Undone by the Billionaire Duke

by Caitlin Crews

  Eleanor had been thinking along those lines herself, but somehow, hearing him say it all out loud like that—with such bitterness, and something she could have sworn bordered despair—made something inside of her turn over.

  But she shoved it aside, because none of this should have happened. Not with her. She wasn’t the sort of woman men grabbed and kissed in spontaneous bursts of passion. That was Vivi’s life. Her sister was forever fending off male attention wherever she went. That was how Eleanor knew that there was no reason for a man like Hugo to put his hands on her unless that was just something he did as a matter of course, the way the tabloids had always claimed—or if he was making fun of her, somehow.

  She’d never heard of mockery by kiss, but what did she know? She’d spent her life working rather than socializing, and she’d never bloomed into a needy curiosity of the opposite sex the way everyone had claimed she would. Something that made her profoundly grateful, as what she didn’t need or even wonder about, she couldn’t miss.

  “I think it’s best if we pretend this never happened,” she said, as evenly as she could, pleased to find she’d managed to strip the tremor from her voice.

  Hugo regarded her from the near foot of height he had on her, and the fact he was dressed so casually, she realized, did nothing to take away from that matter-of-fact power he seemed to exude even so. How had she not noticed that before?

  Because he hides it, a voice from deep inside of her replied with far too much authority. In the same way you lie to yourself about the things you need.

  Eleanor didn’t like that at all. She ignored it.

  “That will make it difficult, you understand, to sell your salacious story to the tabloids,” Hugo was saying in a cold sort of tone, as if he was discussing something that wouldn’t affect him one way or the other.

  “I couldn’t do that if I wanted to, which I don’t.” Eleanor thought her voice softened at the end there, so she tried to even it out again. She put her spine into it. “I signed an extremely comprehensive nondisclosure agreement, Your Grace. Surely you must be aware of it.”

  “What I am aware of is that the penalty for breaking that nondisclosure agreement is a certain amount of pounds sterling. Should the tabloids offer, say, twice that amount, it might well be worth it to break the agreement. To a certain type of person, of course.”

  “I...” Eleanor very rarely found herself a loss for words. She didn’t understand the sensation warring inside of her. That strange longing, or the fact she had to curl her hands into fists at her side to keep them to herself. She, who was not the sort of person who liked to touch others or even to be touched herself. She, who had never had to fight not to touch someone in her life. She was baffled. “I would never do that.”

  “Because you are such a good person, naturally. My mistake.”

  His sardonic tone could have stripped the paint from the walls and Eleanor nearly checked to see if it had. But didn’t, because she could feel her reaction in the flush that heated her cheeks, and she thought that was more than enough of a response.

  “Because who would do that?” she asked, almost helplessly.

  The expression on the Duke’s face was all razor-sharp amusement, but all Eleanor could feel in the space between them was more of that same bitterness that cut a little too close to despair. Dark and thick and everywhere.

  Hopeless, she thought, and didn’t know why that made her ache again, the way she had when he’d kissed her. Only sharper.

  “Everyone has their price, I assure you,” Hugo said quietly.

  As if he was making a prediction. A terrible one.

  “Do you?” Eleanor dared to ask.

  The expression on his face then made her heart kick at her, then sink into that same sharp ache. But his laugh was worse, dark enough to fill the hall, if not the grand house arrayed all around them, too.

  “Especially me, Miss Andrews,” he told her, almost gently. Though his dark eyes blazed, and were anything but gentle. Anything but soft. “Me most of all.”

  * * *

  Eleanor woke in a room fit for a princess and told herself that the unsettling scene in the hallway that had kept her awake and that kiss that had invaded her dreams hadn’t happened.

  Because surely she could not possibly have been so stupid as to go full Jane Eyre on the very first day of her new job, within hours of meeting the Duke and his ward. Before she’d even unpacked her case or figured out what her new job actually entailed. Eleanor had never been that kind of silly. She’d never had the time or, if she was honest, the inclination to fling herself headlong into the sort of mad passions and silly entanglements the bright young things all around her seemed to flock to so mindlessly, like moths to a wholly avoidable flame.

