“I’ve shot a couple of men myself, I’ll have you know. Now tell me that you love me back or I will bay at the moon and run circles around the carriage.”
She gasped in horror, convinced he was conceited enough to carry out his threat. Had a light appeared in the salon window? Had that porter been standing against the wall during this entire wretched display?
The duke’s manservant sent her a searching look. She shook her head, silently begging him not to make matters worse. He coughed, loudly enough to signal his disapproval. Sir Oliver glanced around and Ivy shot off into the darkness of the garden maze before he turned back to her.
Her heart sank when she heard the thud of unpoetic footsteps at her back and realized Oliver had followed her into the labyrinth. How he could see her was a mystery when she hadn’t a notion where she was fleeing herself.
A moonless night eclipsed the estate. Perhaps fear made her faster, but it hadn’t sharpened her instincts. She caught her heel on a gardener’s spade. When she recovered her balance, she realized that she’d lost Oliver.
She had also lost her way. She slowed, took several hesitant steps, and collided with a hedge. How humiliating to think she might still be wandering through the maze at dawn when the dogs scented her.
An indefinable sound penetrated the tall yews that separated her from the next turn. Was she about to confront Oliver, the porter, or an animal? She rounded another boxwood with caution, breathless, her hair half undone. She wasn’t much of a match for man or beast right now.
“Stop.”
The low intimidating voice rooted her to the spot. She couldn’t make out where it had come from until the duke emerged from what must have been a secret path. How long had he been there? What must he think? She appraised his unsmiling face in disquietude.
Sanctuary or banishment?
She shivered at either possibility and waited for James to decree which was to be her fate.
* * *
“Who are you running from, Ivy?” he asked, slowly walking toward her. “Is it necessary for me to search the grounds for an unwanted visitor? Do we have a prowler in the park?”
She remained still, even though her heart was beating harder than when she had been evading Oliver. Despite his show of concern, the duke’s shadowed face showed no sympathy at all. She had taken advantage of him today, and not the other way around.
“I was late,” she said, seeing no reason to lie. “I didn’t realize that my—my companion had sent your carriage home. As soon as we reached the park, I rushed toward the house and ended up here, going in circles.”
The duke considered her explanation for a few moments. “This is a maze.” He surveyed her disheveled hair and flushed cheeks. “It is meant to deceive and delude. Perhaps my garden is taking its revenge on yours. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The lambent heat in his eyes wilted the remnants of whatever composure she’d salvaged from her tussle with Oliver.
She held firm under his scrutiny. “Not really.” All his cold manner conveyed was his displeasure. He wasn’t anything like the playful scoundrel who’d interviewed her for the job. Still, he was perfectly within his rights to admonish her.
“This maze is designed to lead one astray,” he said.
“Did you draw the original plans?”
He seemed to grow taller. “Do I look to be over a century old?”
“It’s difficult to judge your age without decent lighting.”
“It is rather dark, isn’t it?”
“What is it they say about the devil on a moonless night?”
“I haven’t a notion,” the duke said with a smile. “But I have a feeling you’re about to find out.”
Her lips parted at his words. His knowing smile promised sin and punishment. And it lit a spark within her. In fact, Ivy was certain that invisible flames jumped from his wicked spirit to hers.
He wanted to engage her in a dangerous battle, one she might never win. The female in her rose to the war cry all the same. “I would have thought the maze was for children,” she said.
“Certain adults like playing games with each other, too.”
She reminded herself that it wasn’t appropriate to show disrespect to one’s master. Nor was it proper for a governess to secretly desire him, and yet she did. “I wouldn’t know, Your Grace.”
“You are very cool for a woman who could be discharged for breaking the rules of her employment.”
Ivy braced herself for the inevitable. She might be dismissed before midnight. She pictured herself trudging home in the dark and Rosemary saying, “You had to lose your head, didn’t you, Anne Boleyn? All these years you were supposed to be the sensible one. How could you, Ivy?”