Chapter 1

 

“Do you intend to block the entire shelf, sir, or simply every one worth reading?”

The gentleman in question, tall, impeccably dressed, and possessed of an air that suggested the world existed solely for his convenience, turned with the sort of measured precision that spoke of either military training or an abundance of self-importance. Given his perfectly tailored coat and the way he held himself as though he owned not merely the book he’d been perusing but the very floorboards beneath his gleaming Hessians, Eveline suspected the latter.

“I beg your pardon?” His voice carried the cultured drawl of a man accustomed to deference, tinged with what might have been amusement or disdain. Possibly both.

She cursed the warmth pooling low in her abdomen at something as ridiculous as the brush of a sleeve. What sort of woman grew heated over the mere nearness of a stranger’s body?

Eveline adjusted her grip on her reticule and fixed him with her most withering stare—the one she’d perfected during countless drawing room encounters with gentlemen who believed her spectacles rendered her both harmless and invisible. “The Roman histories,” she clarified, gesturing toward the volume of Tacitus he held with the reverent care most men reserved for their hunting rifles. “You’ve been standing there for the better part of ten minutes, and I confess myself curious whether you’re actually reading or merely admiring the gilt lettering.”

Rain drummed against the windows of Hatchard’s with increasing fury, as though the very heavens had conspired to trap her in this narrow aisle with this insufferable man. She’d stepped  into the bookshop to escape the sudden downpour, her morning walk through Piccadilly having taken an unexpectedly soggy turn, and now found herself in the distinctly uncomfortable position of being both damp and irritated.

The stranger’s grey eyes, and they were the most unsettling shade of grey, like storm clouds shot through with silver, swept over her with an assessment that made her acutely aware of her windswept appearance. Her dark curls had escaped their pins with typical rebelliousness, her simple walking dress bore the evidence of her hasty retreat from the elements, and she knew without looking that she had that slightly wild appearance that always made her mother despair.

“I was,” he said with deliberate slowness, “attempting to determine whether Tacitus’s assessment of Agricola’s campaigns holds any relevance to modern military strategy. A complex endeavour, I’m afraid, requiring more than the cursory glance you appear to favour.”

Eveline felt her jaw tighten. “How delightfully thorough of you. Though I wonder if you might not find the campaigns more illuminating if you were actually reading about them rather than staring at the spine with such intensity. The text, I’m told, resides within the pages.”

A ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth, transforming his austere features in a way that was both annoying and oddly compelling. “Your concern for my reading comprehension is touching, Miss…?”

“Occupied with more pressing matters than introductions,” Eveline replied crisply, reaching past him for a volume of Herodotus. Her sleeve brushed against his arm, and she caught a hint of bergamot and sandalwood or cedar. Whatever cologne he favored, it was undoubtedly expensive and chosen with the same careful attention to detail as his cravat.

He didn’t step aside.

“How terribly mysterious,” he murmured, and there was definitely amusement now, lurking beneath the polished vowels. “Though I confess myself puzzled by your choice. Surely a lady of your evident… erudition… would prefer something more suited to feminine sensibilities? The latest Gothic offering, perhaps? Or one of those moral tales that are so improving to the character?”

Eveline’s fingers tightened on the leather binding until her knuckles turned white. She’d heard variations of this particular dismissal more times than she cared to count, and it never failed to ignite the sort of fury that made her say things her governess would have deplored.

“How thoughtful of you to concern yourself with my reading material,” she said, her voice honey-sweet with the sort of false politeness that usually preceded bloodshed. “Though I fear I must disappoint your expectations. I find common heroines rather too inclined toward swooning to hold my interest, and as for moral improvement…well, I suspect I am quite beyond redemption.”

She tugged the Herodotus free with perhaps more force than strictly necessary, sending the neighboring volumes into a briefly alarming wobble. The stranger’s hand shot out to steady them with reflexes that suggested familiarity with crisis management, and their fingers brushed for a moment that seemed to stretch far longer than physics would suggest possible.

“Beyond redemption?” He seemed genuinely intrigued by this prospect. “How refreshingly honest. Though I wonder what terrible crimes you’ve committed to achieve such a state. You hardly look the sort to engage in highway robbery or seduce innocent people.”

“Appearances,” Eveline informed him loftily, “can be remarkably deceptive. For all you know, I might be the most notorious bluestocking in London, corrupting impressionable young minds with dangerous ideas about Greek philosophy and the radical notion that women possess functioning intellects.”

“Heaven forbid.” His tone was perfectly grave, but she caught the telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth. “The social order would collapse entirely. We should have ladies demanding the vote next, or insisting on reading newspapers.”

“What a terrifying prospect,” Eveline agreed solemnly. “Though I confess I’ve already fallen prey to both vices. Just this morning I read a fascinating piece in The Times about the debates in Parliament regarding the Corn Laws. Quite scandalous of me, I assume.”

“Utterly shocking.” He leaned closer, and she caught that intriguing scent again, along with something else—leather and ink, the particular perfume of someone who spent considerable time among books. “I suppose you have opinions on the matter as well? How perfectly dreadful.”

Despite herself, Eveline felt her lips curve upward. This was better than the usual dismissive condescension she encountered. At least he was engaging with her mockery rather than simply tolerating it with patronizing smiles. “Indeed I do.I am persuaded that protectionist measures exist chiefly to line the pockets of the landed interest, whilst imposing undue hardship upon the industrious classes, for by contriving an artificial scarcity they raise the price of necessaries and deepen the distress of those least able to bear it.”

His eyebrows rose. Dark, well-shaped eyebrows that matched his hair and gave his face a decidedly aristocratic cast. “A radical position for a lady to hold.”

“I’ve never been accused of moderation in my thinking,” Eveline admitted. “My mother despairs of me regularly.”

“I start to perceive the cause.” There was something almost approving in his tone, which was simultaneously gratifying and deeply suspicious. In her experience, gentlemen who encouraged her intellectual discourse usually had ulterior motives that had nothing to do with genuine respect for her mind.

She studied his face, searching for the telltale signs of condescension or worse, the sort of predatory interest that sometimes lurked beneath polite conversation. Instead, she found herself caught by those grey eyes, which held an intelligence that seemed both sharp and oddly weary, as though he’d seen more of the world than a man his age, around thirty, ought to have encountered.

“You’re staring,” he observed mildly.

Heat flooded her cheeks. “I was merely attempting to determine whether you’re one of those gentlemen who collect books for their decorative value or if you actually intend to read that Tacitus you’ve been clutching.”

