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Chapter 8
Vatsyayana says that the man should begin to win her over, and to create confidence in her, but should abstain at first from carnal pleasures. Women being of a tender nature, want tender beginnings.
The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
Alice followed the duke and the hulking manservant with the pockmarked cheeks and kind blue eyes, whom Hatherly had called Berthold, down a long, cavernous entrance hall, through heavy wood-paneled doors, and up a flight of stairs.
Hatherly walked beside her, a huge, looming presence carrying her small valise.
The Mad Duke didn’t seem too terribly mad. He had a courtly manner and a bewildered air. Every now and then he glanced up as if he heard voices calling from afar.
He had thick white hair that was probably meant to be tamed into submission but stuck up every which way, and his nose was very grand, and made grander by the frailty and thinness of his frame.
Kali yowled when Alice accidentally jostled the wicker basket against the stair railing. “Hush my sweet,” Alice whispered. “We’re nearly there.”
“Is that a cat I hear, my dear?” The duke called over his shoulder.
“Yes. And she doesn’t like being cooped up in baskets.”
The duke stumbled at the top of the stairs, and Hatherly passed Alice and threw an arm around the duke’s shoulders, propping him up against his broad chest to help him walk.
“Go with Berthold now,” Hatherly said gently, giving his father’s shoulders a squeeze.
Berthold and the duke disappeared down a branching corridor.
The short footman who had been so rude to Alice and her parents earlier popped his head out of a nearby doorway. “She won’t be staying long, will she?” he asked Hatherly, wrinkling his snub nose. “I don’t trust the look of her, or that furry rodent in the basket. If she’d only mind her own business, our world could go on as before.”
“I don’t think your footman likes me very much,” Alice whispered to Hatherly.
“Go on with you,” Hatherly said to his servant. “Go about your duties.”
The servant made a disgusted noise and slammed the door.
“Don’t mind March,” said Hatherly, offering her his arm. “He’s sometimes a bit too loyal.”
“I can see that. I think he believes I mean to have my devious way with you and your household.”
Hatherly flexed his arm beneath her hand, and muscles played enticingly under his coat. “I mean to have my devious way with you tonight, Dimples.”
Tonight, tonight, her slippers pattered as they traversed the narrow corridor carpeted in a deep, rich purple color.
“You were kind to my father,” said Hatherly. “His company can be trying at times.”
“I do want to see his orchid collection. I heard about his conservatory from Charlene—from the Duchess of Harland.”
Charlene had become rather intimately acquainted with the duke’s orchid conservatory when she’d held a romantic tryst there with her future husband, the Duke of Harland.
If Alice remembered the story correctly, he’d thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of flour and carried her to the conservatory.
She wondered if Hatherly was the throw-a-lady-over-his-shoulder kind. She rather thought he might be, and she rather thought she might enjoy it.
“Here we are,” he said, pausing in front of an open door halfway down the corridor. “We have adjoining chambers.”
He pushed the door open, indicating Alice should enter the room first.
Once inside, she turned in a slow circle. “This is for me?”
“All for you.”
