“A circumstance that could change in an instant. On a whim. My whim.”
Another shrug. “There’s nothing I can do to control your whims, Your Grace. Is there? Best to muddle along and hope for the best, I think.”
“The best being today’s display? Telling a vulnerable child you’ll always be her friend before you’ve taken off your coat or unpacked? Without knowing if she even likes you?” He shook his head. “Most women in your position play their games with me, Miss Andrews. They tend to leave the girl alone.”
She stood there in her frumpy little outfit that should have made her look dumpy and instead made him think that he’d never seen a woman more magnetic. Especially since she didn’t seem to be the least bit aware of it.
“All the more reason that someone ought to pay attention to the poor thing,” she said briskly. “She’s thirsty for a little companionship, clearly.”
Eleanor was still eyeing him as if he was something distinctly unsavory as she spoke. And there was absolutely nothing new about that look. Hugo had seen that particular expression on more faces than he could begin to count. Friends, family members—or what few of each remained, anyway—and strangers on the street alike. He wasn’t usually a receptacle for friendly glances, a fact of his existence he’d become inured to long since.
But for some reason, seeing that same old look on this woman’s face dug into him. As if that you are judged and found wanting gaze she kept trained on him was attached to a sharp implement and she was raking it over his skin, if not jabbing it straight into his gut.
“Why do you want this job?” He didn’t know why he bothered asking when he already knew. There were two reasons women applied for this position and Eleanor clearly wasn’t thinking she’d angle her way into bed, which was a crying shame any way he looked at it. That left the money.
“Why wouldn’t I want this job?” she asked, very coolly, in reply. “Fourteen other women had this job before me. It’s obviously very popular.”
“That’s not an answer. And I can actually tell the difference between an answer and a nonanswer, which I accept may come as something of a surprise to you.” He smiled at her, and made sure to show all his teeth. “I’m not just a pretty face, Miss Andrews.”
If possible, her frown darkened even further. “I’m not following this conversation at all. Have you decided, now that I’ve actually moved into this house and have already met your ward, that it might be a good time to conduct a personal interview?”
“And if I am?”
“I think it’s a little late. Don’t you?”
“And I think, unless I’m very much mistaken or have succumbed to death without my knowledge—which should make this conversation significantly more upsetting than you seem to find it at present—that I am your employer. Or am I lost in some kind of dread fever dream, imagining myself the Duke of Grovesmoor?”
Hugo didn’t know exactly when he realized he’d moved a little too close to her. Or perhaps she’d moved to close to him, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that they were no longer standing across from each other on different sides of the wide hallway. Instead they’d somehow closed the distance, and had met in the middle now.
Entirely too close to each other for Hugo’s peace of mind, or whatever passed for that state. Because when he was closer to her, he was even more fascinated by her. He’d entertained the notion that it was the novelty of that hideous coat she’d worn earlier that had intrigued him, but no. He was still intrigued now.
More so.
The goddess curves didn’t exactly help the situation, especially when she put her hands on her hips, which only made her lush figure that much more impossible to ignore.
“I don’t know if you’re imagining it or not,” Eleanor said in a tone that only just managed to qualify as polite, “but if you’re not the Duke of Grovesmoor, you’ve certainly managed to take on an identity with a remarkable amount of baggage.”
Even that little swipe at his history intrigued him, because it was so direct. She was unlike any woman he’d ever encountered, even without that eyesore of a coat. It was something about the way she stood, wholly unimpressed and unintimidated by him, hands on her hips and her brown gaze utterly clear of any attempt at feminine wiles. It was the belligerent tilt of her jaw and the way she was clearly endeavoring to look down her nose at him from beneath her razor-sharp fringe. He imagined she did the same with her charges when they got uppity, and it didn’t seem to matter to her that she was much shorter than he was.
And Hugo realized in that moment that he was perfectly content with being hated. He was used to being the focus of any number of dark feelings, vicious rumors, and random character assassinations. But he wasn’t used to outright defiance. And certainly not to his face. For a man who had always considered himself entirely too modern for his circumstances, Hugo found that there was more than a little Ancient Duke in him than he’d ever imagined before. Because he wanted to pull rank. Badly.
Except it was more than that. He didn’t want to crush her. The truth was, this woman made him hungry.
Hugo wanted a taste of her so badly that he could feel the need of it marching inside of him, as if his body was staging a full-scale mutiny. He didn’t think he’d ever felt anything like it in his life. Hell. He knew he hadn’t.
He was ravenous.
“I would suggest, Miss Andrews,” he said, very carefully and very deliberately, and he kept his damned hands to himself despite the fact it took a Herculean application of self-will, “that you endeavor to recall which one of us is the Duke and which one the governess.”
If Hugo expected her to be cowed by that, he was in for a surprise.
“I am not likely to forget that anytime soon,” Eleanor replied without appearing to take even a moment to pause or rethink a thing. Not her belligerence or the way she stood there and took him on, exactly as she had outside. And certainly not her position—here in this house, much less here, in his grasp. “I was promised very little interaction with the owner of the house, Your Grace. That you were not available, ever, was made abundantly clear in all of the interviews.”
“Most of the enterprising women who apply for the position want to see me, Miss Andrews. You must realize that it’s the primary reason they condescend to grace these halls with their presence. And the primary reason they are sacked shortly thereafter.”
She tilted her head slightly to one side. “And what did they do to get sacked?”
“I will leave that to your imagination.”
“Did you chase all of them down on the grounds of the estate, charging about on a great big horse?”
He almost laughed at that. And it might have been that which floored him the most.
“And I ask again, why do you want this job? Because you don’t seem to understand the usual boundaries that govern a woman in your position. Or have the faintest sense of self-preservation.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” she said in that same brisk tone, as if she thought she was managing him. As if both he and Geraldine were under her care, and he was the more difficult one by far. “All I’d like to do is start working. There’s a little girl having her tea at the other end of this hall and it would be nice to get to know her a bit before our lessons start. If there isn’t anything else...?”
“I am the boss, Miss Andrews,” he reminded her. From between his teeth. “You are the employee. Everything about the way you are speaking to me is disrespectful, not to mention foolish. Why would you try to antagonize the person who pays your spectacularly generous salary?”
Her frown smoothed out a bit, though she didn’t precisely soften. And still, Hugo wanted to taste that faint crease between her brows, where the edge