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“At present, no one.” He flashed her a grin, deciding it was time they parted ways until dinner.

“Now, I should allow you to freshen yourself after an arduous day of travel. Your cases will be brought round, and the maid assigned to you will see to the unpacking. The bellpull is in the corner should you require anything at all, and if you need me before the dinner gong, any of the servants will direct you to me.”

“Oh.” She fussed with her skirts, looking suddenly like the sails of a ship bereft of wind. “Yes, of course.”

“Never say you miss me already, Miranda,” he teased, secretly pleased at the notion.

“Certainly not,” she denied hastily.

Too hastily.

She’d been caught.

Rhys pressed a hand over his heart in dramatic fashion. “O lovely maiden, how you wound me so. My vanity shall never recover from this mortal blow.”

She laughed then, the sound clear and gorgeous, as sacred as a church bell calling the faithful. As quickly as her mirth emerged, it was gone. She pressed a gloved hand to her mouth to stifle it, looking horrified with herself for deigning to find him amusing.

“Your vanity appears to be quite omnipotent, Your Grace,” she said, sobering.

She wasn’t wrong. Women adored him, and he knew it. He was handsome. He was wealthy. He was a duke. He had a big cock. Life had blessed him immeasurably in most ways.

Except the ones that mattered most.

He banished that stupid thought at once.

“Do you hear that sound?” he asked theatrically, cupping a hand to his ear.

“No.” Her inky brows knitted together in an expression he recognized. “What is it?”

“Come here,” he urged her.

She moved nearer with a hesitant air, just as he imagined she might approach a strange mongrel who she was not certain would either kiss her hand or lick it. “What sound, Your Grace?”

He waited until she had drawn almost close enough to touch, before answering. “The shattering sound of my pride cracking and disintegrating before you.”

Miranda stopped, still clutching the worn reticule that he knew from their carriage ride contained a similarly shabby fan. “You bounder. I believed you.”

“And there is a very important lesson for you to learn, Miranda.” He flashed another grin. “You ought to never trust me. Not completely.”

Her eyes widened. “You promised?—”

“Oh, not about something as boring as money,” he interrupted, waggling his fingers at her. “You will have the other half of your funds at the week’s end. And more, I hope, later.”

“Just the three thousand pounds,” she insisted.

“For now,” he agreed, pushing away from the doorjamb and straightening. “But I truly dare not tarry a moment longer here. The hour grows late, and soon, we will meet again for dinner. Until then, my dear Miranda.”

He offered her a bow and then turned on his heel and strode back down the hall from whence they had come.

“Miss Lenox,” she called after him sharply, sounding vexed.

As always, her ire was an aphrodisiac. Rhys couldn’t recall the last time he’d ever had this much bloody fun.

Miranda stared at her reflection in the looking glass, unable to shake the feeling that had been chasing her from the moment her host had left her to explore her room earlier.

The Duke of Whitby was the spider.

And Miranda?

She was the hapless fly. Ingloriously trapped. Awaiting the spider’s leisure.

“Are you certain you don’t wish to wear the blue silk, Mrs. Loveless?”

The query drove Miranda from her musings.

She turned to the lady’s maid who had been assigned her for an extortionate fee, if Whitby was to be believed, a girl with a round, friendly visage and the seemingly endless cheer of the young and unjaded.

Along with Miranda’s cases, a particularly suspicious trunk of gowns had arrived. Gowns that did not belong to her.

Which meant that the Duke of Whitby had somehow procured a small wardrobe for Miranda during the last week. Naturally, she had decided to eschew the dubious gift, opting instead to don another of her no-nonsense gray gowns. She may be the fly, but she still had wings.

“This gown shall suffice, Green,” she reassured the younger woman.

The lady’s maid gave Miranda’s toilette a somber look over her shoulder. “Of course, madam. The gray does complement your eyes well.”

They both knew that was a lie. Gray was not a becoming hue on Miranda.

With her black hair and pale skin, she looked like an apparition risen from a grave.

But she didn’t wish to look her finest this evening.

Far from it. Moreover, the gown also buttoned to the throat, unlike the daring bodice on the blue silk evening gown.

Yes, it would suit admirably for her purpose.

“Thank you,” she told the lady’s maid. “Do you know when the other guests will be arriving?”

“Tomorrow, Mrs. Loveless.” Green frowned at Miranda. “Are you certain I can’t help with your hair? I know a lovely Grecian braid.”

At least Whitby had not been deceiving her about a house party, then. From the moment they had arrived to an empty estate, with no other guests set to arrive that day, Miranda had been suspicious.

Miranda’s hair was scraped into a severe chignon, wound so tightly at her nape that it was already beginning to give her a headache. “Thank you, Green, but that won’t be necessary.”

“Of course, Mrs. Loveless. Will you require anything else from me?”

The name felt strange. Miranda only hoped she could remind herself to continue answering to it for the duration of her time in Hertfordshire.

She forced a smile she didn’t feel, a liquid sense of anticipation settling in her stomach. “That will be all.”

The lady’s maid dipped into a curtsy, but before she could leave, a muffled sound from the chamber next door cut through the quiet of the room.

“Green,” she called, spinning away from the mirror.

The younger woman halted. “Yes, madam?”

“Is someone staying in the chamber adjoining mine?”

Fresh pink suffused the girl’s cheeks and throat. “Yes, Mrs. Loveless.”

It would seem Miranda would have to pry any information she wanted from the lady’s maid. “May I ask who?”

Green cleared her throat, casting her eyes to the Axminster. “It is His Grace, of course, madam.”

The scoundrel.

He had settled her into the bedchamber beside his, as if he were already anticipating her capitulation. As if she were his mistress, joining him for the week’s revelries. As if they were as familiar with each other as man and woman could be.

Green’s ill-concealed embarrassment made sudden, awful sense. She believed Miranda was a woman of ill repute.

“I see,” she forced out, struggling to keep her expression unconcerned. “Tell me, Green, is this sort of arrangement customary for the duke?”

The lady’s maid squirmed. “I couldn’t say, Mrs. Loveless. I’m new to Wingfield Hall, I am. Was brought on to be a lady’s maid just three days ago. It doesn’t show, does it? I was happy to take this situation, I was.”

That also explained the girl’s desire to please.

It would seem that the Duke of Whitby had hired Green specifically to be her lady’s maid. Just as he had procured a small yet costly wardrobe for Miranda. Just as he had cleverly maneuvered himself into the chamber next door to hers.

“Of course not, Green,” she reassured the younger woman. “I would have suspected you had years of experience.”

Green beamed, dipping into another curtsy. “Oh, thank you, madam. Please know I’ll have discretion in…all that transpires. I will bid you good evening.”

With that, she disappeared, leaving Miranda alone with her thoughts. All that transpires indeed , she thought with a nettled sigh.

Whitby’s earlier words returned, echoing in her mind. You ought to never trust me. Not completely.

Well, he certainly hadn’t been wrong about that. She was fast learning she had underestimated her opponent. Like any good chess player, the duke had swiftly and cunningly maneuvered her into a position of great danger. But this would not be checkmate, she vowed.

She would simply have to prove to him she was not a woman who could easily be wooed.

Because she wasn’t. Her disastrous marriage and the scandal of her divorce had left her without choice.

She could not indulge in an affair with the seductively handsome Duke of Whitby.

The unwise urges that boiled to the surface whenever she was in his presence could and would be controlled.

Her tenuous future depended upon it.