same calmness as when he received her report on Thomas’s progress. As if he hadn’t opened up a new avenue for her. As if this wasn’t the greatest gift he could have possibly given her.

“Thank you.” Though those two little words were a small outpouring of her gratitude, she couldn’t make them sound less effusive. While he was nonchalant, she was a bleeding heart torn open in front of him.

“I’ve also increased the number of patrols by my guards, so you are sheltered here. That said, do not venture outside the gardens. While you may visit the stables, I’m sorry to say that any trail rides must be reconsidered.” Abermont—James— gave her a sympathetic smile.

She nodded. While she’d miss riding, she wasn’t sure she’d even feel secure in the gardens. These precautions made her feel safer, but Sauveterre could be anywhere.

“Now I have a matter to discuss with you.” He leaned in, holding her gaze. “It’s of a bit more intimate nature, though.”

Tingles shot down her arms, flooding her fingers, when he said “intimate.” She gulped for air, the room suddenly hotter than it had been a moment before. The fire in the grate had already burned out; she could not blame it. Nor could she look away from him.

She’d thought that one moment in the garden was a chance encounter, as much in her mind as the many nights spent dreaming of his touch. What it would feel like to have his muscular body atop hers, the glide of his lips along hers, the pine and leather scent of him overwhelming everything else.

Then he held her gaze, his gray eyes like the most turbulent of waves crashing down upon her and rendering her helpless to swim back to the shore. She wondered what he saw. Her hair was not golden, but instead the color of straw. Her chin was too sharp. Her nose was crooked.

Yet this man, with his aquiline nose and strikingly black hair and that extraordinarily capable way in which he solved every problem, stared back at her with the same deep interest.

She blinked. The world around her crackled back to life. It had been just a minute or two, but in that short span of time she felt things shift.

And she did not have any idea how to proceed.

But James was, as she’d come to expect, in control of the situation. He continued as though nothing had happened. “I think I’ve come up with a solution that will allow me to make sure that you are kept secure, while also solving a predicament of my own. You see, the Season is about to start, which means every vulture with a daughter of marriageable age will be lined up to snare my time. The very last thing I want is to be the most sought-after bachelor in London.”

“I see,” she said, but she didn’t see at all. What did this have to do with her problem? And not to seem ungrateful, but why were the duke’s marriage woes on the same scale of importance as her life?

James’s steady gaze never left her face. “So I believe you can help me as I’m helping you. I want you to become my duchess.”

Vivian blinked. She must have heard him wrong. The Duke of Abermont could not have proposed marriage to her. She wasn’t his peer. She wasn’t even the peer of his steward. Men who were one step away from royalty did not enter into matrimony with governesses, and certainly not governesses who had admitted to spying upon them.

James looked at her expectantly, as if he considered his request a logical one. She’d misunderstood him, then. A rational man like him would never consider such a preposterous request.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” She hated how breathy her voice sounded. How hopeful. Still she clung to the foolish illusion that the duke saw her—really saw her, as if the breadth of her soul could be conveyed in a week’s worth of conversations.

“I asked if you’d marry me,” he said, enunciating each word with such pristine pronunciation she knew there could be no mistake.

The drumming of her heart slowed. Every muscle in her body seemed to become tighter with this confusion. She knew now she’d heard him correctly, but how was she supposed to respond? Marshaling her wits, she closed her mouth. She couldn’t think of anything to say, anyhow.

He pursed his lips. He’d expected an immediate acceptance. He was duke, after all.

“I want you to be my duchess, Vivian.” Abermont made a sweeping motion with his hand to the garden. “All of this could be yours too.”

While she loved Abermont House dearly, this could never be. How could she possibly belong here, as part of the family she’d betrayed with her reports to Sauveterre? In the home Sauveterre would know to search for her?

Her, a duchess! The concept was insane. Unless, of course, he was insane too.

“Are you mad?” The question popped out of her lips before she could stop it.

His brows furrowed. “Most assuredly not.”

She swiftly jumped to the next most reasonable explanation. He was punishing her for her duplicity. “Then this must be some sort of awful joke. You’re bamming me, Your Grace, and I do not find it amusing.”

He directed a reproachful glance at her. “I asked you to call me James.”

“And I never asked to be the brunt of your teasing.” She launched herself up from her seat, running to the door. But there was no one listening in the hall.

“What are you doing?” He eyed her quizzically.

“I’m looking for your sisters. Or Thomas.” She scowled at him. “I should have known you wouldn’t help me, after what I’ve done to you.”

