Clara's heart pounded. "Then let me leave."
"No." Arthur's eyes locked onto hers, dark and intense. "You possess a skill I desperately need. The nobility in this city look at me and see a scarred, uncultured brute. They speak in whispers and foreign tongues, thinking I am too ignorant to understand the traps they set. I need someone who can listen."
Clara stared at him. "You want a spy?"
"I want a translator," Arthur corrected softly. "One who can pour wine and remain completely invisible... until I need her to be seen."
Morning arrived in London, wrapped in a suffocating, damp fog that clung to the windowpanes of Ashbourne House like greasy wool. Clara's transition from an invisible scullery maid to the Duke's private asset didn't happen with a grand, theatrical announcement. Power in this house moved through quiet, brutal efficiency.
Mrs. Gable looked as though she had swallowed a mouthful of ash when Arthur ordered Clara relocated. The housekeeper stood in the center of the kitchen, her thin lips pressed into a bloodless line, watching Clara pack her meager belongings.
Clara was given a small, windowless room adjoining the Duke's ground-floor study. It was a narrow space, formerly used for storing winter linens, smelling faintly of lavender and old dust. To Clara, it felt like an undisputed kingdom. It had a heavy oak door that locked from the inside. It had a desk. She traced her fingers over the smooth, scratched wood of the desktop, feeling the phantom weight of her father's ledgers pressing down on her memory. She pushed the thought away. Survival left no room for ghosts.
By noon, her new reality began. Clara did not wear silk. Arthur was pragmatic, not sentimental. She remained in a servant's uniform, though the coarse gray wool was replaced by black bombazine, a fabric usually reserved for a lady's maid or a senior secretary. It was severe, practical, and blended seamlessly into the dark corners of Arthur's study.
He did not treat her with sudden reverence. When she entered the library, the Duke was already seated behind his massive desk, his cravat loose, a half-empty glass of dark ale near his elbow. The surface of the desk was buried under mountains of correspondence: letters sealed with crimson wax, heavy vellum scrolls, and cheaply printed naval manifests.
"Sit," Arthur commanded, not looking up from a ledger. He gestured vaguely to a hard-backed wooden chair opposite him.
Clara sat. She kept her spine rigidly straight, her hands folded in her lap. She watched him read.
In the harsh daylight cutting through the tall windows, Arthur looked entirely out of place among the velvet and polished mahogany of his own estate. His hands were too large, the knuckles thick and calloused. The jagged scar cutting through his eyebrow pulled downward when he frowned, giving him the permanent expression of a man anticipating violence. He was a second son, a cavalry officer who had inherited the dukedom only because his older brother died of a rotting lung, and his father followed shortly after from the shock. Society viewed him as an intruder holding a title that belonged to better men.
Arthur grabbed a stack of letters and slid them across the polished wood toward her.
"Spanish," he said, his voice a low gravel. "From the mercantile guilds in Cadiz. My current translator tells me they are agreeing to my shipping terms. I want to know if he is lying to keep me placated."