The Duke Bet £500 That a Scullery Maid Would Humiliate Herself at Dinner — Then She Entered in a Dead Duchess’s Gown, Faced the Laughing Guests, and Asked Him One Question That Made Him Wish He’d Never Placed the Bet.

 PART 9

Gideon stared at her, uncomprehending for a second. Then, slowly, he unbuttoned the old charcoal frock coat and let it fall over the cutting table, standing before her in white linen and dark waistcoat, leaner without the wool, more human.

Norah stepped into his space and looped the tape around the back of his neck, pulling it down over his chest.

“This coat was never right for you,” she murmured, her voice steady though her hands trembled a fraction. “I cut it fast, two years ago, for a man I didn’t know yet. It fits the body. It doesn’t fit the man.”

“What is the difference?” he asked quietly.

“Forty-two inches,” she said, sliding the tape across his chest, automatic. She moved around to his back, tracing the line of his shoulders, his spine, and the clinical distance she had always kept while working shattered completely.

Gideon stood perfectly still, letting her map him.

“I have nothing to offer you, Norah,” he said to the empty room. “Not really. You have your own money, your own power. My title is a ghost from a dying era.”

“I’ve seen that world. I know exactly what it’s worth.” She stepped back around to his front. “I don’t want a duke. I don’t want a manor full of bored sycophants. I don’t want the season.”

“Then what do you want?”

Norah let the measuring tape fall to the floor with a soft hiss. She raised her raw, calloused hands — the hands that had scrubbed his floors and built her empire — and pressed them flat against his chest, over his heart. It beat frantic and heavy against her palms.

“I want the man who let me burn his check and didn’t flinch,” she said, her eyes burning with absolute clarity. “I want the man who offered a scullery maid a partnership instead of a coin, and never once asked her to make herself smaller. I want a partner.”

Gideon closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a shuddering breath escaping him. When he opened them, the fear was gone. He wrapped his long fingers over her rough ones, pressing her hands harder against his chest.

“You have him,” he swore. “I am yours entirely.”

He kissed her. Not the polite, gentle kiss of the aristocracy — desperate, the collision of two people who had survived a war and finally found harbor. Norah kissed him back with the same fierce intensity she brought to everything, gripping his lapels, pulling him down, anchoring him to her reality. For the first time in her life she wasn’t fighting. She was letting someone in.

When they broke apart, the silence in the shop was peaceful.

Gideon rested his forehead against hers. “So,” he murmured, “does this mean I get a discount on the coat?”

Norah laughed, bright and unguarded, a sound he had never heard from her before. “Absolutely not. I charge a premium for difficult clients. Arms up, your grace. We aren’t finished with the sleeves.”

“You know I will never live at Oak Haven,” she said quietly, a moment later, as her fingers lingered against his collarbone.

“I know. I sold it last spring.” He caught her hand. “I’ve been keeping a townhouse on Half Moon Street. Two streets from here.”

Norah stilled. “Two years, and you never told me.”

“You never asked where I slept,” he said. “And I never wanted you to think I was putting a new leash on you. It’s mine — but I wanted to be within walking distance of the only light in my life.”

Norah’s throat tightened. She raised his hand and pressed her lips to his knuckles, the way she had only ever dreamed of doing.

“Then let me measure you properly,” she said. “Let me make you the coat you actually deserve.”