“Fetch a blanket,” he said quietly to the footman who had followed him to the room. “Then, close the curtains. We will leave them to sleep.”
When the footman returned, Nathaniel took the soft, thick cotton blanket and draped it carefully over the sleeping sisters.There would be no passion-filled wedding night for him tonight. Still, some things were better to wait for.
“Pull yourself together, man,” he muttered to himself as he returned to the game room.
CHAPTER 17
“Good gracious!” Cecily exclaimed, waking up with a jerk. “We must have been asleep in here all night! How can it be seven o’clock?”
The sun was creeping in around the heavy curtains in the yellow and gold-themed drawing room where she had found herself curled up on the sofa with Mary. She was still wearing her wedding dress, and her hair was more down than up, with several pins having fallen into the neckline and now needing to be retrieved.
“Hmmm?” Mary yawned, her eyes still heavy with sleep. “What’s that, Cecily? I dreamed that Uncle Preston tried to take me back and you pushed him into a hedge. It was ever so funny.”
“Why did no one wake us up?” Cecily fretted, sitting upright now and looking around the room. “Oh my! They must have eaten dinner without us and gone to bed.”
“Good,” Mary uttered. “I had no desire to sit down at the dinner table with Patrick anyway. I’m glad we missed it. I heard him telling Lilian that he was staying here and not going back to London, though I can’t see why, other than to sponge off his brother instead of making his own way.”
“But Mary, it was my wedding night!” Cecily protested, trying to work out what had happened and what it could mean. “Oh, why did no one come to find us?”
For better or worse, over the past few weeks she could have sworn that the Duke was eager—more than eager—to take her to his bed. Yet he had apparently not even cared about or noticed her absence.
“I think they did find us,” Mary pointed out, holding up a corner of the cotton blanket covering them. “Someone covered us and closed the curtains. I think that was jolly kind of them, whoever it was.”
Cecily could not help imagining the Duke’s hands draping the blanket over their sleeping forms, although it seemed unlikely to her that he would bother.
“It was probably Mrs. Barnes,” she told her sister, with a touch of gloom.
“Well, we ought to thank her,” Mary replied, giving up on sleep and rising from the sofa with more energy than Cecily. “Oh, I do feel well, Cecily. I am so glad that you married the Duke ofGreyhaven and we can be safe here forever and never have to bother about Uncle Preston and Grandmother ever aga?—”
“You should go and change your dress, Mary,” Cecily interrupted, feeling more uncertain than glad of her situation. “I shall go and see about breakfast, and find out where… the rest of the household are.”
Would the Duke be disappointed with her absence last night, or even angry? What if he had been waiting upstairs for hours?
But she did not even know where his suite was, if she wished to find him. Today might be a very difficult day at Greyhaven Park.
She walked slowly out of the drawing room while Mary skipped ahead, humming a tune. There was no sign of Lilian, but Cecily supposed that Mrs. Barnes had seen to everything last night, including getting the child to bed at a reasonable hour, a duty that would now presumably become hers. If Lilian were to stay there…
Why was the Duke’s daughter living at the dower house anyway? It seemed odd and unhealthy that she should be so far. Maybe it was because the Duke visited so rarely, as Lilian’s words and behavior showed, and because managing a smaller house was easier.
But if that was the case, why not close Greyhaven Park completely? Keeping both places open was a choice.
As Cecily stood musing in the hallway and debating whether to pull the bell for assistance in finding her way about, she heard raised voices from a landing above.
“Leave me alone! I told you I don’t want to see you ever again, Patrick!”
“I only bid you good morning! It is hardly an insult, and anyway, we are to live in the same house now, and there is no use in being angry all the time.”
“Why are you even here?”
“This is my brother’s house. I should be asking you that.”
“Well, now it is my sister’s house as well!”
“Mary!” Cecily called sharply. “Go and get changed.”
At that, the voices ceased, and two sets of footsteps went in different directions.
Cecily sighed. If Patrick really were planning to stay at Greyhaven Park for the foreseeable future, matters could become very complicated with Mary.
