The Dowager Duchess's silken slipper patted against the smooth marbled floor of the ballroom with the distinct ring of annoyance. The sound was intermittently broken up with her mildly exasperated sigh as the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed out the hours.

Verushka hunched her shoulders, tired of standing around in an empty room with nothing to look at but a grand piano in the corner and the scowl on her employers face.

The Duchess rapped the edge of her lace fan against the curvature of her maid's spine. "Don't slouch," she reprimanded. "It is unbecoming of a lady."

"Well, it's a good thing I am not a lady then." Ver gave her usually ready answer and then realised by the single raised eyebrow of the Dowager Duchess that such a comeback would no longer stick.

"Remember that you are both the daughter and the sister of a Duke." The Duchess cleared her throat as she walked along the bright room filling with afternoon sun as the train of her dress collected no dust while it swished along the gleaming stone. Verushka marvelled at the skill of the upstairs servants, she could practically see her face reflected in the floor! It was at times such as these when she still found the ground exciting, that she most doubted the truth of her heritage.

"I still don't exactly understand what you want me to do here." The maid shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other in loaned dancing slippers with small satin bows.

The Duchess ran an aged hand over the shiny black surface of the piano forte that was also free from dust and ignored her student's sigh. "Lessons in comportment, conversation and the basic subjects are all important in bringing you into society but, it is your movement that would first be noticed."

Ver's ears pricked up under her bonnet, "Bringing me into society? You mean as your lady's maid, right, Your Grace?"

The Duchess gave a brief nod of agreement, although it was a motion so slight that she could have simply been inspecting her own shoes. Whatever it was, Verushka didn't trust it. "And, you would have me be ready in two weeks for the Wyvernstone Annual Summer Ball?"

"Yes, for now that should suffice," she conceded. "That is if my son ever decides to make an appearance."

They both stared at the open door that remained vacant.

Verushka swirled the toe of her pretty shoe in patterns over the flow of marble and started to hum quietly to pass the time. The excitement of her lesson had worn thin about an hour ago when she had begun waiting for a Duke who was too busy squandering his money and his youth to consider a promise he had made to her and his mother. She gritted her teeth and her hum turned into a soft growl. She was reminded of the sound of Mina's often empty stomach and thought with longing of the apple pie she knew Madam Shiela would have now finished baking.

The Duchess had tried to fill the time with assessing Verushka's skill on the piano but it did not take a super sleuth to determine that she had none. Nor was her singing remotely adequate but the older woman seemed to think that at least her voice bore some merit. Frail fingers slid over the ivories once more to sound the first notes of a song they had been practicing when both females turned their heads to the footsteps growing louder in the hallway.

The Duke of Bexley appeared in the long awaited doorway with a grin and a cravat that appeared crumpled from sleep. "Ah, my two favourite ladies. I hope I didn't keep you long?"

His mother pursed her lips in disapproval. "Just long enough to irritate your mother."

Cain strode forth with easy charm, "I am terribly sorry mother. I was detained on urgent business."

The Duchess did not give an inch as he kissed her cheek in greeting. "You don't look sorry. In fact you look just fine, and you smell like. . . " she paused frowning. "Jasmine."

"And apples," Verushka's eyes narrowed catching the familiar scent of an orchard dusted in icing sugar. If she could have breathed fire she would have. The inconsiderate lout was eating her apple pie instead of teaching her to dance! If she was Mina, just the first indiscretion would have been enough to warrant death by spatula, or whisk if Liara had anything to do with it.

Cain cringed at the sight of two rather unimpressed women whose anger was aimed in his direction. "Now, now, I am sorry. Really I am." He allowed contrition to fill his tone. "Please, I would like nothing better than to help our young maid here to learn to dance. Mother, I am sure that you are very busy. Isn't the Riverstone ball tonight? Perhaps you would like to go and prepare for that?" He moved to Verushka's side taking her waist in the first position for the waltz. "We won't keep you."

Ver's heart jumped up into her throat as the Duchess rolled her eyes in an un-ladylike manner. "My dearest son, I would not trust you alone with a nun, let alone a maid in my household." She took a seat at the instrument and began the first strains of a minuet. "Let me see how she moves and then you can begin teaching her the steps. As much as I would like to while away my day in an empty ballroom I unfortunately have other things to do as soon as we are done here. But have no fear, I will send in Sarah to play for you both until I return."

Cain knew when to keep silent and held out his palm to Verushka with a quiet smile. When she gave him her hand he placed it a top his shoulder and relished in the warmth of her heat seeping through the finely stitched material. Ever conscious of his mother a few feet away he kept the appropriate amount of distance between their bodies and curtly advised, "Just follow me."

