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Grace glared her frustration with his steely, unbending attitude. It only made her all the more determined to find a way to arouse George’s suspicion that all was not as it seemed with her.
“And in the meantime, am I to go down to breakfast wearing my evening gown from yesterday or only this sheet?” She deliberately changed the subject to give herself more time to ponder the letter she was to write to George.
“Not at all,” Alaric dismissed easily. “Stanley has arrived with a portmanteau containing several changes of outer and under garments for you.”
She blinked in surprise. “He has?”
Alaric nodded before he crossed the bedchamber with the elegance of a predator to the dressing table where Grace now recognized a piece of her own luggage, brought with her when she traveled from Devon.
He turned to her. “Your little dog is also down in the kitchen, fed and watered by my housekeeper, before he was let out for his early morning ablutions. No doubt he is now entertaining Mrs. Howell with his antics.”
Pleased as Grace was to know Mr. Stanley had taken it upon himself to transport Finn to her, she also recognized that the last way in which George might be alerted to her not having left London voluntarily, despite what her letter might say, had been removed more quickly than she had expected.
Today was not a day when George would usually call upon her, but Grace had no doubt, after the two of them had met by accident at the theater the previous evening, that George would feel it necessary to step out of that rigid routine and demand to know what the devil she had been doing spending the evening in the company of the Duke of Melborne.
Which, from all appearances, she had.
With Grace not at her home to explain, George could have no way of knowing she had arrived at the theater alone and Melborne had joined her in the private box only after the performance had begun.
Worse, if George visited her house today before her note was delivered to him, he would draw his own conclusions as to the reason she was not at home. To suspect, if he called so early that she could not possibly be out and about, that she had not been home for the whole of the previous night.
If George was alarmed enough at the thought of that to actually call upon the Duke of Melborne, then he would no doubt be informed that His Grace had not returned home since the previous evening either.
Grace had absolutely no idea what George would do after that.
It had been Alaric’s hope that the intimacies he and Grace had shared the previous night, the pleasure they had given each other, meant they had now moved beyond Grace’s objection to being here with him. Indeed, he had been greatly looking forward to the possibility of the two of them spending the day in bed exploring even more intimacies together, while his housekeeper watched over Grace’s dog and delivered trays of food outside the bedchamber throughout the day to ensure their energy as well as their privacy.
The stubbornness of Grace’s expression now, the things she had said, and the way her fingers so tightly gripped the sheet to cover her nakedness, told him that was unlikely to happen.
Her next words confirmed it. “Could you please put on a robe or some other form of clothing? Or perhaps leave the bedchamber altogether so that I might wash and dress before going downstairs to reassure Finn I have not abandoned him?”
Bested by a dog, damn it!
Alaric gave a self-derisive shake of his head as he looked admiringly at Grace. Her hair was a dark and disheveled cloud about her shoulders and down her back, her face flushed. That gold locket still gleamed about her throat, as if it were taunting him with the secret it hid within. One day, Alaric intended to knowexactlywhat Grace kept inside that locket.
But not now. There was already enough reason for contention between the two of them without him adding to it by demanding she show him what she kept hidden in that piece of jewelry.
Despite the sheet Grace clutched to her chest, Alaric could still see several of the blemishes on her shoulders and the tops of her breasts from where the skin had been abraded by his late-night stubble.
He made a note to ensure he was recently clean-shaven before kissing and making love to her again.
“If I must.” He turned to remove a brocade robe from the back of the dressing room door before pulling it on and securing the belt about his waist. “But I should warn you before you go downstairs that Mrs. Howell has known and loved me since she came to work here as a maid when I was but five years old,” he drawled. “As such, if you were to tell her I have kidnapped you and am now keeping you a prisoner here against your will, she is more likely to believeyouare the one addled in the brain and send for the local doctor to attend you.”
Grace eyed him scathingly. “And I had assumed it to be a regular occurrence that you often needed to kidnap a woman in order to ensure she shares your bed!”
Alaric chuckled. “I assure you that you are wholly unique in your continued verbal resistance to being seduced by me.” He arched a challenging brow, daring her to claim she still felt aphysicalresistance. Letting her know that her responses to him last night rendered that impossible.
Instead of accepting the challenge, she altered her expression to one of haughty disdain. “I have asked you to leave the room so that I might bathe before dressing,” she stated.
“Very well,” Alaric allowed. “But be aware,” he continued sternly, “there are several questions I will require you to answer once we have broken our fast together.” He had not forgotten, only slightly delayed, the need to get out of the way the business of whether or not Redding had been involved in Plymouth’s death.
“Will that be before or after I have written the letter dictated by you?”
Alaric studied Grace’s expression. Was it his imagination or did she look even more unhappy at the possibility of answering his questions?
Damn it, she did!
There was a definite tightening to her jaw, and the pulse in her neck had become faster and more noticeable.
