“I’ll go, Your Grace,” she murmured, eyes lowering to the mess he’d made of the floor. “I’ll see to it that a chambermaid cleans up this disarray.”
“Joceline,” he implored, keeping his voice low so that it wouldn’t carry to Dunreave on the other side of the door, hating the formality that had returned to her demeanor and speech. “Don’t go like this. Not yet.”
“But I must,” she countered, unsmiling. “I am your housekeeper, and your mother has just arrived from the train station. How would it look if I were to linger here with you a moment more, behind closed doors?”
Bloody hell, she was right, and he didn’t like it. Not one whit.
“I’ll want to speak with you later,” he said. “We need to talk about this…about what we are.”
“It’s simple enough to me, Your Grace,” she returned quietly, a sad smile on the lips he had just kissed so voraciously. “I am your servant, and you are my employer. We do not belong to the same world, and it can never be more than what we just shared. Even that was unwise. I never should have been so bold. It cannot happen again.”
This was not what he wanted to hear. Nor would he accept it. Now that he knew Joceline was as drawn to him as he was to her, and now that he’d had her mouth on his, now that he knew how she tasted, the soft sounds of desire she made, the way her tongue writhed against his, he could not pretend none of it had happened. Nor could he pretend that he didn’t want more.
“This isn’t the end of what’s between us, and you know it as well as I do,” he said, needing to hear her confirm it.
But Joceline remained stoic, her housekeeper’s mask firmly in place as she curtseyed as if they hadn’t just nearly made love on his library table. “I’m afraid that it must be. If you’ll excuse me, Your Grace, I should see to Mr. Dunreave and your guests.”
Frustrated, he watched her run from him for the second time in as many days, knowing there was nothing he could do, thanks to his mother’s arrival with unexpected guests. He couldn’t very well carry on a clandestine affair with his housekeeper whilst Lord Dreighton, Lady Diana, and his own mother were in residence. To do so would only shame Joceline and his mother both.
No, he would have to wait. To bide his time.
And to find a way to get Joceline alone again without fear of interruption.
“Mrs. Yorke.”Mr. Dunreave was stern and unsmiling as Joceline rushed to the butler’s side in the corridor beyond the library.
She was all too aware of the sight she must present, mussed and flushed, her lips swollen from the duke’s kisses. And she was also painfully cognizant of the fact that Mr. Dunreave knew shehad been alone with Sedgewick in his library and just how long she had been there. He was a wise man, not easily fooled.
“Forgive me for being absent when the dowager arrived,” she apologized. “I was distracted by some final preparations for the Christmas dinner that His Grace wished to discuss.”
The blatant lie felt wrong, her cheeks heating beneath the butler’s cold regard.
“The maids and footmen are overseeing the trunks and the unpacking for His Grace’s guests,” Mr. Dunreave said. “They have all been escorted to the drawing room for tea and cakes. I’ve taken the liberty of having Mary oversee the opening of two additional chambers for Lord Dreighton and Lady Diana.”
The pointed tone and his critical stare, coupled with all the actions he had taken on her behalf, told her that the butler was quite put out with her.
“Thank you for attending to those matters for me,” she said. “I’ll go and speak with Mary now to make certain she has all the assistance she requires.”
“I rather think it would be prudent for you to come with me instead, Mrs. Yorke. Some tea in your room would be just the thing.”
As the housekeeper, her authority within the household was second only to the butler’s. And despite her passionate embrace with the duke not long before, Joceline was pragmatic. She knew that there was no future for herself and a duke. She needed to keep the peace between herself and Mr. Dunreave if she valued her position, which she very much did.
She needed this situation. It was the most lucrative position she’d had yet, and Mama and the children certainly needed the funds she was earning here quite badly.
“Of course, Mr. Dunreave,” she allowed, pinning a false smile to her lips. “Some tea would be lovely.”
They made their way to the servants’ stair and descended into the maze of passageways beneath Blackwell Abbey, emerging at her room, where the fire was cheerfully burning, thanks to the still-room maid, and a pot of tea was at the ready. The silence that had fallen only served to heighten Joceline’s ever-growing worry as they seated themselves in the small parlor area fashioned for such meetings and she served the butler his tea.
“How old are you, Mrs. Yorke?” Mr. Dunreave asked at last.
The question over her age nettled; the butler was not the first member of a household where she had been in service to question how a woman of her tender age had managed to so quickly work her way to lofty positions. Nor, she knew, would he be the last.
“I fail to see why my age should concern you, sir,” she said politely. “Nor can I imagine that you called this interview with me merely to discuss how old I am.”
“You are a clever woman to be sure, Mrs. Yorke.” He sipped calmly at his tea, unperturbed. “Clever enough to know why the question might be asked of you, I’ve no doubt.”
She stiffened, her spine going straight. “Mr. Dunreave, if you are implying that I am too young for the role of housekeeper, I can assure you that my age is immaterial.”
Joceline took her duties seriously. It was largely a thankless role she played—and certainly an exhausting one. But it was the best position in any household for a woman. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. The best position in any household was wife. That grand title, however, wasn’t achievable for someone like her, who had devoted her life to service.