Verushka's movements were rigid and unpractised, and resulted in more than his toes trodden on. It was hard to concentrate when so much was expected of her and so many things were foreign to her senses. The Duchess's approval was still to be gained, the expansive surroundings of gold confused her and the maddening smell of apples and jasmine teased at her nostrils until she tripped. Cain caught her against his chest and the firm strength of his body beneath his layered coat surprised her. She had felt the touch of his lips before and even seen him bare as the day he was born but it was quite another matter to touch sculpted muscle that she knew to be gold dusted in the fragile morning light. Her fingertips could make out the hardened grooves defining the planes of his torso like cement poured between the bricks of the pantry alcove. With questing palms she had to admit that the heat he emanated was also not unlike her blessed bread oven. She raised her eyes to meet his and realised the music had stopped.

Cain stared into her now self-conscious grey eyes with carefully reigned passion. He steeled himself against the desire to dip his head low and seize her lips with his. Instead, he called upon years of training and righted her position, once again resting her palm on his shoulder and waited for the music to resume without giving their pianist the satisfaction of a glance. When he had sufficiently placed enough distance between his partner and the corner of the room where their audience resided he whispered against the slope of Verushka's ear. "Forget about the music or the anticipation of the next step. Follow me, I would not lead you astray."

Verushka felt the warmth of his breath waft against her neck like a summer breeze. He wanted her to follow? She would follow him anywhere. Well, perhaps not, but in the moment she could hardly be expected to think clearly.

"1...2...3" Cain counted out loud but so only his partner could hear, completely disregarding the ordered steps of the minuet. On the third count he spun her in a circle with an arm about her waist. Verushka leaned back into the movement before he collected her once more to the standard position. "1...2...3," again he counted and again she spun. Over and over the pattern repeated until Ver began to feel safe in the motions and even the music seemed to swell and fall with each twirl until she could only feel herself being turned like the hands of the clock she had watched, waiting for Cain to arrive. She arched her back and clung to the starched linen of his coat as their bodies rushed through the air when a laugh bubbled up from her throat. She giggled with child-like joy as they came to a stop and she met his playful grin with her own. Somehow he had managed to make her forget where they were as she swirled like an untethered kite.

The cover of the piano shut harshly and Verushka gaze sharply returned to the Duchess as she walked towards them. Verushka's pulse, still recovering from her dance, began racing once more while she tried to gauge the disapproval she assumed would be evident in the woman's eyes. Instead, she found a soft compassion glinting behind laughter. "Yes," was all the Dowager Duchess said, "you will do nicely." Then she sailed out of the ballroom on a perfumed cloud leaving her son and maid very much alone.

Cain turned to Verushka with a cheeky smile, "Well, that was odd." He brushed a ringlet of blonde hair that framed her face and she felt her breath quicken once more. Verushka took a step backwards to a safe distance where the air did not seem so heavy with promise.

"Are you calling your mother, 'odd'?" She accused playfully.

"Most definitely," he assured her.

"That's uncharitable," she scolded him half-heartedly as she fumbled for the latch of a window to throw open the paned glass and drink deeply of the fresh, cool air.

"I think you mistake me, I highly prize oddity. My dearest mother is the best woman I know and I should consider myself fortunate indeed to be compared to her ilk," he clarified without a trace of insincerity. "I find all the best people to be... odd. I mean, what is the use in being run of the mill normal?"

Cain mirrored Verushka and flung open a few more windows before sitting on the thin ledge framed by the sunlight like a warrior angel poised and perfect in the golden glow. Verushka had to catch her breath at the image before her and was glad of the soft breeze cooling her flushed skin.

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

"What?!" Verushka gasped sharply.

Cain smiled with gentle assurance, "I was quoting Shakespeare- he was also thought to be odd but his greatness was only bound by our understanding of it. Was it not he who also said- "A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool?"

"I...I don't know." Verushka stuttered. She had obviously heard of Shakespeare but not had the advantage of reading his works. She mentally made a note to source some of his plays from the Duchess's library.

Cain sighed, straightening as he rose from the warmth of the windows light and reflected on the role he played to perfection. As a wealthy 'dandy' among the ton he was well accepted and admired but no one would accuse him of brilliance in his lifetime. "Well, I would rather be thought a fool... an odd fool, a hundred times over than consent to be 'normal.' He finished with his trademark grin beamed in her direction but Verushka could now see through the guise. Something lay hovering beneath the surface of the calm, level waters of the Duke of Bexley and every moment she spent with him she became more intrigued at what lay in the depths.

Cain pushed thoughts of the Agents, Victoria and the pressing weight of the plot to undermine all from his mind. He was simply Cain, alone with a beautiful, witty maid who brought sunshine and laughter into a life that had somehow become dark and convoluted, lost between lies and liaisons. He strolled to the piano and threw his morning coat over length of the instrument, glad to be rid of the cumbersome cloth and wishing he had had the time to change into something more suitable for dancing.

Verushka watched the Duke walk towards her again with trepidation. His toned torso strained the lines of his less than crisp white shirt and she cast her eyes down in the hope of avoiding his penetrating green-eyed gaze. Unfortunately she was met with the sight of his muscled thighs in tan breeches that seemed sculpted to his form and she was forced to once again to look at her own reflection in the polished floor.

She felt her small hand being enfolded in his before he settled it on his shoulder and took her waist firmly, closing the distance between their bodies.

