The Duke Who Despised Christmas (Christmas Dukes #1)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Q uint glared at his reflection in the mirror as Dunreave smoothed a razor over his jaw. He had spent the previous evening stewing over his confrontation with Mrs. Yorke, her observations about his household taunting him, along with the reminder of how comely she was. How ripe her lips had been, stretched into a polite smile that no amount of surliness on his part had shaken. She possessed a mouth that was infinitely kissable, and he resented his own weakness for noticing.

He hadn’t been aware of a woman in a physical sense in some time. Not since Amelia’s death. First, he had been too badly injured by grief and the burns he had suffered in the fire to give a damn. Later, he had healed physically—his ravaged skin no longer blistering and oozing, but hideously scarred—and yet, the grief had remained.

So, too, the guilt, the nightmares, the pain of knowing he might have saved her, had he only been a few minutes sooner. He had buried himself alongside her in the graveyard at Sedgewick Hall, and then he had traveled north, to one of his lesser holdings here at Blackwell Abbey, bringing only a small contingent of domestics with him, remaining far from every reminder of Amelia and the terrible fire that had claimed her and their unborn babe that hated December.

Why now, of all times, should he be reminded that he was indeed a flesh-and-blood male, that his disfigured body still had needs? He hated himself for the unwanted yearning that had begun to boil in his blood from the moment he had first seen his raven-haired housekeeper. And he despised her for being so lovely, so filled with a surfeit of cheer, for intruding upon the place where he had walled himself away in his misery, for knowing more about Blackwell Abbey in a handful of days than he did.

For making him want her.

He had to distract himself.

“Dunreave?”

The razor sliced into his flesh.

He hissed in pain, watching in the mirror as the shaving soap’s foam turned red.

“Forgive me, Your Grace!” Dunreave cried. “I can be so clumsy sometimes.”

The fault was Quint’s. Not just for talking whilst the sometimes butler, sometimes valet shaved him. But for requiring Dunreave to play so many roles in his household.

Mrs. Yorke’s tart words came back to him.

Poor Mr. Dunreave is already burdened with far too many tasks.

He cleared his throat, reaching for a handkerchief and pressing it to the shallow wound. “You needn’t apologize, Dunreave. The fault is mine for speaking when I know you need a steady hand.”

“I am so sorry, Your Grace,” Dunreave fretted. “I hope my carelessness won’t cause a scar.”

Quint chuckled grimly. “One more scar won’t cause a bit of a difference. Don’t fret.”

His manservant went ashen. “Forgive me, sir. I didn’t mean to suggest?—”

Quint held up a hand as he interrupted. “I know you didn’t, Dunreave.”

No one else had seen the extent of Quint’s scars except for the physician who had attended him. Dunreave had nursed Quint through his many weeks of recuperation, barring Quint’s mother from the sickroom at his request. By the time he had healed sufficiently to receive his mother, he had been able to don a shirt and coat and the gloves that shielded the evidence of his failure from the prying eyes of the world.

He intended to keep it that way.

He dabbed at the small nick in his jaw some more. The blood had already slowed.

“Allow me, Your Grace,” Dunreave said. “I’ll finish my task so that you can carry on with your day.”

But suddenly, Quint was no longer interested in completing his shave. Instead, the questions that had begun festering within him ever since his clash with Mrs. Yorke bubbled up to the surface like water roiling in a pot.

“Leave it,” he said. “My whiskers scarcely show anyhow. I have a question for you, Dunreave.”

“Yes, Your Grace?” The manservant was grim, almost as if he expected to be sacked.

Was Quint that much of a tyrant? Strange how he hadn’t noticed the fear in Dunreave’s bearing before.

“Are you overburdened with tasks?” he asked and then almost winced at how much he sounded like that blasted woman.

Mrs. Yorke.

That stubborn, capable, determined, beautiful housekeeper who had invaded his home and filled his drawing room with holly and dared to defy him.

“I am happy to serve Your Grace in whatever capacity I may,” Dunreave said with politic care.

Which meant that he was, indeed, overburdened in his role as butler and valet and whatever else Quint required of him in the moment.

He dipped a cloth into the bowl of water Dunreave had drawn and laid before him with the shaving implements, then began to rinse the remainder of the shaving soap from his face. “Would it aid you if I were to hire a valet to attend me?”

“I would never presume to ask Your Grace to do so.”

A telling response.

“But would it help you, Dunreave?” he pressed, rinsing the last of the lather from his jaw and trying not to wince as the small cut on his jaw stung. “That is what I asked.”

“Yes, Your Grace. It would.”

He finished his task and turned to his valet. “Is there a rodent problem here at Blackwell Abbey?”

A flush tinged Dunreave’s cheekbones. “Your Grace should not contend with such matters.”

“ Is there one?”

“There is.”

Damn Mrs. Yorke for being correct.

