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him. And as for having to go into his rooms again—she could have encouraged the footmen to take him more bottles than any man could drink. An unconscious, stupefied drunkard would have posed her no harm.
    Oh, this was a terrible flaw in her, this need to interfere and manage and fix things.
    Jones knocked softly on the bedroom door. “Your Grace?” His voice shook. Olivia wanted to pat the poor man’s arm to lend him courage, but she wasn’t sure she had enough to spare. She had vowed, after all, not to return until she’d acquired a suit of armor to protect herself. So much for that.
    Jones must have heard a reply, for he opened the door. “May we enter?”
    A soft hiss filled the air. Along the walls, gas lamps sputtered to life. The rising light illuminated a man standing at the far corner of the room, very tall. It gilded the strong column of his throat, the sharp angle of his jaw—
    Olivia felt as though she’d been kicked in the head. He was disheveled (but with a valet like Vickers, she would not have expected otherwise). His beard wantedtrimming, and his shaggy hair begged for scissors. He looked, as well, underfed—his shirt hung loosely about his shoulders, and his trousers depended too visibly on the clasps of his suspenders. Together with his gauntness, the effect should have been ugly.
    It was the opposite. His leanness only accented the perfect bones of his face: broad, sharp cheekbones; a straight, high-bridged nose; a hard, square jaw that framed full, long lips. She stared, feeling stupefied. Marwick had been a subject of public scrutiny ever since he had stepped into political office. But for all the things that had been spoken of him, nobody had ever called him handsome. Why not? How not? Broad-shouldered, whittled lean, he put her in mind of some warrior ascetic from the icy, Viking north. Only his mouth ruined the image: his full lips belonged on a hedonist.
    He stepped toward them—rangy, tall, very, very blond. His single step caused Jones to bobble back against her. “I have been ringing,” the duke said coldly, “for an hour.”
    His voice was dark and rich, like the cream on a pint of stout. She understood nothing, suddenly. He did not sound like a madman, and he did not hold himself like someone afraid to leave his rooms. He loomed, rather. He . . . presided.
    And the chamber over which he presided, she saw, was filled with papers. Piles of them lay strewn across the carpet. There were also piles of books stacked about, but those papers . . . oh, so many of them!
    “Forgive us, Your Grace.” Jones stammered the words. “There was an emergency in the kitchens.”
    She had a sinking feeling. She would search the study, of course. The library, too. But all these papers . . . here  . . . in the room he never left. God must have a very dry sense of humor.
    When she raised her gaze, she found Marwick’s attention fastened on her . His eyes were a brilliant, piercing blue. Their intensity made something flutter inside her. She recognized the intelligence in them. Her gut told her to take it as a warning.
    Jones spoke in a rush. “This is Mrs. Johnson, Your Grace. She is—ah, a temporary replacement for Mrs. Wright, who you may recall gave notice two weeks ago. We were left in the lurch, I fear—I know it is somewhat extraordinary, to hire someone without consulting you. But—if you recall, you gave me full authority—”
    “I recall.” His piercing blue eyes had not yet released her. She began to feel the weight of them as a deliberate challenge. The lion in his natural element expected submission, but she would not bow her head. She did not even blink. Had she been a cat, she might have bristled at the provocation of his look.
    Instead, she was a secretary—by training, at least; and a housekeeper, by strange luck. Neither position required her to abase herself to him.
    Thank God for it. For she realized in this moment how badly she would have played the maid.