The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior (2 page)

The Quality Employment Agency wishes to announce it has opened its office at 135 Plum Lane, and welcomes all clients into its establishment
.

The Agency will match reputable servants of any type with employers who have immediate need for assistance. We specialize in ladies' maids, butlers, housekeepers, and governesses. The Quality Employment Agency is owned and managed by a group of well-bred ladies who understand what the Quality desires
.

Quality is our company name, and our commitment to the public
.

T
he bell on the door jangled, letting Lily know that someone had entered the anteroom outside of the small office where she'd been working on the ledgers. She stood, feeling her back complain about her having sat for the past few hours. Each of the three proprietors of the Quality Employment Agency took turns at organizing the invoices, and this was her week.

The agency had done well since its inception just a few months ago, providing work (and the occasional falsified reference) for women with unfortunate pasts. They'd placed no fewer than six young women, all of whose reputations had been sullied for one reason or another. Lily and her partners were well-aware of what an unfortunate past could do to a person's livelihood, since each of them had unfortunate pasts themselves.

She walked out of the office to see a young man, garbed in a footman's clothing, holding a piece of paper and a snooty expression.

“Got this for whoever sends out ladies for governessing.”

She unfolded the paper, feeling her eyes widen as she read its contents.

Need governess immediately. Send applicants to Duke of Rutherford, Mayfair
.

She took a moment to read it, then read it again, just to be sure. And felt her mouth drop open in shock. A duke! An actual
duke
was turning to the agency for help. So far the agency's most prestigious client had been the cousin of a baron. He might as well have been a rat catcher compared to a duke.

This was what they needed to make the fledgling agency into a respectable business.

If the duke was pleased with the work, the agency's reputation would be made, and she and her partners could find more work for all the unfortunate women who came to them. It was an opportunity the likes of which they could never have dreamed of.

But she couldn't get ahead of herself.

Lily was not normally a person who took risks—the exact opposite, in fact—but she knew that this was no time to be the precise woman she'd shaped herself into since shedding—forever, she hoped—her own unfortunate circumstances.

Risk-taking when it meant jeopardizing your and your family's livelihood, well, that was one thing. Something her father had already done, to her family's detriment. But she couldn't think about that now, or how her sister had
suffered, and how her mother had just given up afterward.

Unlike her father—
because
of her father—she had to do what needed to be done, and she needed to do it now. The agency was fresh out of suitable unfortunate women who could governess, and she couldn't afford to let this chance slip away. She had to take a risk. With her own self.

“I'm to wait for a reply,” the footman said in an aggrieved tone of voice.

Ah, apparently she was ruminating too much. That was something she would likely never be able to shed.

She spun back around, clutching the piece of paper to her chest, as though someone would step in and steal it from her. “You will not have to wait, I have the perfect applicant. She will arrive within half an hour.”

No need to inform the snobbish footman it would be her.

She made sure the door was shut before she ran around the small office in circles, waving the duke's note and yelping.

Not her most dignified moment. Her precise self was horrified.

But who could blame her? If Annabelle and Caroline were here, they'd be joining her in the yelping. This was why they'd started the agency, after all (well, not for the chance to yelp, but for the chance to aid unfortunate women), but she hadn't expected this kind of chance would come so soon.

She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and
outlined a few details about where she was and who their new client was, addressed it to her partners, grabbed her cloak, locked the door, and headed to her new position.

After emitting one last little yelp, of course.

L
ily's excitement about the opportunity dimmed somewhat as she mounted the stairs to the sizable front door. A duke's house—his mansion—was larger than any private residence she'd ever seen, much less been inside.

She was already intimidated, and she hadn't spoken to anyone yet.

After taking a deep breath, she banged the knocker. She heard it echo within and felt herself tremble at making such a noise at such an impressive door.

Yes. She had to admit it. She was impressed by a
door
.

