Fool Me Twice (22 page)

The dim, rising glow showed tears on her face.

He felt disoriented, as though the room had swum around him. Crying? Why? “Are you well?”

She dashed her wrist across her eyes, a furtive and embarrassed gesture. “Yes. Of course. Forgive me—I shouldn’t have come in here.” She glanced beyond him. By the way she shifted her weight, he knew that she was contemplating a dash for the door.

He should let her go. He did not like the sight of her upset. It squared with nothing he knew of her. But her distress should not concern him. He would let her go.

“Take a seat,” he said instead.

She obeyed with obvious reluctance, choosing the wing chair nearest the door. He picked up the book she’d abandoned on the sofa.
The Tale of the Midnight Voyager,
he read from the spine.

She grimaced. “A piece of rubbish. It—” And then she appeared to recall whose library this was, and reddened.

“Would you like another?” He browsed the shelf. Augustine seemed too weighty, though the saint’s prayer held a sudden interest for him:
Grant me chastity, O God, but not yet.
“Austen, perhaps?” Always a favorite with the ladies.

Her reply was hesitant. “Oh, I . . . didn’t see her books there. Yes, please.”

He pulled out two titles and offered her the choice. She took
Pride and Prejudice
and then sat staring at the cover, an air of bewilderment about her, as if she did not know what to do with it.

He carried the other volume to the sofa, opening it pointedly. “Do read, Mrs. Johnson,” he said.

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her . . .

At last, he heard the whisper of a turned page. Leather creaked as she settled into the chair.

He eased back against his own cushions. It was a forgotten luxury to share the silence with someone. He could hear, if he listened for it, the soft rhythm of her breathing. The small noises, the whisper of cotton, as she shifted again.

“You’re really going to read
Northanger Abbey
?”

He glanced up, found her gawking. “That surprises you?”

She went pink. “No, of course not.” Then she shut her book and rose. The flutter of her robe provided a brief glimpse of her ankles, sufficient to burn them into his mind completely. They looked all the better without stockings: trim, pale as snow. “If I may borrow this—”

“Or you may read it here,” he said. “Unless you fear an impropriety.”

She bit her lip. Looked between chair and door. “Should I fear it?”

He smiled. A fair question, but her boldness never failed to surprise him. “Not tonight.” Not when she’d been crying.

Hesitantly she sat again. He did not miss the way she ran a quick, furtive hand over her hem, to make sure no hint of ankle remained visible. What a pity. If one must have a young housekeeper, let her be reckless with her hemlines.

“I suppose Miss Austen is not typical masculine fare,” he said. “I’ll confess I probably would have chosen a different book for manlier company. Something in Latin.”

She fought against her smile and lost. “How fortunate for you that I’m not manly.”

“My thought precisely.”

Her smile faded. She looked down to her book.

He had an inkling of his own villainy then—a flash, as from the headlamp of a passing train, briefly illuminating his motives. Her tears did not matter, after all.

Where was the regret, the revulsion, which that thought should inspire? He could not locate it. She sat not five feet away, her flush creeping steadily down her throat, soon to stain the smooth wings of her collarbones. The robe bared tantalizing inches of her throat and chest that wool normally disguised, alabaster, so pale that he could see the delicate tracery of veins that surely must slip farther down, beneath the neckline of her robe, all the way to her breast. To her nipples. God, but he would taste them.

She cleared her throat. “What do you like about her novels?” Her question sounded stiff, full of forced courtesy. She had noticed his stare, and meant to draw his attention back to more proper pursuits.

“The world she paints.” He watched her thumb fret with a corner of her book, rubbing back and forth over the sharp point. He had no inkling what troubled her. It disturbed him. He had the outlines of her, and a sense
of her inner mettle. But the details? Her childhood. Her origins. These large gaps in his knowledge suddenly felt wrong, strange, demanding of redress.

“What do you mean, the world?” she asked.

“The portraits of families. How well she paints them.”

Her thumb fell still. “They’re quite quarrelsome, on the whole.”

