He had no clue why he was compelled to flatten himself against the wall and surreptitiously peep around the corner but he was bloody glad he did when he spotted Miss Maybury. Loitering outside his blasted bedchamber door, for goodness’ sake!
Worse, she was in her nightgown as she idly paced, her neck craning constantly to check that nobody was coming. It was a frothy, lacy, brazen garment, much like the woman herself. The V-shaped neckline and sheer sleeves showed far more of her flesh than he ever wanted to see. And although she was carrying a book and glass of milk as props that she would undoubtedly use to claim that she hadn’t been able to sleep and justhappened to be passing, he recognized an outfit of seduction when he saw one. Except, conversely, it killed his painful erection stone dead. Guy felt his cock wither in his breeches and then continue to shrink itself inside, almost as if it was hiding from her in protest.
Dread settled in his bones as Lottie’s warning rang in his ears. It appeared that she was right and Miss Maybury was going to attempt to compromise him if she managed to corner him. He knew that if just one person saw them together with her dressed like that, he would be in a very tricky situation indeed. Even if he dashed past and locked himself in his room, if she loitered for longer, then someone might think that she was just leaving it after a night of passion. Then he was done for.
Like his shriveled penis, the only sensible course of action now was to hide. He backed up on tiptoes, keeping his eyes on the hallway in case Miss Maybury heard him. As soon as he was well clear, he would seek out some help and then arrange for a footman posted outside his door every night for the rest of this awful house party because it seemed that he now needed around-the-clock protection. What the hell had his mother been thinking to invite fifteen desperate debutantes to stay?
A floorboard creaked beneath his boot and he froze.
“Hello?” Miss Maybury’s hushed question made him panic. “Is somebody there?” The scheming would-be seductress was heading his way and he almost ran for his life, but that was when Lottie’s bedchamber beckoned again for the second time in as many minutes—but for very different reasons.
Lottie would help him, she had said she would, so he grasped her doorknob and quickly slipped in. “Please don’t scream!” He hissed that into the dim candlelight and thankfully, she didn’t.
Because the bloody menace wasn’t there! Despite solemnly promising to protect him!
“Hello?” Miss Maybury was on the hunt. “Lord Wennington. Is that you?”
Guy pressed his back against Lottie’s door and held his breath as Miss Maybury wandered past, the shadows from her feet leaking beneaththe wood and dancing over his toes. He twisted so that he could listen, for the first time in his life fully understanding how silence could be deafening. The petrified hammer of his heartbeat the only sound he could hear.
He was too scared to risk opening the door, so remained as still as a statue and barely breathing for at least a minute while he waited in limbo.
Had the noise spooked Miss Maybury enough that she had abandoned her quest?
Or was she out there still, prowling the halls like a tiger stalking its prey and waiting to pounce?
The shadows danced over his toes again, returning from whence they had come, and because he just knew she wasn’t the sort to give up easily, he cracked the door in time to confirm that his worst nightmare had come true. The trail of her frothy robe disappeared back in the direction of his room, where clearly she intended to wait for the duration. But at least she hadn’t seen him and had no clue that he was here.
He blew out a relieved breath and sucked in a calming one. As soon as Lottie returned from wherever it was that the menace was at silly o’clock in the morning, he would enlist her help to get rid of Miss Maybury.
Until then, he would make himself comfortable.
He sank to the mattress and took in his surroundings. It didn’t take long because this was an annexed room intended for a servant to sleep in, albeit a servant of elevated status, so that they could be next door to their master or mistress if needed. It was also, to give his privileged family some credit, a nice room. The bed was comfortable, the plain linens and the upholsteries of good quality, and it had a small, matching wardrobe and dressing table. The big, open sash window overlooked the garden as well, which none of the guest rooms did, and the fragrance of the midnight dew whispered in on the cool night breeze. If he had been assigned this room at an inn, Guy would have been very pleased with it, but it irritated him now because this had been given to Lottie. His aunt’s companion or not, she deserved better. And bigger. It was barely large enough to swing a cat in and there was no way you could fit two people in that bed—unless they were snuggled together, of course.
He would gladly suffer that if he could snuggle up next to Lottie.
At the thought of her, Guy’s gaze began to focus on her things in the soft lamplight. Her brush tossed idly on the dressing table, surrounded by hairpins that seemed to have been scattered like confetti rather than placed in one of the jars or drawers made to hold such things. Her scent bottle remained open, the stopper right beside it. A shawl sat in a puddle on the end of the made, but not properly made, bed. A pair of breeches hung over the back of her chair, while the sleeves and skirts of several gowns poked out of the wardrobe door. It was, like the confounding woman herself, organized chaos. But oddly, when he was a stickler for everything in its place, he rather liked it.
That did not mean that he wasn’t going to tidy some of it up though, because what sort of person left their scent unstoppered when it could spill? He stood and wandered to her dressing table to do just that, sniffing it before he did so and smiling at the overtly feminine fragrance. So juxtaposed to the men’s breeches and riding boots that she wore so well but oddly fitting for a woman so unlike any he had ever encountered before.
He placed the closed bottle on the top corner of the dressing table, in the exact place where he put his own cologne on his, then set about gathering all the hairpins and putting them in the empty jar. A task that took him several minutes because over half of them had to be straightened because she had left them bent. He put her brush and the comb he had found under the dressing table side by side, then stood and pushed in the chair.
He had intended to leave his interference at that, but the neatened dressing table only made the discarded breeches still on the chair look untidy. So he folded them and went to put them away in her wardrobe, but the contents of the wardrobe exploded outward as soon as he opened the door. He would have stuffed it all back in as she had done but then everything would end up horribly creased, so he spent the next fifteen minutes folding everything properly. Then when even the sight of all her clothes finally neatly stacked still bothered him, he organized them according to purpose. It did not take that long because she hadn’t brought that much with her. Her few evening gowns were all grouped together and hung up. Next came her traveling dresses and pelisses. Then day gowns and finally,so that she could reach them easily, her two riding habits, blouses, and breeches were put at the other end so that he could stand her riding boots in the space beneath.
As he did not need the torture that would come from intimately knowing her underthings, he closed the door on that heap of trouble and set to work on the bed. He was in the midst of plumping one of her pillows when the door opened, scaring them both.
“Why are you in my room!”
“Thank God you’re back!” He gestured for her to close the door. “And where the blazes have you been till this time!”
She frowned, her face flushed. “Having Constance with cognac.”
“I’m sorry?”
She frowned some more and rubbed her forehead. “I’ve been in the library.” Her tongue seemed to have some difficulty with all theRs in the word “library.” “DrinkingcognacwithConstance.” She nodded, pleased that she had finally put those words in the right order.
“Till almost two in the morning! How much cognac did you drink?”
She reached for the mattress before she sat on it, looking delightfully befuddled as she blinked at him. “Enough to call your mother Constance but not quite enough for you to take advantage, so don’t get any ideas.” She pointed a swaying finger at him that dropped to his crotch. “The last idiot who tried to take advantage now sings like a soprano. And I broke my brother’s nose once with just one punch.”
