Page 7 of Tempting the Reclusive Duke
I remain, Your Grace, your obedient servant,
She paused, her quill pen hovering over the paper at this moment of decision. She could sign it clearly, "Miss Eveline Whitcombe," and likely have her application dismissed unread, or...
The pen moved almost of its own accord:
E. Whitcombe
There. Let him assume what he would, Edmund, Edward, Everett, E... could be anything. If her qualifications were sufficient for a man, why should they be insufficient for a woman? She would get her interview on merit, not be dismissed on prejudice.
However even as she sealed the letter, she wondered what would happen when the Duke discovered her deception. Would he be amused, outraged, would those cold eyes that society whispered about flash with anger or something else entirely?
She stopped herself mid-thought, because all these thoughts were entirely irrelevant to her purpose. This was about books, employment and nothing more.
Still, as she prepared the packet with her samples, the Plutarch translation, the Homer analysis, even a rather clever piece on Ovid that Professor Blackwood had particularly praised, she found herself thinking of the bookshop gentleman again, remembering the way he'd genuinely laughed, when she'd described Mr. Harland's agricultural courtship attempts.
She'd probably never see him again, as London was vast and men like that, clearly wealthy, probably titled, didn't frequent the same circles as impoverished bluestockings. But somehow, preparing this application felt connected to that encounter, as if his dismissal had catalyzed something larger.
You're quite the philosopher, Miss...?
He'd never gotten her name, which was just as well, because men like that didn't need to know the names of sharp-tongued spinsters who accosted them inbookshops.
A knock interrupted her thoughts.
"Eveline?" Her mother entered, carrying tea and wearing that particular expression that suggested she already knew everything. "You missed supper."
"I was working."
Her mother glanced at the sealed packet on the desk with the air of someone confirming suspicions. "The application?"
There was no point in prevaricating when her mother had a sixth sense for secrets. "Yes."
"To the Duke of Everleigh?"
"Yes."
Her mother sat down, arranging her skirts with the careful precision that always indicated she was thinking deeply. "Your father would be horrified."
Eveline's shoulders sagged. "I know."
"He would also," her mother continued with a small smile, "be secretly proud, because he didn't educate you to waste that education on embroidery samplers."
"Truly?"
"Oh, he'd forbid it, certainly. But late at night, when he thought I was asleep, he used to worry about what would become of you. 'Too clever for her own good,' he'd say, 'too clever for this world.'"
A lump formed in Eveline's throat. "I miss him."
"As do I, every day." Her mother reached over to squeeze her hand with gentle understanding. "Send your application, my dear, but be prepared for disappointment, as the world rarely rewards women who refuse to stay in their prescribed places."
"I'd rather be disappointed for trying than for never trying at all."
"Spoken like your father's daughter." Her mother stood with a rustle of silk. "Though perhaps don't mention this to Charles just yet, as you know how he fusses."
After her mother left, Eveline stared at the sealed packet that contained either her future or her folly. Tomorrow she would post it, and then she would wait to see if the Duke of Everleigh, whoever he was, would look past the careful ambiguity of "E. Whitcombe" to see the qualifications beneath.
She thought again of grey eyes and sardonic smiles in a bookshop, and how that gentleman would probably laugh if he knew what she was attempting. A woman, applying to organize a duke's library, the absurdity of it all.
But then, she'd made him acknowledge her intelligence, hadn't she? Made him admit his assumptions were wrong, and if she could do that with a random stranger in a bookshop, perhaps she could do it with a duke through a carefully worded letter.
