“The devil she did.”
Her daring was beyond the limitations of reason. He should have her tossed out of Blackwell Abbey on her rump.
“Where is she?” he asked, taking another sweeping inventory of the drawing room.
“In the housekeeper’s room, the last I checked, Your Grace.”
If he were a different man, a kinder man, a softer man, a man who had not tried to pull his wife from a burning building and failed, he might have found the decorations pleasant and inviting. Had his life progressed as it should have done, he would have a child by now. Perhaps even another on the way. He and his family would have gathered around those trees. Presents would have been laid beneath them.
But he was not a different man.
And he had no family.
So he left the drawing room without another word, intent upon finding the housekeeper. He would carry her out of his house over his shoulder if necessary. All he wanted was for her to go.
Joceline was inspectingthe dishes for cracks when the heavy, booted feet of the duke pounded toward her.
Mary, poor skittish girl that she was, made a squeak of fright when he appeared at the threshold of the housekeeper’s room, thunderclouds in his harsh stare and icy fury in his clenched jaw.
“You,” he said to the maid, his voice clipped and steely as his eyes. “Go.”
Mary didn’t hesitate in fleeing. She rushed from the chamber with such haste she nearly tripped over her hems, forgetting to curtsy, mumbling something unintelligible.
Joceline suppressed a sigh and faced the Duke of Sedgewick alone for the second time that day. If his countenance was any indication, he was even more displeased with her than he had been on the previous occasion.
“Your Grace.” She greeted him with as much kindness as she could summon, dipping in deference as she smiled with false cheer.
The duke did not return her smile. “Why are you still here, madam?”
“Because Her Grace deemed me suitable to fulfill the role of housekeeper here at Blackwell Abbey.”
“Yes, but Her Grace is not the owner of Blackwell Abbey, and she had no right to offer you the situation,” he bit out. “I neither want nor need a housekeeper. Particularly not one who is defiant and refuses to listen to the orders given her.”
As he ventured nearer, Joceline once again caught his scent, mingling with the fresh earthiness of the outdoors from his ride. His long hair was damp, the ends curling. He still wore his mud-splattered riding boots. A sizzle of unexpected awareness coursed through her despite herself. There was something about the Duke of Sedgewick that was deeply compelling, regardless of his truculent disposition.
But she couldn’t concern herself with that. She was a servant in his household—and an unwanted one at that. She had to do battle with him, not swoon over his handsome looks.
“I understand that you believe you don’t require a housekeeper, Your Grace,” she began in soothing tones before he interrupted her.
“It is not a matter of belief, Mrs. Young. It is a matter of fact.”
“Mrs. Yorke,” she reminded him, understanding why the dowager duchess had chosen her to fill the lofty position of housekeeper, and at a tremendously large sum per annum, too. “And I am afraid that I would beg to differ, Your Grace.”
He had stopped before her, emanating a wintry menace that she had no doubt had cowed every poor housekeeper who had preceded her. “Oh? Is that so, madam?”
His voice held a deceptive calm, rather reminiscent of a serpent about to strike. But she refused to be intimidated. He may be a duke, but he was a duke who was sorely in need of some aid at his ailing estate. His mother had known it. She had warned Joceline of the challenge that would be awaiting her here in the north.
“My son has exiled himself, Mrs. Yorke,” the dowager had said. “It is quite as if he died with his wife. He is allowing the estate to go to ruin around him. He has turned away almost all the domestics, including the excellent housekeepers I sent him over the last few months, and I quite fear what will happenin the absence of a suitable domestic’s firm guidance over the household.”
Joceline hadn’t been concerned with the duke’s past at the time. Rather, she had been compelled to accept the situation because of the promised one hundred pounds per annum should she stay the whole year, a fortune compared to the modest fifty pounds she had been earning previously. But more than that, the duchess had promised her an additional fifty pounds if she was able to keep Blackwell Abbey decorated for Christmas, as Her Grace intended to visit her son for the festive season.
Joceline needed this post. Needed the one hundred pounds and the fifty pounds besides. Her younger brother and sisters made use of every shilling she could send back to them and Mama, now that Papa was gone. Many others depended upon her. Here, at last, was her chance to earn funds to keep a roof over her siblings’ heads and enough food in their bellies.
So she kept her face a mask of polite civility and held the duke’s stare. “That is so, Your Grace. Your household is, to be perfectly candid, in a state of ruin. The number of domestics in your employ is woefully insufficient for a manor house of this size. The kitchen maid is cavorting with one of the grooms. Your dishes are cracked and chipped and in need of repair. There is a mouse infestation that needs to be dealt with, your preserve stores are empty, and your cook is tippling the sherry. To say nothing of the carpets that need to be taken up and beaten, the abundant dust that is covering nearly every surface, the loose floorboards on the servants’ stair, and the broken chandelier in the dining room.”
She finished her impassioned speech and was greeted with cold silence and the duke’s impassive countenance. His blue-green gaze remained glacial. He was so stern, so austere. So despicably handsome, even in his cruel indifference.
He quite took her breath, the wretched man.
