The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior (9 page)

“What was your favorite thing to do when you were growing up?” she asked.

“Besides terrorizing the peasants?” He grinned as he spoke, and she couldn't help but grin back. “I grew up in the country, a mid-sized country estate,” he continued.

Like me, Lily thought in surprise.

“When did you move to London?” She had only been here a few years, and she did miss the country. But there would have been no opportunity to earn her living, nor was anyone there for her anymore—her mother died a little over two years ago, her father earlier than that, leaving his family nothing. Her sister—well, it had been at least fifteen years since she died.

She would rather be a not starved orphan than a starved one, she'd decided in those weeks after her mother died.

“I moved here when I inherited the title,” the duke said, and screwed his face up in thought. “It's been close to six months, I believe. But I haven't lived in the country for long before that—I was sent to school, and I spent vacations there. Then I traveled in Europe for a few years.”

She was opening her mouth to ask why, if he had a family in the country, he'd spent his vacations at school, until she realized that was far too intimate a question. And he might respond with questions of his own, which would be too dangerous.

“I've never been to Europe.”
Unlike the country
. “What did you do there?”

He chuckled. “The same thing I did when I was growing up. I walked. I like listening to the quiet, if that makes any sense.” He spoke in a soft voice, as though for her ears only, as though for her only.

She nodded. “It does make sense. London is so loud sometimes, and I wish I could just escape and be where no one is talking.”

His lips twisted into a wry smile. “If you were a duke, you could just command them to stop talking.”

She acted before she realized it, poking him in the arm. “Hush, you know you're all bark and no bite.” She paused, then amended her words. “Or mostly no bite. Speaking of terrorizing, you came close with the dressmaker.” She glanced down at her gown. Yes. It was still nicer than anything she had ever owned. “Thank you for this, by the way.”

He smiled smugly. “I wanted to make sure that nobody would be able to cast aspersion on you or Rose for anything but your own personalities.”

“Because we are both so dreadful on our own?” she replied, a teasing tone in her voice.

He shook his head. “That came out entirely wrong. I mean, I want Rose to feel valued. To feel as though she is being taken care of, and that she is not an afterthought. Even though—”

A silence. Even though she
had
been an afterthought, if thought of at all, from what Lily could gauge of the girl's history.

“Never mind. I just wanted to do the right thing,” he said, taking another sip from his glass.

“Perhaps you would want to take Rose on a long walk sometime? To hear the silence?”

He met her gaze, a nearly hesitant smile on his face. “You think she would like that?”

Lily nodded, her throat tightening at the thought of her own father never once wanting to take her out for a walk to “hear the silence.”

“I do,” she replied.

A duke must never exhibit an unseemly emotion
.

I'll do what I want
.

—T
HE
D
UKE
'
S
G
UIDE
TO
C
ORRECT
B
EHAVIOR

“I
want to do it.” Rose picked up the pencil from the table, her expression one of intense concentration.

They were in the schoolroom, Lily having arranged the various supplies she'd gotten on the table. They were reviewing Rose's education thus far, which was not as meager as Lily had worried. She had been loved, even if she lived in reduced circumstances.

Lily was grateful for that—she knew what it was like to be unloved, or at least not loved enough. Her mother had loved her, but when it came time to make hard decisions and try, her mother chose to just give up, essentially dying of fatigue.

It had made Lily even more determined to work as hard as she could. “Start at the top of the letter, it makes it easier to form.” Lily reached out to touch the paper. “An A connects at the top, then goes down like streamers from a maypole.”

Rose's eyes lit up. “I know those! We went to the fair last year. Mama looked so pretty.”

She must have been lovely, Lily thought as
she regarded Rose. The child, now that she was cleaned up and sleeping well, was adorable, her huge, dark eyes like her father's, while it seemed—thankfully—she'd inherited her mother's upturned nose.

“What did you and your mama like to do best?”

Rose kept her face bent over the paper, the emerging letter A needing her attention. “She told me stories. Like you do. I like those stories.”

“That's very good, Miss Rose,” Lily said, looking at the finished A. “And what stories are your favorites?”

Rose looked up. “Fairy stories. With princes, and dragons. I like the dragons.”

“I like princes and dragons, too.” She tapped the paper. “Do you want to try the next letter in the alphabet? What would that be, I wonder?” she said, tilting her head in thought.

“B!” Rose shouted, earning a smile from Lily.

“Yes, B, that's it. Do you remember what that looks like?”

Rose looked as though she was going to say of course she did, then she shook her head, as though reluctant to admit she didn't know after all.

She had inherited some traits from her father.

Lily took a pencil and wrote the letter next to the completed letter A. “Like this, a straight line with two equal bumps on the side.”

Rose took her own pencil and started writing just below Lily's letter, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she concentrated.

“What words begin with the letter B?” Lily asked. “Does ‘cat' begin with B?”