The door in question swung open and an older gentleman, his head placed at the properly dismissive attitude, looked at her. Noting, likely within seconds, her very worn cloak, barely a whisper of protection against the raw temperature, and the not-so-skillfully darned gloves she had on.

“I am here—” she began, only to have him interrupt.

“I know, and you should have come around to the back entrance. But since you're here, please do come in.”

Was every person the duke employed entirely too full of themselves? Or perhaps it was just the
two servants she'd met thus far. Still, it was worth keeping in mind when she spoke to the man in question.

She followed the full-of-himself butler inside, trying not to stare at all the grandeur inside.

“Wait here, I'll let the duke know you have arrived.” The butler walked into one of the rooms to the side of the foyer, leaving Lily alone to get more intimidated by the foyer.

Imagine how she would feel when she actually saw one of the rooms.

She counted no fewer than ten doors leading off the entryway. It was hard to fathom just what purpose each room had; perhaps the duke allotted separate rooms for each one of his digits? “Oh, no, Mr. Thumb, it's not your turn. We'll be in the ring finger's room today.” Or did he spend one day a week in each room, with the balance of the three left for holidays, birthdays, and . . . Incredible, she couldn't even dream up what purpose so many rooms could serve. It must be very hard work to be a duke, given everything one had to do.

Pairing digits with rooms, or making sure nobody used Boxing Day's room on Michaelmas. Or vice versa. Things like that.

The butler reappeared, making so little noise Lily jumped when he spoke. “The duke will see you now,” he said, managing to imbue his words with the proper amount of correctness plus a healthy dollop of disdain.

He walked ahead of her to one of the many doors and flung it open. “The lady is here, Your
Grace,” he said, then gave her a sharp nod that indicated she should enter.

She did, and immediately decided this was the pink room, because nearly every item in the room was pink. And not the healthy pretty color of a late summer rose; no, this was the insipid pink of a wan begonia that had gotten too much sun and not enough water.

It was . . . well, it was tremendously pink, and exactly the opposite of how she presumed a duke would choose to live.

But all thoughts of interior design fled her head when she saw him. Just him; the child was not there.

But his presence was enough. He looked exactly the opposite of how she presumed a duke would look.

He stood next to a spindly escritoire, pink of course, and his whole self was so . . . tremendous, that it seemed he might just knock everything in the room over with his presence.

He was tall, and very, very, very handsome. Extremely male. No, entirely and absolutely virile. That was the word. Virile, with all the connotations that brought the pink to her own cheeks. At least she better matched the room.

Goodness. She'd seen pictures of gods and soldiers and kings and other leaders of men, but she'd never actually felt the impulse to follow one of them anywhere.

This one, though, she might consider following, even though that way led to things a young lady
should not be thinking of. Especially a respectful governess who needed to make a good impression.

He had dark hair, straight, which brushed his collar in an unkempt way that nonetheless looked utterly dashing. His eyebrows were straight black slashes over his eyes, dark brown, which were intently gazing at her as though he could see to her soul.

And if he could, he knew what she was thinking about him, so that could be problematic.

The sharp planes of his chiseled face were further accentuated by the stubble on his cheeks, giving him an even more dangerous look. The Dangerous Duke sounded like a character from a gothic novel. And he looked like just the sort of man who would lure women to do Dangerous Things.

One of his slashing eyebrows had risen, and she realized she'd been staring at him. Didn't that happen to him frequently enough for it not to cause comment? Perhaps not in the sanctity of his own home. Or maybe there was a room made for staring, and she was not in it.

“The governess,” he stated, as though it was in question. He did not sound as though he truly believed she was one. Which made two of them, despite her having had experience with children, namely her sister, which was why she didn't have experience with any children past five years old. The familiar pain reminded her just what circumstances had brought her here.
It's a worthwhile risk
, a whispered voice in her brain said.
Be strong
.

“Your references.” He held his hand out as he spoke.

