“Pardon me,” he said when he caught her staring, and his hands quickly dropped to his sides. “I must have forgotten to ask the innkeeper to show you to your room.”
“My room?”
“Yes, it’s through here.” He went to a door on the other side of the room and turned the key in the lock then swung it open to reveal another, smaller room next door, connected to his. “It’snot my first time staying here,” he said, laughing at the look on her face. “I’ve sent for your maid, and she will come and dress you for dinner. Then I’m going to bathe before we go down.”
Rosalie stepped into her room. The Duke closed the door behind her, but a minute later, Clara opened it again and came in.
“Shall we dress you for dinner, Your Grace?” she asked.
“I suppose so,” Rosalie said. Clara dressed her quickly then left again by the same door. Unlike the Duke, the maid didn’t seem to think it necessary to latch the door behind her, and Rosalie heard her murmurGood eveningto the Duke through the crack in the door. Rosalie had just thought to get up and close the door when it began to open again, probably from a cross breeze or a draft from Clara’s movements.
Rosalie got up at once to close the door. The door was only open a sliver, but she could still see through it into the Duke’s room, and he deserved his privacy.
However, just as her hand touched the doorknob, there was a knock on the door of the other room, and she saw a servant enter with a bucket of hot water. He began to fill the bathing tub then the Duke crossed in front of her line of vision, and she froze.
He was in his shirtsleeves with his cravat, waistcoat, and jacket all removed. She had never before seen him in such a state of undress, and she couldn’t help but notice how wide his shoulders were and how strong the muscles in his back looked as the thin white fabric clung to them.
A strange feeling was coursing through her, rooting her to the spot. She had never seen a man wearing so little clothing before, and she was in shock. Her head spun, her body had gone cold, and she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. She was afraid to close the door now in case he looked up and saw her; she didn’t want him to think she was spying.
His large hands came to the buttons of his shirt, and he began to undo them. She was holding her breath, she realized, her body stiff.What are you doing?a voice in her head yelled,and she felt as if she was woken from her stupor.Stop letting your romantic novels influence you, and close the door!
But before she could move, the Duke shrugged off the shirt, and she nearly gasped.
The Duke’s back was as muscular and strong as the thin white fabric of his shirt promised it would be, but that’s not why she almost gasped: it was the sight of dozens of long, white scars crisscrossing his back.
He must have been beaten to within an inch of his life!
Nausea rose up inside of her at the sight, followed quickly by dizziness. She thought she might faint. The scars looked healed, at least, so whatever had been done to him had happened long ago, but they were still horrendous to witness. She could only imagine the pain…
She must have let out a small, stifled sob because the Duke suddenly whirled around and stared right through the gap in the door into her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered at once. “I didn’t mean to—” He took a step forward, and she stopped speaking at once. His face had become a rigid mask, his eyes dark and clouded with anger.
This is the Beast of Carramere, and he’s caught me spying! He’s going to scream at me!
But he didn’t scream at her. Instead, he strode across the room—his chest bare and impossibly muscular which she noticed even in her petrified state—and closed the door between them with a snap.
Rosalie let out her breath. She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it.
“What happened to him?” she whispered out loud to the room. “And more importantly,whodid that to him?”
He had lived a hard life, she knew. He’d been in the Army, and after that, he had worked with the Scotland Yard to help capture dangerous criminals. There was no saying when he might have received the beating that had scarred him so dramatically.
Maybe he was captured by the French or held for ransom by a South London gang.
There were many possibilities. All Rosalie knew for certain was that whoever had made those scars had been trying to break the Duke.
It didn’t exactly soften her heart to him, but it did make her wonder if there was more to him than she had previously thought.
Was it possible he didn’t start out beast?she wondered.Perhaps he made himself into the Beast of Carramere in order to protect himself?
Of course, this only raised more questions than it answered, but it did make Rosalie curious to know more about the man she’d married.
“You’re not eating,” Nathan said, frowning at Rosalie from across the table as she nibbled on her steak-and-kidney pie.
Rosalie looked up. She had a distracted look on her face, and she blinked at him for several moments before seeming to realize what he’d said.
“Oh, I’m not very hungry,” she said, shrugging as she took another small bite of the pie. “Traveling always takes away my appetite.”
