Page 29 of The Duchess Curse

“Means what?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Let me know if anything unusual happens to you.”

Bran nodded, then found his wife, and then found a hackney. Instead of doing two, three, or four more things, she let him take her home to Mayfair. She watched him as they traveled through light and shadow, her cutting eyes never leaving his face. She had the kind of gaze that could terrify a man. But he’d always thought it worth dying for.

7

QUIETLY, CHASTELY

When Guin slipped into the bathing chamber late that night, she had the ashes of oak leaves burned into the lines of her skin, coal dust outlining her fingerprints, and pollen beneath her nails. The chamber was located between the duke’s and duchess’s sleeping chambers, a shared room that made her a little nervous, and she pulled the duke’s door closed, leaving the duchess’s door open. She used her own heat to warm the water and the sides of the large, copper tub and found her usual soap. Mint, a scent to sharpen her mind more than to relax her. She’d not been thinking clearly since finding Braxton and Apollo Chester passed out in the plant shop.

Stupid, stupid men.

Braxton had been pale, entirely immobile, and for one horrid moment, she’d thought him dead, another corpse to lay at her feet. Exactly why she’d left him to begin with.

If she wanted to save him this time, she’d have to find answers for the queen. Soon. Or proximity to Guin would kill him because… because she couldn’t help but smile when he said something wry, and she couldn’t help but feel lighter when she knew he was behind her.

It was the same way Bran had made her feel—safe and unburdened by anything but the intellectual. With him nearby, she could think again, and she had not thought that possible.

So very dangerous, that.

She sank deeper into the water, glad she’d only lit a few candles on the sconces on the wall. Their light flickered in the gilt-frame mirror set between them, sparking slender tendrils of light across the room. Reflected light, multiplied and magnified—exactly what she needed for the queen.

Something that would allow her to spark light in a dark room. Crushed mirror shards? Crystals with reflective capabilities?

A sound outside the bathing chamber, on the duke’s side made her lift her head from the oil-slick tub’s edge.

“Susan?” Guin called. “Have you brought me a towel?” Braxton had provided a lady’s maid somehow almost as soon as she’d arrived.

“Not Susan.”

The voice, deep and gruff, made her shiver, made her heart thump once heavily against her ribs. It had almost sounded like…

She dunked herself under the water, shook her head, held her breath. Perhaps the lack of oxygen might force her brain to work correctly. But she couldn’t stay in the sound-muted world forever. She breached the water with a gasp for air and pushed her hair back from her face.

“Braxton?”

“Yes.”

Of course it was. Bran was dead. She kept seeing and hearing him because she missed him. He’d always been the shadow in the corner, the blade protecting her back, the slight grin to share a laugh with. And Braxton had stepped into Bran’s boots, protecting her with a single-mindedness that made her feel safe.

She wiped tendrils of water off her face. “Could you… could you bring me a⁠—”

The duke’s door opened, and a linen towel appeared in the frame, attached to the duke’s hand. He stood on the other side of the wall, just out of view, so very close while she was so very wet. And naked.

“I found Susan in the hallway,” he said, “and I told her she could be done for the night.”

“I suppose that is fine.” She could towel off her body and brush her hair and dry it before the fire.

“If you need something, I can be your lady’s maid.”

He could towel off her body, brush her hair, and dry it before the fire.

The bathwater warmed around her, her skin turning pink with the heat. She reached for the towel, her nakedness suddenly unbearable. “I cannot reach it.”

His back appeared in the doorway, big and impossibly broad beneath a naked neck and an unruly mop of dark hair.

She gasped, blinked.