“And your conclusion?”

Eveline tilted her head, considering. His hands, she noticed, bore ink stains along the knuckles—faint but visible to someone who knew what to look for, having spent considerable time sporting similar marks herself. His fingers were long and elegant, but there was a slight callus on the middle finger of his right hand that spoke of extensive writing. More tellingly, the way he held the book suggested genuine familiarity rather than the careful reverence of someone handling an unfamiliar object.

“I believe,” she said slowly, “that you do read. Extensively, in fact. But I also believe you’re the sort of man who enjoys being underestimated, which suggests either commendable humility or dangerous cunning.”

Something flickered in those grey eyes at her reply. “How remarkably perceptive. And which do you suspect it is?”

“In my experience, truly humble men don’t dress with such attention to detail or carry themselves as though the world owes them deference.” She gestured toward his perfectly arranged cravat, his coat that fit him with the precision that spoke of London’s finest tailors, the subtle gleam of what was undoubtedly a very expensive watch chain. “Which suggests the latter.”

“Cunning,” he mused, as though tasting the word. “Such a harsh assessment from someone who’s known me for only fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes can be quite sufficient for forming initial impressions. Though I admit they’re sometimes proven wrong upon further acquaintance.”

“Sometimes?”

“Very rarely,” Eveline said with a smile that was probably too sharp to be properly ladylike. “I have something of a talent for reading people, much to their frequent discomfort.”

“I can imagine.” He shifted slightly, and she realized he’d moved closer during their conversation, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. The bookshop, with its narrow aisles and towering shelves, suddenly felt considerably smaller. “And what else does your talent tell you about me?”

This was dangerous territory, the sort of charged conversation that her mother would have whisked her away from with horrified efficiency. A proper young lady didn’t engage in such intimate discourse with strange gentlemen, didn’t allow herself to be drawn into the sort of verbal sparring that made her pulse quicken and her cheeks flush. She should make some polite excuse and retreat to a safer section of the shop, perhaps browsing the poetry until the rain subsided and she could make her escape.

Instead, she found herself stepping closer, drawn by the challenge in his voice and the way his attention felt like sunlight after years of being treated as a potted plant; decorative but essentially silent.

“You’re someone accustomed to command,” she said, her voice dropping to match his intimate tone. “Your posture, your manner of speaking, the way you expect others to yield space to you…it all suggests authority. Military, perhaps, or political. But there’s something else…” She paused, studying the fine lines around his eyes, the slight tension in his jaw that spoke of carefully controlled emotion. “You’re disappointed in something. Or someone. It’s made you cynical, I think, though you wear it well.”

The silence that followed her assessment stretched between them like a taut wire, filled with the sound of rain against glass and the distant murmur of other patrons browsing the shop’s offerings. She’d overstepped, she realized with a mixture of horror and defiance. Ladies didn’t make such personal observations about gentlemen they’d just met, didn’t peer beneath polite facades to the shadows beneath.

But she’d always been terrible at being a proper lady.

“Remarkable,” he said finally, and there was something in his voice she couldn’t identify. Surprise, certainly, but something else as well. Something that made her breath catch despite her determination to remain unaffected by grey eyes and expensive cologne. “Quite remarkable indeed.”

Before she could respond, the shop bell chimed with the arrival of another customer, and the spell was broken. The newcomer brought with him a gust of cold air and the scent of wet wool, reminding Eveline rather forcefully that she was lingering in a bookshop with a stranger while a storm raged outside.

“I should…” she began, then stopped, unsure what exactly she should do. Purchase her book and leave? Continue this increasingly fraught conversation? Demand his name and direction so she might torment herself with wondering about him for weeks to come?

“Yes,” he agreed, though his tone suggested he was no more certain than she was, about what course of action propriety demanded. “You should.”

But neither of them moved.

The rain seemed to intensify, touching the ground with renewed vigor, and Eveline found herself grateful for the excuse to remain. Not because she was enjoying their conversation, she told herself firmly. Certainly not because there was something compelling about the way he looked at her as though she were a puzzle he was genuinely interested in solving, or because his smile transformed his rather austere features in ways that made her pulse skip in the most unseemly manner.

No, she was simply being practical. Only a fool would venture out in such weather.

“The storm shows no signs of abating,” she observed, as though this were a perfectly reasonable explanation for continuing to stand mere inches away from a man whose name she didn’t even know.

“None whatsoever,” he agreed gravely. “Most inconvenient.”

“Terribly so.” She shifted her weight, acutely aware of his proximity and the way the narrow aisle seemed to contract around them. “Though I suppose it provides an excellent opportunity to browse more thoroughly. I’m told Mr. Hatchard has acquired some fascinating new titles recently.”

“Indeed? And what sort of titles capture your interest, Miss…?” He let the question hang between them, clearly hoping she might finally provide her name.

Eveline hesitated. Once she gave him her name, their encounter would shift from anonymous flirtation to something more concrete, more real. She would become Miss Eveline Whitcombe, a bluestocking spinster and social curiosity, rather than simply a sharp-tongued woman who read Greek and had opinions about parliamentary legislation.

The prospect was both thrilling and terrifying.

“Eveline,” she said finally, offering only her Christian name as a compromise between propriety and the strange intimacy that had developed between them. “And you are?”

For a moment, something flickered across his features which seemed like surprise again, or perhaps calculation. When he spoke, his voice carried an oddly formal note that hadn’t been there before. “Adrian.”

Just Adrian, then. They were to remain on equal footing in their semi-anonymity, it seemed.

“Well then, Adrian,” she said, testing the name and finding it suited him, as it sounded solid and aristocratic, with just enough edge to suggest hidden depths. “Since we appear to be trapped together by the vagaries of London weather, perhaps you might recommend something from your extensive reading? I confess myself curious about what captures the attention of such a discerning gentleman.”

His smile was slow and distinctly predatory, transforming his face in ways that made her stomach flutter with something that was definitely not ladylike interest. “How dangerous a question. What if my recommendations prove entirely unsuitable for a lady of refined sensibilities?”

“Then I shall have to trust in my corruption to see me through,” Eveline replied sweetly. “As I mentioned, I am quite beyond redemption.”

“In that case…” He moved past her, his sleeve brushing against hers again in that maddening way, and selected a volume from a higher shelf. When he turned back to her, she saw it was a collection of Byron’s poetry. Not the man’s latest work, which had been banned from most respectable drawing rooms, but still far more provocative than most ladies were expected to appreciate.

