Still, she did her utmost to feign an unaffected air. “I am feeling ready to return to the work at hand today.”
“The work at hand?” He pinned her with a frown, a look of reproach. “You cannot be thinking of returning to your school today, so soon after all you suffered.”
Had he already forgotten their bargain? She had not. She had two thousand pounds to remind her, after all.
“Not the school, Your Grace. Our work. You have acquired my services for the next week, if you will but recall.”
The moment the words fled her, she regretted her choice of words. For it sounded far more salacious than she had intended. Indeed, it sounded as if she offered him a different sort of service altogether.
Her cheeks went hot.
His frown deepened, his gaze sweeping over her face. “Of course I recall the shameless manner in which I begged for your expertise. However, that was before you were injured yesterday. I have no intention of forcing you to the typewriter after all you endured. Dr. Gilmore says you are concussed.”
“Lightly,” she reminded him, wondering if he had spoken with the physician separately. Knowing him, it was likely that he had expected a personal accounting. “My head aches, as the doctor told me it might for the next few days. But it is tolerable.”
“Tolerable is hardly a recommendation for hours spent in drudgery,” he snapped.
She stiffened, clinging to the steel his arrogance gave her spine. “My work is not drudgery, sir.”
His full lips tightened, the only sign he was nettled by her return to calling him sir and Your Grace after the different sort of intimacy they had shared yesterday in the bathing room. “I did not mean to suggest it was. However, the act of sitting, reading dozens of pages, typing…forgive me my ham-handedness. I merely meant to suggest you take the day to rest instead.”
This was not the first apology he had offered her, and it was not lost upon her—he was an arrogant, powerful duke. But in this moment, it was almost impossible to believe he was the same ruthless man who had sent three of her typewriters away in tears.
“The work is important to me,” she said, forcing away the fresh wave of emotions threatening to surge. “It is a much-welcomed distraction. Besides, I can ill afford to waste time. Matters have been settled at my school for the next few days in preparation of my work with you. I have one of my most trusted associates training classes in my absence. Delays will interfere with my schedule.”
There. A return to business. After all, the school was her life’s blood, and she must not forget that. It was the means by which she put a roof over her head and bread on her table. It was also the means by which countless ladies had found situations to better themselves and their families. She was Isabella Hilgrove, and she must not forget what that meant. She was her father’s daughter.
The duke’s countenance changed. For a moment, she swore she spied a hint of a different emotion. But then, it was gone, and his aristocratic mask was firmly in place once more.
“If that is what you wish, Miss Hilgrove, I have no desire to stand in your way,” he murmured politely, mimicking her formality.
Part of her—the wicked part of her, the part that longed for this man’s kisses like she needed her next breath—wished he had called her Isabella instead. Wished he had taken her in his arms as he had yesterday. Wished for his mouth upon hers. Wished for him to tempt and torture her.
But he was unreadable. Unshakeable. Every inch the duke.
“That is what I wish,” she assured him.
Another door clicked open then, and Callie emerged, wearing dark, divided skirts and a billowing scarlet bodice. Her dark hair was swept into a loose Grecian braid that hung over her shoulder.
“Benny and Isabella,” she greeted, unaware of the tenseness of the air between Isabella and the duke. “What a cozy idyll I have intruded upon. Are the two of you going down to breakfast?”
Had the words come from anyone else, Isabella would have suspected underlying scorn. But not from Callie—her heart was pure and true, even if her motives were sometimes idealistic.
“We are, sister dearest,” Westmorland said, offering his sister an elegant bow. “Will you join us?”
Belatedly, Isabella dipped into a curtsey. She had been so caught up in the duke’s presence and her clash of wills with him that she had forgotten herself. One more sign she did not belong in this world, where Gainsboroughs, Caravaggios, and Titians hung proudly from the walls.
“I will,” Callie said, smiling as her eyes darted from Isabella to her brother. “Tell me, Isabella, how are you faring today after that nasty knock to the head yesterday?”
“It is a dull ache, nothing more,” she said, keenly aware of the duke’s gaze upon her.
She felt it all the way to her core. Her eyes stole to his, and she jolted as if from a physical touch. Would it always be thus between them? The air seemed heavy and fraught with implications, possibilities.
Yearning.
“Miss Hilgrove tells me she feels well enough to carry on typewriting this morning,” he said to his sister, though his eyes had not strayed from Isabella.
“Oh dear, already?” Callie’s voice was wry. “I fear I have made plans for the use of the library this morning.”
“Calliope.” The duke’s tone of voice was one Isabella had not heard before. It was stern and yet somehow indulgent. Long-suffering. “We have already had this discussion. Need I remind you?”
Callie delivered a playful swat to the duke’s shoulder. “You need not fear that I have scheduled a ball or a dinner, Benny. Though I shall never fully comprehend your objection to the last party I held. What harm was there in hosting a conjurer?”
Memories of that particular evening returned to Isabella in a sudden rush. The darkness in the orangery, interrupted only by