  Until last night, Eleanor would have confidently asserted that she simply didn’t have those sorts of feelings or bodily reactions. That she wasn’t wired that way.

  She decided she would treat that kiss as if it hadn’t happened, because it shouldn’t have. And because she had no idea how to handle all the things she felt. As if she was a moth battering itself against a light after all.

  But she soon found that it didn’t matter how she handled what should never have happened, because the Duke was nowhere to be found over the next few weeks.

  Eleanor told herself that was a good thing.

  Geraldine was a bright, often funny kid, and even on her less than stellar days, it was far more interesting to work with her than it was to answer ringing phones and take the odd bit of abuse from walk-ins and disgruntled clients and snarky deliverymen. Far better Geraldine than her last immediate supervisor, Eleanor thought more than once.

  “I feel terrible that I pushed you into taking this strange job,” Vivi told her a few days into her time at Groves House.

  “It’s actually a good fit, believe it or not. I like it.”

  Vivi plowed right on, her voice merry and sharp. “I bullied you into it and now you’re trapped in the bowels of Yorkshire in some moldering old stack of stones.”

  Eleanor was sunk deep into her luxurious bathtub, bubbles high and the hot water silky against her skin. She had a book on her little bath tray, a glass of wine and some fine cheese she’d never tasted before, and a fire crackling in the other room. She and Geraldine had spent the day investigating the sciences and giggling uproariously for no particular reason, until Eleanor had delivered her to the nannies who supervised the little girl’s tea and bedtime.

  “The poor tyke can’t go to a proper school, can she?” the slightly friendlier of the two notably unfriendly nannies had said out in the hall after Geraldine had run into her rooms, as if Eleanor had argued otherwise. “Those worthless journos won’t leave her alone for a minute. If I knew who sold them stories about the Duke I’d give them a piece of my mind, believe me.”

  As if Hugo was a good man who merited that kind of defense.

  The other woman had huffed off after Geraldine. Leaving Eleanor finished with lessons—and thus finished with her work for the day—at four-thirty. Which was late, as they were usually finished hours sooner unless they’d taken a little trip further afield.

  Eleanor had never had such easy, comfortable hours.

  But for some reason, she didn’t tell Vivi any of that, and not only because that sharp merriment in her voice suggested her sister had been tossing back spirits.

  “I’m fine, really,” Eleanor said instead, like a proper martyr.

  And felt terrible about herself as Vivi mouthed a few more drunken apologies, then rang off.

  But not terrible enough to correct her sister’s impression that she was muddling through dire circumstances in their next conversation. Or the next. Or, for that matter, let Vivi know that she had in fact met the disgraced Duke himself. More than “met” him.

  She told herself that because that kiss had been such an egregious misstep, and because the Duke had disappeared thereafter, it hadn’t happened. So there was no need to tell Vivi about it, as her sister
would only leap to the wrong conclusions.

  But something deep inside her whispered a different, darker reason.

  Eleanor ignored that, too.

  The truth was that Eleanor had wanted to become a teacher years ago, but hadn’t thought she could make enough money at it to serve Vivi’s purposes and hers—and certainly not without heading back to school to get the proper certification. There had obviously been no time for that. I can only be dazzling for a few years, after all, Vivi would say. Working with Geraldine was a lot like fulfilling an old dream. It was like a little glance down the road not taken, which, Eleanor found, she liked as much—if not more—than the one she’d been on all this time.

  And with her focus on Geraldine and the new lessons she plotted out every night on her laptop, she hardly noticed the absence of the Duke.

  Until she fell asleep, that was, when that kiss haunted her dreams.

  And Eleanor woke each morning flustered and red-faced, and entirely too warm. Because in her dreams, vivid and wild, they didn’t stop at a single kiss.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “HIS GRACE WILL not be returning from Spain today as planned,” Mrs. Redding announced one morning, when Eleanor had dropped by the housekeeper’s office off the kitchens to go over Geraldine’s schedule of excursions so the cook and staff could be kept informed.

