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“Why do you speak as though you haven’t been married before?” she asked, confused by his remark. “In fact, I find it quite odd that you need my help. How did you manage to charm the late duchess?”

“You are digressing,” he said plainly, locking eyes with her.

“I am not. It is important that I know.”

“It is not,” he retorted.

“I think it is,” she said back.

“You’re forgetting your place, Miss Crampton,” he said quietly now, lowering his head only so slightly. “Coach me. That is what you’re here to do.”

Lucy held his gaze for a moment longer than was strictly necessary, though her thoughts had already drifted elsewhere, pulled, against her better judgment, toward the conspicuous silence he kept around his late wife. In the weeks since her arrival, she had learned the rhythms of the household, the tempers of the children, even the precise degree of stiffness with which the Duke of Langridge took his tea, yet that particular subject remained carefully sealed, revealed only in fragments and half-acknowledged pauses. She told herself, repeatedly, that it was not her concern, that she required no such knowledge to carry out her task, and yet the curiosity lingered, as though some part of her wished to understand the man behind the title, even when she had no right to ask. In the end, she forced the thought aside, recognizing that some doors were not meant to be opened forcefully.

“You are quite right, Your Grace,” she said evenly, refusing to rise to the deliberate gravity of his tone. “Well, since I am here to coach you, I propose we abandon theory altogether.”

His expression did not change, though there was a faint sharpening of interest in his eyes. “Abandon it in favor of what, precisely?”

“Practice,” Lucy replied with a composure that surprised even herself. “A conversation conducted under the conditions you are most likely to encounter.”

He studied her with squinted eyes. “All right, and whom am I meant to be conversing with?”

“With me, of course,” she said simply. “I shall stand in for a lady of respectable standing, mild curiosity, and a willingness to be charmed, provided you do not frighten her within the first few moments.”

A pause followed before Rowan’s mouth curved, not quite into a smile. “You are asking me to... flirt with you?”

Lucy resisted the urge to look away. Averting his gaze at that very moment would have been too dangerous. “I am asking you to attempt it, Your Grace,” Lucy corrected.

His gaze lingered on her face. “You are remarkably fearless for a woman whose employment depends on my goodwill.”

She met his look without flinching. “On the contrary, Your Grace. I am practical. If you cannot manage this with me, you will not manage it with anyone.”

“Very well,” he said at last, his voice deliberately mild. “Begin.”

Lucy did not oblige him at once. Instead, she moved a few paces away, positioning herself closer to the window as though she were already part of a larger room, her posture shifting subtly into something more formal, more distant, as though the air between them had grown crowded with unseen guests.

“No,” she said. “Not from where you are sitting behind your desk.”

Rowan’s gaze followed her, faintly puzzled.

“In a ballroom...” Lucy continued, “... you would not remain rooted to the floor like an offended statue. You would notice a lady from across the room, decide she caught your attention, and then, most importantly, act upon it.”

She lifted her chin slightly. “Stand, Your Grace. Then approach me.”

She had scarcely finished speaking before the impropriety of it struck her, for one did not instruct a duke so plainly nor issue him a directive as though he were a schoolboy in need of correction. A flicker of unease passed through her as she measured the possibility that she had overstepped, that she had mistaken the latitude of her role for permission she did not possess. Yet as Rowan rose, she saw no flash of offence in his expression; instead, something subtler and more unsettling took its place in his gaze. His attention sharpened, his posture altered, and the habitual distance he carried seemed, if onlyslightly, to recede, as though her command had not diminished him but rather had drawn his focus fully onto her. When his gaze met hers again, it lingered in a way it had not before, like it was newly alert.

“My apologies, I had not realized enthusiasm was now a requirement,” he said.

“It is not enthusiasm,” she replied. “It is intention. Women can tell the difference.”

That, at least, earned another pause. He crossed the distance between them at an unhurried pace, his expression guarded, as though he suspected some trap he had yet to identify.

Lucy turned to face him only when he was close enough to warrant it.

“Now,” she said quietly, “let us try again.”

Rowan inclined his head. “Miss Crampton.”

She waited.