many a torrid encounter.
In one last farcical swipe at decency, he ran a hand through his disheveled brown hair. “I’ve two that need looking after.”
Clocks.
Yes. Concentrate on the clocks. Those ticking things with dials and gears and numbers. They were how she made her living, and she’d been knocking on the door of every servants’ entrance in Mayfair to find more clients. She wasn’t here to gawk at the sprinkling of hair on his chest, or ponder the meaning of his black armband, or flog herself over silly fantasies that he would sweep her into his arms, confess his months of suffering for love of her, and vow to abandon his sinful ways now that she’d given him reason to live.
She slammed the lid on her imagination, buckled the strap, affixed a padlock, and then pushed it off a cliff.
This was just another business call.
He went on, “I can’t tell you much of their history. They’d been passed around by several different relations before they landed with me last autumn.”
Family heirlooms, then. “They must be precious.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied dryly. “Precious indeed. To be honest, I’ve no idea what to do with the two of them. They came along with the title.”
“The title?” she echoed.
“Belvoir.” When she did not respond, he added, “As in, the duke of it.”
A wild burst of laughter escaped her.
A duke? Oh, how Penny would gloat over having guessed that.
“Believe me,” he said, “I find it absurd, as well. Actually, I’m merely heir to a duke, for now. Since my uncle is infirm, I’ve been handed the legal responsibilities. All the duties of a dukedom, none of the perks.” He waved aimlessly in her direction. “Well, then. Teach me a lesson.”
“I . . . I beg your pardon?”
“I could inquire as to your education and experience, but that seems a waste of time. We may as well have a demonstration.”
A demonstration? Did he want to know how clockworks operated? Perhaps he meant the chronometer. She could explain why it kept the right time when clocks could lose several minutes a day.
“What sort of lesson did you have in mind?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you think I might need to learn.”
Alex couldn’t hold it in any longer. She buried her face in her hands and moaned into them.
He leaned toward her at once. “Are you ill? I do hope it’s not typhus.”
“It’s disappointment. I expected something different. I should have known better.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What precisely were you expecting?”
“You don’t want to know.” And I don’t want to tell you.
“Oh, but I do.”
“No, you don’t. You really, truly don’t.”
“Come now. That kind of protestation only makes a man more intrigued. Just have out with it.”
“A gentleman,” she blurted out. “I expected you’d be a gentleman.”
“You weren’t wrong. I am a gentleman. Eventually, I’m going to be a peer.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I thought you’d be the respectable, considerate, honorable kind of gentleman.”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes, that was a mistaken assumption on your part.”
“Obviously. Just look at you.”
As she spoke, her gaze drifted downward, toward his broad shoulders. Then toward the rumpled linen of his shirt. Then toward the intriguing wedge of masculine chest exposed by his open collar. The skin there was smooth and taut, and the muscular contours were defined, and . . .
And she was openly staring now.
“Look at this place. Wineglasses scattered on the table. Perfume still lingering in the air. What kind of gentleman conducts an employment interview in this . . .” She indicated their surroundings, at a loss for the word. “. . . cave of carnality?”
“Cave of Carnality,” he echoed with amusement. “Oh, I like that. I’ve a mind to engrave that on a plaque.”
“So you understand my mistake now.” The words kept pouring out of her, rash and unconsidered, and she couldn’t put them back in the bottle. She couldn’t even find a cork. “When I opened the door, I was fool enough to expect someone else. A man who’d never allow a lady to wander London with only one stocking and call it ‘nothing of consequence.’ Stockings are of consequence, Mr. Reynaud. So are the women who wear them.” She made a defeated wave at his black armband. “All of this whilst you’re in mourning.”
“Now that, I can explain.”
“Please don’t. This lesson is cruel enough already.” She shook her head. “Then there’s the telescope.”
“Hold a moment.” He sat forward. “What has a telescope to do with anything?”
“That”—she pointed with an outstretched arm—“is a genuine Dollond. A forty-six-inch achromatic with a triple object-glass of three-and-three-quarters-inch aperture. Polished wood barrel, brass draw tubes. Capable of magnifying land objects sixty times over, and celestial objects to one hundred and eighty times. It’s an instrument most could only dream of owning, and you’re letting it gather dust. It’s . . . Well, it’s heartbreaking.”
Heartbreaking, indeed.
In the end, Alex had only herself to blame. All the clues were there. His dreadful taste in books. His charming grin that made promises no man could intend to keep. And those eyes . . . They held some kind of potent, brain-addling sorcery, and he went about jostling young women in bookshops without the decency to keep them hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat.
Her only consolation was that he’d forget this conversation the moment she left, just as he’d forgotten her before.
“Thank you, Mr. Reynaud. You’ve given me a much-needed lesson today.” She released a heavy sigh and tipped her gaze to the wall. “Antlers. Really?”
After a prolonged silence, he whistled softly through his teeth.
She rose to her feet, reaching for her satchel. “I’ll show myself out.”
“Oh, no, you won’t.” He stood. “Miss Mountbatten, that was capital.”
“What?”
“Absolutely brilliant. I would very much like to engage your services.”
Perhaps she had this all wrong. Maybe he was not the Bookshop Rake after all, but the Bookshop Madman.
Then he went and did the most incomprehensible thing yet. He looked into her eyes, smiled just enough to reveal a lethal dimple, and spoke the words she’d stupidly dreamed of hearing him say.
“You,” he said, “are everything I’ve been searching for. And I’m not letting you get away.”
Oh.
Oh, Lord.
“Come, then. My wards will be delighted to meet their new governess.”
Governess?
Alexandra was speechless.
“I’ll show you upstairs.” In a display of masculine presumption, Mr. Reynaud took the satchel from her grip. As he relieved her of its weight,