“And are there loose boards on the servants’ stair?” he asked next, thinking of his unwanted housekeeper’s list of faults she had already found with Blackwell Abbey.

“Peter is meant to repair them,” Dunreave said. “There are so few of us that we know where to step to avoid injury.”

Dear God. She had been right about that as well. What else was she right about?

“Does Cook tipple the sherry?”

Dunreave cleared his throat, looking distinctly uncomfortable and giving Quint his answer. “I’m certain I could not say whether Mrs. Steward does so, Your Grace.”

Grimacing, he passed a hand along his jaw. “Is Mrs. Yorke still here?”

He was reasonably certain that the stubborn woman was. That—just like the previous day—she had flouted his orders.

“I believe that she is, Your Grace. When last I saw her, she was instructing the new scullery maid on the most efficient means of scouring a pot.”

Of course she was. Had he doubted it?

“Thank you, Dunreave. Will you tell Mrs. Yorke that I require a word with her in my study in half an hour’s time?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He intended to have a meeting with the meddlesome housekeeper. If she was to remain here at Blackwell Abbey, they needed to set some rules.

Joceline arrived at the duke’s study at the prescribed hour, prepared to go to war.

He was standing at the window as she entered, a tall, imposing figure presiding over his kingdom, clad in severe black trousers and coat, the same leather gloves he had been wearing the day before covering his hands. She took note because they were clasped behind his back in an indolent pose. Yesterday, she had assumed the gloves had been for riding. Today, however, he did not look as if he were dressed to take one of his horses out across the chilly park.

“You requested an interview with me, Your Grace?” she asked into the stillness when he refused to turn and acknowledge her arrival, despite having bid her to enter when she had knocked at the closed door.

He cast a glance over his shoulder, briefly meeting her gaze before resuming his vigil at the window. “Yes, I did, Mrs. Yorke. Close the door, if you please.”

His voice was not nearly as sharp or cold as it had been the day before when he had confronted her belowstairs. She had expected glacial fury at her refusal to obey his demand that she leave Blackwell Abbey in the morning. She hadn’t expected a polite request for a word with her, however.

She scarcely knew what to expect from him, but she turned and did his bidding, making certain the door to his study was fully closed. When she spun about, it was to find the full, brilliant intensity of his gaze on her.

“Your Grace.” Joceline dipped into a curtsy, the chatelaine at her waist clinking merrily as she did so.

For a brief moment, his eyes dipped, following the sound, but then his stare was once more burning into hers. “I have been speaking with Dunreave this morning, Mrs. Yorke, and it would seem that some of your observations about Blackwell Abbey were indeed quite astute.”

He could have pushed her flat onto her bottom with nothing more than a feather, so complete was her astonishment. She had expected another firm harangue. Perhaps a renewed threat to have her sent to the nearest jail. Certainly, she had not anticipated an acknowledgment that she had been correct in her assessment of his estate.

“You have?” she squeaked, cursing herself for the surprise that made her voice unnaturally high.

He inclined his head in a regal manner. “I have.”

He wasn’t intending to sack her then, was he?

“I am relieved to hear it,” she managed politely. “Does this mean that you are no longer as reluctant to accept my presence?”

His lips twitched, but his visage remained unsmiling. “You may stay for now, madam.”

Relief swept over her. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Don’t thank me,” he clipped. “I do not like mice, Mrs. Yorke. You will remain long enough to set my household in order, and then you will return to London.”

Joceline couldn’t contain her smile. “Of course, Your Grace.”

He scowled. “Are you always so annoyingly full of cheer, madam?”

A hysterical laugh threatened to burst forth. She tamped it down with all the restraint she possessed. If only he knew how difficult her life had been thus far and how much struggle she had endured. He never would have asked such a question of her.

But the Duke of Sedgewick didn’t know her. It wasn’t his place to know her. She was but a servant in his household, just as she had been in others prior to his. Her past was immaterial to him, and lest she confuse his generosity for anything else, she must not forget that his sole reason for relenting and allowing her to remain was his dislike of mice .

“I can assure Your Grace that it has never been my intention to annoy you,” she said, her smile fading. “Pleasing you is my sole desire.”

She hadn’t intended for her words to have such a carnal undertone, but the moment they were uttered, something in the room shifted. The duke’s blue-green gaze slid once more, this time to her lips rather than to her chatelaine. Deep within her, a yearning that she had long since learned to quell surged forth before she could stop it. She was not meant to be a woman of emotion, base or otherwise. She had been born to be a woman of duty and tasks, with work-roughened hands. Her sole occupation was in the smooth running of a household. Not passion. Not longing. Never such dangerous, decadent fancies.

“Is it?” he asked thoughtfully, moving toward her in a slow, measured saunter, away from the window.

