“Lucien would never allow it!” Eve gasped.
“It would be improper!” Leah shuddered.
“Although I suppose it might be fun…” Celeste ventured.
Emery gave them all a wicked smile. “Then I think it’s time you gave it a whirl.”
Chapter Six
“You’re all set then, milady,” her lady’s maid said, setting down the brush she’d been using to brush out Emery’s hair and smiling at her in the vanity mirror. Then she caught herself. “Your Grace!” she said, a little too loudly, and clapped a hand to her mouth, then giggled. “I forgot, mi--Your Grace. I wasn’t expecting you to become a duchess today!”
“Neither was I, Ruth,” Emery said, shaking her head. “What a turn of events.”
“But how exciting,” Ruth said, a faraway look in her eyes. “To unexpectedly become a duchess, and to such a handsome duke! It’s like something out of a fairytale.”
Emery made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. It was very hard to think about the Duke being handsome when the mere thought of him made her want to punch something. She raised a hand to her hair and touched a lock of it.
“What if we tied it up?” she asked. “I’d like to have curls tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Ruth said, curtsying. “With the move here, I don’t know where the rags are I usually use to tie up your hair, but let me run down to the kitchen and find some.”
“Thank you, Ruth.”
Ruth curtsied again and disappeared out the door, closing it behind her. Emery, meanwhile, stretched, and looked around her room.
The Duchess’s chambers had been readied in time for her, and she had to admit that they were magnificent: twice the size of her room back at Hillsborough House and decorated with plush pillows, rich velvet drapes, and baroque-style furnishings. If there was one upside to being the Duchess, this room was it.
She hadn’t seen her husband for the rest of the day. And after the way they’d left things in the carriage, she wasn’t expecting to. Although she was more than aware of what happened on the wedding night--she’d made Henry, blushing scarlet, tell her once--she found it unlikely that the Duke would want to consummate anything with her.
Not that I’d want him to anyway,she thought contemptuously. She was not about to let someone who had spoken to her so rudely into her marriage bed.
There was a knock on the door, and Emery looked up. Ruth was fast! She had just thought when the door swung open and, to her shock, the Duke of Dredford entered.
Their eyes met in the mirror, and then Emery pulled her dressing gown more tightly around her and jumped to her feet. Whirling around to face him, she stared at him, wanting to appear standoffish and unwelcoming, but not quite managing it.
Because Ruth was right: her husband was handsome. She hadn’t really noticed it before. He’d always just been Henry’s older brother. But now, seeing him in shirtsleeves, his jacket and waistcoat gone, and the soft, warm candle light glinting off of his skin and dark, rakish hair, she couldn’t deny that there was a certain appeal to the man.
If he didn’t have the most dreadful personality ever known to man,she reminded herself.
For a moment, she continued to stare at him, as his eyes also swept her up and down, taking in her silk night rail and dressing gown, her unbound hair, which fell to the small of her back, and her bare feet. Suddenly hyper-aware and shy about her level of undress, she crossed her arms in front of her. No man had ever seen her like this--Well, except for last night, when you literally fell into his bed!
“Duchess,” he said, and she was surprised by the gentleness in his voice. “You look very beautiful.”
While this compliment was probably supposed to soothe her, it had the opposite effect. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“Do I? That is not a word any gentleman has ever used to describe me before, and I do not need to be flattered by you now.”
The Duke raised an eyebrow and took a step toward her. For a moment he hesitated, then he raised his hand and touched a lock of her dark hair, which had fallen in front of her face. As he did, his expression softened even more.
“I’m not flattering you,” he said, dropping his hand and looking her directly in the eyes. “You are beautiful. Your hair in particular is… luminous. Especially in the candlelight.”
“Luminous?” She snorted and rolled her eyes as irritation, alongside a secondary, new-found feeling, fluttered strangely in her stomach. She felt her face heat--in anger, surely--and she took a protective step back. “It sounds as if you read that in a book of what to tell ladies about their looks.”
To her surprise, the Duke smiled. It wasn't a particularly warm smile but it was still a smile. “I’ll admit, I am not used to complimenting ladies. But you can rest assured that when I do, I am always sincere. I am not in the habit of passing out compliments that I do not mean.”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being pleased by his compliment, and she frowned at him and lifted her chin defiantly.
“What do you want?” she demanded. “And what are you doing here? You did not even come to dinner, and now you are here, in my bedchamber?”