Rose's expression was scornful. “Of course not, ‘cat' begins with—with . . .” she said, faltering.

“Does ‘bat' begin with B?”

“Yes, it does. And ‘boat,' and ‘best,' and ‘biscuit.'”

“Very good!” Lily said. “And your B looks lovely.”

Rose smiled at the praise.

They both turned as they heard footsteps—decisive, long-legged footsteps—in the hallway.

“Duke!” Rose exclaimed as he entered the room. “We're working on letters, do you know Miss Lily thought ‘cat' began with a B?”

The duke's eyes glanced at Lily. “Perhaps you should be the one teaching her, then.” His tone was humorous, and Lily saw the glint of laughter in his eyes.

“She writes letters better than I do,” Rose admitted. “So maybe not.”

“Ah, I see,” the duke said, looking at the paper. “I was coming to see if you would like to spend a few hours with me, Miss Rose? Miss Lily has her afternoon off, and I have no other plans.”

The way he spoke, as though he were genuinely asking, not ordering, made Lily's heart nearly hurt. And that was before she saw the expression on Rose's face, which was the most joyous thing she might have ever beheld.

“Yes, can we have something to eat first?”

“Of course.” The duke held his hand out to Rose, who tucked her smaller hand in his. “If you will excuse us, Miss Lily, my lady and I have an engagement for the afternoon.”

“Certainly, Your Grace,” Lily replied, trying not to beam too much as she looked at the two of them.

“L
ily, it's wonderful to see you!” Annabelle bustled over as soon as Lily walked into the office, her blue eyes sparkling, as they usually did, with some sort of general joy. “We got your note, and Caroline and I have been dying for you to come tell us everything. So what is your employer like? What is the charge like? A girl or a boy? And what—”

“If you'll let me speak, I'll tell you everything,” Lily said, laughing. They made their way to the back office and Lily gestured for Annabelle to sit. She took the other chair, the one that the unfortunate women usually sat in when being interviewed by the agency.

She hoped it was not a portent.

She spent the next few minutes with only a few interruptions (“
how
many rooms?”) telling Annabelle everything she wanted to know, only hesitating when it came to describing the duke.

Because words that weren't “impossibly handsome,” “impossible,” and “fascinatingly irritating” would have been inappropriate. And she didn't want to reveal to Annabelle—or herself, for that matter—just how true all of those words were.

Eventually, Annabelle's questions stopped and, at Lily's request, she enthusiastically began writing up a false reference from the Vicar of
Littlestone. Tapping her pen against her mouth, Annabelle asked, “Is it excessive to say you are entirely capable of handling children of all ages, from birth to eighteen years old?”

“Are you expecting the duke to present more children for me to care for?” Lily asked in a dry tone of voice.

“Excessive,” Annabelle agreed, crossing out a few words on the paper. “Now I'll have to copy it over.” She drew another slip of paper from their shared desk but paused before starting to write again. “Oh! You didn't say anything about your employer.”

Drat that inquisitive Annabelle.

“No, I didn't.”

Annabelle got to work copying the reference. “Is he nice? Have you spoken to him, or were you hired by his wife?”

“He's not married.”

“No?” Annabelle replied, laying the pen down, an arch look on her face.

Lily glared at her. “As though there would be a chance for me to marry him. In case you have not noticed, he is a duke. And I . . . am not.”

Annabelle fluttered her hands. “Well of course not, dear, if you were a duke you couldn't very well marry one.” She snorted. “The idea of you being a duke.”

Too late, Lily recalled her friend was far too literal.

“Even though I am not a duke,” and could she believe she was having this conversation, “I will not be marrying one myself.”

Hopefully that would settle it.

“Is he handsome?”

That had not settled it.

“I suppose so,” just as she supposed the sky was blue, unless you were in London during the winter, and just as she supposed that if she had to keep answering such questions she just might burst out with what she was truly thinking. Things like: Why did he have to be a duke and look like that? Wasn't it enough that he had a tremendous title? Why couldn't he have been short and plump, perhaps with a wart or two? It would make her work much easier.

“You're not telling me anything,” Annabelle said with a sulky look.

Precisely.

Thankfully, Annabelle was as mercurial as she was literal—you just had to wait until she cycled to another topic.

“Is that gown new?” she asked as she began to recopy the reference. Annabelle was the most fashionable of them—her own downfall had begun in a hat shop—and she somehow contrived to look nice despite having very limited resources.

“Yes, the duke—” Lily hesitated, knowing that Annabelle would jump on this tidbit of information. “The duke purchased it for me, since I will be taking Miss Rose out, and he didn't want my lack of a wardrobe to cause any comment. Because she is not—well, because she is illegitimate. He's saying she's the daughter of his cousin, to keep her from gossip, but she's actually his.”

Annabelle narrowed her eyes and pointed the
pen at Lily. “You need to be careful, if he is the type of man to . . . to . . .”