“Byron?” she asked, accepting the book with raised eyebrows. “How shocking of you to recommend such scandalous material to a respectable lady.”

“I thought we had established that you were nothing of the sort,” Adrian said, that hint of amusement back in his voice. “Besides, if you truly have opinions on the Corn Laws, I suspect you can handle a bit of romantic poetry without suffering permanent damage to your moral character.”

Eveline opened the volume at random and found herself looking at “She Walks in Beauty.” The irony was not lost on her—here she stood, windswept and damp, being handed poetry about feminine grace by a man whose own dark beauty would have made Byron himself weep with envy.

“‘She walks in beauty, like the night,'” she read aloud, then glanced up to find Adrian watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch. “‘Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes.'”

The words seemed to hang between them, charged with meaning neither had intended but both felt. Heat rose in her cheeks as she realized what she’d done. Standing there in a bookshop, reading love poetry aloud to a stranger as though she were some Gothic heroine rather than a sensible woman of three-and-twenty.

“Beautiful words,” she managed, closing the book with perhaps more force than necessary.

“Indeed.” His voice was rougher than it had been, and when she looked up, she found his gaze fixed on her face with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher. “Though I suspect Byron himself would have been inspired by the sight of a lady defending her right to read Tacitus in a bookshop on a rainy afternoon.”

Now she was definitely blushing. “You flatter me, sir.”

“I merely observe.” He took a half-step closer, and she caught that intriguing scent again of bergamot and sandalwood and something uniquely him. “And I find myself wondering what other unconventional opinions you might hold, Miss Eveline. Do you perhaps believe women should be allowed to attend university? Vote in parliamentary elections? Inherit property in their own right?”

Each question was more radical than the last, and she should have been shocked by his assumption that she might hold such dangerous views. Instead, she found herself warming to the subject with the sort of enthusiasm that usually cleared drawing rooms and sent her mother reaching for her smelling salts.

“All of the above,” she said without hesitation. “And I believe they should be allowed to pursue careers in medicine, law, and scholarship without being dismissed as monsters of nature or accused of neglecting their feminine duties.”

“Good Heavens.” But he was smiling as he said it, a real smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made him look years younger. “You truly are dangerous.”

“Utterly so,” Eveline agreed cheerfully. “My mother lives in constant terror that I’ll corrupt some innocent young lady with my radical notions and bring scandal down upon the family name.”

“And have you? Corrupted anyone, that is?”

She pretended to consider the question seriously. “Not yet, but I remain optimistic. I’ve been working on my friend Harriet, but she’s proving remarkably resistant to enlightenment. She still believes women were put on earth primarily to provide agreeable companionship and produce heirs.”

“How disappointing of her.”

“Terribly so. Though I haven’t given up hope. I plan to lend her a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s work and see if that doesn’t shake her faith in feminine submission.”

Adrian’s eyebrows rose. “You have a copy of ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’?”

“Naturally. Don’t you?”

“I…” He paused, looking genuinely taken aback. “I confess I do not.”

Eveline looked at him disapprovingly. “How can you call yourself well-read if you haven’t studied Wollstonecraft? Her arguments regarding female education are particularly compelling. She posits that women appear inferior to men only because they’ve been denied the same educational opportunities, not due to any inherent mental deficiency.”

“A revolutionary concept,” Adrian said dryly.

“Hardly revolutionary. Merely logical. Though I suppose logic and feminine nature are generally considered mutually exclusive by most gentlemen.” She gave him a pointed look. “Present company excepted, I hope?”

“I begin to think,” he said slowly, “that present company might be the exception to a great many rules.”

The rain chose that moment to lessen, the sound of it against the windows fading to a gentle patter that suggested the worst of the storm had passed. Eveline felt a stab of disappointment that was entirely unreasonable because she should be pleased to have an excuse to escape this increasingly dangerous conversation with a man who looked at her as though she were something fascinating rather than merely tolerable.

“I should take my leave,” she said reluctantly, clutching both books to her chest like armor. “The weather appears to be clearing, and I have… obligations.”

“Of course.” His formal mask was sliding back into place, she noticed with regret. “Forgive me for keeping you so long with my conversation.”

“You didn’t keep me,” Eveline said quickly. “I chose to stay. The conversation was… illuminating.”

“Was it?” There was that hint of amusement again, warming his grey eyes. “I’m gratified to have provided illumination.”

She had to leave now, while she still could. She should purchase her books, make some polite farewell, and walk out of Hatchard’s back into the world where ladies didn’t engage in philosophical debates with mysterious strangers or read love poetry aloud in bookshops.

Instead, she found herself lingering, reluctant to break whatever spell had woven itself around them during their verbal sparring. “Will you… that is, do you often frequent Hatchard’s? For your reading material, I mean?”

The question was barely proper, skating the very edge of what a lady might ask a gentleman she’d just met. But she had to know if there was any possibility of encountering him again, she had to leave herself that small hope even as she told herself she was being ridiculous.

His smile was slow and knowing, as though he understood exactly what she was really asking. “On occasion. When the weather drives me to seek shelter, or when I’m in need of… intellectual stimulation.”

Heat flooded her cheeks at his tone, which somehow managed to make “intellectual stimulation” sound distinctly improper. “How practical of you.”

“I’m a very practical man, Miss Eveline.” The way he said her name sent shivers down her spine that had nothing to do with the dampness of her clothes. “Though I confess today’s encounter has been anything but practical.”

“No,” she agreed. “It hasn’t.”

They stood there for another moment, the air between them charged with possibilities neither was quite bold enough to voice. Then the shop bell chimed again, admitting a group of chattering ladies who brought with them the uncomfortable reminder that they were in a public place, engaging in the sort of intimate conversation that would fuel weeks of gossip if observed by the wrong people.

“I fear I must take my leave,” Eveline said, stepping back with visible effort.

“Yes,” Adrian agreed, but his eyes followed her movement with unmistakable regret. “You must.”

She turned toward the front of the shop, then paused and looked back. “The Herodotus,” she said, holding up the volume she’d selected. “Do you think it will prove as illuminating as our conversation?”

His smile was enigmatic. “I suspect, Miss Eveline, that you’ll find illumination wherever you choose to look for it.”

Chapter 2 

 

“If I am to be dismissed as a bluestocking, I may as well make something of it.”

Harriet Fairweather paused mid-sip of her tea, her delicate china cup suspended halfway to her lips as the afternoon sun streaming through Gunter’s Tea Shop windows caught the horror dawning across her features in rather spectacular detail.

