Fool Me Twice (5 page)

“But it’s your plan,” Vickers said. “
You’re
the reason we haven’t answered him.”

She scowled. They cared for the duke; she did not. Indeed, that thought felt like an anchor, holding her steady against their imploring looks, which, like a strong current, threatened to bear her straight into stormy waters. “He and I have not even been introduced. Surely, Mr. Vickers, it is you who—”

Jones stood. “Come, then. Let us go together, so I may introduce you properly.”

Vickers mimed a tip of an invisible hat. “It was a pleasure to know you both.”

*  *  *

As Jones opened the door to the duke’s sitting room, the hinges squeaked. Olivia stood close enough behind him to sense how he flinched. His nerves proved contagious; she found herself holding her breath as she crept across the carpet in his wake.

She never should have interfered. What did
she
care if the staff failed to defend their own dignity? If they were at peace with their master’s savagery, so be it; let them indulge him. And as for having to go into his rooms again—she could have encouraged the footmen to take him more bottles than any man could drink. An unconscious, stupefied drunkard would have posed her no harm.

Oh, this was a terrible flaw in her, this need to interfere and manage and
fix
things.

Jones knocked softly on the bedroom door. “Your Grace?” His voice shook. Olivia wanted to pat the poor man’s arm to lend him courage, but she wasn’t sure she had enough to spare. She had vowed, after all, not to return until she’d acquired a suit of armor to protect herself. So much for that.

Jones must have heard a reply, for he opened the door. “May we enter?”

A soft hiss filled the air. Along the walls, gas lamps sputtered to life. The rising light illuminated a man standing at the far corner of the room, very tall. It gilded the strong column of his throat, the sharp angle of his jaw—

Olivia felt as though she’d been kicked in the head. He was disheveled (but with a valet like Vickers, she would not have expected otherwise). His beard wanted
trimming, and his shaggy hair begged for scissors. He looked, as well, underfed—his shirt hung loosely about his shoulders, and his trousers depended too visibly on the clasps of his suspenders. Together with his gauntness, the effect should have been ugly.

It was the opposite. His leanness only accented the perfect bones of his face: broad, sharp cheekbones; a straight, high-bridged nose; a hard, square jaw that framed full, long lips. She stared, feeling stupefied. Marwick had been a subject of public scrutiny ever since he had stepped into political office. But for all the things that had been spoken of him, nobody had ever called him handsome. Why not?
How
not? Broad-shouldered, whittled lean, he put her in mind of some warrior ascetic from the icy, Viking north. Only his mouth ruined the image: his full lips belonged on a hedonist.

He stepped toward them—rangy, tall, very, very blond. His single step caused Jones to bobble back against her. “I have been ringing,” the duke said coldly, “for an hour.”

His voice was dark and rich, like the cream on a pint of stout. She understood nothing, suddenly. He did not sound like a madman, and he did not hold himself like someone afraid to leave his rooms. He loomed, rather. He . . .
presided.

And the chamber over which he presided, she saw, was
filled
with papers. Piles of them lay strewn across the carpet. There were also piles of books stacked about, but those papers . . . oh, so many of them!

“Forgive us, Your Grace.” Jones stammered the words. “There was an emergency in the kitchens.”

She had a sinking feeling. She would search the study, of course. The library, too. But all these papers . . .
here
 . . . in the room he never left. God must have a very dry sense of humor.

When she raised her gaze, she found Marwick’s attention fastened on
her
. His eyes were a brilliant, piercing blue. Their intensity made something flutter inside her. She recognized the intelligence in them. Her gut told her to take it as a warning.

Jones spoke in a rush. “This is Mrs. Johnson, Your Grace. She is—ah, a temporary replacement for Mrs. Wright, who you may recall gave notice two weeks ago. We were left in the lurch, I fear—I know it is somewhat extraordinary, to hire someone without consulting you. But—if you recall, you gave me full authority—”

“I recall.” His piercing blue eyes had not yet released her. She began to feel the weight of them as a deliberate challenge. The lion in his natural element expected submission, but she would not bow her head. She did not even blink. Had she been a cat, she might have bristled at the provocation of his look.