  Eleanor blinked. “Oh?”

  Later, Eleanor thought immediately, she’d be furious with herself for sounding something other than blandly disinterested. But all she could do now was gaze back at the disapproving older woman and pretend she hadn’t sounded a little too intrigued.

  Maybe more than a little. She hated herself for that, too.

  “We expected him in residence today,” Mrs. Redding said matter-of-factly, very much as if she hadn’t heard anything in Eleanor’s voice. Eleanor told herself that of course she hadn’t. It was all in her head, because Eleanor was the one wandering around with the guilty conscience—and the memory of that kiss. Not Mrs. Redding. She hoped. “But his plans have changed, and he will be making a brief trip to Dublin before returning.”

  “I didn’t realize he wasn’t in residence now,” Eleanor lied, her voice as bland as she could make it. She punctuated it by taking a calm sip of her tea.

  Mrs. Redding eyed her as if she knew the tea was a prop. “When the Duke is in residence, he likes to have Geraldine presented to him at least every other week at dinner. By the child’s current governess, so he can assess both Geraldine’s and the governess’s progress.”

  “Well, I suppose that explains why the Duke has appeared so hands-off since I arrived.” Eleanor managed a laugh. “I thought perhaps he didn’t have much interest in his ward.”

  The temperature in the room seemed to plummet at that. Eleanor watched Mrs. Redding’s gaze frost over right there before her.

  “It would be wiser to put a little less stock in what people say about His Grace from afar,” the housekeeper said, as if each syllable cut the roof of her mouth on the way out. “That tabloid creation bears no resemblance to the man I’ve known since he was a child. A man who took in an orphaned child out of the goodness of his heart and is still painted a villain for it.”

  Eleanor took her time placing her cup of tea back in its saucer, surprised at the vehemence in the older woman’s voice.

  “Having a ward thrust upon one and being expected to raise them must be something of an adjustment,” she said after a moment.

  Mrs. Redding shifted behind her desk, and gazed at Eleanor for a moment over the top of her eyeglasses.

  “We are a mite protective of the Duke here,” she said with the same quiet intensity, and Eleanor couldn’t tell if that was a warning or an explanation. “It’s a rare stranger indeed who has his best interests at heart. He has been so long in that spotlight that the spotlight is all anyone sees, but we see the boy who grew up here.” Her gaze edged back into chilly territory. “The whole of England might be dedicated to telling nasty stories about His Grace, but they are never told here. Ever.”

  Eleanor couldn’t help feeling as if she’d been slapped again. And harder, this time. As if the fact no one had met her at the train station when she’d arrived had been a test, not an oversight. She wanted to ask Mrs. Redding directly but didn’t quite dare.

  It was the same with all the staff in Groves House, she found as the days passed and the weather grew more blustery and grim. Each day was bleaker than the one before. The trees grew ever more stark and the rain fell colder. Icier. And the other members of the household were as uninterested in Eleanor’s presence weeks into her residence as they’d been at the start. She ended up eating her meals alone in her own rooms because when she entered the common staff areas, all conversation stopped, which did not exactly aid the digestion.

  “What do you mean they’re all offish?” Vivi asked in one of their phone calls. She sounded distant and preoccupied, the way she often did when Eleanor called her instead of the other way around. As if she had her mobile clamped to her shoulder while she bustled about doing other things. Much more important things, her distracted tone suggested.

  Eleanor told herself, brusquely, that it wasn’t entirely fair to attach meaning to Vivi’s tone. They each played their parts, after all. If she had a problem with that, she’d had years to say so. She could have objected years ago when their reluctant, distantly related cousin had eyed the pair of them as adolescents and set the course of their lives.

  “Might as well marry a rich man as a poor man,” she’d tutted at them one afternoon. “You two have nothing in this world but Vivi’s pretty face. I’d use it to better yourselves, if I were you.”

