An Innocent Maid For The Duke

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‘Explain what?’ She winced. She hadn’t intended to speak out loud. A glance upwards at his implacable expression sent a shiver down her spine. It was far worse than a show of anger. He looked merely curious. Almost cold.

‘Explain why you never told me that you work here.’ He looked down his ducal nose. ‘You do work here? Have been working here for some time?’

And was unlikely to be working here much longer. She nodded miserably. ‘As a scullery maid.’

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘So what were you doing in the Green Room the other evening?’

She shrugged. ‘I had been mending the gown. I tried it on to see...’ Dash it, if she was going to be let go, it might as well be for the true reason. ‘I wanted to see what I would look like in such a lovely gown.’

His frown deepened.

She held her breath, waiting for the full force of his wrath.

‘You made me think you were gently bred. A lady.’ Not angry, disappointed.

What right did he have to be disappointed? ‘If you’d thought me a lady, you would not have met me in private or kissed me without permission.’ She winced at her scolding tone. What was the point of feeling embarrassed? She was what she was and she cared nothing for his opinion, good or bad.

Only she did. Heat rushed to her face and she let her gaze fall away. ‘I apologise, Your Grace. I—I did not set out to trick you. It simply happened. I should never have met you in the garden, however. For that I am sorry.’

His feet did move away then. A few steps and then silence. She looked up, expecting him to be gone, not to find him perched on the second step of the stairs up to the great subscription room.

He gestured for her to come closer and she found it odd when she approached that she was in fact looking down on him by an inch or two.

It made him seem less imposing, less of a threat and more like the man she had met in the garden. As if they were somehow equals. They were not. A fact she would do well to remember.

‘This time you will tell me the truth, if you please.’

She clenched her hands at her waist. ‘What is it you want to know?’

He narrowed his eyes at her obvious defensiveness.

What did it matter? She was going to lose her job anyway. She shrugged.

‘Very well. What is your real name?’

‘Rose Nightingale.’

He made a face of disbelief.

‘Is too,’ she said.

‘Very well, Miss Nightingale. How long have you worked at Vitium et Virtus?’

‘Four months or so.’

‘Do you live in or out?’

She hissed in a breath. Why did he want to know that? Only a few of the employees here lived in. He must know that, being an owner and all.

‘Out.’

The answer was received with a heavy silence.

‘I will collect my things and leave.’ What else could she say? Clearly she had lost any regard he might have held for the woman he thought she was. An ache scoured the inside of her chest. She was wrong to have let herself be swept up in what was really was no more than a foolish dream.

‘You want to leave?’ he asked.

She frowned at him. A horrid suspicion entered her mind. Did he want to continue where they had left off only...? Now he knew who she was...what she was, would he treat her differently? With less respect?

‘I think it is for the best.’

He regarded her for a long moment. ‘You are going home?’

‘Yes.’

‘To your family.’

Truth. She had to tell him the truth. She had said she would. And then he really would despise her utterly. ‘I have no family left that I know of.’ She lifted her chin.

‘Oh, Rose,’ he said, shaking his head, sorrowfully.

‘I have done nothing to be ashamed of.’ Her face flushed again. ‘Nothing that has brought harm to anyone else.’ Even if she was a bastard. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, the nobs called it. She called it irresponsible.

To her surprise, he looked startled, as if her declaration surprised him. What? Did he think because she had no family, she was some sort of undesirable? Or worse yet, a woman of low moral character? She closed her eyes briefly. That was it, most likely. And now, like a lackwit, she had as good as told him there was no one in the world who cared what happened to her. ‘Besides, it is none of your business where I go from here.’ She turned away.

‘Rose, wait.’

She swung back to face him.

He rose to his feet. ‘You don’t need to go.’

‘Are you saying I haven’t lost my position?’

He approached her warily, as if she might bite him if he got too close. ‘No, I mean. Well, obviously I would find it difficult when...’

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘When?’

He rubbed a palm over his jaw in an odd upward motion. ‘I mean, I do not like to think of you...well, scrubbing the floors.’ He gestured at the rag and bucket in the middle of the floor.

She frowned. ‘There is nothing wrong with scrubbing floors.’

‘You could be so much more.’

Anger bubbled up at the disdain in his tone. More? Such as being his mistress, perhaps? What else could he mean? ‘I am perfectly content, thank you. I certainly don’t need to make my living...’ She stopped before she said something really rude.

‘I intended no insult, Rose.’

He was the one who sounded insulted. He had gone all ducal, looking down that lordly nose of his.

