Page 10 of Disciplined by the Duke
Digging his fingers into the soft fur at the back of Reggie’s neck, Montague gently lifted the pup. “Now if this fellow doesn’t wish to be molded that is his prerogative. He might not make the grade for a work dog at my estate, but he will make someone a lovely pet.”
Reggie yipped, and the duke lowered him to the ground. The puppy coiled around himself like a snake, obviously exhausted from his day. Montague kept his hand on the dog, his palm almost large enough to span Reggie’s entire back. He ran his long, tapered fingers slowly through the puppy’s coat, and Reggie gave one more sleepy yip before tucking his nose under his tail.
“You seem to have an affinity for the scamp.” Montague gently rubbed the tip of Reggie’s ear between his thumb and forefinger. Liz’s own earlobe tingled. “Perhaps you’d want him as a pet.”
Her heart twisted. She’d love to spoil a dog. But it wasn’t to be. And the duke should have known that.
“Where would I keep him?” She hated to do it. It would ruin the moment, these amazing few minutes when the duke spoke to her like she was a real person, an equal, not the hired help. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be able to sit without fear of violence or discovery. To not have every moment revolve around a job for Westmore, scraping together enough money for food for her and Amanda, finding enough coal to keep her warm at night.
This was like an afternoon of days past, when gentlemen treated her with respect and she wanted for nothing. She felt like her old self, if only for a moment. The decadence of it almost made her dizzy.
But being the old Miss Elizabeth Wilcox was a luxury she could no longer afford.
So she twisted the blade, just a little. Just enough to sting. “Mr. Todd doesn’t allow servants to have pets. And if Reggie followed me around on my duties I think he’d probably make more of a jumble than I could clean in a day.” Taking a deep breath, she clenched her stomach. “It doesn’t make sense for a chambermaid to have a puppy.”
And there it was. That small flicker. The stormy sea hardening back into granite. Montague had forgotten himself. Or, more accurately, forgotten her. Forgotten how low she was in relation to him.
Her lungs burned with the effort to keep her breathing steady. The reminder stung more than she’d expected. The duke would probably forget his momentary lapse in the time it took him to return to his house.
It would take her longer.
And she couldn’t keep forgetting who she was, why she was here. It hurt too much when reality crashed back in. So she dug the knife a little deeper into her side.
Picking up the sleeping puppy from her lap, she laid him next to Reggie. Standing, she brushed at her skirts, plucking an errant strand of fur from her apron. “Now if you will excuse me, Your Grace, I have some chamber pots I need to empty.”
Without looking to see whether she had shocked him, Liz turned on her heel and made her way back to the side door of Hartsworth. The servants’ entrance.
It wasn’t until she’d refilled Molly’s bucket and lugged it halfway up the stairs that she realized she’d forgotten to curtsy before leaving the duke. She could only hope her disgraceful chamber pot reference had distracted the man too much for him to notice.
Chapter Four
Marcus sipped his whiskey, enjoying the slow burn tracking down his throat. Leaning back in his chair, he propped his feet on the wide desk in his library. Darkness fell, but he made no move to light the oil lamp. He needed to think, and that didn’t require illumination.
He tapped the folded square of paper against his thigh. Liverpool was becoming impatient. He wanted answers. Answers that Marcus didn’t have. Yet. His contacts in the House of Commons were coming up empty. Not that he’d expected to find the traitor in that body. The information that the French were obtaining was above the purview of most of the members in that chamber of parliament. No, he hadn’t expected to find the traitor there, but he had desperately wanted to. Because the alternative . . .
He took another sip. He needed to organize his line of attack. Correspond with Sheffield in the office of the Clerk of the Parliaments. Start a list of the lords who had access to the information who also had high debts. Send one of his spies to Paris to start working on this from the other end.
A muscle in his neck twinged. Digging a thumb into the knot, he tried to relax. This business had him on edge, and he needed a distraction.
The dark brown hair and striking chocolate eyes of his new maid popped into his head. He shook it. That pretty little thing was not on his list of available distractions, so it was no use thinking on her.
His shoulders slumped against the chair’s back. He didn’t have time to think about any distraction. He needed to focus on the task at hand. Sheffield. Before he started asking Sheffield to poke around he would need to run another background check on him. The last one was a year old, and when it came to espionage that was too damn long.
He stared into the dark, his gaze losing focus. Her body had fit nicely against his, her soft curves nestling into his torso. And on the grass, Marcus had been hard-pressed not to cover her hand with his own as she’d stroked the pups. Her hair had been tied back in a severe chignon, and she’d smelled of honeysuckle and soap. Very sweet. She was a woman who tried very hard to downplay her looks with the ill-fitting clothes she’d arrived in, her unfashionable hair. But for a man who knew what to look for, she was a quality beauty. Even the drab maid’s uniform couldn’t hide it.
Marcus pressed one hand down on his cock, rubbed its length, semi-hard beneath his trousers. It had been too long since he’d enjoyed the pleasures of a woman. Next time he was in London he would have to rectify that. He didn’t dally with his help. It was a rule of his. Although many of his peers took the maids as their due, Marcus thought it in poor taste to abuse his power in that manner.
Miss Smith gave him a twinge of regret over that rule.
Sheffield, he reminded himself sternly. Swinging his legs down from the desk with a thump, he placed his glass on the desk and lit a candle. Its wavering light sufficed to write his correspondence by. The routine of the task was enough to put thoughts of his new maid out of his mind.
Until he pressed his stamp to the seal and sat back to look at his shelves of books. Which ones had the chit taken? He’d seen two lying upon the chair but didn’t step close enough to read the titles. He could have asked her, but something about her hiding behind a chair to avoid detection had tugged at his heart. He didn’t want her to feel like she’d been caught. Not yet in any event.
He slapped a palm on the desk. Not ever. He would do no catching, restraining, or binding on anyone in his service. He paid for that sort of entertainment; he didn’t take it from those in no position to refuse.
Looking around at his books, he searched for any obvious gaps. A corner of his mouth tilted up. He wondered how she’d feel when she learned that his library was open to anyone, that she hadn’t needed to sneak. Foolish most likely. The knowledge would probably bring a lovely pink hue to her cheeks, much the way her little flash of temper in the pantry had. He wished he could be around to see it.
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