“No one else is here.” James stood up. He crossed the room swiftly, his strides devouring the space between them until he was right beside her.

He laid a hand on her arm, and suddenly everything was warmer around her. Softer, in a sense. How could she possibly be objective when he was so near? She was lost in the way her stomach flip-flopped, in the speed of her own beating heart.

“I’ll find Sauveterre, Vivian, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you aren’t harmed.” He spoke with the utmost seriousness, as if he was making an earnest pledge he’d take with him to the grave. “When I agreed to work with you, I meant it. What I am suggesting is the natural extension of our partnership.”

He angled her head closer to his, and her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to say those magical words again.

I want you to be my duchess.

Her heart panged for a life she’d never dared to consider possible. A life that shouldn’t be possible. But when James watched her like this, his eyes so kind and blastedly gentle, she found herself doubting whether social mobility was really such a catastrophic notion.

“I don’t understand,” she said. How little accustomed she’d been to not understanding things. She’d always been considered remarkably quick-witted, perhaps to her detriment since she’d never caught the eye of a suitor before.

But Evan’s death had changed that. Now the act of living, carrying on through grief, perplexed her.

James walked back to the sitting area, and she followed him. They sat down on the same settee, on opposite ends. “Marriage is like an equation. You and I are both variables. You need someone to protect you from Sauveterre, and I need a wife before the start of the Season.”

She blinked. While she knew the rich treated matrimony more as alliances than pairings of the heart, she’d never heard it explained in such a...commercial fashion. Hardly the impassioned proposal she’d always dreamed of receiving.

She peered up at James. His handsome features might as well have been chiseled in stone, for all the emotion they conveyed. “In this equation, as you put it, why insert me? You could have an amiable partnership with any number of women. Women who haven’t spent the last six months with an agenda.”

“I could, perhaps.” He did not sound interested in that prospect at all. “But I don’t want them. I want the woman who demanded I let her bandage my hand in the study. The woman who won’t take no for an answer, even when it’s her own safety we’re debating.”

Her cheeks flushed. In that description, she sounded almost...strong. Like she’d been when Evan was still alive.

Then he continued, and the spark that had lit within her was dimmed by his practicality. “I’ve seen the way you are with my brother, and my sisters like you. What I want is a wife who already knows my family and can fit in seamlessly.”

Significantly less flattering, yes, but given her current predicament, did it matter why he’d chosen her? The comfort of routine could not be overstated. He was not home often, but when he was, the entire atmosphere of the house changed. Lord Thomas adored him, and the servants were devoted to him.

That thought sobered her. The man had servants. Sweet Mary, she was one of his staff! It was absurd to consider this.

Surreptitiously, she allowed her gaze to travel down the length of his frame to his starched cravat with its mail coach knot, at once dignified yet simple. To the cut of his coat, accentuating his broad shoulders. To his tan breeches showcasing his muscular legs, and his gleaming top boots with the silver tassels. All that power in one man. Could he protect her from Sauveterre? He seemed to think so.

He was the finest male specimen she’d ever laid eyes on, and he couldn’t be hers. But oh, how she wanted him to be.

She forced her eyes forward. “Surely, you must be able to find those qualities in someone of your own class. I have no ways of increasing your stature in society. If anything, a bond with me would decrease your influence.”

His lower lip curled when she said “influence.”

“I am the Duke of Abermont,” he said, as though that title contained every bit of information she’d need. When she did not show any sign of comprehension, he shrugged. ““The Spencer family is the third richest in all of the empire. Do you really think that the ton shall dare question my choice? If I present you as my wife, they will accept you. They are but a herd of cattle, easily rounded up and shown direction.”

“How unbecomingly you speak of the people you consider friends.” She could not curb her scorn, so surprised was she by his callous words.

He drew himself up, no longer appearing so at ease. “Let me make one thing clear to you,” he ground out, the force of his words pelleting her as if they were stones. “Greater Society is not my friend. I consider few people truly my companions. Lord Haley, Mr. Drake, and a few others you are not acquainted with yet. The rest are mere acquaintances I associate with because my position demands it. Were I not duke, I would dispense with their company entirely.”

“It must be a horridly lonely existence.” She lifted her chin, refusing to cave. Given she’d spent six months under the scrutiny of his servants—the majority of whom refused to speak to her once they’d found out her relation to a viscount—she knew a few things about loneliness. “I repeat then, why me? What do you think I will add to your exclusive club?”

