“What an amazing valet you are, Penny.”
“It’s a gift.”
Christian dipped his finger beneath the flap of the envelope and broke the wax seal. “Does the bluestocking have a name?”
“Mowbray,” Penny whispered, definitely on the edge of sleep. “Miss Mowbray.”
The name danced through Christian’s consciousness, sending goosebumps zinging along his skin. He forced his hand from its punishing clench on the envelope. “Her first name, do you know it?”
Penny opened one eye, a lazy blink. “Raine. Is that French? I only remember because of Miss Miller’s eyes. Like rain falling from the clouds. Isn’t that poetic? I may try to use that.”
Christian’s breath caught, the letter sliding from his grip to bounce off the toe of his Hessian. “Whose house did Miss Mowbray recently arrive from?”
Penny dropped a bent arm over his face, shrugged. “An earl’s, I believe it was. A household going through a spot of trouble. A reprobate.”
“Holy hell,” Christian breathed, his heart kicking into a swift rhythm. There could be no one else with that name working for an earl with an appalling reputation. The coincidence was simply too much.
It was the girl he’d spent the summer watching. The summer dreaming of but never talking to. Years cursing himself for not trying, at the very least, to make her acquaintance. To be her friend when it seemed neither of them had been so lucky as to have one.
Her image, faded like it had sat too long in the sun, rotated through his mind. Hair the color of a shiny gold coin, dark eyes, shy smile. Slender and lovely and connected to him in a gut-sure way he couldn’t explain.
Had never been able to explain.
He turned to gaze at the verdant slice of lawn outside the study’s window, his chest tight, his fingertips tingling.
Tomorrow morning, he was finally going to meet the woman he’d been in love with for ten years.
Chapter 2
Raine adjusted the mobcap that never seemed to contain her unruly mass of hair, and with an anxious exhalation, blew the ruffled brim from her face. She stood before the door to the duke’s study, ten minutes late for her translation session because she’d volunteered to assist Miss Miller with a chore a kitchen maid should have taken on. She’d been delaying the inevitable because she was nervous. Agitated for no good reason. Trying to squelch the adolescent butterfly-tingle in her belly. Appalling when she was far removed from—
Then he was there, the cause of her belly-tingle, opening the door, watch in hand. As if he’d been about to check the hall to see if she’d arrived. He was out of breath, dark hair tousled, cravat off-center. But not vexed as most men of her acquaintance would be by her tardiness. Instead, Christian Bainbridge, lover of wenches and watches, standing so close she could smell the delicate scent of citrus and ink drifting from his skin, had a tender, very fetching, very charming smile on his face.
And his eyes, because she’d wondered about them all night…
Oh, heavens, were his eyes a dazzling portrait, as blue as the delphiniums in the duchess’s garden.
“It is you,” he whispered beneath his breath, a statement she had no idea how to decipher. Had Miss Miller told him to expect her? Had he been expecting someone else? Had she mistaken the arranged time?
Discomfited, she smoothed her apron, the newest in her possession, and stayed from reaching to adjust her cap. The plain, somewhat dour dress assigned to the staff she could do nothing about. Although it looked better on slim figures than it did on curvaceous ones, so she could tally this benefit. When benefiting the imposing man standing before her in dark, finely-tailored clothing was absurd to contemplate.
His smile grew as she fidgeted, creating a tiny dent in his cheek. A glorious imperfection in an otherwise extremely handsome face. “Miss Mowbray, I presume,” he said and gestured for her to enter the duke’s study. “I can’t express how delighted I am to meet you.”
Oh. He seemed quite enthusiastic about the translation session. She hoped her German was on par with his needs. She gazed up into his face because he was tall enough that she had to. “Sir, I—”
“No.” His expression shifted in an instant. Hardened, a flash of emotion confirming there was more to him than the bland smile and a compelling dimple. “My name is Christian,” he managed, then laughed and shook his head, leaving the door properly ajar behind them. An escape route should she need one. “So easy, and yet, ten years overdue.”
She entered the room, clearly missing some element of the situation. The ton, an exclusive group Christian Bainbridge was welcomed into, at least in part, were an eccentric lot. In her years of service, she’d grown accustomed to bizarre behavior. And become skilled at ignoring it.
On a table by the window sat a stack of books that hadn’t been there when she cleaned the study yesterday. A band of sunlight waterfalled over them, glinting off the gilded script on the spines. Christian took his place behind the duke’s desk as Raine moved forward like a pulley had drawn her. Brand new treasures, releasing nothing but the delicious scent of leather when she lifted one volume to her nose. No mold, no dust, no stained pages. Not yet. Her heart tripped. Books were her one indulgence, her grand passion
