SHE PRETENDED TO BE A “BOY” FOR 7 MONTHS TO AVOID AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE—UNTIL THE DUKE FOUND OUT…

Chapter 5

The days became a careful dance, and Josephine learned the steps whether she wanted to or not.

Every morning she entered the Duke’s chamber at half past five. Every morning she built the fire, checked the water in the basin, straightened the counterpane, and left before the clock had finished striking six.

She learned his patterns the way a spy learns a language.

He woke at six. He dressed with mechanical precision — the wardrobe opened, the boots taken down, the coat put on in a sequence that never varied by a single item. He descended to the dining room by half past, where a single place was laid at the head of a table long enough for twenty, and where he ate alone in a silence the footmen had learned not to interrupt.

She could time her exits to avoid him. She could slip through his rooms like smoke, leaving no trace but a warm hearth and a perfectly squared room.

But the Duke began testing her.

Small things at first.

He would return to his chamber earlier than usual, catching her mid-task. He would stand in the doorway and watch her work without speaking, and his silence was heavy and expectant, as though he were waiting for her to crack under the pressure of his attention.

She never did.

She kept her eyes down. Her movements efficient. Her mouth shut.

And his fascination only seemed to deepen.

“You have steady hands,” he remarked one morning as she poured water into the basin on the washstand.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Where did you learn such precision?”

“Practice, Your Grace.”

“That is not an answer.”

Josephine set the pitcher down carefully and chose her words the way a woman chooses footing across a frozen river. “I worked in many places before coming here, Your Grace. I learned what was required.”

“And your family?”

“Dead, Your Grace.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He absorbed this in silence. Then, softer: “You wear your grief quietly.”

She did not respond. She could not, without revealing more than she could afford.

He moved closer. She heard the whisper of his coat, the soft tread of his boots on the carpet, and then he stopped beside her — close enough that his sleeve brushed her shoulder, close enough that she could smell the soap on his skin.

“Look at me, Joseph.”

She obeyed, tilting her face up slowly.

Those grey eyes studied her with clinical precision, searching for something. Some truth she could not let him find.

“You have unusual eyes,” he said. “Dark. Very dark — almost black in certain light.”

“Is that so, Your Grace?”

“Yes.”

His hand lifted.

For one terrifying moment she thought he would touch her face — thought she would have to stand still under it, would have to let him feel the softness of her jaw that no amount of rough living had managed to erase.

Instead, he reached past her and picked up a towel from the stand.

“Return to your duties.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

She left quickly, pulse hammering.

He was getting too close. Noticing too much. And Josephine had nowhere left to run.

The first real test came on a Sunday, when the manor was quiet and half the staff had gone to the village church, and Mrs. Osborne sent her to carry a tray of tea to the study.

Josephine knocked. A voice told her to enter.

She set the tray on the corner of the desk and turned to go.

“Stay.”

She stopped.

The Duke was seated with his back to the window, a ledger open before him and a letter in his hand. He did not look up.

“Sit.”

“There is a chair, Your Grace, but—”

“Sit down, Joseph.”

She sat. Her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes fixed on the carpet.

Minutes passed. He read. She waited. The fire snapped in the grate and the clock on the mantle measured out the silence one tick at a time.

Then, without looking up: “Lady Evangeline Cross arrives on Tuesday.”

“I had heard something of it, Your Grace.”

“Everyone has heard something of it. That is the nature of a house with servants.” He turned a page. “You will have no contact with her beyond your ordinary duties.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“If she speaks to you, you will be brief. If she questions you, you will be dull. And if she asks anything about me—” now he did look up, and his eyes were flat and cold as winter water, “—you will tell me.”

Josephine held his gaze for exactly as long as she dared. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Good.” He returned to his letter. “You may go.”

She stood, and at the door she paused, and something reckless moved in her chest.

“Your Grace.”

He looked up.

“Why do you tell me this?”

A long pause. The fire cracked.

“Because,” said Raymond Hawthorne, “I do not like people looking through my house for things that are not theirs.”

And Josephine could not tell, from the way he said it, whether he meant Lady Evangeline — or herself.

She escaped to the kitchen and stood for a long moment with her back against the wall and her eyes closed.

“Joseph?”

Millie, at the table with a bowl of potatoes, looked up. “You’re pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” Millie wiped her hands on her apron and studied her with the frank concern of someone who had decided months ago that this strange quiet stable boy deserved looking after. “You’ve been running yourself ragged inside that house. Everyone says so. Mrs. Osborne works people to the bone.”

“Mrs. Osborne works me exactly as hard as she works anyone.”

“Then it’s something else.” Millie’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the Duke, isn’t it?”

Josephine’s stomach turned over. “What?”

“Edith says he’s taken to watching you.” Millie said it lightly, but her eyes were serious. “Not in a bad way. But he notices you, and he doesn’t notice anyone. That’s not nothing, Joseph. In a house like this, being noticed is dangerous.”

Josephine forced a small laugh. “You sound like Dennis.”

“Dennis is a smart man.” Millie picked up another potato. “Eat something. You’re thin as a rail, and whatever’s coming, you’ll face it better with meat on your bones.”

Josephine ate. She did not taste any of it.

Because Millie was right, and Josephine knew it better than anyone: in a house built of secrets, being noticed was the most dangerous thing of all. And somewhere upstairs, in a bare room with a locked desk and a cold fire, a man who noticed everything was beginning to notice her.

And she had no idea how much longer she could keep him from seeing what was really there.