Mrs. Dunore rose. "You shall not go alone."
"Of course not," Adeline replied. "Your concern for propriety overwhelms me."
By noon, she was in the Tarnwick carriage with Mrs. Dunore's old companion, Mrs. Vale, in the opposite corner. The chaperone had been sent to protect the family's name. Adeline suspected she had been sent to report every breath.
Tarnwick Hall rose from the low hills like a fortress that had never learned to smile: dark stone, narrow windows, ironbound doors. There were no frivolous urns, no painted shepherdesses, no bright borders pretending the world was kinder than it was.
Percival received her in the library with the steward seated near the far window and the doors left open. That detail reached her before his greeting did. He had understood the risk to her reputation. He had arranged the room so no one could pretend not to see.
"Miss Dunore," he said, bypassing every useless flourish. "There are 40 pages of foreign agenda attached to the canal charter. I need them verified against the English summary before the magistrates assemble tomorrow evening."
Adeline did not sit. He had not asked her to.
"Languages are not cavalry horses, your grace. They cannot be ridden bloody because you are in haste."
For the first time, something disturbed the severe line of his mouth. Not a smile, the ghost of one quickly buried.
"Then set your own pace," he said, and drew out the chair opposite him. "But do not stop."
They worked for 3 hours without ornament. Adeline translated, Tarnwick wrote. He did not interrupt. He did not tell her what a clause ought to mean. When she corrected a mistaken English rendering of a Latin phrase, he crossed it out at once and asked for the proper one. That was more dangerous than praise. Praise expected gratitude. Trust expected only accuracy.
By late afternoon, the light had thinned. The library's tall windows gave more shadow than sun, and the lines on the page blurred until the Portuguese seemed to swim beneath the ink.
Adeline leaned closer despite herself. She had spoiled her eyes in girlhood, copying her father's notes beside cheap candles after everyone else had gone to bed.
Percival stood abruptly. She stiffened, ready for the reprimand—too slow, too delicate, too female to be of use when haste mattered.
Instead, he crossed to the side table, struck a taper, and lit a heavy silver candelabra. He carried it back and set it near her left elbow, close enough to ease the page, far enough not to crowd her hand.
He said nothing. He simply sat and picked up his pen again.
Adeline stared at the steadier light. No one had ever altered a room for her comfort. She was used to folding herself into whatever space remained. She bent over the page before the tightness in her throat could betray her.
"Where did you learn to read seven tongues with the ease of a diplomat?" Percival asked.
Adeline kept her eyes on the ink. "My late father was a scholar of comparative grammar. He believed daughters could hold more than embroidery silk in their heads."
"A dangerous belief in Lancashire."
"In any county where men fear being corrected."
The steward's pen scratched once and stopped. Percival's gaze rested on her face. "You make enemies with remarkable economy, Miss Dunore."
"I was economical before it was fashionable, your grace."
This time he did almost smile. The warmth of it, brief as a candle flame, unsettled her more than his coldness.
For two days Tarnwick Hall became a world of paper, ink, and carefully guarded doors. Mrs. Vale slept through most of it. The steward copied clean pages. By the second afternoon, the servants placed the inkstand nearer Adeline's right hand without being asked.
They found errors in French, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Latin, Spanish, and Italian. Some were clumsy, some were deliberate. The clumsy ones stank of ignorance. The deliberate ones bore the edge of a practiced thief.
"All the more," Percival said when she showed him a Spanish clause that changed payment into possession.
Adeline heard the name like a door closing. "You are certain?" he asked.
"I am seldom certain. It is an expensive habit." She tapped the paper. "Pero here, yes. The English summary says the investors may inspect the accounts. The Spanish says they may seize them after one delayed shipment. That is not translation. It is a trap wearing good gloves."
His eyes sharpened. "You have seen this kind of phrasing before."
Adeline's hand paused. The velvet prayer book lay beside her notes. Its worn cover looked harmless, almost meek. That was why it had survived so long.
"My father made exercises for me," she said. "Model sentences in several tongues, commercial phrases, legal phrases, courtly phrases. After his death, Lord Aldemore borrowed some papers. He said his father wished to preserve them and did not return them."
"No." Percival's jaw set.
She looked at that anger and knew it was not for her alone. It had deeper roots. Before she could ask, the library doors opened.
Edward Aldemore walked in as if the room owed him welcome. Percival's steward followed with a face full of apology.
"Your grace," Edward said, bowing with a polish that had once deceived Adeline. "Forgive the intrusion. I came out of concern for Miss Dunore. Society is beginning to talk."
His gaze slid over the papers, then over Adeline. "A spinster spending whole days in a duke's library may feel flattered. Others may think she exaggerates her little accomplishments to trap a desperate man's notice, having failed to trap mine."
The insult was arranged with care. It made her sound hungry. It made her work sound like bait. It put the old rejection in the center of the room and waited for her to bleed.
Percival rose slowly. The air changed. The war duke surfaced—cold, controlled, lethal. Without raising his voice, Adeline saw the muscles in his jaw tighten. She saw him prepare to cut Edward down so thoroughly no man in the county would mistake the remains.
Then he stopped. His gaze moved to her hands. They were white against the desk, but they did not tremble.
He understood.
If he answered for her, Edward would win the shape of the accusation: Poor Miss Dunore rescued by the powerful man she had ensnared.
Percival stepped back. He remained standing. He gave her the floor.