“What hell have you placed me in?” James groaned and threw himself into the armchair by the fire. “Tell me this, Lucy, for I truly wish to know. Had you seen the girl beforehand?”

Lucy flinched but continued in her knitting as she sat stolidly as though she had every right to the chair in her Master’s library though he could not remember inviting her into the room. Somehow in the years since she had dandled James upon her knee, she had become something more than a servant.

Truth be told, he wasn’t altogether sure she wasn’t running the entire household behind his back. Had she not just been working in the kitchens the other day? Now here she sat, calmly as you please, knitting as though she had not a care in the world.

“I think I care not for your language. Did I not teach you anything?” she asked, a bastion of calm in the face of his fury. Her knitting needles clicked, yarn forming into a patterned square before his eyes.

“You also told me it was wrong to take a thing that did not belong to me. A lesson you might have done well to emulate.” He threw the brooch down on the table between them. “I cannot be rid of the thing.”

She winced, and set her knitting in her lap, eyeing the brooch with a shudder. “I have expressed my regrets already. I would take the brooch back myself if I thought it would do any good.”

“They would not let you. I am well and truly trapped then.” James covered his eyes with his forearm and groaned.

“You find her so hard to look upon then?”

There was something in Lucy’s tone that made him look up. “When you speak like that, it seems you censure me for something though I know not what. Why would it not be hard to look upon a lady who you feel you cannot be honorable around? I have made this agreement, a thing we are both aware of, and I am surely to suffer for it.”

“Because of her affliction?” Lucy’s voice held the sting of the ice that beat against the window.

“Because I cannot be honorable when the only reason I court a Lady, ANY Lady, is due to the fact that I am being paid to do so. Especially when I would be glad to keep her company—” He stopped there unable to go on, and all too aware that Lucy was watching him with a certain look he knew only too well.

“I am not in love with the girl,” he said and got up to stab at the fire with a long poker, before bending to add another chunk of wood onto what was already a healthy blaze.

“I did not say a word,” Lucy said behind him. He heard the soft clack of her needles as she took up her knitting again.

“You did not need to!” He twisted to look at her and shook his head. “Why do I allow this? You are a servant in my house. You are given liberties that you should not have. Why do you never say ‘Your Grace’ to me? Or worse, feel you can address me at all when I have not given you leave to?”

“Perhaps because I have raised you,” she reminded him softly, a gentle smile playing about her lips. “And you told me yourself that I was never to call you ‘Your Grace’ when you were 12.”

James threw up his hands in frustration. “You would still listen to the order of a boy of twelve?”

Lucy laughed at this. “I would think that this man has sense enough to let me know when I have overstepped my bounds. I speak because you direct questions to me first, Your Grace. To do so is considered an ‘answer’ and something that most dukes expect from the person being questioned unless I am mistaken.”

James settled in his chair again, somewhat sullenly, still put out, and not exactly liking the sound of the title from her lips. “If you are so wise and all knowing, why then would you take this brooch and snare me into this agreement?

Lucy stopped knitting and looked at the rose that lay on the table between them rather critically. “My picking up the brooch at all was wrong, and I am first to admit to that. But my bringing it home was not. Have you asked yourself, Your Grace, whether or not this is a deed being done for your benefit…or someone else’s?”

With that, she stood up and tucked her yarn and needles into the bag at her feet. “Now if you will excuse me, Your Grace, but I am not accustomed to staying up near so late anymore.”

His head came up sharply as she trundled toward the door, a small figure hunched over her bag, for all the world reminding him of the witches in a performance of Macbeth he had seen when last in London. He scowled after her. “If you honestly wish to remember your place, old woman, you would ask my leave before departing!”

She waved gaily over her shoulder without pausing, already half out the door, moving alarmingly fast for one her age.

“And quit calling me ‘Your Grace!’” he shouted, but she was already gone.

Alone in the room, James sat for a long time, staring into the fire. After a time, he picked up the brooch, studying the way the light played in the depths of the facets of each stone. It truly was an amazing piece of work.

Was he a fool for not taking the benefit of the arrangement? After all, he would gain not just a ship, but the possibility of a return to the fortune that should have been rightfully his. He was in no way ready to accede to the life of the impoverished duke. There had been one such in Scotland who held the title alongside absolute poverty. It could happen. It still could happen.

And what would happen to Lucy then? Or any of the other servants within the household? He knew there were already several who had left quietly, taking other positions. Could he blame them?

But to take the brooch…to do so was an affront to everything he believed.

At the same time, it granted him admittance into the home of a young lady he was fast coming to admire.

Was this agreement then done for her benefit? It certainly seemed so. The girl’s father set enough store by it to stake him the cost of a ship, and the ability to partner in a venture that he otherwise might never have afforded. In exchange for what? A moment of happiness for his daughter?

James wanted to believe in such an altruistic plan, but the truth was he could not. Lady Barrington had not been pleased to talk with him, and in fact, had fled the table halfway through the meal, never to return. That did not bode well for the rest of the arrangement.

So, was it me that was so unpleasant that she could no longer bear my company? Or was it the fact that she well knew that that company had been purchased with these very rubies here?

He let his fingers curl around the brooch until it was tucked painfully against his palm. How could anyone be expected to enjoy the company of another when that company had been purchased? To be sure it seemed very improper when put like that. How had Lucy called it? Had he become a Covent Garden nun by allowing his company to be purchased?

On his desk lay the most recent papers Lord Barrington had drawn up. He only needed to sign and hand over the brooch, and all would be arranged. Why was he hesitating so? For the sake of his household, for the sake of Lucy, was this not the right thing to do?

But Lucy had reminded him that maybe this wasn’t supposed to be to his benefit. He thought of Lady Barrington’s quick wit, the smile she tried so hard to hide even though she’d been frustrated by his lack of cooperation. She was a gem, far more priceless than this bauble.

James tucked the brooch back into his pocket and rose, suddenly tired. There was no need to go back and forth on this anymore. He knew the right thing to do, all that remained was to carry it out. Tomorrow he would make an especial visit to Thornhill and return the bauble — AFTER reassuring Lady Barrington that he would see her for another five visits, or another five hundred if she so desired it.

The ship was unimportant. He could find funds from somewhere and go into business more honorably. There were other ways to build a fortune. And he was not completely without any means at all.

Tomorrow then. Tomorrow I will make everything right.

Satisfied that he, at last, had a course of action, James rose and headed for the stairs and his own chamber. For the first time in days, he was able to sleep well and deeply that night.