She was a fool for letting herself be swept up by a dream. Really, she was. ‘I wouldn’t like Your Grace to feel uncomfortable with my presence. So I will remove it.’

He reached out as if to stop her. She jerked away, and a look of chagrin passed over his face. Followed swiftly by a haughty stare. ‘Very well. If you insist. Go.’

She breathed a sigh of relief, tempered by a large dose of despair.

She had liked working here. And the rules had protected her from unwanted attentions, as they had not in the residences where she had worked. Until she’d gone and broken those rules. She was going to miss her friends, too. Especially Flo.

Inwardly she groaned as the full implications of her stupidity landed in the pit of her stomach like a rock. Once her landlord learned she had lost her job, she’d be out on the street, unless she found another one quickly. She would certainly never find another employer as generous as the V&V.

She picked up her bucket and rag. Perhaps if she apologised properly he would let her stay?

When she turned back to ask him, he had gone. For a big man, he moved very quietly. The reason she hadn’t heard him when she had been foolishly prancing around in the Green Room and again today when she’d been washing the floor.

Sadly, she shook her head and walked to the lower reaches of the house. If one of the owners of the club wanted her gone, what could be done?

She almost fell over when he stepped in front of her as she was about to enter the kitchen. She backed up hastily. ‘I thought you went.’

‘I came back.’

She tried not to roll her eyes. ‘Was there something else?’

‘I—’ He huffed out a breath. ‘You don’t have to go. Keep your job. Just—just keep out of my way. All right?’

It took a moment to process the words. She nodded stiffly. ‘Then please be aware, Your Grace, I am required to wash the floor in the front hall every day at five-thirty in the morning and it takes me half an hour.’

‘I take note, Miss Nightingale.’

She gritted her teeth. ‘It’s Rose, Your Grace. Just Rose.’ A duke did not offer courtesy to a servant, not if he didn’t want to cause talk.

‘Rose. Good day.’

Good? What was good about today? This wasn’t finished. She could feel it in her bones and down her spine. But the reprieve would give her a chance to find a new position before he changed his mind and she was let go without a character.

* * *

As the day progressed she became less worried about him changing his mind. All seemed just as usual. No calls by Mrs Parker to see her in her office. As a precaution, she stayed close to the kitchen, never being tempted into visiting her friends in case she ran into the Duke. When, at the end of the work day there was still no threat of dismissal, she heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed all was well. She scuttled out of the side door as quick as a wink, not wanting to tempt fate by lingering in the Green Room.

‘Rose.’

A tall lean shadow detached itself from the darkness in the alley outside the back door.

She swallowed the dryness in her throat. Her heart sank. ‘Why are you here, Your Grace?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

Here it came then, after all. Her notice.

‘Allow me to escort you home. We can talk while we walk.’

‘I’m not taking you to where I live. I am a decent girl, I am.’ Her landlord would be scandalised. Well, perhaps not. He didn’t seem to care about that sort of thing, given what his other tenants were up to. But she didn’t want anyone getting the wrong impression about her. It wouldn’t take much and coming home on the arm of a toff like him would do it.

The Duke frowned and looked about him. ‘You can’t surely be intending to walk the streets alone.’

‘Today is no different to any other day, Your Grace.’

He looked nonplussed. ‘You will, however, permit me to walk you, if not all the way, then at least to the end of your street.’

The firmness in his voice said he was not to be denied.

‘As you wish,’ she muttered. She’d find a way to be rid of him long before then. She knew the neighbourhood like the back of her hand, whereas he surely did not.

They walked some distance in silence and she kept waiting for him to tell her she was dismissed. Finally she could not stand it any longer. ‘What is it you wished to talk about?’

He gave her a look askance. ‘I have a request to make of you. Well, more of a proposition, I suppose.’

Her heart stilled. Did she really want this? She gripped her basket tight.

* * *

Jake could not figure out what was the matter with him. He was usually so articulate, so charming around women. With Rose, he kept stumbling over his words like an adolescent stumbling over feet too large for a gangly body. And heaven knew, every time he opened his mouth he seemed to put one of those very large feet right in it.

He also noticed that while Rose seemed willing to let him walk beside her, she deliberately kept her small basket over the arm closest to him. Effectively keeping him at a distance.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t such a surprise. He’d been so horrified to see her on her hands and knees that morning he’d been unable to think straight. A nap had sorted him out, somewhat. After all, finding her, knowing where she was, had enabled him to relax enough to actually close his eyes without being haunted by images—He cut the thought off. Nonsense.