"I believe we should start with the waltz." The husky tenor of his voice rubbed along her spine like a ribbon of velvet she had once touched.

"I... I don't think it can be proper for us to stand so close," she argued while trying to maintain her composure. "What would happen if a gentleman should ask me to dance and I were to stand in such a manner with him?"

Cain frowned deeply. "Well, since these lessons are just to help with your natural movement and are not designed for you to actually dance I don't think we will run into that problem."

Verushka wasn't buying it. "And why is it okay with you, your Grace?"

Cain began moving to phantom music, "Are we back to formalities? I hardly think that that is necessary, especially between friends."

Friends with a Duke? Verushka found it an odd notion, but she surmised that since it was already established that she was a daughter and a sister of one, perhaps a friend of another was not so very strange. She merely gave him a non-committal 'hmm' and allowed him to continue explaining the steps of the Viennese Waltz.

He moved with easy grace flowing from one step to the next, circling the ballroom as if floating on the fresh breeze flowing in from the open windows. In contrast, she took each step with measured thought and consideration, plotting her course from one end to the other. He tried to distract her from her thoughts with the firm pressure of his fingertips dancing at the curve of her waist or the whisper of candid thoughts in her ear. More often than not he succeeded and her foot would catch his and they would stumble together in a tangle of hilarity and both would laugh with the full-bodied, rich tones of joy.

Cain loved watching his maid's eyes twinkle with delight in the afternoon light. A few more ringlets escaped her bonnet and brushed the corner of her full cheeks with each dip and turn. She brought something more meaningful to the movement of hands and limbs than just practiced art. In his arms he could watch her features at leisure, from the creasing frown of her forehead as she tried to master steps just learnt, to the brilliance of her bubbling laughter at each acknowledged mistake. It was such a rare gift to laugh at oneself, particularly among women of the ton and his maid did so without artifice or pains. For all her hesitation and apprehension, when toe to toe twirling through their precious minutes alone, her heart was open and trusting, and for a man who had lived his life in constant secrecy, such traits were priceless gifts.

Verushka scowled up at her employer, "Why are you smiling at me, your Grace?"

"Wouldn't any man smile in my position?" Cain beamed down at her with perfect charm.

"Sometimes I think you only say what you think others wish to hear," she commented ignoring his flattery.

"Is that so wrong?" Cain found himself holding his breath for her answer.

She seemed to give it some thought before replying, "No...." She chewed at her lower lip deep in thought. "Only as long as you don't lose yourself in others expectations."

Verushka sighed a little as the truth of her own advice rebounded on her. Too often she had let others dictate her own passage through life and in the recent months it was a path that was becoming more difficult to walk. There always seemed to be the pressure of being first the well behaved child, then the perfect maid or compassionate friend, and even in the unspoken silence the expectations of those around her weighed heavily on her actions. She was beginning to think that it was time to test the waters of her own fate and throw off the mantel of duty.

Unconsciously her feet followed his as her mind drifted to more tangible topics than a lover's temptation in a waltz. "Cain..." she began slowly. "Don't forget who you are for who others want you to be." Even saying the words felt traitorous to her throat but she wanted to share the small truth that she had recently learnt for herself.

Cain's breath hitched and their silent dance halted as the winds somehow changed and they stared into each other's eyes passed the mere colour of iris's to greet the soul. "And, you think you know the real me?"

"No," she answered honestly. "But something tells me that there is more to the Duke of Bexley than meets the eye...there has to be."

"Is it as simple as that?" he whispered in the wisp of air between them.

Verushka shook her head softly, "I don't think that anything about you is as simple as you pretend to be."

"Why?" It was as if a dam had broken somewhere and hisquestion rushed over her with fierce longing. "Why does there have to be more than the man that you see? This man that others have praised and adored," he scoffed with derision. "Others have branded me as the dim-witted dandy, the debonair duke or simply a common rake. So tell me truly Verushka, what do you think of me?" Cain gripped the back of her neck with a shade too much savagery for it to be called tender.

In the space between two heart beats Cain changed before her eyes with a ferocity that burned. The duke did not so much peel back his persona like layers of an onion but ripped them, tattered and torn as unwanted clothes until the man she had only glimpsed was now standing at the drawbridge and asking her to pay the toll.

A thrill sent licks of fiery flames racing along the surface of Verushka's skin, burning as they travelled. Her calm smile absorbed the taut muscled lines of his frame as she spoke an answer to soothe his soul and remind him of his own words of wisdom, "I think you are... odd."

She felt the tension flow out of his body and his eyelids fell over long lashes. When he raised his eyes again to hers all traces of the serious complexities of life had been chased from them.

Cain had once again slipped away from her and the dandy duke was all that remained. Verushka wished that she knew the words to bring him back, but she stayed silent and waited for his next move.

He bent low over her hand and placed a searing kiss that burned with unspoken truths and she could only wonder at what actually kindled in his heart. With practiced movements he grasped her waist once more and led her into the graceful glide of the waltz, twirling her effortlessly around the ballroom.

