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“Not I,” Betsy said.
“Not I,” said Bernadette.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Viola said. “Just go pound on his door and tell him you wish to have a conference with him.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Miss Beaton. You should do that.”
“I?” Viola shook her head in the negative. “I couldn’t possibly...” She’d knocked upon his door last night, and look where that had landed her.
A memory of his kiss overwhelmed her mind, bringing swift heat to her face. He’d removed her shawl, sliding it down her shoulders, and then kissed her so thoroughly that...
Wait. Her yellow shawl. She hadn’t seen it in her room this morning. Had she left it in his chamber? She had to go retrieve it before any of the girls saw it there!
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll go and pound on his door and inform him that his sisters wish to speak with him on a matter of urgency.”
She left swiftly, desperate to retrieve her shawl.
All was quiet as she retraced her steps from last night to the ducal bedchamber. She pounded on the door.
No response.
“Your Grace,” she called. “Wake up!”
Still no response. He must slumber deeply. Or had he snuck out last night, after all?
She tried the door handle. It was unlocked. She swung the door open, careful and quiet as any thief. She couldn’t tell if the duke was there. Hisbed curtains were closed so one would assume he was in his bed. He kept his rooms too dark for her to see anything. She bumped into a chair and nearly swore aloud.
First, open the curtains to wake him and let in some light. Then, find her shawl, give the duke a talking-to about reforming and escorting his sisters to the opera, and make a hasty exit before anyone saw her here.
The window curtains were heavy green velvet affairs so thick they let not one sliver of sunlight inside the room. She must have some light for her search.
She opened one of the curtains until she could see what she was doing. Her yellow shawl was nowhere to be seen.
The only other place to search was the bed.
She peeled aside one of his bed curtains... and then swiftly dropped it.
Good Lord. He slept in the nude. Sprawled on his stomach, one arm bent beneath his head. The covers had slipped down until they covered only his sculpted buttocks, leaving the powerful, bunched muscles of his back and shoulders bared to her gaze.
She opened the curtain again, just enough to search for a yellow shawl, not to stare at his bare flesh. At the well-defined hillocks and valleys of his back. At the taut mounds of his buttocks.
She lost sight of why she’d come to the room.
Think, Viola.You’re angry with this man. Youhave towake him up and make him promise to reform. And youhave tofind that yellow shawl, the evidence thatyou were in this very room last night, kissing him like a wanton.
And yet... he was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen. She desperately wanted to pull that sheet a little lower in order to seeallof him.
“Your Grace,” she said.
“Mmmm,” he murmured, and shifted onto his side, away from her.
And there it was. Yellow fringe peeking out from beneath his torso.
He was sleeping on top of her shawl.
She drew back his bed curtain fully. “Your Grace,” she said loudly.
He slumbered on.
