I Proposed to London's Wickedest Duke, and He Said Yes novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Teach Me

Gervase took the petition out of Kitty's hand and read it standing in the hall.

He read it to the end, folded it in thirds, and put it in his coat.

"Someone in this house has been paid," he said, "or someone believes it."

"Nobody believes it who has laundered a sheet," said the Dowager.

Kitty made a sound.

I told her to go and find the notebook, and she went up the stairs two at a time, grateful to be sent.

I looked at the footmen along the wall, and at the housekeeper with her keys, and at the boy with the coal scuttle.

Every face was blank.

"I could ask them one by one," I said.

"You could," said Gervase.

"I won't.

"A man who's been bought says whatever he's been told to say, and I'd only teach him to say it better.

"I want to know who it is tomorrow, and I want to know tonight that it won't spoil us."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Tonight," he said. "Will you let me come to you?"

"Through the door," I said, "like a husband."

He came at eleven, and he knocked.

The candle was lit on the table.

The curtains stood open on Brook Street, where the lamps made a long gold line down the dark.

I sat on the window seat in my nightgown with my feet tucked under me.

He stood in the doorway in his shirt, with his hands bare and his hair loose.

He looked like a man about to sit an examination.

"I have a request," he said.

"Make it."

"Teach me."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You've been teaching me for a fortnight, and I've been grateful, and I've been guessing," he said.

"I want to learn you on purpose.

"The way I learned everything else.

"With the candle lit, and you telling me when I'm wrong."

"You're not often wrong."

"I'm often lucky," said Gervase. "It isn't the same."

My heart did something unreasonable.

"Come here," I said.

He crossed the room and stopped in front of me.

"The hooks," I said.

"Last time, in the library, you lost the argument with my bodice."

"I have been practising."

"On what?"

"A cushion," he said, with great dignity. "The one in the library with the little brass fastenings.

"I did it for three evenings, with the door locked.

"I now have it open in under a minute."

I laughed so hard I had to put my hand over my mouth.

"Don't," said Gervase, pink to his ears.

"I have never in my life been so thorough about anything."

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