It wasn't long before one of the Dowager Duchess's maids came scuttling in to take a seat at the piano and fill the room with the Beethoven's Triple Concerto op.56. It was a clear signal to move away from the lavish, expressive tone of the waltz to the more structured manoeuvres of the minuet again. But she could not take away the depth of the moments they shared as easily as the movements.

Cain counted the minutes through the measured steps of each turn until he could finally escape the rigid confines of the hall. His breath came slowly through silent lips, excruciatingly controlled by burning lungs. Years of playing the dandy and now his conscience weighed heavily on his shoulders, suffocating him with duty and obligation. He wanted to know this girl, and for her to know him. He wanted to share his days and his nights with at least one person who spoke to his soul, who did not treat him as the vacuous entertainer he pretended to be. Somehow Verushka had glimpsed his true image and now it pained him to show her anything else, yet she was the one maid in his whole household that was most protected from him. Even he knew that he could not claim a maid already marked for his mother's service.

The Duke of Bexley gritted his teeth to keep from screaming in his own home. He could not fathom the countless years that Veronique had served her Queen without a hint to England of her brilliance. Still waters ran deep, and none more so than the onslaught of the tide in his heart. The life he had chosen was a blessed one- he frequented parties with careless charm and dared the knife's thrilling edge, but in the dark's cool embrace it was a lonely existence. Solace could be found for a night, but never for forever. It was odd that such a temptation should present itself in his household with the purest of girls with kind eyes and simple dreams. Odder still that those silver discs that continued to stare at him for the last hour reflected his own secret desires.

Cain waltzed in the warmth of her scent, enfolded by her familiar musk sweetened like orchids pressed between the pages of books. He inhaled deeply of her fragrant body as the music coiled about them with a python's asphyxiating hold, growing tighter until every breath was agony. When nimble fingers finally ceased their command of the instrument he relinquished his maid with obvious relief. Stepping away from her buttery soft skin he bowed, "It has been a pleasure Verushka. I hope that I have imparted some small wisdom regarding the art of dance."

Ver regarded him as curiously as she had done for at least a quarter hour, "It has been very.... interesting."

Cain gave her a brief nod and hastened across the ballroom as if it was on fire and she was the spark. Verushka watched him go and although she felt more accomplished in the movements that were expected of the gentry, her mind now reeled with questions concerning her enigmatic employer. He was like a novel with secret pages, a choose-your-own-adventure and she feared that she had somehow stumbled down a path that held more anonymity than answers.

Verushka curtsied to the Duchess's maid and scurried back to the pantry, stopping only to filch a quick book from her friend and wondered the whole while what actually happened between her and the duke. It was simple enough to analyse the words and the pattern in which they flowed but there was a lot happening beneath the surface that twisted her stomach into knots like that time Mina convinced her to eat far too many pies. She learnt that night that just because she could do something, didn't mean that she should. Perhaps the same premise worked for her employer, just because she could withstand the emotional chaos that she experienced around the duke, did not necessarily mean that she should encourage him. She felt giddy when she was with him, like bubbles hovering at the top of an illicit champagne flute. It was not an unpleasant feeling, more a sense of existing on the lilt of a laugh. An unbidden smile crept onto her parted lips as she pushed open the solid kitchen door.

The kitchen was unusually empty with only Liara scrubbing the floors in earnest while swearing with particularly artful profanity. Verushka edged closer cautiously, unwilling to startle the bull. "Umm, Li are you okay?"

Liara's head snapped up with curly black tendrils flying across her face and snorted in frustration as her eyes narrowed. "You! YOU!!"

Ver shifted uncomfortably, "Yes, it's me."

"Do you have any idea what I have spent my day doing?!" She spat questioningly then continued without waiting for answers. "No, no you don't because you haven't been here! First you leave then Mina disappears and who gets stuck with all the work? Me! Do I look built for manual labour?"

"Umm, Liara, you're a maid." Verushka hedged carefully.

Liara flung a soapy scrubbing brush at her friends head. "I KNOW that!" She crossed her legs and sat in a puddle on the floor. "But, that may not always be the case."

Ver crouched next to Liara sympathetically while trying not to get her petticoat wet. "What do you m- oh, you mean the actress thing."

Liara gnawed at her lower lip and reluctantly began, "It's not just that..."

Ver raised an eyebrow. "Tell me everything."

Two steaming mugs of tea and a tray of butter biscuits later Verushka finally picked up her lower jaw from the floor. "So you are going to do it?" She asked already knowing the answer.

Liara played with the crumbs on the edge of her plate, piling them into tiny mounds. "Yeah... I think I am."

"So when are you going to tell Mina that you are planning to become a courtesan?" Verushka grimaced even saying it. A true courtesan was considered a thing of beauty, often draped in the most dazzling of diamonds but at the end of the day she was impure, in a world where chastity was considered a far more priceless jewel.

"I don't know... I just don't think that she would approve." Liara hesitated.

"Do you need her approval?"

Liara twisted her lips in thought. "No, I suppose not. But I don't want her to think ill of me. It is an amazing opportunity to get out of these kitchens, learn about art and culture and politics and even see the world."