“Oh dear,” she said, setting down the cup with the sort of care one might reserve for handling explosives. “That’s your revolutionary voice.”

“I don’t have a revolutionary voice.”

“You absolutely do, and it’s the same voice you used before informing the Vicar that his translation of Corinthians was theologically suspect.”

“Well, it was! He’d turned ‘faith, hope, and love’ into something about duty, obligation, and knowing one’s place, practically rewriting Saint Paul.”

“And you felt compelled to explain this during his sermon, from the pews, in front of the entire congregation.”

Eveline took a defiant bite of her lavender ice. “Someone had to.”

“That someone didn’t have to be you, loudly, at the precise moment he was attempting to make his theological point.” Harriet leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that suggested she was rather enjoying the prospect of scandal. “Now tell me what has prompted this particular revolution. Have you been arguing with clergymen again?”

“Not clergymen, just one insufferable gentleman at Hatchard’s yesterday.”

“Oh?” Harriet’s eyes lit with the particular gleam that meant she scented romantic possibility, the same look she got whenever an unmarried man under sixty wandered into their general vicinity. “Do tell.”

“There’s nothing to tell, really. He was blocking the entire Roman history section, standing there like some sort of particularly well-dressed monster, and when I politely suggested he might move…”

“Politely?”

“…relatively politely suggested he might move, he had the audacity to imply I was only buying books to appear intellectual at dinner parties.”

“The monster.” Harriet’s lips twitched with barely suppressed amusement. “What did he look like, this beast of yours?”

“He’s not mine, and I barely noticed.”

“Of course not.”

“He was tall-ish, with dark hair that looked like he’d been running his fingers through it while contemplating his own magnificence, and grey eyes that managed to look both bored and amused, as if the entire world existed solely for his entertainment.”

“You barely noticed quite a lot of detail.”

“It was difficult not to notice when he took up so much space with his presence.” Eveline stirred her ice with perhaps more vigor than necessary, remembering the way he’d stood there, all languid aristocratic grace and casual authority, clearly a man who’d never been told ‘no’ in his life and wouldn’t recognize the word if it bit him. “We ended up discussing different political and philosophical matters.”

Harriet blinked slowly, as if processing this information required considerable effort. “You discussed such matters with a strange man in a bookshop?”

“And other theories in general, which was unexpected because he actually knew about them rather than just memorizing a few quotes to impress people at dinner like most gentlemen do.”

“But not this gentleman?”

“No, he was genuinely educated, which made his condescension all the more insufferable. He even asked if I was buying books to display them, as if I’d waste good money on books I didn’t intend to read,” she said while she could still hear his cultured voice in her mind.

“Perish the thought, though you must admit that half of Mayfair does exactly that.”

“Which is precisely why I refuse to be the same as them.” Eveline pulled out a folded newspaper cutting from her reticule with the air of someone producing evidence in a trial. “Which brings me to my revolution.”

Harriet took the paper, reading aloud with increasing alarm: “‘Sought: Learned individual to catalogue and organise private library. Must possess fluency in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian. Knowledge of ancient and modern history essential. Apply by written correspondence to…'” Her voice rose to a pitch that caused several nearby patrons to turn with expressions of polite disapproval. “The Duke of Everleigh?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“The Duke of Everleigh,” Harriet repeated in a horrified whisper that was somehow more dramatic than her shriek. “The one who was jilted by Lady Juliette in the most public humiliation of the decade? The one who supposedly turned so cold after the broken betrothal that frost forms when he enters a room?”

“I hardly think meteorological phenomena…”

“Eveline, you cannot be serious about applying for this.”

“I’m not thinking of applying, I am applying.”

“For a position as an employee in the home of an unmarried duke.”

“As a cataloguer in his library, not a visitor in his bedroom.”

“Eveline!”

“What? It’s true that I’d be working with books, not engaging in whatever scandalous activities you’re imagining.” Though even as she said it, her mind unhelpfully supplied an image of her mysterious bookshop adversary in shirtsleeves, surrounded by ancient texts, which she immediately banished. “I have all the qualifications they’re seeking.”

“You have something else too…a reputation to maintain.”

“What reputation would that be? I’m already three-and-twenty, firmly on the shelf, and known throughout the ton as that peculiar Whitcombe girl who reads too much and quotes dead languages at inappropriate moments. At least this way, my peculiarity would have purpose.”

Harriet reached across the table to grasp her hand with the urgency of someone trying to pull a friend back from a cliff’s edge. “Evie, think about this, really think about what you’re suggesting. If you take employment—any employment, but especially this—you’ll be ruined completely. No respectable family will receive you, no gentleman will court you.”

“What gentleman courts me now?” The words came out sharper than intended, carrying years of accumulated disappointment that she usually kept carefully locked away. “Should I wait for Mr. Harland to compare me to more farmyard animals? Hope that Lord Witherly’s ancient bones hold together long enough for a proposal? Accept it, Harriet…I’m already invisible to eligible men, so at least this way I’d be invisible while doing something meaningful.”

“You’re not invisible, you’re selective.”

“I’m selected against, which is quite a different thing entirely.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the cheerful chatter of the tea shop flowing around them like water around stones, before Harriet sighed with the resignation of someone who knew a lost cause when she saw one.

“You’re going to do this regardless of what I say.”

“Probably.”

“Definitely.” Harriet picked up her tea again with the air of someone requiring fortification. “So tell me your plan, and I assume you have one that’s slightly more sophisticated than marching up to Everleigh Manor and announcing your qualifications.”

“I shall write a formal application, and Professor Blackwood has agreed to provide a reference…”

“Your father’s friend who taught you Greek and thinks women should be admitted to Oxford?”

“The very same, and his recommendation carries considerable weight in academic circles.”

“The Duke of Everleigh hardly moves in academic circles.”

“No, but he clearly values education or he wouldn’t need a proper cataloguer for what must be an extensive collection.” Eveline pulled out her small notebook, pages already covered with her neat handwriting that sprawled across the pages like tiny soldiers marching to war. “I’ve been making lists of what to include; my translation of Plutarch, the comparative analysis of Homer translations, perhaps that piece on Tacitus that Professor Blackwood particularly praised…”

“You’re actually excited about this.”

Was she? Eveline considered the question, thinking about how the prospect of eighteen thousand books, or even more, made her pulse quicken in a way that had nothing to do with scandal and everything to do with possibility.

“Can you imagine, Harriet? A library that size, needing organization, would be like being asked to chart unexplored territory, to create order from chaos itself.”