“Because you see me.” His steely gaze sent a shiver of awareness up her back. In that look, she saw the emotions he held at bay, shimmering beneath the surface. “And I desperately need someone who will see the man behind my title.”

Barely, just barely, she resisted the urge to press her palm up against his chest once more and feel the beat of his heart against her flushed skin. He was first a real, raw man before a duke.

Did she truly know him? She’d thought she’d drawn an accurate summary of his character over the last six months. With his close friends and family, he was apt to laugh and be merry. Yet in casual society, he was dour and reserved. What if underneath all this pomp and circumstance, he was as lost as she was, just waiting for someone to salve the wounds of the past?

“This...arrangement.” She struggled to find the right term, finally deciding to refer to it more as a business enterprise than a true matrimonial intent. “What exactly would it entail? Say I agree to be your wife. What then?”

He seemed far more at ease when she followed his plans. “We would be married as soon as possible.”

“The banns would need to be announced,” she said. “That’s three weeks, at least.”

He shook his head. “Not if I procure a special license. I want to make sure you’re protected from Sauveterre’s grasp as soon as possible. Besides, once he hears of our marriage, he will act. Expediency is in our best interests.”

“A special license would be a great cost to you.”

“It is not as if I cannot afford it,” he reminded her. “Besides, speed aside, I should personally like to be married at Abermont House, instead of in the village parish. A special license makes that possible, and thus a special license I shall purchase.”

How empowering it must be to arrange things to one’s liking without regard to expense. He’d promised to protect her.

Finally, after six brutal months of more questions than answers, she had the chance to bring Evan’s killer to justice.

“I know it’s a lot to think about,” James said. “But I assure you I am absolutely serious. This is an arrangement that we will both benefit from. I think we’d suit.”

We’d suit.

And even if they didn’t suit, and this marriage damned her to a life of misery, how could she refuse? The alternative was to be at Sauveterre’s mercy. James was her best chance now, probably her only chance.

She owed it to Evan.

His tone became softer, almost apologetic. “As tactless as it might sound, there are certain rights afforded to my class. Our laws do not take kindly to attacks on peers. When you become my duchess, you will then have an added layer of protection against Sauveterre.”

Certain rights afforded to my class. She’d witnessed that first hand. How sickening to think that if Evan had been a duke, his murder would already be solved.

As if he could read her mind, James’s voice became softer. “The system is highly flawed. Do not for one minute believe I don’t know that. But my first concern here is you. Your safety. If I can use these laws in your favor, I will.”

The timbre of his voice drew her to him. He had a smooth way of speaking, as though every word was the auditory equivalent of velvet. But this time, he was gritty. She liked him so much better for it. For the genuineness behind his speech. For the emotion that sank in every word and made her feel sheltered. She could believe in this version of him.

If she agreed, gone would be her old life. Her independence. Since James could give her the tools to destroy Sauveterre, she didn’t care what she’d give up.

“I accept your proposal,” she said. “I’ll be your duchess.”

“Very good.” He did not reach for her hand, or pull her into an embrace, or do anything she’d imagined would be the correct response. He simply nodded—this nod was to tell her he appreciated her agreement. “You’ll be a brilliant duchess.”

She sincerely doubted that, but suspected he’d prefer her agreement to the truth. “I hope that I shall meet with your approval.”

“I’m sure you will.” He stood up, bidding her adieu.

As he headed toward the door, she noted again how his every stride seemed purposeful, deliberate. She watched him walk away, her gaze centering on his rounded buttocks.

He paused halfway out of the room, looking over his shoulder at her. Her cheeks colored. He couldn’t tell that she’d been starring at his bottom, could he? No, better to act as though she’d simply been peering aimlessly off into the distance. She blinked, hoping she looked properly distracted.

A rare grin broke out across his lips. He hadn’t fallen for her subterfuge, and he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “Vivian?”

“James?” The flush to her cheeks was now an impossibly hot flame. She met his gaze, trying to convince herself that his amusement at her salaciousness was a good sign. He hadn’t been aghast by her impropriety.

Rather, his eyes locked on hers, and for a second, his face was transformed into something softer. His baritone voice had never sounded so rich as in his next words. “Never doubt that it is you I want.”

He did not give her time to react. He was gone before she could reply, which was probably for the best because she couldn’t begin to puzzle out a suitable response to such a pronouncement.

She remained in the room long after he left. This was a good decision. A logical decision. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d just exchanged everything she’d ever known for a life she couldn’t begin to fathom.