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“I’ll check on the Duchess.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
She could hear footsteps leaving the room. Summerton’s, she presumed. He’d left her there. Hitches moved about closing doors and drapes, blowing out candles. All the sounds clear and distinct. Clear enough she could hear Hitches’ footsteps as he walked out and moments later someone else started moving around the room. Whoever it was bumped into the furniture. She strained to listen, certain it couldn’t be the Duke, so at ease with the space she’d bet he could move around it blindfolded.
Shoulder to the wall, she pushed at the opening. Again, it didn’t budge. She felt around, ignoring sticky webs catching her hands, the sleeve of her shirt. She must find the lever, free the latch. Surely there was one.
“Do you really believe I’d leave you here with the ability to get out?”
She spun around to the hem of his banyan and slippered feet on the stairs above.
“I wish you would stop sneaking up on me,” she hissed, wondering if sound travelled into the study as well as it did into this little area.
He came further into view.
“Let’s extinguish this one.” He reached around her — close, too close — to blow out the light on the little ledge and lift the bundle from the floor.
“I don’t like it in here.”
“I’m not surprised.” He smiled, but not with malice. “I didn’t much like finding my bride running away.”
She shrugged and edged past him to climb the stairs.
Once again, at the top, he reached around her, fiddling with a support beam, releasing something, for the wall opened without a creak. The scent of candle wax and leather and sandalwood mixed with other, subtler herbs, filtered into the secret space. Caroline stepped over the threshold. A bedchamber. Summerton urged her further into the room as he closed the opening behind him. Everything in the chamber was heavy and strong, from the furniture to the picture frames. Masculine, a man’s domain. A huge four-poster bed on a dais stood directly opposite them. She stepped aside, not wanting to be confronted with the closeness of the bed or the intimacies it implied.
“You’d best wash off the dirt in here,” he told her, as he opened another door. “I will gather your dressing gown and nightrail.”
She’d never been in a man’s dressing room before — other than her father’s, that was — and she’d rarely been in there. This was better appointed than the Duchess’s rooms. Nothing threadbare or badly kept, though there was little beyond a clothespress, armoire, and washing table. One corner was screened off, no doubt, for the commode. A chair sat beside a table with a bowl, towels, and an assortment of silver-lidded jars of beautiful cut glass. With a twist, she unscrewed one and put her nose to the opening, inhaling the distinctive lemon and spice scent so much a part of the Duke. Carefully, she unleashed the straight razor from its silver handle, the polished blade glinting in the candlelight, lethally sharp. She clicked it shut, set it down beside the matching silver soap mug and shaving brush, and tried not to think of the intimacy of a man at his toilet.
She distracted herself by looking around. The place was in sad need of modernisation. No doubt the Duke expected her to fund the update.
Surprisingly, the water in the pitcher was warm. It would seem Hitches had anticipated the Duke’s desire to clean up after running outside sans dressing gown and slippers. She poured water into the bowl and scrubbed. One bowl of water was not enough. She dumped the blackened batch in an empty bucket by the washing table and started in with a fresh batch of warm water, using a lovely, scented soap. Too spicy for a lady, but this was not a time for niceties. By the time Summerton returned, the bucket was half full of black, scummy water, but Caroline was pink-cheeked with clean hands.
“Here.” He held out her nightrail and a dressing gown of such delicate lace she could see his long fingers through the fabric. Awkward, the garments slipped as he passed them to her, floating down, forming a diaphanous pool between them.
“I’ll leave you to it.” His rough voice grazed her senses like a cat’s tongue.
“Perhaps I should find something else to wear,” she said, but he waved the idea away and left. Escaping without a thought to her sensibilities.
She couldn’t greet his aunt in her lad’s outfit any more than she wished to reveal herself in — she looked at the tumble of nothingness. Perhaps they weren’t as bad as she imagined.
She stripped down, rolling the urchin’s clothes into a ball, and leaving them with the dirty cloths she’d used to wash. Careful of its fragility, she donned the nightwear and stood before a long mirror.
Every curve, every shade of dark and light, revealed in the glow of one mere candle. Impossible.
She went through the clothes press and armoire and found another banyan, this one quilted, lighter weight than the one he had on, with a mandarin collar and frog fastenings that hit the tops of her breasts.
Far too long, but she fastened the upper buttons and flipped the extra length back to trail behind her like a train.
It would have to do.
Summerton stopped mid-stride as she entered the bedchamber. Heart thumping wildly, she waited, all too aware of the massive bed behind her.
“Good.”
He offered a perfunctory nod and held his arm, gesturing toward the door. She took a deep breath, wishing he’d say more, give some indication of his plans. He didn’t. Just crossed the room to open the door to their sitting room.
The spice of his cologne had her turning her head as she passed. An urge to catch the full scent.