“You have very unusual fantasies.”

“And you fantasize about marriage proposals and wedding breakfasts.”

“At least my fantasies don’t involve social ruin.”

They finished their ices while Harriet continued to list every possible disaster that could befall Eveline, from complete social ostracism to ending up killed in the Duke’s library. “Books are quite heavy, you know—excellent weapons”, she had mentioned but Eveline half-listened while her mind was already composing her letter of application.

 

***

 

That evening, barricaded in her father’s study with its familiar scent of leather and pipe tobacco that still clung to every surface, Eveline faced her newest enemy: a blank sheet of paper that seemed to mock her with its pristine emptiness.

How did one apply for a position never intended for a woman? Should she be forthright about her sex, apologetic for her presumption, or defiant about her qualifications?

The first draft was a disaster of excessive humility that made her cringe even as she wrote it:

Your Grace, while I understand that my sex renders me an unconventional candidate…

Into the fire it went, because she was not going to apologize for existing.

The second attempt swung too far in the opposite direction, reading like a philosophical treatise on equality:

Your Grace, a person’s qualifications should matter more than society’s narrow prejudices…

That followed its predecessor into the flames, as lecturing a duke about prejudice seemed unlikely to secure employment.

By the fourth draft, her fingers were ink-stained and her patience threadbare, but something about remembering the gentleman in the bookshop, how he’d dismissed her initially, then had been forced to respect her knowledge, sparked not anger exactly, but determination.

She wouldn’t apologize or lecture; she would simply be better qualified than any other applicant.

Your Grace,

In response to your request seeking a cataloguer for your library, I wish to submit my application for consideration.

I possess fluency in Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, with sufficient German for translation purposes. My education encompasses classical and modern literature, history, philosophy, and theology, gained through extensive private study with Professor Emeritus Blackwood of Oxford, whose letter of recommendation I enclose.

My practical experience includes the complete cataloguing and organization of my late father’s library of three thousand volumes, employing a cross-referencing system by subject, author, and date of publication. I have completed numerous translations, including a rendering of Plutarch’s “On the Education of Children.”

I enclose samples of my work and I am prepared to submit to any examination of my capabilities you deem necessary. I am available for interview at your convenience.

I remain, Your Grace, your obedient servant,

She paused, her quill pen hovering over the paper at this moment of decision. She could sign it clearly, “Miss Eveline Whitcombe,” and likely have her application dismissed unread, or…

The pen moved almost of its own accord:

1. Whitcombe

There. Let him assume what he would, Edmund, Edward, Everett, E… could be anything. If her qualifications were sufficient for a man, why should they be insufficient for a woman? She would get her interview on merit, not be dismissed on prejudice.

However even as she sealed the letter, she wondered what would happen when the Duke discovered her deception. Would he be amused, outraged, would those cold eyes that society whispered about flash with anger or something else entirely?

She stopped herself mid-thought, because all these thoughts were entirely irrelevant to her purpose. This was about books, employment and nothing more.

Still, as she prepared the packet with her samples, the Plutarch translation, the Homer analysis, even a rather clever piece on Ovid that Professor Blackwood had particularly praised, she found herself thinking of the bookshop gentleman again, remembering the way he’d genuinely laughed, when she’d described Mr. Harland’s agricultural courtship attempts.

She’d probably never see him again, as London was vast and men like that, clearly wealthy, probably titled, didn’t frequent the same circles as impoverished bluestockings. But somehow, preparing this application felt connected to that encounter, as if his dismissal had catalyzed something larger.

You’re quite the philosopher, Miss…?

He’d never gotten her name, which was just as well, because men like that didn’t need to know the names of sharp-tongued spinsters who accosted them in bookshops.

A knock interrupted her thoughts.

“Eveline?” Her mother entered, carrying tea and wearing that particular expression that suggested she already knew everything. “You missed supper.”

“I was working.”

Her mother glanced at the sealed packet on the desk with the air of someone confirming suspicions. “The application?”

There was no point in prevaricating when her mother had a sixth sense for secrets. “Yes.”

“To the Duke of Everleigh?”

“Yes.”

Her mother sat down, arranging her skirts with the careful precision that always indicated she was thinking deeply. “Your father would be horrified.”

Eveline’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”

“He would also,” her mother continued with a small smile, “be secretly proud, because he didn’t educate you to waste that education on embroidery samplers.”

“Truly?”

“Oh, he’d forbid it, certainly. But late at night, when he thought I was asleep, he used to worry about what would become of you. ‘Too clever for her own good,’ he’d say, ‘too clever for this world.'”

A lump formed in Eveline’s throat. “I miss him.”

“As do I, every day.” Her mother reached over to squeeze her hand with gentle understanding. “Send your application, my dear, but be prepared for disappointment, as the world rarely rewards women who refuse to stay in their prescribed places.”

“I’d rather be disappointed for trying than for never trying at all.”

“Spoken like your father’s daughter.” Her mother stood with a rustle of silk. “Though perhaps don’t mention this to Charles just yet, as you know how he fusses.”

After her mother left, Eveline stared at the sealed packet that contained either her future or her folly. Tomorrow she would post it, and then she would wait to see if the Duke of Everleigh, whoever he was, would look past the careful ambiguity of “E. Whitcombe” to see the qualifications beneath.

She thought again of grey eyes and sardonic smiles in a bookshop, and how that gentleman would probably laugh if he knew what she was attempting. A woman, applying to organize a duke’s library, the absurdity of it all.

But then, she’d made him acknowledge her intelligence, hadn’t she? Made him admit his assumptions were wrong, and if she could do that with a random stranger in a bookshop, perhaps she could do it with a duke through a carefully worded letter.

Perhaps.

The next morning dawned grey and drizzling, fitting weather for posting a letter that might change everything or nothing at all. Eveline walked to the post office herself, unwilling to trust such important correspondence to a servant who might gossip about the address.

“Special delivery?” the clerk asked, noting the quality of the paper.

“Regular post will suffice.” Special delivery would seem too eager, too desperate, too much like someone trying too hard to be noticed.

“Very good, miss.”

And with that mundane exchange, it was done. Her application was winging its way to Everleigh Manor, where it would land on some assistant’s desk and probably be dismissed as the ramblings of an overeducated nobody.

Or perhaps not.

Perhaps E. Whitcombe would intrigue someone, mayhap those qualifications would outweigh the eventual surprise, perhaps…

“You’re wool-gathering in the middle of the street,” a familiar voice said.