  “I mean exactly that.” Eleanor said now, scowling at the memory. As if Vivi hadn’t already been a miracle, walking the way she had when the doctors thought she never would. And it wasn’t entirely true that all they had was Vivi’s face, was it? Because what was Vivi’s face without Eleanor’s financial wizardry and prowess with a sewing needle? “They’re a closed group. No newcomers.”

  Eleanor had taken to walking in the evenings and tonight she’d taken the back stairs that led from the kitchen into a wing she never been in before. She’d climbed up to the second floor and found herself in a long hallway that doubled as an art gallery. Obvious, recognizable masterpieces worth billions were flung on walls next to what looked like very dour and period-appropriate versions of Hugo. But she concentrated on her phone call, not the wigs and funny hats and companion animals in the portraits before her.

  Vivi sighed, which definitely put Eleanor’s back up, and no matter that she tried to pretend otherwise. “Are you there to make friends, Eleanor?”

  “Of course not.” She could hear the tension in her voice, and forced herself to take a breath. “I know why I’m here, Vivi. All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a friendly face about the place. That’s all.”

  Vivi, clearly no longer feeling guilty or bullying or drunk, sighed again.

  “Don’t go moping about the place. No one likes an Eeyore.”

  Eleanor found she was scowling at the painting in front of her, biting her tongue. As in, literally pressing it against her teeth to keep from saying something back in the same dismissive tone.

  “I should think you ought to feel grateful that you’re not required to work so hard for the friendship of people you won’t know in a year’s time,” Vivi said dismissively.

  It hadn’t really occurred to Eleanor to think about the people here—or her position here or whole solitary little life here, really—as temporary. But of course it was. Even if all went well, a girl only needed a governess for so long.

  “I think I have a few years before I can happily drift off into the sunset,” she pointed out, and she was proud of herself for sounding as if she was smiling, not scowling. “Geraldine is seven, not seventeen.”

  Vivi laughed. “You’re not disappearing into the north forever, Eleanor. You’re supposed to make us enough to cover our bills
and then come back.”

  “I didn’t realize that was the plan. Especially when the longer I stay, the more I’ll make.”

  “Eleanor, please,” Vivi said, her tone light. But there was something beneath it that wedged its way into Eleanor’s stomach and sat there. Heavily. “I can’t possibly do all this without you. You’re on holiday, nothing more.”

  Eleanor finished off the call, and found herself staring blankly out one of the windows in this strange art gallery hall, her stomach still not quite right. Because it was tempting to pretend that Vivi couldn’t do without her emotionally, that she missed Eleanor herself, but deep down, Eleanor suspected that wasn’t true. Just yesterday Vivi had been in a panic about how to pay all the bills and get the rent in, and she’d moaned something about what a tip the flat was since there was no one to tidy it up.

  Because, of course, the person who usually handled all those things was Eleanor.

  It was a good thing Vivi thought Eleanor was suffering in a pile of debris in the middle of a moor. Because if her sister had any idea how luxurious Eleanor’s lifestyle was at present, Eleanor had no doubt Vivi would contrive a way to get herself up to Groves House so she could enjoy it herself.

  And Eleanor was obviously far more deeply selfish than she’d ever imagined, because for once in her life, she didn’t want to share something with the sister she’d always loved to the point of distraction.

  She stuck her mobile in the pocket of the black trousers she wore and moved over to the windows. The gallery was set up over the back of the house and looked out over the tangle of the back gardens that led straight into the brooding moors. There was a full moon tonight, tossing a spooky sort of silvery light here and there, silently moving in and out of the clouds, and making the whole of Yorkshire seem to gleam.

  If gloomily.

  Maybe it was because she was tucked away in this desolate old house. Maybe it was because the halls were always empty, the locals were unfriendly, and the nights were already starting to seem as if they lasted three times as long as the day. Maybe it was because she felt a bit too much like a gothic waiting to happen, locked away in here.