Ver nodded slowly but Liara could see the concern in her doubting eyes.

"What is it, Ver?"

"Nothing!" Verushka assured her friend a little too emphatically for it to be acknowledged as real.

Liara raised a single brow and waited.

Verushka nervously split the slender rod of an oven flint into fine fragments. "It's...well, those are all really good things, really good.... but have you thought about what you have to endure to get them. I mean, I've seen those doxy's by the river doing unspeakable things for a shillin'. I don't want you to end up that way, Li."

Liara rested her chin on the cap of the tall water pitcher and sighed. "Veronique says that it is only poverty which makes a courtesan contemptable."

Verushka could see that she had made up her mind and resolved to be supportive despite more than a few reservations. "Well, then I suppose that both of us are destined to leave the pantry."

Liara raised her eyes to meet Ver's, "You are going above stairs with the Dowager Duchess?"

"Yes," Verushka decided to lay her cards on the table and hope for Vingt-et-Un. "I think it is also more than that."

Liara got up from her seat without a word, brushed the crumbs from her apron and put the kettle on the stove once more. When she returned she placed two more steaming mugs on the wooden table with a thunk and announced, "Tell me everything."

Verushka took a long look at the tea before her and then smiled, "I'm going to need some more biscuits with my tea."

Liara rolled her eyes and started mixing batter again while Ver began her story.

An hour later Liara's portion of freshly made biscuits lay uneaten as she stared into her friends grey eyes as if she could see her entire heritage in the cloudy shade. "So, let me get this straight- you are the Duke of Wyvenstone's sister?"

"Yes." Ver confirmed for the hundredth time.

"Jay's sister... the guy who has been snogging Mina?" Liara drew closer to her with unblinking eyes.

"Umm, yes." Ver nodded again. "Well, that's what the Dowager Duchess says."

Liara sat back with exasperation, "Well isn't that just typical! I get welcomed into a whorehouse and you get your own bloomin' castle."

"No! It's not like that." Ver quickly dismissed the notion of a life that involved carriages and maids of her own. "She just wants me to be her maid, and actually you know what's more shocking about all this? It's that you seem more preoccupied with my supposed family than the Duchess's desire for me to run a secret intelligence agency."

"Oh please," Liara scoffed as she shoved a buttery cookie into her mouth. "That woman has spy written all over her. Her involvement is the least surprising part in your tale. But you can bet your bonnet that she doesn't just want you for a maid and a spy manager."

"Like that's not enough?!"Verushka gasped open mouthed and crumbs sprayed from her mouth across the table.

Liara sighed exasperated and scrunched up her face filled with disgust as she wiped her friend's spittle from her arms. "Don't be daft, Ver. She is grooming you to replace her and if you think that the best spies are hidden in the shadows then you have another think coming! Just take a look at our lovely Duchess. That broad couldn't be more firmly ensconced in society if she tried."

Ver gulped her now stale tea with anxious hands clasping at the earthen mug. "So what, you think she wants to introduce me to society? Jay's mother would never allow it! As it is, she barely tolerates his presence and if word should leak out that he is illegitimate then who knows what would happen. I certainly wouldn't want to hurt my brother-."

Verushka stopped mid-rant and sat very still.

"What?" Liara exclaimed with a biscuit halfway to her lips and then looked behind her to see if something was there. "What's wrong V?"

Verushka remained quiet for a moment before answering, "I just...I...that's the first time I called him my brother." She smiled slowly to herself until it turned into a beaming grin. "I have a brother, Liara."

Her friend frowned. "I know.... you just told me."

"No." She shook her head with an incredulous tilt to her lips. "I have family. I have someone who is part of me. I have a sibling.... And that is more meaningful than being the daughter of a duke or the protégé of a duchess."

Liara smiled at her friend knowingly. She and Mina had mostly grown up together but Ver came along a little later into their lives and for some inexplicable reason never fell quite in step. As much as they formed their own family of sorts beneath the Bexley stairs all the girls knew that Verushka longed for a real family of her own... and now she had one.

The danger of reality clawed at Liara's throat, "You can't tell him, Ver. You mustn't."

The light faded a little from Verushka's eyes. "I know, but it's just nice to know that he is out there....for now."

Liara nodded. "For now."

A familiar scraping at the pantry door drew their attention away from sombre topics. The noise came in a cyclical pattern of two short strokes followed by a long one and then a pause signalling that the stablehands had once again come to the kitchens in search of Verushka. "Another one of your adoring fans." Liara rolled her eyes before calling out, "Come on in guys!" She scoffed down as many biscuits as she could before the boys came stumbling in while Verushka harvested the best ones to the side saving hers to share with them.

Wesley, the Bexley stablehand trotted swiftly through the door making a bee line for the baked goods on the table, only to be followed by Chris's swagger leaving Ben to bumble in on his own.

"Hey there pretty lady." Ben blubbered through hiccups. " 'Ow you doin'?"

Verushka smothered a laugh, "I'm fine Ben. Nice to see you."

"Is it only nice to see him?" Chris leaned against the table across from Verushka with a sly suggestive grin.

