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He set aside the glasses of wine and wiped his hands on his trousers. “We can discuss your immediate employment. Make yourself comfortable.”
Alex would rather make herself invisible. She moved toward the windows lining one side of the room, partly wishing to disappear behind the draperies. But also because she was drawn by the glimmer of brass.
Could it be . . . ?
Yes. Pushing aside a fold of aubergine velvet, she found confirmation of her hopes.
A telescope.
Since childhood, Alexandra had been fascinated by the night sky. Life aboard a merchant frigate didn’t offer many ways to amuse oneself after sundown. She’d borrowed her father’s spyglass so often, he’d finally given in and bought her one of her own. Here in London, she made do with a collapsible pocket telescope she’d purchased for sixteen shillings at a lens grinder’s shop. A hobbyist’s instrument.
But this . . . ?
This was, without question, the most astonishing object she’d ever touched.
Without thinking, she bent to have a look through the eyepiece. She found the instrument to be directed at an attic window of the house across the way. The servant quarters of a pretty young housemaid or two, no doubt.
Alex swung it away from its sordid direction, pointing it toward the gardens in the center of the square. Heavens, she could make out individual blades of yellow-green grass pushing through the soil.
Behind her, glassware clinked. She startled, jumping back from the telescope, knocking it on its swiveling mechanism, and sending it into a nearby vase, which she had to lunge to catch before it hit the floor. What a display of professional skill. Why yes, I’m here to offer my services handling intricate, expensive machinery.
“Forgive me. I didn’t catch your name, Miss . . . ?”
Her tongue was a sailor’s knot. “Mountbatten,” she managed. “Alexandra Mountbatten.”
Then he tilted his head and looked at her. Truly looked at her, with that same deep, searching gaze he’d given her in the bookshop.
Her heartbeat paused in anticipation.
Alexandra didn’t expect a confession of unrequited love, of course. At most, a simple Haven’t we met somewhere? Perhaps even Oh, yes. Hatchard’s, was it?
“Miss Mountbatten. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Oh. He had no memory of meeting her at all.
A stroke of luck, she told herself. If he did recall her, she would have lingered in his memory as a clumsy, stammering, bookish ninny, not an object of admiration. This was a boon, truly. Now she could cease wasting time thinking of him.
It would be completely irrational to feel disappointed. Much less hurt.
However, her powers of reason flew out her ear whenever this man was involved. She did feel wounded, just a little. Inside her, the sharp proof of her foolishness twisted and scraped at her pride.
He cleared the tea table of a candlestick with guttered tapers and two emptied brandy glasses. He whisked the forgotten stocking from the antler prong and—after casting about in vain for an appropriate place to store it—wadded it into a ball and stuffed it behind a pillow.
“I truly should go,” she said. “I seem to have interrupted something, and I—”
“You’re not interrupting anything. Nothing of consequence, at any rate.” He patted the back of an armchair. “Sit down.”
She numbly took the offered seat. He dropped onto the chaise across from her. From the way he sank into the cushioning, Alexandra suspected the upholstery had strained and bounced beneath many a torrid encounter.
In one last farcical swipe at decency, he ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair. “I’ve two that need looking after.”
Clocks.
Yes. Concentrate on the clocks. Those ticking things with dials and gears and numbers. They were how she made her living, and she’d been knocking on the door of every servants’ entrance in Mayfair to find more clients. She wasn’t here to gawk at the sprinkling of hair on his chest, or ponder the meaning of his black armband, or flog herself over silly fantasies that he would sweep her into his arms, confess his months of suffering for love of her, and vow to abandon his sinful ways now that she’d given him reason to live.
She slammed the lid on her imagination, buckled the strap, affixed a padlock, and then pushed it off a cliff.
This was just another business call.
He went on, “I can’t tell you much of their history. They’d been passed around by several different relations before they landed with me last autumn.”
Family heirlooms, then. “They must be precious.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied dryly. “Precious indeed. To be honest, I’ve no idea what to do with the two of them. They came along with the title.”
“The title?” she echoed.
“Belvoir.” When she did not respond, he added, “As in, the duke of it.”
A wild burst of laughter escaped her.
A duke? Oh, how Penny would gloat over having guessed that.
“Believe me,” he said, “I find it absurd, as well. Actually, I’m merely heir to a duke, for now. Since my uncle is infirm, I’ve been handed the legal responsibilities. All the duties of a dukedom, none of the perks.” He waved aimlessly in her direction. “Well, then. Teach me a lesson.”
“I . . . I beg your pardon?”
“I could inquire as to your education and experience, but that seems a waste of time. We may as well have a demonstration.”
A demonstration? Did he want to know how clockworks operated? Perhaps he meant the chronometer. She could explain why it kept the right time when clocks could lose several minutes a day.
“What sort of lesson did you have in mind?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you think I might need to learn.”
Alex couldn’t hold it in any longer. She buried her face in her hands and moaned into them.
He leaned toward her at once. “Are you ill? I do hope it’s not typhus.”
“It’s disappointment. I expected something different. I should have known better.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What precisely were you expecting?”
“You don’t want to know.” And I don’t want to tell you.
“Oh, but I do.”
“No, you don’t. You really, truly don’t.”
“Come now. That kind of protestation only makes a man more intrigued. Just have out with it.”
“A gentleman,” she blurted out. “I expected you’d be a gentleman.”
“You weren’t wrong. I am a gentleman. Eventually, I’m going to be a peer.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I thought you’d be the respectable, considerate, honorable kind of gentleman.”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes, that was a mistaken assumption on your part.”
“Obviously. Just look at you.”
