“What the devil are you doing here?”
He grimaced. “I came to see if you are well.”
Somehow, she snorted wrongly and it became a dizzying cough. “Do Ilookwell?” she asked once she’d recovered. Sheswung her arm around to show him the jumble of trunks. Half of her drink splashed onto the floor. “What a waste,” she murmured, her eyes following the gin.
He tilted his head and creases formed at the corners of his pretty mouth. “Are you drunk?”
Eleanor nodded. “I am four sheets to the wind, except there is no longer any wind.” Her shoulders slumped and her limbs hung heavy. “I am barely afloat, let alone moving.”
“You are in the doldrums.” His tone was serious but his eyes flashed with mirth that was incongruous with the gravity of his observation.
She pursed her lips as she considered his hypothesis. “Iamin the doldrums. Did you know doldrums are caused by winds from the northern hemisphere and winds from the southern hemisphere colliding? They collide and the wind is forced upward. Ships can’t sailupward. They need to stayin the water.”
The duke grinned. “I will remember that advice the next time I’m captaining a ship.”
Eleanor furrowed her brows. “Who says you get to be captain? What if I want to be captain?”
He had a funny look on his face. “If you ever do me the honor of sailing with me, I will let you be captain.”
She snorted again, this time correctly. No one “let” her do anything. She was the master of her own fate. If she wanted to captain the ship, she would. Maybe that was a solution. Governessing looked boring. Secretarial work looked boring. Standing behind a perfume counter looked boring. Everything open to women was boring and none of it paid a damn. Maybe she should work on a boat. A ship? A boat? How big did a boat have to be before it became a ship?
There was a cough, and she yanked her attention back to her unexpected intruder. “Why are you really here?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Is it not enough for you to cause my downfall? Do you truly need to study the aftermath?”
He smiled ruefully. “I brought you something,” he said, handing her a bouquet of peonies that she’d somehow failed to notice. They were beautiful, a pale pink with folds and folds of delicate petals so soft that she wondered what it would be like to be three inches tall and able to crawl inside one and fall asleep.
She was so fixated on the pale blush that she didn’t have the wherewithal to stop him when he waltzed inside.
“Hey. I didn’t say that you could…”
He didn’t pause or make any sign that he registered her protest. Instead, he eyed the chaos dubiously. “Which of these trunks holds your vases? I’m assuming you have vases. You like flowers.”
“How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “You told me that once.”
She did not recall doing so, but her cognitive function was admittedly impaired. “Idolike flowers. They are pretty. But they die. Everything dies.” She waved toward a set of three trunks beside the sofa. “Vases are in one of those.”
He nodded and began to search through them.
“I don’t want anything from you,” she said as he pulled out items protected with newspaper, but she couldn’t bring herself to hand the flowers back to him. What if she could never afford to buy flowers again?
He didn’t answer. Instead, he unwrapped a vase and crossed to her tiny kitchen to fill it. He looked out of place in all his dukeishness, standing over a kitchen sink. He’d probably never been in a kitchen, let alone one as small as hers.
“How did you know where I live?” As much as she tried for an even, sober tone, her words manifested in the slippery, high-pitched register that snuck in when she was sauced.
“I am a duke. When I ask people questions, they answer.”
She leaned against the door, the flowers hanging beside her. “Well, that seems rather underhanded. I suppose it must be nice to have that kind of power.”
Turning off the tap, he shrugged. “It has its benefits, sometimes.”
Eleanor scoffed. It had its benefits. “Mostof the time, I imagine,” she said. “It must be nice to have people always do what you want.” She screwed up her nose. Who had ratted her out? Roland, obviously. The duke had to have made it through the foyer. But how did he get to her foyer? Her past employers had her address, though Sophie wouldn’t have revealed it. Had Mabel given her away? Her friend had been vocal about a possible love match between Eleanor and the duke. But then, how had he found Mabel?
“Who did it?” she asked. “Who gave you my address? Was it Mabel, because whatever she said—”
Time was fuzzy. One moment he was in the kitchen by the sink, the next he was right in front of her. Inches away. She could smell his clove and cedarwood cologne. She drifted forward and inhaled deeply, the scent slipping down her throat and filling her lungs. It was warm. It was manly. The gin had already made her skin feel separate from the rest of her body. Now her face slid loose over her teeth and cheekbones. Cologne had between eighty and ninety percent alcohol. That was the problem, obviously.
He leaned forward, and she sprang back, colliding with the doorframe. He looked as though he was about to kiss her. Hisgaze lingered on her lips. His face softened. Or maybe it was her vision that blurred and his jaw was as chiseled as it always had been.
