“I will not appear feather-brained. I mean to keep my commitment.”
He tried to lift his head and failed. He waved a hand instead.
“Go to bed, Henry.”
She had not used his Christian name before. His eyes sought out hers but were barely able to hold hers steady.
“I am in bed.”
“Your bed. Through the door. Where you sleep.”
“I shall sleep here.”
“You shall not.”
“I have been alone for a long time, Duchess, and have been lonely longer.” He swung his legs up onto the mattress, slowly, fighting gravity the whole way. He lay down on the far side of the bed. He pulled the edge of the blanket over himself, lay on his back, and folded his hands across his bare chest.
“There,” he said, with a soft sigh.
“Get out of my bed.”
She pushed at his shoulder. He was warm and heavy and did not move. She pushed harder, bracing her hands against him. He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her with his eyes half closed.
“Violet.” The word was soft and blurred. “You smell lovely. What is that? Lavender?”
“Get out.”
But he was already gone. His breathing deepened. His chest rose and fell beneath his folded hands, and then the first snore came out of him.
She pushed at him once more, and she might as well have pushed at the bedframe. He was fifteen stone of unconsciousduke, and he was not going to be moved by a woman who weighed eight and a half in her chemise.
The snoring grew louder. It came from deep in his chest and rattled through his sinuses on the way out. She could feel it through the mattress.
She sat for a moment with her hands still pressed against his shoulder and her breath coming short. The candle on the table guttered. The fire had gone to ash.
She withdrew her hands and gathered the pillow from beneath his head. She yanked on it hard. He did not stir. She took it as far from him as the mahogany frame allowed. She pulled what remained of the blanket around herself and drew her knees up and turned her back to him.
The snoring continued, rising and falling in a rhythm. She pressed the pillow over her ear. It did not help.
She thought of her mother steering her father up the stairs at Thornwick while laughter came through the floorboards, those early days when they were happier.
Violet lay curled in the dark and listened to the duke breathing.
Chapter eight
The Orchid
Henry
The house was dark and still. He held the candle ahead of him and tried her sitting room first. The door was ajar. The room was empty, the fire dead, the chairs untouched.
He tried the shared parlour on the floor below. Empty. The morning room. Empty. He moved through the house with the candle throwing his shadow long against the walls, opening doors onto cold rooms, and with each empty room the thought grew louder. She had left. She had taken the satchel and walked out into the night the way she had walked into Thornwick’s drawing room. Alone, with her back straight and her mind made up. After what he had said. After what she had said. She had decided she had had enough of him, and she had gone.
He took the stairs two at a time down the entrance hall. The night porter was slumped in his chair by the front door, asleep. Henry shook the man’s shoulder.
“Have you seen the duchess tonight?”
The porter blinked awake, saw the duke in his dressing gown holding a candle, and scrambled to his feet. “No, Your Grace. No one has come or gone since you arrived home, Your Grace.”
