A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 19 - Nineteen

The dining room was aggressively bright.

Duke Rowan Hamilton sat at the head of the polished table, nursing a headache that felt like a blacksmith was hammering a horseshoe directly behind his left eye. He squinted at the silver coffee pot. Even the reflection on the sterling seemed loud.

He pulled his watch from his waistcoat.

Click. He opened it.

Twelve-thirty-one.

"She is late," Rowan muttered to the empty room. "One minute late. I can fire her for that. Breach of contract. Lateness. Insolence."

He felt a surge of triumph. He reached for his knife to poke his sausages.

The door opened.

Delaney Kingsley walked in. She did not tiptoe. She did not hesitate. She marched in with an efficient stride of someone with years of experience in the business. She wore the same gray dress, her hair pulled back so tightly it surely restricted blood flow to her brain. In one hand, she held her battered leather bag. In the other, a thick, threatening notebook.

"You are late," Rowan said without looking up. He sliced a sausage. "By sixty seconds."

"I was interrogating the footman about your coffee intake," Delaney replied breezily. She pulled out the chair to his immediate right—invading his personal space—and sat down.

"And you, Your Grace, are slouching. By a significant margin."

Rowan stiffened. He watched, fork hovering, as she set up her station.

She did not reach for a plate. She did not ask for tea. Instead, she laid out her weapons: The notebook. A bottle of ink. A quill with a very sharp point.

She opened the book to a fresh page, dipped the quill, and looked at him.

She didn’t say a word. She just stared. Her hazel eyes swept over his face, his cravat, his hand holding the fork.

DATA ON THE SHINY BOSS:

Subject A: Duke Rowan Hamilton.

Subject B: ???

Rowan lowered his fork. "What are you doing?"

"Data collection," Delaney said. She didn’t look up. She continued writing, her quill scratching the surface of the book.

"Stop that," Rowan snapped. "It is unnerving. You look like a tax collector assessing a particularly disappointing piece of furniture."

"If the furniture refuses to find a wife, one must assess why," Delaney countered. She pointed the feathered end of her quill at his plate. "Is that your breakfast?"

Rowan looked down. His plate was a masterpiece of comfort: three kidneys, four strips of crispy bacon, two fried eggs, and a slice of bread fried in drippings.

"It is food," Rowan said defensively. "Men eat food. Dukes eat food. It is fuel."

"It is grease," Delaney corrected. She wrote something down.

"Note: Subject A consumes heart stopping amounts of lard before evening. Likely cause of midday lethargy and inability to hold conversations with debutantes."

Rowan dropped his fork. It clattered loudly against the fine china.

"I do not have midday lethargy," he growled. "I am dynamic. I am energetic. I am very much healthy."

"You look like you want to crawl back into a coffin," Delaney deadpanned.

She reached out. Her hand, small but surprisingly strong, grabbed the edge of his plate.

Rowan’s eyes went wide. "What are you doing?"

"Saving your life," she said.

She slid the plate away from him.

Rowan lunged for it. "Give that back! I didn’t agree to you being here to save my life! That is my bacon! I commanded that bacon to be cooked!"

"And I am commanding it to leave," Delaney said. She pushed the plate toward the center of the table, well out of his reach. She reached for the silver fruit bowl. She selected a green apple—hard, shiny, and depressing.

She set it in front of him with a Thud.

"Eat this," she ordered.

Rowan looked at the apple as if it were a rock. "I am not a horse, Miss Kingsley. I do not eat raw fruit for breakfast. It is unnatural."

"It is crisp," she said. "The crunching will help wake you up. Or at least, the noise will drown out your complaining."

Rowan glared at her. "I am not complaining. I am issuing ducal decrees of dissatisfaction."

"Eat the apple," she said, her voice calm and terrifyingly authoritative.

Rowan picked up the apple. He held it like a weapon. He looked at her. She raised an eyebrow, daring him.

He took a bite.

CRUNCH.

It was loud. It was tart. It was... actually refreshing. But he would die before admitting it.

"Good boy," Delaney said.

Rowan choked. He coughed, thumping his chest as a piece of apple went down the wrong way.

"I beg your pardon?" he wheezed, his face turning pink. "I am not a retriever! You do not speak to a Peer of the Realm like he is a spaniel!"

"Then stop growling at things or people that displeases you," she replied simply. She dipped her quill again.

"Note: Subject A is temperamental when denied grease. Must ensure potential bribes are study. No delicate flowers."

Rowan wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, glaring at her over the white fabric.

"I am not temperamental," he insisted. "I am merely hungover. There is a difference."

"A hungover Duke is just a man with a headache and a title," Delaney said.

"Shoulders back."

Rowan blinked. "What?"

"Your posture," she said. She tapped her own clavicle. "You are curling inward. You look like a gargoyle protecting a cathedral. Sit up."

Rowan straightened his spine instinctively. "I have excellent posture. My nanny made me walk with books on my head for three years."

"Then she used the wrong books," Delaney said.

She stood up.

Rowan tensed as she walked around the back of his chair. He could feel the air shift. He smelled her soap—simple, clean and refreshing. No overshadowing perfumes like that of those debutantes. He felt the heat of her standing directly behind him.

"You carry the weight of the dukedom here, it’s too much for you to carry around," she said softly.

Her hands landed on his shoulders.

Rowan stopped breathing. Her touch was firm, professional, yet electric. Her thumbs pressed into the knots of tension at the base of his neck. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Roll them back," she instructed. "Breathe, Your Grace. The ceiling will not collapse if you relax for ten seconds."