“Cavort?” Lily supplied.

Annabelle nodded her head vehemently. “Cavort, yes. It is one thing to know you are not a duke, but you are a young, attractive woman, and you cannot allow yourself to get in any kind of trouble.” They both knew firsthand what kind of trouble could befall a young woman with no resources. Thankfully, they had missed the worst possible trouble, but it only served to reinforce that Lily must succeed in her work, to secure the agency's future.

The trouble she could foresee would be in allowing herself to even speculate about why the duke sounded as though his childhood wasn't a happy one, or how they had a shared sense of humor, or what she felt when he spoke about his daughter.

H
er concerns hadn't entirely subsided by the time she returned to the duke's house—her home, for the time being, at least—but she'd thought about what had to be done while she walked, holding her new, not-even-close-to-threadbare cloak around her in protection against the wind.

She needed to wrap herself up as tightly as she had the cloak, she thought, to protect her against any kind of danger of the dukely kind.

While knocking on the front door, she told herself she'd barely even noticed its magnificence. She rolled her eyes at her own foolishness, then schooled her features—prim, precise, methodical,
so no one would suspect her of being less than a proper governess.

Thompson opened the door, his eyebrow raised in a pale imitation of his master's, then it almost seemed as if he might smile, and he gestured for her to enter.

“Your cloak, miss?” he said, waving a footman over to take it. “And how was your afternoon?”

Excellent. I got false references, told my flighty friend I am not a duke, and spent far too much time trying not to think about a certain gentleman
.

“Excellent,” were the only words that had run through her head that she actually spoke aloud, however. “Where is Miss Rose?”

“She is with the duke in the kitchens.” He sniffed. “I believe Miss Rose expressed that she was hungry.”

“I shall just run down, then.”

“Miss Lily,” Rose said, walking with the duke into the hallway. “You're back! We had pudding, I ate so much my stomach is huge.” She clasped her hands on her belly and smiled.

Lily was glad to see the duke's belly had not suddenly bellowed out in a similar way.

“Did you have a nice afternoon?” he asked.

“Thank you, I did, Your Grace.” She glanced at Rose, then spoke again to the duke. “I was wondering, do you have a conservatory? I was thinking that Rose and I would begin a study of flowers, and it would be very useful if we had actual specimens to see. Of course we could always go to a garden, but I was thinking—”

“Well, Thompson? Do we?”

The duke cut her off before she could meander any longer, thank goodness.

Thompson straightened his spine. “We do, Your Grace, but if you recall when first you took possession of the house—”

Now the duke interrupted Thompson. Perhaps it was his chosen activity this afternoon? Interrupting people?

“I do not recall, or I would not be asking. Do we have a conservatory?”

Thompson's lips thinned. “We do, Your Grace, but it has not been maintained in the proper way. At the time, you stated that the study of flowers was a useless endeavor, and that the space could be better used for other purposes. I believe you mentioned putting all the cats in there, if they were so determined to stay?”

Rose turned accusing eyes on the duke, who crossed his arms over his chest and returned her stare. “I didn't do that, though, did I?”

She seemed to consider, then nodded. “Mr. Snuffles likes it here.”

He bowed. “I am glad we have that settled.”

“About the conservatory,” Lily began, feeling as though the conversation had run entirely away from her, “could you tell me where it is, and Rose and I will go investigate?”

Thompson began to speak, but the duke—of course—cut him off. “Just point me where it is, I will take our young ladies there,” he said.

“Certainly, Your Grace.” Thompson seemed to hesitate. “Although it is not in a state I would wish it to be seen.”

“Haven't you learned by now that kind of thing doesn't matter to me?” the duke said impatiently. “Where is it?”

Thompson bent in a stiff bow. “Down through that door, then left, then right again.”

“Thank you, Thompson,” Lily muttered as the duke grabbed Rose's hand again and took off to where Thompson had pointed, without any indication that he had heard him.

Lily followed, hoping she had not just earned the irrevocable ire of the butler.

“This must be it,” the duke said, grabbing the doorknob of the third room they'd passed through. He flung it open and stepped aside so Rose and Lily could see in.

In to where many, many plants were in their death throes. If not actually dead.

Lily paused at the threshold, suddenly feeling sympathy for Thompson. The room had large windows, but the glass was dusty, if not grimy. Random gardening tools lay scattered as though tossed, while varying sized pots of earth were placed on long tables.

“Well. No wonder Thompson didn't wish us to see this.” The duke gazed around the room, his judging eyebrow lifted in disapproval. “It's not his fault, though, since I told him I didn't want to hear anything about it, and he told me until we got a new housekeeper he didn't have enough staff to clean it properly.”

“There's one growing here,” Rose said, poking a still living variety of rose. It wasn't in the best of health, but at least it wasn't yet deceased.

“That one is a rose, like you, Miss Rose,” the duke said, giving her an exaggerated bow.