“Yes.” That was exactly what he liked about them. “Messy, sprawling, imperfect. But they love each other regardless.” He felt briefly surprised by himself, by this sentimental claptrap he was spouting. But she was watching him expectantly, so he shrugged and went on. “Even the loathsome sorts, like”—he nodded toward the book in her lap—“what is her name? The insufferable one, who runs off.”

“Lydia.”

“Lydia,” he agreed. His housekeeper’s half smile put him in mind of a Greek icon—a Sybil, perhaps. He could see her dispensing wisdom from some sacred cave, her long, pale face a light in the darkness, her round, deep eyes bracing a man for solemn predictions. Her hair was the color of copper, sacred metal; men would have made amulets from it in ancient times.

Bizarre, fanciful thought. Frowning at himself, he turned back to his book.

She spoke, hushed and hesitant. “I longed for such a family as a girl.”

He stared at the page. Late nights, sleepless nights, made some conversations too easy to have, and some thoughts too easy to entertain. But he did not want her friendship. He should not want her confidences.

Yet he replied. “As did I.” His family’s unhappy history was hardly a secret. “A larger family, perhaps. Or a
warmer one.” Growing up in an echoing house where his parents rarely exchanged two civil words, he had recognized nothing of Austen’s domestic scenes. But even as a child, he’d felt them far superior to his own experience.

Her chair creaked. “It was siblings I wanted. I think it would have made a difference.”

“I have a brother. But a larger family . . .” He hesitated. Imagine it: he not the eldest, not the heir. Someone else to rely upon. “I would have liked that.”

“Perhaps you will create one. Have a dozen children of your own.”

“No.” The denial was hard and instinctive. Children would require marriage. Marriage would require that he trust his own judgment, which had been exposed as profoundly and irreparably corrupt. Never again. It was Michael’s job now to carry on the family line. He looked at her. “I will have no children.”

“Oh.” She turned the book around in her hands, a nervous fiddling gesture. “Well. Nor will I, I expect.”

What nonsense was this? “You’re still very young, Mrs. . . .” She was no missus, of course. “What is your Christian name?” The reference must have mentioned it, but he could not recall.

She blinked at him. “Olivia.”

It had a musical ring. A slight bite on the
V.
A name that encouraged one to take one’s lip in one’s teeth.
Olivia.
It suited her perfectly.

“Olivia,” he said. “Why should you think you won’t have a family?”

She met his eyes. “First I must have a home.”

For a brief, clear moment, he felt the stirring of his old skill, the ability to look at an opponent and
divine his secret ambitions. Here was hers: a place of her own.

Or perhaps he recognized it because it had once been his ambition, as well. Oh, he’d known he would inherit houses to spare; but what he’d wanted was a
place
, distinct from his family’s legacy, wholly his own.

He did not think she meant a house, either. Otherwise, would not a girl such as this—clever, bold, enterprising—have found a husband for herself, in whatever bucolic little village had spawned her?

“Where are you from?” He had asked her that before. But now, in this strange hush, he knew he would have the answer.

It gladdened him to a strange degree that she did not hesitate before replying. “East Kent. My mother’s family lives on the coast, in a village called Shepwich, near Broadstairs.”

“A beautiful part of England.” He could envision her walking the seashore, the salt breeze lifting strands of her hair, her skin opalescent in the cool gray light. “Is that where you dream of your home?”

Her lashes dropped, veiling her eyes. She ran a finger down the page of her book. “I don’t know that I dream of a specific place.”

He’d been right. “What, then?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I want somewhere to . . . belong. To feel safe,” she said softly.

He considered her. It made sense that a girl forced to do for herself would long for stability, rootedness. Why had she not taken the quickest route to it? “Many women leave service for marriage.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes. “And many men remarry. What of it?”

He sucked in a breath. “Well. That was bold of you.” Why was he surprised?

Color came into her face. “It’s half past three. I am sitting in dishabille with my employer. Etiquette does not address such situations.”