Ver heard Liara choke none-too-discreetly on a biscuit. "Of course not Chris," she answered honestly. "It's nice to see you again. What are you guys doing this side of the property line? I thought there was a ball at the Riverstone manor tonight, I assumed that you would be helping them out."

"Nah," Ben coughed out between bites of food. "We'd rather be 'ere wit you. Right, Wes?"

Wesley nodded distractedly as he edged toward the pantry.

"Take one more step in that direction Wes, and let's just see what happens." Liara voice cracked like a whip as she stood between him and the door with a whisk aimed at his throat.

Wes, knowing the girls the best, looked genuinely scared. Ben, on the other hand, hopped excitedly from one foot to the other steeped in the idiocy of inebriation, "What's gonna happen??"

Chris raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Go on Wes, what's she really going to do with a whisk?"

Liara saw a glimmer of hope flicker in Wes's eyes and she released a low, threatened growl from a place deep in her throat reserved only for food thieves. Verushka winced and waited for the inevitable chaos that followed Liara and her whisk.

Li trailed the thin edge of the beater against her opponent's neck. "I like you Wesley, so I'm going to give you some advice. Don't do it. Whatever you are thinking inside that head swimming in booze, just stop, unless you prefer not to be able to take a dump for a week. I hear that lodging a whisk up that passage is difficult but I'm willing to try."

Wes looked like a needed to avail himself right that minute and backed up to the door with a curt nod. "Ah, I'm just gonna wait outside guys. Thanks for the biscuits, Li."

Verushka had never seen the boy vanish so fast, but Liara and Mina tended to have that effect on men around her. Ver turned back to Chris as Liara pottered around tidying up the kitchen.

"So, if you aren't going to Riverstones then what are you up tonight" She asked cheerfully offering Ben more of her cookies.

Chris leaned across the baking pan and twirled a lock of her hair around his index finger with a teasing smile. "I said we weren't working, I never said we weren't going there."

Ver raised both eyebrows questioningly.

Ben dusted off crumbs from his hands, leaving the rest to surround his beautifully vacant face before yelling, "Parrrrrrty time!!!"

"Party time?" Ver frowned and gently tried to ease her hair out of her friend's grasp.

Chris caught her slender hand in his own burly paw and stroked her palm. "You didn't think they were going to finish all the food and wine? The Riverstone cellar is full to overflowing and a bunch of us are going to make sure all that good stuff doesn't go to waste. Wanna come?"

Ver's eyes darted between her friends. A duke's daughter definitely shouldn't be going out drinkin' with the boys... but then again she wasn't really a legitimate child. The Duchess also wouldn't be pleased, but if Liara was right then she was hiding things from her as well. Ver looked over at Liara frowning severely in her direction and her insides twisted as if stirred up by a whisk. Frankly she was tired of pleasing everyone. The maids all hated her for carousing with the stablehands, the Duchess didn't approve of the servant boys and Cain would almost certainly hate Chris but Ver found that she no longer cared. It seemed that her life was very quickly spinning out of control and if nights like this were dwindling then she would be foolish to let it slip through her fingers. "I'm coming!" She announced with defiant glee.

"Fantastic." Chris crooned in her ear.

Liara gave an exasperated sigh which was probably accompanied by another roll of her eyes but Verushka couldn't see her to be sure.

"You're not invited." Chris threw the words over his shoulder at the other maid as he bustled his quarry out.

"Oh no!" Liara cried out as if mortally wounded. "If only I gave a shi-."

The heavy kitchen door shut and Verushka was left striding in the moonlight toward a wickedly good time.

****

"That filthy disgusting, can't-keep-his-hands-to-himself, good for nothing scoundrel! URGH!" Verushka cursed with staccato annoyance as she plodded back to the Bexley fields beating the dirt away from her uniform. The light of dawn was still a few hours away and the empty darkness was only filled with the intermittent scowls and swearing of a very angry maid.

"ARGH!" Verushka wrenched her way through the hedge with more frustration than the bush warranted and stomped angrily up to the kitchens. "Such a sweet, kind nice guy I thought he was. 'Come sit by me,' Chris says." Ver imitated her assailant. "'Let's go for a walk,' he offers then bam all along with his paw inching up my skirt. Arrr!! What a giant, huge ...ASS!" She screamed. "Can't keep his slithering, slimy hands to himself. Can't understand what 'no' is. Can't simply tell a girl the truth. AAAAARRRRRHHHHH!!!!" She jumped around on a vine that had dared to tangle her foot. "And, I believed him!" Verushka yelled at no one in particular and continued jumping on the flattened plant.

"Meow."

The small black kitten from the previous night rubbed up against her ankles and stared up with wide black eyes.

"Meow."

Verushka's anger drained out of her as she picked up the little ball of fluff, letting him nuzzle into her neck. "Aww, Shadow I should have trusted you. That nasty Chris couldn't stand to be within five feet of you and if that is not a sign then I don't know what is."

Shadow blinked once and purred congenially.