Eveline turned to find Harriet, armed with an umbrella and a concerned expression that suggested she’d been lying in wait.

“It’s done,” Eveline said simply. “I’ve sent it.”

“Oh, Evie.” Harriet linked their arms with the air of someone preparing to offer comfort for an inevitable disaster. “Well then, we’d better go to Gunter’s and eat an obscene amount of ice while we wait for either triumph or disaster.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Impending social ruin calls for ice at all hours.”

As they walked, Eveline wondered what the Duke was like; cold, society said, proud and bitter from his broken betrothal, the sort of man who’d probably burn her application the moment he discovered her deception.

But then, society said a lot of things. They said women couldn’t understand Latin, shouldn’t read philosophy, mustn’t aspire to more than marriage and motherhood, and so many other things that Eveline disagreed with.

“You’re smiling,” Harriet observed with suspicion. “That’s either very good or very bad.”

“I’m imagining the Duke’s face when he realizes E. Whitcombe isn’t Edmund or Edward.”

“He’ll probably have an apoplectic fit.”

“Quite possibly.” Eveline’s smile widened with anticipation. “Won’t that be interesting? But in all honesty, it is far too unlikely that I shall even be considered.”

Chapter 3 

 

She was about to fall, she was sure of it.

The rain had transformed Everleigh Manor’s gravel drive into a treacherous landscape of puddles and loose stones, each step threatening to send Eveline sliding ignominiously to her doom or at least to a very undignified arrival. Contrary to what she had thought, she had indeed been considered. Well, E.Whitcombe, had been at least. She clutched her leather portfolio against her chest like armor, though what protection it might offer against the imposing façade looming before her, she couldn’t say. The massive oak door stood at the top of twelve stone steps, each one slick with rain and seemingly designed to remind visitors of their insignificance in the grand scheme of ducal importance.

She had dressed carefully for this interview; her best blue day dress, the one that made her look serious and scholarly rather than like someone who’d spent the previous night arguing with herself about the wisdom of this entire enterprise. Her hair, usually a lost cause of rebellious curls, had been wrestled into submission with enough pins to construct a small fortress. She’d even borrowed her mother’s good gloves, though they were now rather dampened from her death grip on the portfolio.

The door knocker was a bronze lion’s head that seemed to sneer at her presumption but she lifted it and let it fall with a sound that echoed like judgment.

The man who answered was everything a ducal butler should be. He stood well over six feet, with a hawk-like gaze that could probably spot impropriety from three counties away. His black livery was pressed to a degree that suggested he considered wrinkles a personal affront to his dignity, and his hands were clasped behind his back in the manner of someone perpetually prepared to deny entry to the unworthy.

“Yes?” The single word contained multitudes of disapproval.

Eveline lifted her chin, summoning every ounce of false confidence she’d been cultivating since receiving the interview invitation. “Miss Whitcombe to see His Grace. I have an appointment at two o’clock.”

The man, who had announced his name as Graves, consulted his pocket watch with the gravity of someone checking the alignment of the planets. “It is two o’clock and three minutes.”

“Then I’m fashionably punctual.”

The butler’s expression suggested that fashion and punctuality were mutually exclusive concepts, and that attempting to combine them was symptomatic of larger character flaws. He studied her for a long moment, his gaze traveling from her rain-spotted pelisse to her carefully arranged hair, which was already beginning to rebel against its pins.

“Forgive me, miss, but his Grace is expecting a gentleman.”

The words hung in the air between them like a gauntlet thrown, and Eveline felt her spine straighten with the kind of righteous indignation that had gotten her into trouble at more dinner gatherings than she cared to count.

“Then His Grace must content himself with me instead.”

“I believe there has been some misunderstanding. The position of cataloguer…”

“Is one for which I am eminently qualified, as His Grace apparently agreed when he granted me this interview.” She pulled out the letter with his seal, wielding it like a weapon. “Unless you’re suggesting His Grace was mistaken?”

Graves regarded the letter as if it might be an elaborate forgery, though the ducal seal was unmistakably genuine. “His Grace requires a scholar, not…” he paused delicately, somehow managing to convey volumes of disapproval in that brief silence, “a lady.”

“How fortunate then that I am both.” Eveline’s voice had taken on the crisp tone she used when translating particularly difficult passages of Greek—precise, unyielding, and slightly dangerous. “Shall I recite Aristotle in the original to prove the point, or would you prefer Cicero? I’m quite flexible on the matter of dead languages.”

A footman had appeared in the hallway behind Graves, ostensibly adjusting a vase but clearly eavesdropping with the kind of focus usually reserved for gossip about employers. A maid peeked around a corner, feather duster in hand but making no attempt at actual dusting. The audience seemed to make Graves even more rigid, if such a thing were possible.

“Miss Whitcombe,” he began, in tones that suggested he was reasoning with a particularly obstinate child, “surely you understand the irregularity of your presence here. A young lady, unchaperoned, seeking employment…”

“Seeking to catalogue books, Mr. Graves, not to raid the wine cellar or seduce the footmen.” The words were out before she could stop them, and she heard the maid stifle what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. “I have sent references from Professor Blackwood of Oxford. I have samples of my work. What I don’t have is infinite patience for being treated like some sort of curiosity simply because I possess both a brain and the apparent misfortune of being female.”

Her nerves were screaming at her to stop talking, to apologize, to retreat gracefully before she made things worse. But her pride, that terrible, wonderful pride that had been both her strength and her downfall since childhood, refused to let her back down. She’d come too far, prepared too much, hoped too desperately to be dismissed by a butler, no matter how imposing.

Graves looked as if he’d swallowed something particularly unpleasant, possibly his own tongue. “The impropriety…”

“Is entirely in your imagination. I’m here for an interview regarding employment, not a clandestine assignation. Unless you’re suggesting His Grace’s character is so questionable that he cannot be trusted in the presence of female scholars?”

It was a dangerous gambit, implying criticism of his employer, but it had the desired effect. Graves’s expression shifted from dismissive to affronted on his master’s behalf.

“His Grace’s character is beyond reproach.”

“Then there should be no issue with him interviewing a qualified candidate, regardless of that candidate’s sex.”

They stood locked in a battle of wills, the footman and maid watching with the rapt attention usually reserved for particularly good theater. Finally, Graves’s shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch.

“Very well,” he said, each word seemingly extracted under torture. “I shall inform His Grace of your… arrival. Wait here.”

