“Yes, but you are a woman as well, aren’t you, Mrs. Yorke?” His gaze was shrewd and knowing.
For a moment, she feared she had allowed too much of her feelings to show in her expression. She had always been so carefully guarded. It came with the territory of being in service. One could never afford to allow one’s true opinions or feelings to be known. One merely served.
“I am a housekeeper first,” she asserted, gripping her glass tightly again.
“Perhaps we can call a truce for a small time,” he suggested. “Here in this study, you may place the housekeeper aside. No Mrs. Yorke for a few minutes. Instead, you will merely be…”
His words trailed away, and he watched her with silent expectation.
It occurred to her that he wanted her given name, which was thoroughly improper. Becoming too familiar with one’s employer was a grave mistake.
“I’m sure I shouldn’t say, Your Grace.”
“Shouldn’t or won’t?” he asked, his voice silken. “Come now. Earlier, I allowed you to see a part of me that few others have seen. In return, I think it only fair that you tell me your given name.”
He had her there, and the expression on his face—calmly patient—told her he knew it.
“Joceline,” she allowed. “My name is Joceline, Your Grace.”
He repeated her name slowly, as if testing its feeling on his tongue, and she had never thought it a lovely or particularly interesting name, but when the Duke of Sedgewick said it in his deep, velvety baritone, she thought it sounded like the loveliest name in the world.
“The name suits you, I think.” He nodded, lifting his glass again. “A toast to you, Joceline. In a scant few weeks, you have managed to do what none of your predecessors have done.”
Heat blossomed on her cheeks. “Perhaps it was not the right time, Your Grace.”
“Or perhaps it was not the right woman for the job,” he suggested. “Hear, hear.”
She raised her glass because he wanted her to, a complex web of emotion tangling around her. His praise was heady. So, too, the way he was looking at her. His use of her given name. The privacy of the study, the door closed behind them. The intimacy of a shared drink and secrets.
They had ventured into territory most treacherous, and she knew it.
Joceline took a longer drink from her brandy and soda water, sparing herself the need to answer him. He drank his brandy as well, his gaze never straying from her. It was most disconcerting. Impossibly intimate, and yet they were not even touching, simply sitting on opposite sides of his desk in a room that smelled like the pleasing warmth of the fireplace and his musky ambergris scent.
“I suppose you must be wondering about my scars,” he said suddenly, breaking the companionable silence that had fallen between them.
“I would never presume to do so, Your Grace,” she hastened to say.
“A politic response.” He gave her a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But curiosity is natural. You’ve already commented on my gloves. Now you’ve seen the reason.”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Joceline blurted, the brandy and soda water loosening her tongue.
She wasn’t accustomed to spirits. What had she been thinking? Best not to drink another drop.
“You don’t?”
She shook her head, holding his regard, in for a penny, in for a pound. “No.”
Setting his glass down on the polished surface of his desk, he then reached for his left glove, plucking it away to reveal the scarred hand beneath. The right glove came next, leaving both hands revealed to her. At this proximity, she could see the extent of the damage that had been done by flame.
“Do you know how she died, Joceline?” he asked, his use of her name sending a jolt through her.
She swallowed, realizing he was speaking of his wife. “Of course not, and you needn’t speak of such a distressing subject.”
“I want to, however.” He lightly stroked the desk with his damaged fingertips, as if he were touching it for the first time, such reverence. “This morning taught me that perhaps I need to, that I’ve been hiding from the past for far too long and it’s time I faced it.”
“If unburdening yourself to me would be of assistance to you, I’d be honored to listen,” she said, meaning those words far more than she should.
What she felt for the Duke of Sedgewick went beyond the caring a housekeeper would have for her employer. She had seen past the curt, icy mask to the real man suffering beneath. His grief and anger had led him to become a recluse, but there was so much more to him than that.