Instead, she was a secretary—by training, at least; and a housekeeper, by strange luck. Neither position required her to abase herself to him.

Thank God for it. For she realized in this moment how badly she would have played the maid. Humbleness came hard to her. She could not value it; too many unkind people had tried to force it on her in her youth. They had expected her to be ashamed, and so she had vowed never to be so.

Nevertheless, a curtsy did no harm. “I am honored, Your Grace,” she said as she rose.

He stared at her a moment longer. Then, with a soft noise of contempt, he swung his attention to Jones. “I have told you,” he said, “that you may manage the staff
as you like. However.” His voice hardened. “If I am forced to wait, the next time I ring that bell—”

“That was my doing,” Olivia said quickly—for Jones had whimpered, and she could not let him face the consequences that rightly belonged to her.

Marwick said to Jones, “You will tell the girl not to interrupt me.”

The girl! She stiffened. She was his
housekeeper,
a position well worthy of his respect. Not that she imagined a man who threw
bottles
would recognize that.

“Yes, indeed.” Jones shot her a panicked look. “Mrs. Johnson, if you will wait in the hall?”

She would, gladly. She was already turning away. But—no, in fact, she had something to say. She pivoted back. “I am no girl,” she told Marwick. Bully. Brute! He had tried to wreck his brother’s marriage to a good woman, for no reason. He terrified his servants. His estates were probably falling to pieces thanks to his inattention. And
he
called her a
girl
? What was he, but a sulking, spoiled boy? “Admittedly, I am young—and a good thing, for an elderly woman might not have survived the shock of having a bottle thrown at her.”

Marwick looked at her a moment. And then, suddenly, he was crossing the room in long strides—and Jones, the coward, was dashing into the safety of the sitting room.

She shrank back. But her feet would not let her retreat, clinging stubbornly to pride even as Marwick towered over her. Her heart, on the other hand, was a coward; it slammed against her breastbone in search of an escape.

“I beg,” he said softly, “your
pardon,
girl. And now, I advise you to go downstairs and pack your things. You are sacked.”

As simply as that?
No.
She did not dare glance over her shoulder to find out if Jones had heard the news. “That would be foolish, Your Grace.” The sound of her voice, so fierce, gave her fresh courage. “Your staff is running wild. They need a strong hand to put them to rights.”

“Get. Out.”

A wild idea came to her, borne of desperation. Lowering her voice, she said, “I should hate to be forced to tell the newspapers that I was attacked by my employer, and then thrown out on my ear for complaining of it.”

He stepped back as though to see her better. But as he studied her, his perfect face held an absolute lack of expression. “Was that a threat?” he asked. He did not sound particularly interested.

His monotone was somehow more terrifying than a bellow. She felt a bolt of primal alarm, the same that saved her from runaway carriages, uncovered drains, and lunatics on the street.
Run,
it said.
For your life.

She took a breath. She knew enough of him from Elizabeth Chudderley—particularly about his reaction to his wife’s letters—to know that he feared public notoriety. Elizabeth had said that he dreaded above all things that the letters would be made public. It stood to reason, then, that he would not like the incident with the bottle to be made public, either, for it certainly would make him notorious.

“It is not
precisely
a threat, Your Grace”—for she would never carry through on it; such attention would not suit her, either—“only a suggestion that you might prefer to deal fairly with me. Your household requires direction.”

He stepped toward her again, and this time her feet
responded sensibly, carrying her backward until she hit the wall.

“How curious,” he said. He propped an elbow against the wall above her, leaning into it,
looming
over her, while with his other hand he grabbed her jaw, lifting it the way one might an animal’s. Every muscle in her stiffened as he looked into her face.

His hand was hot. Impossibly large. She spoke through her teeth. “Release me.”

“Your Grace,” he said very softly. “You will address me properly.”

Properly?
He wanted respect from her while he behaved like a common thug? She glared at him.