He disappeared into the depths of the house, leaving Eveline standing in the entrance hall under the watchful eyes of what seemed like seventeen generations of previous Dukes of Everleigh, all painted with expressions suggesting they thoroughly disapproved of bluestockings invading their ancestral home. The footman had given up all pretense of vase-adjusting and was openly staring. The maid had been joined by another maid, both clutching their dusters like spectators clutching programs at a particularly exciting horse race.

Eveline tried to look confident and scholarly rather than like someone whose knees were shaking beneath her skirts. The entrance hall was designed to intimidate, and it was succeeding admirably. Polished floors that reflected her nervous figure back at her, columns that soared to a painted ceiling depicting what appeared to be either the triumph of virtue or the triumph of aristocracy—it was hard to tell with allegorical paintings, and the cherubs weren’t providing clarity.

“Miss Whitcombe.”

Graves had returned, looking like a man forced to escort a convicted criminal to tea with the Queen. “His Grace will see you.”

He led her through corridors that seemed specifically designed to make visitors question their worth as human beings. 

But she kept rehearsing her arguments as she walked. She would be professional, composed, scholarly. She would not let nerves destroy her. She would not think about the fact that she’d essentially forced her way into a duke’s home under partially false pretenses. She would not…

Graves stopped before a set of double doors that belonged in a cathedral rather than a private home. “The library, miss.”

He opened the doors with the solemnity of someone unveiling a sacred relic, and Eveline’s first thought was that she’d stepped into paradise. Her second thought was that paradise needed a thorough dusting and possibly an intervention.

The library stretched impossibly upward, three stories of shelves accessible by narrow galleries and precarious-looking spiral staircases. Books were everywhere—crammed horizontally atop vertical volumes, stacked on tables, teetering in corners and spreading across the floor. Dust motes danced in the light from tall windows, giving the entire room a dreamlike quality. The air smelled of leather, old paper and that particular mixture of neglect and potential that made her fingers itch to start organizing.

She’d been so entranced by the books that she hadn’t immediately noticed the desk near the far window, or the figure seated behind it. She expected someone austere, possibly elderly, definitely wearing spectacles and a disapproving expression. What she did not expect was…

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no.

The man rising from behind the desk was not elderly. He was not wearing spectacles. And his expression, far from disapproving, held a mixture of surprise and something that looked dangerously close to amusement.

It was him. The insufferable man from Hatchard’s. The one with the grey eyes and the sardonic smile and the extensive knowledge. The one she’d argued with, insulted rather thoroughly, and then spent the next week trying not to think about.

He was the Duke of Everleigh.

The portfolio slipped from her suddenly nerveless fingers, hitting the floor with a thud that seemed to echo through the enormous room. Her carefully prepared speech evaporated like morning mist. All her confidence, manufactured though it had been, vanished with the swiftness of servants hearing the call for chores.

“Miss Whitcombe,” he said, and his voice held that same cultured amusement she remembered from the bookshop. “Or should I say, E. Whitcombe? I must confess, when I read your application, I was expecting someone rather more… masculine.”

Heat flooded her face. “Your Grace, I can explain…”

“No need.” He moved around the desk with that languid grace she remembered, though now it seemed even more pronounced in his own domain. “However I am curious whether you knew who I was at Hatchard’s, or if this is merely the universe’s idea of an elaborate joke.”

“I had no idea,” she managed, her voice sounding strangled even to her own ears. “I would never have… that is, if I’d known…”

“You would never have accused me of blocking every volume worth reading? Or suggested I was purchasing books merely for display?” His eyebrow rose in that infuriating way. “How disappointing. I rather enjoyed being taken to task by someone who didn’t know I was a duke.”

She should apologize and she should probably flee the room and never show her face in polite society again. Instead, her treacherous pride reasserted itself, lifting her chin and sharpening her voice.

“I stand by my assessment of your shelf-blocking tendencies.”

Something flickered in his eyes before saying: “Even now? Standing in my library, seeking employment from me, you maintain I’m a literary obstruction?”

“Truth doesn’t become less true simply because you’ve discovered someone’s title.” The words were out before she could stop them, and she immediately wanted to take them back in. “That is, Your Grace, I merely meant…”

“You meant exactly what you said.” He leaned against his desk, studying her with those unsettling grey eyes. “Tell me, Miss Whitcombe, did you think I wouldn’t remember you? Or did you hope E. Whitcombe would somehow deceive me?”

“I thought…” She took a breath, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. “I thought my qualifications should matter more than my sex.”

“They should. Whether they do remains to be seen.” He gestured to a chair across from his desk. “Sit down before you fall down. You look like you’re about to faint, and Graves would never forgive me if you damaged anything while falling.”

She sat, mainly because her knees were suggesting rather strongly that standing was becoming optional. He returned to his side of the desk, though he remained standing, looking down at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.

“Your application was impressive,” he said after a moment that felt like several years. “Your references even more so. I wonder why you did not think that your sex would be revealed through the references.  Professor Blackwood doesn’t give praise lightly, and Lady Hastings’s letter was… illuminating.”

That took Eveline by surprise because indeed she had not thought of the references but she could not do anything now. ‘’Lady Hastings was very kind to recommend me.”

“She threatened me, actually. Something about the waste of brilliant minds and the tragedy of narrow-minded aristocrats. I’m paraphrasing, but the general tone was clear.” He picked up what must have been Lady Hastings’s letter. “She also mentioned you once corrected the Archbishop’s Latin at a dinner gathering.”

“He was misquoting Augustine.”

“Naturally. One can’t have archbishops running about misquoting church fathers. Think of the scandal.” His tone was perfectly serious, but she caught the glimmer of humor in his eyes. “She also says you have a translation in the Classical Quarterly.”

“Published under Professor Blackwood’s name, but yes.”

“Why?”

“Why was it published under his name? Because the Quarterly doesn’t accept submissions from women, and Professor Blackwood thought that was idiotic.”

“His word or yours?”

“His. Mine was somewhat less polite.”

“I imagine it was.” He moved to one of the towering bookshelves, running his finger along the spines with casual familiarity. “Do you know why I need a cataloguer, Miss Whitcombe?”

“Because your library is in chaos?”

He turned to look at her, surprised. “What makes you say that?”

She gestured at the general disorder surrounding them. “Books stacked horizontally on top of vertical ones, volumes on the floor, dust patterns suggesting nothing has been moved in months, possibly years. This isn’t a library, Your Grace… it’s a book cemetery where good literature has come to die.”

“That’s rather harsh.”