"Would you like some milk, little bubba? Would ya? Smoochie smoochie smoo." Verushka happily relinquished all thoughts of her spectacularly awful last hurrah with the boys and tottered off to find her kitten a snack.

Everything looked a little less full once she reached the pantry and since she knew that the Bexleys were expected to dine at the Riverstones that only left one culprit to diminish the stocks- Mina. Despite the slight dip in supplies she managed to rustle up a slice of day old salmon with a saucer of cool milk for Shadow and a few chips of chocolate to scatter over her own biscuits with tea. Everything seemed better with chocolate in it, she surmised. Verushka then settled herself behind the bread oven with its lingering traces of heat and collected her hoard of food around her. She dipped her hand back between sacks of barley to fish out her recently acquired copy of 'Twelfth Night' by William Shakespeare and set about to reading between bites of food. At some point Shadow's stomach was replete and he pounced into her lap and nestled amongst the folds of her apron to sleep while she fought against the heaviness of her own lids to persist with the excitement of devouring a new book.

When Verushka's eyes fluttered open she thought that it was in response to the soft stream of dawn filtering through the upper windows of the pantry heating up her favourite spot. But, it was still far too early in the day for heat, and too late for the bread oven to be fired up. In fact, she was also uncommonly comfortable for someone who fell asleep while reading in the kitchen. Ver opened her eyes more fully, blinking rapidly against the light as she felt around for Shadow. Instead of soft ruffled fur she groped a much firmer pillow, with a chest she once likened to the bread oven he was now leaning against.

"Morning, sleepy head," Cain grinned

Verushka jolted upright. Somehow she had slid down and fell asleep on top of the duke who was comfortable reclining in the pantry with formal evening attire and one arm casually draped around her waist while reading Twelfth Night in his other hand. He looked perfectly poured into his charcoal coat and tails with high starched collar that contrasted his emerald eyes with cool grace. He smiled mischievously flashing dimples with careless charm. No man deserved to look so beautiful.

"What are you doing 'ere??!" She exclaimed slipping into hopeless cockney.

"What are you doing here?" He countered cheekily.

"I work here!"

"I really don't expect my staff to sleep where they work," Cain replied incredulously. "Or, to wear their uniform when they sleep... which is probably why yours is in rags." He eyed the recent tears in her uniform with interest.

Verushka scowled. "This was not my fault!"

The Duke became very still, "And, whose fault was it?"

She scrunched her face up disgustedly, "Well, It was Chris if I'm honest. He's one of the Bletchley servants but I think he is here over the summer."

"And why should Christopher wish to accost a Bexley maid," Cain continued his unusually calm demeanour.

"Perhaps because he is an idiot with delusions of his own irresistibility to woman." Verushka huffed, still too mad to see any benefit to concealment. To her surprise, Cain seemed to listen with only a silent disinterest so she continued angrily, "But, don't you worry. He got what was coming to him. That little maggot ball won't be able to walk straight for a week."

The Duke met her eyes with a strange intensity but remained silent.

"Well, aren't you talkative today," Ver grumbled. Was it too much to ask that he was a little jealous?

"Oh, I'm sorry." Cain's charm flickered once again to life. "What can I do to entertain your highness today?"

Verushka ignored his sarcasm and volleyed her own question, "You can answer me! What are you doing here?"

Cain chuckled and tightened his arm around her, "I live here."

Verushka became startlingly more aware of her predicament and pushed at his chest trying to stand up but found her progress was hindered by a contented kitten purring sleepily on her feet. She was torn between wanting to retreat and not waking her new pet. In the end, concern for Shadow won out and she stayed put but tried to shift her weight from the dangerously handsome duke to a sack full of flour.

"You don't live in the kitchens either!" She hissed. "And how on earth did I not notice you stealing my book again?!" Even Verushka had to admit that she could hear the hysteria build in her voice but she was powerless to stop it.

Cain lay the open book on his chest as he reclined with arms behind his head, almost inviting her take it, but there was no way she was going near that sculpted mind-trap again. "I escaped the Riverstone party about an hour ago and came here in search of food... and found you pleasantly snoring inside the pages of this book. Took my advice, did you?"

"Advice on what?" Her brow furrowed.

"Shakespeare," Cain reminded her with eyes that roved across her sleep softened face and mad, unwashed hair with pleasure.

Verushka felt as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and thought that rather unfair considering the feeling should statistically be Mina's for life. "Umm, well yes if you must know. But, you aren't going to steal this book as well, are you?" She eyed him cautiously.

Cain smirked, "As it happens, no. Although, I noticed that you haven't been jumping down my throat to get your other book back. Why is that I wonder?"

Ver gulped noticeably remembering that she wasn't actually supposed to know that Mina had stolen it. "Umm... I mean, of course I want it back but this morning you said that you couldn't find it."

"And by your usual standards I would have assumed that meant 'death by hanging,' and yet you don't seem terribly worried." Cain watched his maid curiously.

Her eyes frantically darted around the pantry as if searching for something, probably the ability to lie if she could find it within these walls, he concluded. She had the most open, honest face he had ever seen and he chuckled to himself thinking that she would make the worst spy in history.