“Touché. Let me be equally blunt. You were weeping before. Why?”

Her jaw assumed a granite cast. “Surely a servant must be allowed some degree of privacy.”

He snorted. “I have never noticed you nursing a high regard for that concept. Indeed, given that I found you in my
private
library, our definitions of it seem to differ.”

Her brows flew up. “Given that you rarely leave your rooms, I could not have foreseen that I might interrupt you here!”

He rose, powered by a welter of emotions—chief among them amazement. “I think marriage might be the best thing for you. God knows you aren’t cut out for service. Had you been born a man, I would have recommended you to the bar.”

She gave him a look rife with disbelief, one that required no verbal translation:
now
he would judge her? “Your Grace—”

“Did one of the staff molest you? Is something awry below?”

She came to her feet. “I am well able to manage the staff. Nor would I weep over such passing trifles as disobedience from a servant!”

“Then what—”

“I will tell you if you answer me one question,” she said flatly.

It was no longer clear to him who was in control of
this conversation. How absurd. He was not bound by her terms; in return for her answer, she could demand the moon, and it would make no difference to him. “Very well, then, answer me: why were you crying?”

“Because I am not the person I hoped to be. And I dislike myself for it.”

That told him nothing. “What do you mean? Who had you hoped to be?”

“Someone better. Someone who abided by her ideals.”

Christ.
Blackly amused, he turned away from her toward the bookshelves. “Then we both were drawn here by the same mood. But I assure you, Mrs. Johnson, you will overcome your disappointment.”

“As you have?”

He ignored that. “Good night to you.”

“You haven’t yet answered my question.”

“Welshing,” he said coldly, “is the duke’s special privilege.”

“Very well, don’t answer. But I will ask it anyway: why do you read Austen if you lack all hope for yourself? Why torment yourself with happy endings if you don’t believe one is possible?”

He stared at the books. This had gone too far. Why did she think she had the right to speak to him in this manner?

Why did he constantly invite it?

“You have every advantage.” Her voice was fervent. “There is no reason you can’t go back into the world, have everything you feel you’ve been denied. I tell you—if I had your advantages, I would
remake
myself!”

The taunt in her voice speared him like a hook into his chest. Yes, she probably goddamned well
would
remake herself. She had no notions of respect, of boundaries, of her own place. She had no idea of limitations. He looked over his shoulder to sneer, to deliver her the acidic set-down she so badly needed.

But the sight of her robbed him of words. She stood with the novel hugged to her chest, a tall, long-waisted girl with coloring like the autumn, hair as red as turning leaves, and there was no taunt in her face. Her expression, rather, was pale, resolute,
hopeful
. Daring him to be as brave as she was. She was constantly daring him, as though it were not the most galling, impudent,
presumptuous
business—

“Can you imagine,” he said, and did not recognize his own voice, the animal viciousness in it. “Is it possible you have lived long enough, hard enough, to guess—that I would devour you in a bite, I would use you, discard you, if it meant I could experience, for a
single
moment, that idiotic naïveté in your face? A fool’s bliss: that is what it is,
Olivia.
And life will break you of it. And I would break you of it, right here, if I could have it back for myself, for only a moment, God help me. Your stupid faith in something better.”

Her lips parted. He had shocked her.
Good.
She believed in happy endings. She thought fairy tales had some
connection
to reality. He wanted to do more than shock her.

He realized he’d stepped toward her when she leapt back. He made himself halt. Fisted his hands at his sides. This leaping, flaming need that wracked him so suddenly was not lust: it was far darker, a more ravaging consumption. His nails bit into his palms.

But hope was a drug, was it not? And yes, he was a fiend in withdrawal. No drug would ever feel more
exotic to him, or cause him to shake harder for the want of it, than hope. What a false and desperate appetite. Else why would the poor squander their coin on lotteries, and rally to the rumors of tears appearing on the cheeks of wooden idols? How did they profit from such delusions?

But if he tasted her, he might have a moment’s fix. He might.