He pulled her chin higher. A muscle in her neck protested. Where was Jones? Why was he not interfering? “Your Grace,” he said again, still just as soft. “Do say it, Mrs. Johnson. I am waiting.”

She would spit in his eye first. “Do dukes behave so?” Her voice came out very hoarsely. “
Gentlemen
do not.”

His eyes roved her face, his own still coldly impassive. “Oh, yes,” he said, “you
are
very young. Very young and very stupid. I think
girl
is the only word for you, Mrs. Johnson. Tell me, was there ever a mister?”

She slammed her lips together to halt their trembling. Until he released her, she would say no more. She did not know which remark might incite him further.

He lifted a brow, which gave her a weird shock; it was the first animation she had seen on his frigid countenance. “Silence? But a moment ago, you had so very much to say.” He placed his thumb on her lower lip, then made a firm, hard stroke. She tasted the salt on his skin.

This was not happening. She seemed to move
outside her body, viewing from above this unbelievable moment: the Duke of Marwick,
molesting her.

He withdrew his thumb. Lifted it to his own mouth. Tasting
her.
Their eyes met, his impossibly blue, not a speck of hazel or gold to break their electric intensity. A curious prickle spread through her.

He made a contemptuous noise and dropped his hand. “Disobedience,” he said. “The taste of it does not suit me.” He took another step back, looking at her with sudden cruel amusement. “However. The correction of impertinent domestics has always been one of my skills.”

Here
was why nobody commented on the beauty of his bone structure, the shape of his mouth, or the brilliance of his eyes. Perfection was not always beautiful: sometimes, it was terrifying.

“Your Grace—” she began in a whisper, but he cut her off.

“There is no Mr. Johnson, I think. You blush like a virgin.
Ma’am
.”

She turned her face away. Staring at the wall, she said rapidly, “The staff assures me that you have never been the kind of cowardly man who abuses his servants—”

His fist slammed into the wall.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. His fist had missed her ear by an inch, no more.

“I am precisely that kind of man,” he said bitterly. “Or did you imagine you were dreaming this episode?”

She darted a horrified glance at him. Something dark and contemptuous had come into his face. He reached for the gas dial, and the lowering light masked him from view.

She wanted to bolt, but she was not certain her knees would support her. Her breathing would not settle into
an easy rhythm; it jerked in her throat. What kind of man was this? What kind of monster? And she could see nothing, which would make her escape treacherous, for the floor was littered with all manner of—

Papers.

She willed her voice not to shake. “It would be easier to keep me on. Otherwise you might have to trouble yourself with terrorizing a new woman.”

“You must be very desperate, Mrs. Johnson, to want this position.”

Again, she caught the note of contempt. But it was not for her, she realized. He meant that it would take a desperate woman to wish to work for
him.
His contempt was all for himself.

This attitude was so at odds with what she had expected from him (arrogance, vanity, condescension) that she felt at sea. She groped for a reply. “I do not blame you.”
What a lie!
“Liquor can make us strangers to ourselves—”

His laugh seemed edged with glass. “But I am sober, ma’am. I have been sober all day.”

She swallowed a gasp. If he had been sober when he threw the bottle—if he was sober even now—then liquor had no role in his wickedness: the evil was native to him.

She would not let him hear her shock; she sensed it would gratify him too much. “Then what were you ringing for, if not alcohol?”

His slight pause suggested surprise. And then, with a note of mockery, came his reply: “Bullets.”

Her courage shattered. She groped desperately along the wall for the door. She fled through the sitting room into the hallway, where Jones—a true coward—stood waiting. “Well?” he asked anxiously.

She shook her head and walked past him, hugging herself. Whether, with his last remark, Marwick had been trying to frighten her or only telling the truth, she could not say. But if it was the latter . . .

Jones fell into step at her heels. “Shall we send up a bottle?”

“Several.”
And put hemlock in them.

The thought was too black, too horrifying; she felt appalled at having entertained it. But had she spoken it, Jones probably would not have been shocked. By his lack of surprise, it was clear he’d given up on his master sometime ago. He had only humored her tonight as a matter of form.