Free Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) by Christi Caldwell

latter alternative would have been preferable?
    The butler drew to a slow halt at the end of the corridor and she froze, looking questioningly up at him. He eyed her with a somber expression and when he spoke, she strained to hear his whispered words. “Mrs. Benedict,” he said in hushed tones. “It is my fear once you...meet His Grace that you will turn and leave just as the previous governesses have.”
    She’d likely wish that, but desperation drove people to recklessness. She could no sooner leave this household than she could support herself without two coins on a cold winter’s day in London. The look Harris gave her indicated he expected some form of response. “I assure you, Harris, I am not weak-hearted and I do not frighten easily.” That was, at the very least, true. She was a woman who’d survived on her own since sixteen, with no skills to recommend her. And in a world where women either perished or sold their souls to survive, she’d not perished.
    He gave an approving nod. “I hope for Lady Flora that is the case.” Doubt reflected in his eyes. “For you see, he is...”
    She wanted to shout for him to conclude that sentence. “He is what?” she gently prodded, needing to know as much as she could to prepare her for the beast she’d call employer. The man she’d steal from to avenge the wrongs committed by his kin. And at last, she’d have that freedom she’d hungered for from the moment she’d been turned away from this very townhouse.
    Harris went stone-faced. “You shall see for yourself, Mrs. Benedict.” The cryptic edge to his tone raised the gooseflesh along her arms.
    The young butler motioned her forward and she silently followed. Her palms damp in dreaded anticipation of the meeting, she discreetly dusted them along the side of her skirts. Then, in the manner taught by her mama years and years earlier, she folded her hands demurely before her and prepared to face The Beast.
    Harris raised a hand to knock and froze; his fingers poised a hairsbreadth from the door. His pronounced Adam’s apple bobbed as he stared at the door. Unsettled nerves temporarily forgotten, she cast a glance up at the tall, slender servant. With his lips moving as if in silent prayer, he rapped once on the wood panel.
    An unexpected silence met his knock.
    Lily furrowed her brow. Perhaps the man was not here. She unclasped her hands and drummed the tips of her fingers together. If he was anything like George, he was even now out at his clubs, taking his pleasures where he would.
    The butler rapped again.
    “Bloody hell, Harrison, you have orders not to disturb me.”
    At that thunderous boom, Lily jumped. Heart pounding, she swung her gaze from the pale butler to the door and then once more to Harris. What manner of man was the new duke to yell at his servants so? This man who could not be bothered to know or use their correct names?
    The column of Harris’ throat moved with the force of his swallow. With the pallor of a man who’d downed a plate of spoiled oysters, he gave her an effortful grin that was more grimace than anything else. “I-it is Harris , Your Grace, and there is a visitor—”
    “I don’t give a bloody hell if it is the damn Queen of England for tea and biscuits. Do not darken my door.”
    She stared unblinking at that door. This was George’s brother? This foul-mouthed, mannerless brute? A more rational, sensible woman would be fearful of the beast that dwelled on the other side. The woman who’d given her virtue over to a shameless cad, who’d pledged marriage and then, instead, found herself a permanent position in an old man’s bed, however, was long past fearing a snarling, petulant duke.
    The muscles of his face contorting as though in physical pain, Harris looked at her. He held his palms up and gave a dismayed shake of his head. He tried once more with his employer. “I-it is about the g—”
    “If you say it is about the girl, I’ll have you hung by your