She was midway through her second week at the club when there was a knock at her door one day after lunch. She was accustomed to late-day visits from either Mr. Metcalf or Clarice, and her call to enter was uttered without thought. Giving herself time to finish a calculation, it was a few moments before she glanced up.
Her heart gave a triple skip at the sight of Mr. Bentley lounging in the corner of the sofa. His legs were stretched in front of him and crossed at the ankles. One arm was draped across the backrest and the other elbow was propped on the armrest.
She hadn’t encountered him since the morning she embarrassed herself with her rash assumption. She had seen the new maid, Jillian, twice since then. The young woman’s copper ringlets had been subdued in a neat bun beneath her cap as she followed on another maid’s heels, learning the duties of her new position.
But Mr. Bentley had been decidedly absent.
There was no reason to expect to see the man every day. He obviously took his rest during the day and had his own work to keep him occupied. Yet each morning and afternoon as she passed by his office, her nerves would draw taut with anticipation, only to experience an acute disappointment when she saw his doors closed.
And now, unexpectedly, he was here in her quiet little office, filling the space with his presence.
As usual, he was dressed elegantly in black with a crisp white shirt. Today his waistcoat was of a ruby-red damask. His shoes were perfectly polished, but his dark brown hair was slightly tousled, giving him an air of boyish mischief despite his sophisticated garb.
And there, right between the bright red of his waistcoat and the strong line of his jaw was his cravat, once again folded in a style intimately familiar to her.
Roderick reined in the humor threatening to break through his relaxed facade. He noted the moment she saw his cravat and recognized the style as the one she had once tied for him. The idea had popped spontaneously into his head as he stood dressing before his mirror, and he decided to carry it out, just to see how she would react. Luckily his valet knew how to accomplish the old-fashioned style.
He was not disappointed.
She clearly recognized the design, but if he hadn’t been watching intently for her response, he may have missed it, as her reaction was so damned contained.
She was really quite adept at maintaining control over her thoughts and feelings. An unskilled observer may think she had none. But Roderick was not unskilled. He had spent years perfecting the ability to accurately read people and situations from the subtlest of clues.
Though she hid it well, his curious bookkeeper was quite disconcerted.
It was exactly what he wanted. People who had been thrown off balance tended to reveal things they otherwise wouldn’t.
With deliberate and efficient movements, she set her work aside and turned to face him, linking her hands together and resting them in her lap. “I am sorry, Mr. Bentley. I did not expect you.”
Despite her even tone, he detected the tension hovering on the very edge of her words. He pushed back a smile.
“No need to apologize. You were obviously in the middle of something and I can be patient when necessary, though I do wish you would accustom yourself to calling me Roderick.”
She hesitated. For a moment, he thought she might argue, but she was clever and she nodded instead. “I shall endeavor to do so.”
Always so blasted formal.
He cast a casual glance toward the open ledger on her desk. “I trust your work is coming along well? You are gone each day before I have an opportunity to check in with you.”
Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from examining the books himself. He was not about to make a similar mistake to what he had done with Goodwin. He had been careless. He would not be so again.
Though he had no talent for arithmetic, he could certainly tell after the first few days of examining her work that his new bookkeeper knew what she was about. Metcalf had implied the same at their last weekly meeting when the manager had taken a brief moment to express his confidence in Roderick’s choice—a rare occurrence for the stoic ex-navy man.
Her proficiency didn’t surprise him. Her astute intelligence was as evident as her overall air of competence.
It was something else about her that pressed on him.
Perhaps the odd tightening he felt in his chest whenever he was with her had to do with the fact that her true identity was not at all what she attempted to present. He told himself it shouldn’t matter where she came from or what her motivation was in seeking employment.
But it did.
He never had cause to trust any member of the society that embraced his father while tossing his mother aside for her naive transgression. The lords and ladies of the ton had shown him nothing but scorn and hypocrisy from the moment of his birth. His mother’s own family had cut all ties, completely refusing to acknowledge his existence.