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His senses had begun to quiver even before he’d crossed the threshold to the bedchamber and were now in utter disarray as he scented Miss Templeton’s arousal, heard her breathy moans and the water slapping up against the sides of the tub. He leaned his forehead against the door, tempted to take himself in hand—better he do that than succumb to a Change, as his wolf fought him for primacy. His bones began to creak and crack with the impulse to cede to his wolfskin, and he growled. An agitated splash of water answered him—had Miss Templeton heard? As she settled once more to her task, he controlled his breathing as best he could, but he soon began to breathe in tandem with her as she pleasured herself. Her moans escalated, surely she was nearingle petit mort, and fur exploded along his neck; he snarled at his wolf louder than was prudent—
“Hello?” came a muffled query.
He snarled again, helpless to keep his wild nature in check. The sound of water surging as she rose from her bath was too much for him. He backed away, imagining her naked form, water sluicing down over the delectable curves—the stems of the flowers broke in his grasp, and petals rained down onto the carpet as he charged out of the room.
* * *
“Hello?” Blast! She’d been so close to her climax, but she’d sworn she heard a sound like an animal would make, a growl, at the door. Were there dogs let run about the house? It was no lapdog that made that noise; it was throaty and feral and deep.
Drying herself quickly, she wrapped herself in the duke’s dressing gown and went out into the bedchamber. Miss O’Mara stood on the threshold, surrounded by crushed and broken flowers.
“Miss O’Mara?” Felicity gestured at the blooms at the woman’s feet. “Is this some strange custom observed in these parts?”
She reckoned that the composed woman was rarely caught on the hop; she looked nonplussed now. “I will have Mary Mossett clean this up directly, Your Grace.”
“I am not Your Grace!” Felicity channeled her frustrated bath play into this explosion. “I demand to see the duke.” She strode over to the chamberlain, whom she saw was well more than a hair over her own great height, and O’Mara was leggy with it. Which was easy to ascertain due to the trousers. “He has not shown himself, and it is well past the noon hour. If this is ruination, Miss O’Mara, I’d as soon have stayed at home.”
O’Mara took one of her mollifying breaths, as she had in the coach, and Felicity cut her off with a look. She wasn’t sure what they were in aid of, but she didn’t like them. O’Mara bowed her head and asked, “May I set these down for you?” She held up the writing materials Felicity had requested. The chamberlain turned in the doorway and gestured toward the sitting room. “Will this escritoire do? There is more than one in this suite, and I would be pleased to exchange this for another.”
Felicity, feeling like she was being herded by a sheep dog, preceded O’Mara over to a desk that was no escritoire: it was the size of a dining table. “I cannot imagine that you would move this on your own.”
“I would do my level best, Your—Miss Templeton. As all here are eager to do, in whatever fashion you require.”
Felicity sat at the desk. “All but His Grace,” she muttered. She pushed a pen around on the blotter—even the blotter was of the finest paper, paper she would have hoarded for special use.
O’Mara touched her chin to her shoulder. “Your Gr—Miss. I overstep even as I say this, but His Grace is…he has many…there are things…”
“Is a busy man, with many other responsibilities and there are things I don’t understand? What I don’t understand,MissO’Mara, is what this farce is in aid of. Based on the appearance of these rooms alone, my meager legacy from my grandmother cannot be required. If the household is wanting for a woman’s touch, mine is not so practiced that I would contribute anything of note. His Grace does not lack in personal appeal and could marry the Queen of Sheba did he so desire. There is no need for me at all.”
O’Mara exposed her neck again and dipped into an abbreviated bow. “May I respectfully exhort you to patience? In the general run of things in high society, the whole of the day would go by before you would see His Grace.”
“Were we married which we are not.”
“Not yet, madam,” the chamberlain muttered.
“I do believe my consent is required under such circumstances.”
“It is, if you choose to consent to preserve your reputation. We are dealing with theton, madam, after all. Under these circumstances, you and he would wed before the full turn of the moon.”
“Even the worst rake in thebeau mondewould not hold me here against my will.”And what matter the moon made, she was sure she did not know.
O’Mara winced but soldiered on. “I beg that you bide a while until he—until he adapts to the novelty of this situation? I have served the dukedom for several years, and you are the first—he has never—”
“Surely you jest.” The duke had never—ever?
“Notthat, Your Gr—he is of course a healthy male in his prime. What I mean to say is, he has never courted anyone, and it is true that his technique leaves much to be desired.”
“Such as his presence. And what I assume was a floral tribute.” Felicity rose and went to yet another window, blushing to think he may have heard her in the bath. Was it he who chased the animal away from the door? “Not that I have agreed to be courted.”
“There is nothing you can do about it,” O’Mara said. “Buthowyou do nothing will make all the difference.”
“What a conundrum, Miss O’Mara.” And another conundrum: underneath her high dudgeon and righteous anger thrummed the paradoxical worry she would have to stay at Lowell Hall and that she would have to go. Distracted as she might be by impressive bedding and bathing chambers and determined to rebel against their charms, the realistic part of her knew what the laws of society were. A ruined miss must wed the ruining man. Would this prevent the terms of the will coming good if scandal was attached to her name? Would the duke at least let her keep her mother’s horses? She could flee to Templeton House, if it wasn’t far away. From her new vantage point, she could see the distant stream more clearly. “Is that by any chance Edenbrook?” Felicity asked.
“Yes,” O’Mara confirmed. “But it is five miles to Edenbridge from here.”
Drat. That was two hours’ hard ride, if one was escaping, and she would never ask that of a horse she didn’t know. “One wonders if, by some strange chance,” Felicity mused, lightly sarcastic, “the duke’s lands march with mine. If his holdings are so vast as all that.”
“They are vast,” O’Mara replied. “But any other queries must be put to him.”