“That’s rather accurate. I can see at least three different editions of the same Virgil from here, none of them shelved together. There’s what appears to be a first edition Marlowe being used as a bookend. And unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s a medieval manuscript serving as a coaster on that side table.”

He followed her gaze to the side table in question, where indeed an illuminated manuscript was bearing the ring-stains of multiple tea cups. “Ah. Yes. That’s… probably valuable.”

“Probably?” She stood without thinking, moving to the manuscript with the kind of horror usually reserved for witnessing atrocities. “This is thirteenth century, possibly earlier. The illumination work alone…” She stopped, realizing she was handling his property without permission. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t…”

“No, continue.” He moved closer, close enough that she could smell that same cologne from the bookshop, something expensive and subtle that made her pulse do inappropriate things. “What can you tell me about it?”

She bent over the manuscript, her earlier nervousness temporarily forgotten in the face of scholarly interest. “The Latin is ecclesiastical, obviously, but with variations suggesting a monastery. The marginalia here…” she pointed to tiny notations in the margins, “…that’s a different hand, added later, probably fifteenth century. Someone was using this for reference, making notes about… theological interpretations, it looks like.”

“You can read the marginalia?”

“It’s abbreviated Latin with some Greek notation. Monks were terrible about mixing languages when they got excited about theology.” She turned a page carefully. “Oh, and here; this is interesting. Someone’s added a personal note. ‘Brother Thomas is a fool and his interpretation of Matthew is heresy.’ Apparently theological debates got quite heated in monasteries.”

“Apparently they still do in London bookshops.”

She looked up to find him watching her with an expression she couldn’t interpret. They were standing rather closer than propriety suggested, both bent over the manuscript like conspirators sharing secrets.

“Your Grace,” she began, stepping back carefully.

“You’re hired.”

She blinked. “I… what?”

“You’re hired. Anyone who can read medieval marginalia and gets personally offended by books being mistreated is exactly what this library needs.”

“But… you haven’t examined my qualifications properly. You haven’t tested my Greek or my French or…”

“Miss Whitcombe,” he interrupted, “you’ve just correctly identified a thirteenth-century Scottish manuscript, read Latin marginalia that most scholars couldn’t decipher with a magnifying glass and a dictionary, and you nearly wept at the sight of tea stains on vellum. I think your qualifications are sufficient.”

“I did not nearly weep.”

“Your eyes got distinctly misty.”

“That was horror, not tears.”

“A distinction without a difference.” He returned to his desk, pulling out a sheet of paper. “The position pays forty pounds per annum…”

“Forty pounds?” She couldn’t help her shock. It was a fortune for a cataloguing position.

“Too little? I could make it fifty, I suppose.”

“No! That’s—that’s more than generous.”

“Good. You’ll work Monday through Friday, nine to four, with an hour for luncheon. I’ll rarely be here as I find London tedious and prefer my estate in Derbyshire, so you’ll have the run of the library. Graves will provide you with whatever supplies you need, though he’ll probably look disapproving while doing so.”

“He looks disapproving while breathing.”

“True. It’s his particular talent.” He wrote something on the paper with quick, decisive strokes. “You can start Monday if that suits you.”

“Your Grace,” she said carefully, “are you certain about this? I did deceive you with my application even though I was not quite successful at that.”

“Did you? Your qualifications were genuine, your references legitimate. The only deception was my assumption that E. Whitcombe would be male, which is rather my own fault for narrow thinking. But it was for a little while because as soon as I read the references I realised it was a woman’s name.”

“Society won’t see it that way.”

“Society can do as it pleases.” He looked up sharply. “That’s your phrase, isn’t it? I remember you saying something similar about men who purchase books for display.”

She flushed. “I may have been somewhat harsh…”

“You were absolutely right. Half my acquaintances have libraries they’ve never read. They order books by the yard based on binding color.” He signed the paper with a flourish. “Your employment contract, Miss Whitcombe. Pending your acceptance, of course.”

She stared at the paper, then at him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because my library is, as you so eloquently put it, a cemetery where good literature has come to die. Because you’re qualified. And because…” he paused, seeming to consider his words, “because anyone who dares to argue with me in a public bookshop is exactly the sort of person who won’t be intimidated by eighteen thousand volumes of chaos.”

“Eighteen thousand?”

“Graves undercounted. There are also the volumes in storage, the ones in the country houses, and whatever my father hid in various forgotten corners because he ran out of shelf space.” He held out the contract. “Still interested?”

She took the paper with hands that weren’t quite steady. “Your Grace, I should mention that my brother will probably call you out for this.”

“For employing his sister? How medieval of him.”

“For potentially ruining my reputation.”

“Your reputation as what? A woman who reads Latin? How scandalous.” His tone was light, but his eyes were serious. “Miss Whitcombe, I won’t pretend this arrangement isn’t unusual. You’ll face criticism, possibly worse. If you’d prefer to reconsider…”

“No.” The word came out more forcefully than intended. “No, I want this position.”

“Even knowing society will gossip?”

“Especially knowing that. At least they’ll gossip about something I’ve actually done rather than about my failure to marry.”

“A practical philosophy.” He moved toward the door. “Graves will show you out. I suggest you don’t mention our previous encounter to anyone as it will only complicate matters.”

“Of course.” She clutched the contract like a lifeline. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen the storage rooms.” He opened the door, revealing Graves hovering in the hallway with the expression of someone who’d definitely been eavesdropping. “Graves, Miss Whitcombe will be joining us as librarian. Please see that she has everything she requires.”

Graves’s face went through several interesting contortions before settling on professional neutrality. “Of course, Your Grace.”

Eveline followed the butler back through the intimidating corridors, her mind reeling. She’d done it. She had actually done it. She’d gotten the position despite everything—her sex, her deception, her mortifying discovery that she’d insulted her future employer in a bookshop.

“Miss Whitcombe,” Graves said as they reached the entrance hall, his tone suggesting he was suffering from severe indigestion, “I suppose I should offer my… congratulations.”

“Thank you, Mr. Graves.”

“Though I feel obliged to mention that this arrangement is highly irregular.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“The staff will talk.”

“I expect they will.”

“Society will be scandalized.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Something that might have been approval flickered in his eyes before being quickly suppressed. “You’ll need a key to the servants’ entrance. Coming through the front door daily would be…”

“Highly irregular?”

“Precisely.” He handed her a small brass key. “Monday morning, nine o’clock sharp. I trust you won’t be three minutes late.”

“Heaven forbid,” she replied and left.