Hugo kept moving toward her, eventually coming to a stop a few feet away. And then they were all three standing there in various degrees of awkwardness, right in front of the big front door.
It was worse when he was close, Eleanor was forced to admit. It made her feel raw and unsteady inside. It had been bad enough when he was up on the back of that giant horse, hooves flailing every which way and that mocking voice of his like a weapon, but Hugo even closer was confusing. Eleanor eyed him balefully, as if that might do something about that bright nonsense sloshing around inside of her and making her feel...things.
Way too many things.
In entirely too many places.
She told herself that it was only that she still had her big, heavy coat on. The coat was the reason she was flushed. Too warm. Almost itchy, somehow. It had nothing at all to do with him.
Next to her, Hugo did nothing to change the impression she’d had of him from across the hall. Or up on that horse, for that matter. And once the shock of his astonishing male beauty wore off—or, if she was more precise, dimmed a slight bit when she managed to breathe—she found that what really exuded from him like his own, very rich and unmistakable scent was all that arrogance.
That smile of his only deepened then. It was as if he could read her mind.
But he directed his attention to Geraldine. “Well?”
The little girl only shrugged, a sullen look on her cute little face.
“No point letting this one settle in like the others, if you’re only going to complain about it later.” Hugo’s voice was...different, Eleanor thought. Not exactly softer, but more careful.
She was so busy trying to figure out what the difference was that she almost missed what he’d said.
“I beg your pardon. Are we discussing my employment?”
Hugo slid that gaze of his back to her. Too lazy. Too hot. She could feel it in too many places. More than before, and hotter.
“We are.” He raised a dark brow. “It appears you’re doing nothing but eavesdropping.”
Eleanor’s teeth hurt, and she unclenched them. “It would be eavesdropping if I was hid behind one of the flower arrangements, blending into all this feverish decor.” She forced herself to smile, and the fact that it was difficult made her uneasy. More than uneasy, but she did it anyway. “I am not eavesdropping. But you are being remarkably inappropriate.”
“It’s a bit of bad form to hurl accusations like that at an innocent child, don’t you think?” Hugo asked lazily, and Eleanor had the strangest thought that he was teasing her.
But why would the Duke of Grovesmoor tease anyone, much less someone as insignificant as Eleanor, a governess he apparently no longer wished to hire? She thrust that aside and concentrated on the only part of this bizarre interaction that she could control. Or try to control, anyway.
“I think all three of us are perfectly aware who I’m speaking to.” Eleanor gazed down at Geraldine then, and this time her smile was genuine. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you’d like me to leave, Geraldine. And I don’t mind it if you say so to my face. But the Duke is very deliberately putting you in a position where you can act out his bad impulses, and that isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Hugo murmured, a bit too dark and smooth for Eleanor’s peace of mind.
Eleanor ignored that, wishing it was as easy to ignore him. “It’s also perfectly okay not to know,” she told the little girl. “We met all of five minutes ago. If you’d like to take a little bit longer to make up your mind, that’s fine.”
“You say that with such authority,” Hugo said. “Almost as if we stand in your house instead of mine.”
Then he looked around as if he’d never laid eyes on the hall before in his life, when Eleanor knew full well that he’d been born here. Apparently, the Duke liked a bit of theater. She filed that away.
“But no,” he continued, as if anyone had argued with him. “It’s the same hall I remember from the whole of my benighted childhood, when governesses far stricter than you failed entirely to make me into a decent man. Portraits of my dreary ancestors lining the walls. Pedigrees as far as the eye can see. Grovesmoors in every direction and back again. Which would suggest that the authority lies with me and not you, would it not?”
“Funny,” Eleanor said coolly, keeping her gaze fixed to his as if she wasn’t the least bit intimidated. Because she certainly shouldn’t have been, and why should it matter to her that his gaze felt as intoxicating as it looked? “The agency is under the impression that in this situation, Geraldine has the authority.”
“Do you think so?” Hugo asked with a dangerous sort of laziness in his voice, then.
She didn’t know what he might have said then. Something like temper stormed about in that gaze of his, making her breath feel heavy and tight in her chest.
But she knew, somehow, that it wasn’t temper. Not quite.
“I like her,” Geraldine chimed in then. “I want her to stay.”
The Duke didn’t shift his eyes from Eleanor’s.
“Your wish is my command, my favorite ward,” he said in that same careful tone, and maybe Eleanor was the only one who could hear all those undercurrents. Or feel them, anyway. Swishing around inside of her as if she’d had entirely too much to drink.
As if he was a new brand of spirit served in far more than the usual measures.
Everything felt hot. Entirely too sharp, as if there were some unseen hand clenched around them, gripping them tight. This close, Eleanor was sure that she could feel the heat of the Duke’s body, making that T-shirt of his seem sensible. Making her feel that much warmer and uncomfortable in her own skin.
It’s only the coat, she told herself desperately, but he was still so close. And much too tall. He towered over her the same way he had on that damned horse, and she assured herself there was no particular reason she should have the image of its flailing hooves, rearing up over her, when it was only a man standing in front of her in an entryway. Just a man. No dangerous animal in sight.
She was sure he almost said something, but he didn’t. Instead, he shifted. He pulled one hand out of his jeans pocket, and lifted it. That was all. If she’d seen a stranger do it on the street, she wouldn’t have thought of it as any kind of gesture. It seemed accidental.
But it wasn’t, she realized the next moment, because suddenly the hall was filled with people.
Geraldine was swept away in the care of two clucking nannies. Someone took Eleanor’s bags, another person took her coat, and then suddenly there was a very neatly dressed, efficient-looking older woman bearing down on her with a tight smile on her mouth and her steel gray hair tucked back in a bun that looked a great deal like Eleanor’s own.
“Mrs. Redding, I presume,” Eleanor said as the woman drew close.
“Miss Andrews.” The woman greeted her in the same briskly matter-of-fact tone Eleanor recognized from the telephone calls they’d had. “If you’ll come with
