But she must keep her mind settled upon the task at hand.
“No?” she repeated as she found her tongue, incredulous. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. Why would you deny me the opportunity to discuss the necessity behind my audience with you today?”
“Because there is no necessity in your audience with me,” he said curtly, cocking his head to one side as if to offer her a challenge. “I can discern already that you are aquiver with incredulity, Miss Killjoy.”
Briefly, she entertained the fantasy of closing the distance between them and boxing his elegant ears.
“It is Miss Hilgrove,” she gritted through clenched teeth, “as you well know, Your Grace.”
“But Miss Killjoy seems so much more apt.” He turned away from her then and sauntered casually—hands clasped behind his back as if he were a man at leisure—to his big, ornately carved desk.
“There is no need to be disrespectful,” she snapped at him, irked beyond her ability to hold her tongue now.
Everything about the Duke of Westmorland set her on edge. She could not fathom by what means the Home Office had chosen to venerate him with a position so closely tied to domestic safety. The Fenians were laying bombs all over London, and it seemed horridly absurd that such an arrogant cad could be supposed to save them all from the looming menace.
“I intend no disrespect, madam,” He stood behind his desk now, as if he were a king upon his throne. His shockingly blue eyes seemed to sear her as they met her gaze. “Indeed, it is you who has paid me an insult by barging into my study when I am in the midst of important work. And this after providing me with inexperienced, unacceptablesupposedtypists. I understand that you claim to offer them training, Miss Killjoy, truly I do. However, I must regretfully inform you that your training is woefully insufficient.”
He still refused to call her by her true name. And he was being dismissive now. To say nothing of the rude fashion in which he dismissed her careful, rigorous studies for her typists—all created by Isabella herself—and the excellent typists she had sent him, each of whom he had dismissed within hours of their initial placement with him.
She marched toward his desk, for he had thrown down the gauntlet, and she was picking it up. Her temper, ever one of her weaknesses, controlled her now. Along with her senses of justice and pride. “How dare you suggest my training is insufficient? Or that any of the three incredibly proficient typists allocated to you were inexperienced? I will have you know that each of them engaged in arduous training specifically designed by myself.”
His expression was bland, imperturbable. “Miss Killjoy, the first typist you sent hummed to herself as she completed a task. When I suggested to her how distracting I found her habit, she burst into tears and fled. The second had all the torpor of a lame horse and as much dedication to her task as a corpse. The third was ill. I will not countenance a pestilence-ridden typist, you understand. My work is far too important, and I cannot afford to have a contagion in my midst.”
He was still referring to her as Miss Killjoy, the knave. It was as if he enjoyed being the source of her irritation.
“Miss Shanley is one of the fastest typists in my employ,” she defended poor Mary. “Her mother is a celebrated opera singer, and her voice is quite pleasing. There was no call to be so cutting with her.”
“I do not find humming pleasing,” he countered, his voice grim. “Show me the man who wants to listen to warbling whilst he is attempting to concentrate, I beg you.”
“Mrs. Camberley is a slower typist than Miss Shanley, I will own, but she is dedicated and persistent,” she continued, ignoring his biting remarks as she defended Eloise this time. “Her work is error free.”
He changed his stance now, placing his hands on the back of his chair, strumming his long fingers upon the surface as if he were bored. “It had damned well better be error free when it takes her nearly an entire day to type one bloody page of reports.”
“And Miss Long’s devotion was so strong that she reported for duty although she was not feeling her best,” she concluded, championing Clementina now. “All three typists sent to you are incredibly competent and some of the best our school has to offer, and yet you have bullied, threatened, and otherwise mistreated them. Indeed, Your Grace, had I been aware I was sending my ladies to suffer such ill-treatment, I would have declined your request for aid.”
“Here now, madam.” His fingers stilled and his mouth—a thoroughly sensual mouth, she had noted against her will—thinned. “I neither bullied, threatened, nor mistreated any of the meager offerings your school provided.”
Meager offerings?
Next, he would suggest something thoroughly wrongheaded, such as the supposition a man would be better suited to the role.
“You most certainly did,” she countered, thinking of Mary’s torrent of tears upon her return. “I greatly regret sending three of my typists to you, as now I am in the untenable position of having to reassure my ladies I am capable of finding them agreeable situations.”
The tenseness fled from his countenance, and once more, he was all self-assured arrogance. He smiled then. “Ah, I begin to see the problem.”
“Yes.” Still, she would not falter or drag her gaze from his, even if he incited a riot of unwanted sensation roiling through her. Most certainly, she was not attracted to him. Men of his ilk held no allure for her. “The problem isyou.”
“I am the problem?” he repeated, as if she had spoken to him in a foreign language.
As if he could not comprehend a lady failing to fawn all over him. Undoubtedly, most women of his acquaintance did. He was unusually handsome. Not even his arrogance could diminish that undeniable fact. Her dislike of him did not render him any less attractive.
But that was not the reason for her pounding pulse, she told herself firmly. That was all down to her ire.
“Yes, Your Grace. You are the problem.” On a deep breath, she warmed to her cause. “No other establishment or individual to whom I have provided a typist has ever reacted in such fashion. Therefore, the sole conclusion I can draw is that you are in err. Meanwhile, it is the reputation of my school which is being jeopardized by your hasty actions. I demand a written apology from you, to each of the typists you chased away, along with a formal recommendation of my school to be printed in theTimes.”
His bright-blue gaze narrowed upon her. “Shall I also offer my firstborn child as sacrifice? Perhaps I should kneel before you in Trafalgar Square and vow my eternal fealty.”
He was making light of her request. Mocking her once more.
