A Duke in the Night(19)
Holloway shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Rivers the next time you see him.”
“I can’t allow you to stay in this house, Your Grace.” The duke frowned, and so did Clara. “You’ll be a distraction,” she said, trying to take some of the heat from her voice and regain her composure. She would not be goaded into raising her voice, certainly not to one of her clients. Even if he was a duke acting in the most illogical, insufferable manner. “To the students. To your sister.” To me.
Holloway made some sort of derisive noise. “I had no intentions of partaking in any of your classes. I will be away most days. You won’t even know I’m here.” He paused. “Think of me merely as Lady Anne’s chaperone.”
This could not be happening. Clara could not allow it to happen. She squared her shoulders. “The earl’s two widowed sisters live here. If their matronly presence isn’t enough, there are nine students, the three lady’s maids who traveled with us, the substantial staff who look after this house, and my sister and I. The girls are well chaperoned. They are here to learn, Your Grace, not to entertain themselves frivolously.”
“A frivolous entertainment and a distraction. Well, I suppose I’ve been accused of being worse.”
“You mistake me, Your Grace.” Clara could feel her fingers curling into her skirts in her effort to remain patient. “That’s not what I was implying—”
“It was a jest, Miss Hayward,” the duke said with a smile. And it was a smile that reached his eyes. Not the practiced, contrived one she had seen when he had kissed the back of her hand, but the one that had once set her heart pounding. The one that now made her breath catch and wiped her mind clear of every rational thought.
“I already know what it’s like to live with one young lady,” he told her, his eyes still gleaming. “I have no intention of tossing away what’s left of my sanity by moving in with eight more. I’ll stay in the dower house.”
Clara fought to catch her breath. “You’re still a distraction. You are a duke. And you don’t need me to tell you that you are handsome, rich, and very, very unmarried. And—”
“An extraordinary dancer.”
“And a shameless fisher of compliments.” She was aware that a grin was starting to creep across her face.
He held up a hand to stop her. “Your commitment to the reputation and care of your students, including my sister, is admirable.”
“You exaggerate.”
“I do not. You took a duke to task over an abominably asinine request. It doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should.”
A decidedly unladylike snort escaped despite her. “You have that many abominably asinine requests?” Clara knew she should simply nod and smile politely, but somehow he was drawing her into this…banter that she had no business participating in. And it was exhilarating.
“You might be surprised.” He grinned, and her pulse immediately skipped.
“You know,” she said, returning his grin, “I don’t think I would.”
Something shifted in his eyes. Something hot and possessive. Something that made her knees weaken and an ache settle low in her belly and her breasts.
“There she is,” he murmured almost inaudibly.
“Who, Your Grace?” She could feel the blood pounding through her body as he gazed at her. His eyes were searching her face, a strange, yearning expression on his.
He reached out, and for a heart-stopping moment, Clara thought he was going to stroke her cheek. Instead he grasped one of the stubborn, unruly curls that invariably escaped from the knot at the back of her head and tucked it behind her ear. “The girl who once waltzed with me.”
She could feel the heat of his fingers as they brushed her skin, and she shivered, every fiber in her body demanding that she step closer to him. Step into his heat and find out what it would feel like if he did truly touch her. Because the way he was looking at her now was infinitely more intoxicating than the way he had gazed at her before.
This time, admiration mingled with desire.
She stepped back slightly. “That girl grew up, Your Grace. I am no longer given to impetuous impulses, just as you are no longer given to imprudent suggestions. Things have changed a great deal, and both of us along with it.”
Holloway’s hand dropped. “True.”
Clara cleared her throat, unwilling to let…whatever this was go any further. Above all, she must remain professional. He was the brother of one of her students, for God’s sake. A client. If she was going to continue as the headmistress of Haverhall, or if the worst happened and there was ever going to be a hope of resurrecting her school later, she could not…dally with a duke. Her reputation, like it or not, was her currency. No one in their right mind would ever send their gently bred daughters to a school in which the headmistress was known for her amorous escapades with one of the most visible, sought-after men in England.
“Will your business here take you long, Your Grace?” She steered the conversation back to safer ground.
“Trying to get rid of me so soon?” He wore a smile again, but it was the practiced one she loathed.
Clara kept her expression neutral. “Merely curious, Your Grace.” What she needed to know was just exactly how long he might linger and where he might show up, either accidentally or purposely. And the faster he could get what he had come to accomplish completed and be away from Dover, the better. For everybody.