Page 30 of The Duchess Curse

And then he was different—shorter, slender frame, golden hair curling just above the glamour of a perfect collar.

“What?” he barked. “Goddamn it, what’s wrong, Guin? I can’t turn around or you’ll scratch my eyes out.” He shoved the towel at her.

She snatched it. “N-nothing is wrong. Everything just fine. My eyes are… tired. You may leave.”

He paused so long, she feared he would not, but then one lumbering step forward took him back into the dark.

She stepped from the tub, dried her skin, twisted the water out of her hair.

“Have dinner with me?” he asked from his room.

His sudden request didn’t startle her. Somehow, she’d known he was still there, felt the imposing electricity of him even when she could not see him. “I do not wish to dress again, and you’ve sent my maid away.” As if she couldn’t dress herself these days.

“Not a formal dinner. In my room. You may dress in your shift and wrapper if you like.”

“While you’re dressed for a ball.”

“It’s not real. Beneath I’ll be as undressed as you are.”

She paused in rubbing the linen across her abdomen. “You truly cannot banish the glamour?” For a moment, she’d thought she’d seen it drop, seen the real man beneath the magic.

“Sit down to dinner with me, and I’ll tell you.”

“Irritating duke.”

“Impossible duchess.”

She smiled. Then she killed her smile because it might kill him. “I should not.”

“You’re hungry.”

“How do you know?”

“Your last meal was this morning, before we left for the plant shop.”

“How do you… I suppose you know everything.” She spread her towel over the back of a nearby chair, then coiled her hair into a simple coiffure atop her head, securing it with a many-toothed comb. Then she lifted her shift and wrapper from a hook on the wall and donned them. Stepping out of the bathing chamber, she said, “I suppose I am hungry.”

He was nothing but a dim outline sitting on the edge of his bed. At Apollo’s shop, a loud thud had brought her and Sybil running. Apollo falling, presumably. Whatever magic he’d done had knocked them both out. Too big. Too much.

Yes, she would like to see the duke in the firelight for a little bit, to reassure her frantic mind he was still alive. She’d not killed him. Yet.

The outline on the bed shifted, stood, and moved across the room toward the fireplace. The shadow bunched toward the floor, then a fire flared to life and limned his standing body in light.

A table was situated close by, laden with various dishes, a bottle of wine.

Braxton’s body was still only dim and vague. He must have gathered shadows round himself because he seemed larger than he was, but then he… he released them, and he shrank, was himself again. His glamoured self.

He pulled out a chair, and she sat in it, then he situated himself across the table from her. The firelight smoldered orange across his glowing skin.

“Your glamour,” she said as he poured them both a cup of wine. “You cannot dissolve it?”

He handed her a goblet and settled into the back of his chair with his own. “I cannot.”

“Has it always been that way?”

He shook his head, rolling the goblet between his palms. “It is a recent development. That is what Apollo was helping me with.”

“Ah.” She sipped from her cup. “How? A potion? You could have come to me for⁠—”