How to Tame Your Duke by Juliana Gray Page A

way, recommends you highly. Do you come from him recently?”
    Emilie settled herself in the chair and resisted the urge to touch her whiskers, which were itching fiercely. Ashland watched her with his beautiful ruined face, his impassive face, and her nerves vibrated to a keen pitch. Keep as close as possible to the truth, Olympia had instructed her. “Yes, sir. I have the honor of informing Your Grace that he was in excellent health, not two days ago.”
    “I am delighted to hear it. You’re a fortunate young man, to have such a patron.”
    “Yes, sir. We are related, on my mother’s side.”
    “His Grace does take care of his own,” said Ashland. His hands—his
hand
—was in his lap. At the edge of her senses, Emilie sensed a faint frisson of tension under his calm.
    “He is all that is kind.” Emilie knit her hands together.
    “Kind. Yes.” Below the duke’s black leather half-mask, a muscle twitched, as if he were holding back a smile. “I bear no blood relation to him at all, and yet he watches over my interests in London with an almost paternal care. I believe he likes the role. In ancient times, I daresay he would have acquired a kingdom.”
    Emilie smiled at the image of Olympia on his throne, dispensing favors and plotting campaigns. “You know him well, I see. How did you two become acquainted?”
    Ashland studied her without answering, and Emilie realized belatedly that the question was impossibly personal, not at all the sort of question a tutor would ask his employer. She had forgotten herself already. The blood prickled in her cheeks.
    “Oh, the usual channels,” Ashland said at last. He lifted his left hand and waved it negligently. “He took an interest in me, early in my career, when I was a mere lieutenant in the Guards. But we stray from the matter at hand. The examinations, if you’ll recall, take place in only five months, and while I admit his lordship is far too clever for his own good, I doubt that cleverness alone will convince the dons to accept him at such an early age.”
    Emilie gathered herself. Voice low, voice calm. Inhabit Grimsby.
Become
Grimsby. “If I may ask, Your Grace, why exactly is he trying for a place so soon? Might he not benefit from another year or two of private study before university?”
    Ashland squared the single sheet of paper against his leather blotter. “It was my son’s own idea, Mr. Grimsby. I expect he wishes to escape.”
    “Escape, sir?”
    Ashland looked up, and his single perfect eye was ice blue as he regarded her. “Yes, Mr. Grimsby. Escape Yorkshire, escape this rather large and chilling house, escape the uninteresting company of his father.”
    “I doubt that, sir. You don’t strike me as uninteresting at all.”
    A small movement disturbed the corner of Ashland’s mouth. “How kind, Mr. Grimsby. Nevertheless, my son wishes to try for a place at Oxford, and I have agreed to assist him with his preparation.”
    Emilie parted her lips to say something appropriate, something obliging. He was, after all, her employer, and she was required to please him. But just then a draft brushed her cheek, frigid and untouched by the determined fire at the other end of the room, and Emilie heard herself say, “Do you
want
him to pass his examinations, sir?”
    Ashland’s white head startled back an inch or two. “I beg your pardon?”
    Another blunder.
Emilie flushed. She had performed her role so well yesterday, so grave and reserved, keeping every word and action under the strictest control. Why did she keep forgetting herself with
this
man, the one whom she must above all others keep without suspicion? But the words could not be called back. She went on bravely: “That is, do you wish him to leave your house and attend university next year?”
    “What an extraordinary question, Mr. Grimsby.”
    “I didn’t mean to pry, of course . . .” Emilie began.
    “Yes, you did.”
    “. . . but of course it is a tutor’s business to