He reached her, stopping to loom over Joceline, the scent of him filling her lungs, and she caught herself inhaling deeply to gather more of it. His gloved fingertips were on his jaw, stroking. And that was when she noticed the cut at this proximity, marring the sleek architecture of his beautiful face. The golden whiskers glinting in the sunlight only on one half of his face. A shaving injury, then.

Her cheeks went hot at the realization, so intimate. It wasn’t her place to think of him shaving. It wasn’t her place to think of him at all. Certainly not in the way a woman thinks about a man.

“It is, Your Grace,” she said, cursing herself for the breathlessness in her voice.

This was unlike her, to be affected by her employer. But then, she had never had an employer as dangerously mesmerizing as the Duke of Sedgewick.

He leaned down, shocking her. For one wild moment, she thought he might do something untoward. That he might set his sculpted, sullen lips to hers. But then he spoke with quiet warning into her ear.

“If you truly wish to please me, Mrs. Yorke, then you will remove the Christmas greenery and trees from my damned drawing room.”

She stepped back from him, jolted, frightened by her body’s reaction to his, by the ache that blossomed deep in her belly and sank lower to a more forbidden place. All from his scent and his nearness and the silken velvet of his voice giving her more churlish commands.

“Her Grace requested the decorations, if you will recall,” she reminded him firmly, refusing to allow him to see how badly he had discomfited her.

Likely, the duke would be pleased to know it. She had no wish to be the source of his amusement.

He clenched his jaw, once more unyielding. “And if you will recall, I am allowing you to remain because you have shown yourself to be a reasonably capable housekeeper. Do not make me rethink my leniency, madam.”

They stared at each other, awareness crackling between them like thunder in a summer storm. She did not think she mistook the raw, masculine interest in his gaze. It did not shock her that a duke would take carnal interest in his housekeeper; aristocrats often dallied with their domestics. It was frowned upon, but all too commonly done. What astonished her, however, was that this rigid, icy, forbidding man was attracted to anyone at all, let alone her .

She would not allow him to know just how vulnerable she was to his interest. A respectable housekeeper who wished to remain respectable must, at all times, forget that she was a woman of flesh and bone. Forget that she had needs and wants. Her lot was to be as emotionless and useful as a piece of furniture adorning a room. Serviceable. Sturdy. Necessary. But an object incapable of thought or feeling.

“Very well, Your Grace,” she relented. “I will see to it that the Christmas greenery and trees are removed from the drawing room. Joseph and Peter are laying out mouse poison and traps for the rodent problem at this moment, but I will divert them forthwith to the task of removing all the decorations. I should think it will take them the remainder of the day to have it all taken away, and then they will need to find a place where they can take the trees and garlands, along with a proper cart to do so. The cart they used previously has a broken axle. I am sure it will take no more than two days at the most to have all the decorations removed before they can return to the effort of curbing the mice.”

The consternation on his arrogant face might have been amusing were her circumstances not so very dire. She was exaggerating, of course. Only Joseph was setting mouse traps at the moment. And the removal of the decorations wouldn’t take nearly as long as she had estimated. However, the Duke of Sedgewick didn’t need to know that.

“Leave it for now, Mrs. Yorke.” His voice was cold and stern, a distinct contrast to the fires of interest smoldering in his eyes when he looked at her. “I want the rodents dealt with first. The rest can wait a day or two.”

Victory was hers. For this interview, at least. She was to have a reprieve from her sacking, and he would allow her to keep her elaborate, painstaking Christmas decorations in place. In the meantime, she would simply have to craft more clever excuses why the greenery couldn’t be taken away quite yet.

Joceline tamped down a smile, knowing that she didn’t dare show him just how pleased she was. Perhaps there was still hope she could crack his hardened shell. The dowager duchess would be happy to see that Joceline had at least made some progress. Unlike the previous housekeepers the dowager duchess had sent to Blackwell Abbey, Joceline had not been unceremoniously deposited back at the train station within her first few days.

“That is most generous of you, Your Grace,” she said demurely. “Thank you.”

“As soon as the mice are dealt with, I expect the holly and trees to be gone,” he reminded her sternly.

“Would Her Grace not wish to enjoy the decorations during her stay at Blackwell Abbey?” she inquired lightly, knowing she was pushing him and yet unable to keep quiet.

The fifty pounds the dowager Duchess of Sedgewick had promised Joceline was a potent lure indeed. Her family would needed those funds desperately.

“Her Grace is not visiting Blackwell Abbey,” the duke snapped with finality. “As I’ve told you, I’ve not extended an invitation.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” she acceded hastily, content to leave the matter for now.

She had already pressed him enough, and she didn’t dare to push him any further at the moment. There was always tomorrow.

“Thank you, Mrs. Yorke,” he said curtly. “That will be all.”

She had been dismissed.

Joceline dipped into a curtsy. “Thank you, Your Grace. Good day.”

He inclined his head, that unusual blue-green stare of his far too intent. With nothing more to say, she fled to the safety of the endless list of duties awaiting her.