As she spoke, her gaze drifted downward, toward his broad shoulders. Then toward the rumpled linen of his shirt. Then toward the intriguing wedge of masculine chest exposed by his open collar. The skin there was smooth and taut, and the muscular contours were defined, and . . .
And she was openly staring now.
“Look at this place. Wineglasses scattered on the table. Perfume still lingering in the air. What kind of gentleman conducts an employment interview in this . . .” She indicated their surroundings, at a loss for the word. “. . . cave of carnality?”
“Cave of Carnality,” he echoed with amusement. “Oh, I like that. I’ve a mind to engrave that on a plaque.”
“So you understand my mistake now.” The words kept pouring out of her, rash and unconsidered, and she couldn’t put them back in the bottle. She couldn’t even find a cork. “When I opened the door, I was fool enough to expect someone else. A man who’d never allow a lady to wander London with only one stocking and call it ‘nothing of consequence.’ Stockings are of consequence, Mr. Reynaud. So are the women who wear them.” She made a defeated wave at his black armband. “All of this whilst you’re in mourning.”
“Now that, I can explain.”
“Please don’t. This lesson is cruel enough already.” She shook her head. “Then there’s the telescope.”
“Hold a moment.” He sat forward. “What has a telescope to do with anything?”
“That”—she pointed with an outstretched arm—“is a genuine Dollond. A forty-six-inch achromatic with a triple object-glass of three-and-three-quarters-inch aperture. Polished wood barrel, brass draw tubes. Capable of magnifying land objects sixty times over, and celestial objects to one hundred and eighty times. It’s an instrument most could only dream of owning, and you’re letting it gather dust. It’s . . . Well, it’s heartbreaking.”
Heartbreaking, indeed.
In the end, Alex had only herself to blame. All the clues were there. His dreadful taste in books. His charming grin that made promises no man could intend to keep. And those eyes . . . They held some kind of potent, brain-addling sorcery, and he went about jostling young women in bookshops without the decency to keep them hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
Her only consolation was that he’d forget this conversation the moment she left, just as he’d forgotten her before.
“Thank you, Mr. Reynaud. You’ve given me a much-needed lesson today.” She released a heavy sigh and tipped her gaze to the wall. “Antlers. Really?”
After a prolonged silence, he whistled softly through his teeth.
She rose to her feet, reaching for her satchel. “I’ll show myself out.”
“Oh, no, you won’t.” He stood. “Miss Mountbatten, that was capital.”
“What?”
“Absolutely brilliant. I would very much like to engage your services.”
Perhaps she had this all wrong. Maybe he was not the Bookshop Rake after all, but the Bookshop Madman.
Then he went and did the most incomprehensible thing yet. He looked into her eyes, smiled just enough to reveal a lethal dimple, and spoke the words she’d stupidly dreamed of hearing him say.
“You,” he said, “are everything I’ve been searching for. And I’m not letting you get away.”
Oh.
Oh, Lord.
“Come, then. My wards will be delighted to meet their new governess.”
Chapter Two (#u4fc783d2-94ad-5d57-ba14-150cc7d31447)
Governess?
Alexandra was speechless.
“I’ll show you upstairs.” In a display of masculine presumption, Mr. Reynaud took the satchel from her grip. As he relieved her of its weight, his hand grazed hers. The fleeting brush of warmth pushed her brain off balance. He turned and walked to the back of the room. “This way.”
She shook life into her frozen arms and followed. How could she do otherwise? He’d taken her satchel—and with it her chronometer, plus her ledger of clients and appointments. Her livelihood was literally in his hands.
“Mr. Reynaud, I—”
“They’re called Rosamund and Daisy. Aged ten and seven, respectively. Sisters.”
“Mr. Reynaud, please. Can we—”
He led her through a kitchen and up the stairs. They emerged into a first-floor corridor. She followed him down a passageway with walls covered in striped emerald silk. From the springy plush beneath her boots, she would have guessed the corridor to be carpeted in clouds. Her work took her into many a fine London house, but she never ceased marveling at the luxury.
He led the way up the main staircase, taking the risers two at a time.
“They carry the last name Fairfax, but it’s likely an adopted name. They’re natural children. Some distant relation sired a few by-blows and left their guardianship to the estate.”
As they climbed flight after flight of stairs, Alexandra could scarcely keep pace with him, much less change the topic of conversation.
“I’m sending them to school at Michaelmas term.” He added wearily, “Assuming I can bribe a respectable school into taking them.”
At last, they reached the top of the house. Alex darted forward to grab his sleeve. “Mr. Reynaud, please. There’s been some sort of misunderstanding. A grave misunderstanding.”
“Not at all. We understand one another perfectly. I’m a paltry excuse for a gentleman, as you say. I’m also no fool. That scolding you delivered downstairs was brilliant. The girls need a firm hand. Discipline. I’m the last soul on earth to teach them proper behavior. But you, Miss Mountbatten? You are just the one for the job.” He gestured at the rooms that opened off the passageway. “You’ll have a bedchamber to yourself, of course. The nursery is this way.”
“Wait—”
“Here we are.” He flung open the door.
Alexandra’s mind refused to make sense of the scene. Two flaxen-haired girls stood on either side of a bed. A beautiful bed. A grand four-poster with a lacy lavender canopy, gold-painted posts, and matching bed hangings tied back with pink cord. The bed would have been any young girl’s dream. Beneath it, however, was a nightmare. The white bed linens were streaked and spattered with crimson.
“You’re too late.” The younger of the two turned to face them, her expression eerily solemn. “She’s dead.”
“Curse it all.” Mr. Reynaud heaved a sigh. “Not again.”