“References,” she repeated, knowing the pink in her cheeks was increasing. Perhaps this was the Room for Blushing, but if it were, she was doing all the work. He looked absolutely confident, that one eyebrow still lifted as though it had noticed her blushes but he himself had not.

There was a silence as they continued to look at each other in what felt like a facial standoff.

His other eyebrow joined its mate. “I presume a reputable governess from a reputable agency—I saw the advertisement in the papers, and my butler knew of the agency's reputation—would come supplied with references?” He lifted his head and crossed his arms on his chest. “Are you saying my butler is misinformed? Are you saying I have made the wrong decision?” His tone was nearly incredulous.

She still did not speak. She knew what to say—she'd coached enough of the unfortunate women to be able to recite it in her sleep—but she just couldn't, not with him, and those eyebrows, and all that . . .
virility
just a few feet away.

She was very far from reputable at this moment, she had to admit.

His lips—the fullness of which she'd just been admiring—thinned. “I need a governess. Not for me, mind you,” he added, those lips tilting up in a crooked smirk, as though this duke had a sense of humor, “but for my . . . my charge. A young lady of approximately four years.” A frown. “Or more or less, I'm not precisely certain.”

This was for the agency, she couldn't falter now. Or open and close her mouth like a hungry fish. Either action would not be useful.

“Yes, of course, Your Grace.” She made a slight curtsey, just as she instructed the women to do. To reinforce the client's importance so he or she would be beguiled into forgetting all about needing . . . “References. I regret to say I hastened to assist you without pausing to collect them.” She had been too busy yelping to remember anything she might actually require. “I will certainly rectify that at a later date. Please know, for now, that I am skilled in the charge of girls, and if I could just meet the young lady in question, I would be able to prove my mettle.”

His eyebrows lowered as he seemed to consider her words. “Prove your mettle in some sort of governess competition?”

She replied before she thought. “It is not as though the teaching of girls is something one can be competitive about. Either they learn or they do not. I assure you, I am quite competent.”

Oh, stupid, stupid Lily
. Wasn't it an absolute rule that one did not talk back to a duke? Particularly when said duke had your future employment in his hands? Plus the future of the agency, the one she and her partners had worked so very hard to make a success?

She clamped her mouth shut before she could say anything else.

But he hadn't yet thrown her out, so . . . She held her breath, seeing how the corner of his mouth had lifted into what might nearly be a smile, how
one eyebrow had arched up—honestly, his eyebrows were miraculously nimble—as though he were amused.

And exhaled as he nodded. “You will suit,” he said.

Hearing that, she had much more admiration for the unfortunate women who came to the agency.

Without saying anything more, he leaned over the surface of the escritoire and lifted a tiny pink bell from the far corner. He glared at it—and really, who could blame him?—and shook it.

Not unexpectedly, it had a tiny, light tinkling sound, and Lily held her breath, wondering if anyone could possibly have heard it. Moments later, however, the butler opened the door.

“Escort Miss Rose here now.” No please, no softening of his voice, but to Lily it was as though an angel had burst from the heavens and was promising her cream cakes and chocolate sauce.

Which reminded her, she hadn't eaten for a while. What would she do if her stomach growled? Was stomach-growling a cause for not hiring a person?

She hoped she wouldn't have to find out.

The duke did not ask her to sit, of course; she was a servant being interviewed for a position, not a guest visiting for tea. Once he'd sent the butler off to fetch Rose, he barely even glanced in her direction. Although she couldn't stop looking at him. It was really unfair that he was a duke, and lived in the Mansion with Many Rooms, and looked as he did.

Now, for example, he was examining some papers on the execrable escritoire, his long, elegant, yet still ridiculously virile fingers shuffling them while his other hand raked through his hair, making it both more disheveled and more dangerously attractive.

His nose—and really, when had she ever noticed the shape of a person's nose before?—was straight and sharp, and nearly too big, but was, again, dangerously attractive.

An attractive nose. She was engrossed by the study of his nose.