"I...ah... I, of course I'm worried. I'm sick with worry! I just don't want to give you the satisfaction of seeing me distressed." Verushka poked him in the chest unconvincingly, then recoiled in horror at what she had done.

Shadow simply yawned at all the commotion and rolled over with legs splayed in the air and toppled off of his owner's slim ankles. Verushka used the brief reprieve to scuttle as far away from the duke as possible and still remain within the pantry. When she had reached her own little corner she glanced back at Cain who was watching her with a mix of curiosity and mirth.

"You could simply grab another copy from my mother's library," he offered at length.

Ver sighed, "No. I tried that already but she doesn't have another copy."

"Well, I could always tell you what happened." Cain suggested causing Verushka to growl like he had committed a cardinal sin.

"No, thank you!"

"Fine." Cain acquiesced and politely went back to paging through her book. He waited the space of five long breaths before speaking again. "I didn't mean that I would just tell you though." He left the thought hanging in the air between them.

It was like an unfinished story and Verushka hated those with a passion. "What did you mean then?" She eventually barked out.

He looked up from his book with that beautiful Grecian profile and smiled. "I actually finished that little book and I happen to have an excellent memory. If you like I can practically recite that book word for word if you want to know the end."

"Ha! There is no way you can remember everything." Verushka laughed disbelieving. That 'little' book as he called it was at least six hundred pages long.

Cain cocked an eyebrow, "Try me."

Ver rolled her eyes in a time honoured trait of adolescent annoyance and began a line that she vaguely remembered and thought very fitting. "'I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I-.'"

"'-or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.'" Cain finished Jane's chastisement of Mr Rochester with a challenging gaze.

Veruska's mouth dropped open.

Cain made a show of continuing to leaf through the Shakespearean play at leisure. "Of course, if you wish to wait to acquire the book again, you can."

Verushka closed her mouth and tried to calculate the benefits of waiting until Mina came back from wherever she was. Of course seeing Mina would mean that she had to talk to her and talking to Mina would result in having to tell her about the Duchess and Jacob and the secret intelligence agency. All those things her friend would eventually come to know but Verushka wanted it to stay a secret for just a little longer until she wrapped her own mind around it before Mina arrived with her barrage of well-meaning questions.

She sat on the cold floor trying to decide while Cain valiantly attempted to refrain from smirking until she huffed with defeat. "Fine, go ahead."

She knew that her employer was not as magnanimous as he seemed and he would obviously desire some recompense but the idea of the end of a book practically a few feet from her seemed too tantalising a temptation. She sat straight eagerly waiting for the novel to begin and was met with the duke's satisfied expression.

"You didn't say please." Cain remarked slowly, toying with the words like string.

Verushka groaned inwardly. So it begins.

After she told Cain where she was last up to in the tale and worried very little about the reasons a duke might have for sitting alone in the pantry with his maid, the story began in earnest. Verushka started innocently enough sitting cross-legged on the opposite wall but, by the time the heroine was scampering through the moors at the stories twist she was inching across the stone floor with aghast features, and if she assessed her own body by the time Jane Eyre announced in the wee morning hours 'Reader, I married him,' she would have noticed herself nestled against her employers side gripping the arm of his finest dinner shirt. Cain however, noticed everything.

Cain felt Verushka's now familiar warmth suffuse through his skin, travelling across his chest and into his bones. He had waited the whole of the interminable ball to return to his maid and now the small pantry was filled with her rich, musky scent. Ever since he was a child he had displayed an uncanny gift for remembering the written word with just the barest of glimpses and it had served him well over the years. Cain smiled as he stopped just a few paragraphs short of the ending and gazed into his maid's enraptured eyes. Tonight he had found a new benefit to his gift.

"Why did you stop?" Verushka asked with an expectant whisper, unwilling to break the magic the sound of his voice had woven about the room.

Cain gently brushed a thumb over her full lower lip and then caressed hers with his own as softly as morning light. Dazed by both literature and lips, Verushka stared back uncomprehendingly.

"Dawn approaches. The kitchen staff will be back soon and it would be... unwise for me to remain here." He extracted himself from her embrace reluctantly.

Verushka's eyes widened as she grasped for him again, "It's not that late. Surely you can finish the story, I mean, there can't be much more to go."

Cain shook his head apologetically, "Sorry, love. I have to go." There was no need for her to know they were but half a page from the end. He was glad she hadn't read 'Arabian Nights' because if things went according to plan, he had obviously taken a page out of Scheherazade's book and begun a never-ending literary addiction.

He had almost gained the door when Verushka called out to him while still huddled on the floor. "Maybe.... Maybe you could tell me the rest tomorrow night."

Cain smiled with particularly devilish satisfaction before he looked back over his shoulder at Verushka, wide-eyed and waiting and answered. "As you wish."

Author's Note: Sooo thoughts??? I know it was a long chapter but I hope you enjoyed watching Cain and Verushka's relationship deepen.

And remember, if you liked it - put a ring on it... and by a ring, I mean vote. ;)