Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran Page A

shortly after breakfast the next day, and by the rapidity with which it traveled, and the stunned amazement it left in its wake, one might have imagined that the duke had instead requested a priest for the purpose of conversion—or that he had decided to sack the entire staff.
    The prevailing mood was that somber, at least, when Olivia found Vickers and two of the footmen waiting in tense silence outside Jones’s office.
    “I can’t imagine what you said to him,” Vickers muttered by way of greeting. “It’s been months since he cared to read anything.” He frowned. “And why do you look so happy about it?”
    Pride was a great sin of hers. Stop annoying me, her mother had used to chide her. But Olivia had never been able to bear Mama’s low moods and sulks; there was always a solution for them. Was Marwick so different? She felt certain that the duke’s request for the newspaper was a very positive sign of her ongoing strategy. Aside from this whole nonsense about killing people, he’d be out of his quarters within a week.
    “Never mind that,” she said to Vickers. “Why are you still down here? Take the papers to him.”
    “We stopped taking the Telegraph ages ago. I had to send Bradley to market for it. And now”—Vickers tipped his head toward Jones’s door—“they must be ironed.”
    But what if the duke changed his mind during thewait? Didn’t anyone else realize how precarious and quick his moods were? “Heaven forbid the duke gets some ink on his hands.”
    Bradley spoke up. “It’s not the ink, ma’am. His Grace is very particular about his papers—he can’t abide a wrinkle in ’em.”
    Was that so? Would that he were so particular about the state of his rooms.
    A marvelous idea struck her. “How badly does he want these papers?”
    Vickers and Bradley exchanged a dark look. “Badly enough to ring incessantly from the crack of dawn. He hasn’t been up at such an hour in ages, either.” He turned his glare on the door. “I wish Jones would hurry up with it. He won’t have to face His Grace after this delay.”
    As though in reply, the door opened. Olivia stepped in front of Vickers and took the newspapers straight from Jones’s hands. “I will deliver them,” she said.
    If the duke wanted these papers, he would have to earn them.
    *  *  *
    She climbed the stairs very quickly, switching the stack from arm to arm, for they still bore the heat of the iron, and burned right through her sleeves. “Your Grace,” she called as she entered his sitting room. “I have the newspapers you requested.”
    His voice came through the door. “Bring them.”
    The immediacy of his reply encouraged her. She took a strategic position behind the bulwark of the chiffonier. It was not quite high enough to protect her from missiles or bullets, but it would certainly interrupt a forward charge. “No,” she called, “I won’t.”
    It took only a moment for the door to swing open. He was improving. He was wearing a dressing robe, as a gentleman ought while reading the morning papers.
    He glared at her from the doorway, shaggy and radiantly blond. “Bring. Them. Here.”
    Alas, the robe, while a very fine species of embroidered maroon silk, could not outweigh the effect of his scruffiness—or the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot, as though barely channeling some violent impulse. How good to know that it was not she he wished to kill. She hoped he kept that in mind throughout the remainder of this encounter.
    She laid the papers atop the table. “Some very interesting news today, Your Grace. I see the mayor has authorized a new lighting scheme for—”
    “I will count to five,” he growled.
    “Shall you?” She pushed aside the topmost paper to canvass the other headlines. “How impressive—for a three-year-old, that is.”
    He made some strangled noise. She glanced up and found he had taken hold of the door frame. A signet ring gleamed on his pinky. Had he been wearing that ring