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That had to be against the law—assaulting a duke. Might it even count as treason?
Her hand stole to her throat as she thought of the punishment meted out for treason. Which she deserved, didn’t she? Since she’d been so adamant that her aunt and uncle should be brought to justice for merely drugging him!
‘Oh, you poor lass,’ said Mrs Hoskins, slipping a firm hand under her elbow. ‘You look nigh to fainting away. What a terrible time you’ve had, to be sure. And you such a fine lady, I’ll be bound—else His Grace would never be making you his duchess.’
Fine lady? She wasn’t any kind of lady. She was an army brat. That was what Aunt Charity had called her. The disgraceful result of a runaway match. And if she wasn’t good enough for Aunt Charity how could she be good enough for a duke?
‘You’ll feel better for a warm bath and a nice lie-down,’ said the housekeeper as she drew her into the terrifyingly opulent room. ‘Milly and Sam will be bringing up the bath and some hot water, and then Milly will stay to help you bathe,’ she said, steering Prudence towards the bed.
‘No!’ Prudence recoiled from the smooth satin coverlet and the starched white lacy pillows in horror. ‘I mean, I don’t think I should sit on the bed to wait, do you?’ She indicated her clothes. ‘I slept in a barn last night. I shouldn’t want to dirty the coverlets.’
‘A barn, was it?’ Mrs Hoskins’s eyebrows shot up her forehead and almost disappeared under the rim of her cap.
Oh, no. Now it would be all over the servants’ hall that their duke had spent the night in a barn. He’d be livid with her. If he wasn’t already. It was hard to tell now he’d taken to wearing that wooden mask instead of his normal face.
‘Well, then, how about you come along over to the window seat and rest yourself there while your bath is made ready? The covers wash well if so be that you do make a mark on them,’ she said soothingly. ‘Not that I think it is at all likely,’ she added.
‘Yes, very well,’ said Prudence, feeling like the worst sort of impostor as Mrs Hoskins led her across the room.
No wonder he’d been so angry to find her next to him in bed that first night. No wonder he’d raved about plots and schemes and kept on asking if Hugo had put her up to it. She sank down shakily onto the seat and buried her face in her hands. That was why he’d taken her up in his gig. He’d been trying to find out whether Hugo was cheating.
She knew the lengths to which men would go in order to win wagers. Over the most ridiculous stakes, too. It made no difference whether they’d staked the services of a beautiful mistress or a tin whistle—it was proving that they were ‘better’, in some ridiculous manner, than the man with whom they’d made the wager, and that was what counted. That was why he’d asked all those questions. It hadn’t been chivalry. It hadn’t been concern for her at all. No, it had been indignation at what he had perceived as an attempt to make him lose.
If they hadn’t lost his purse he would no doubt have dropped her off somewhere once he’d satisfied himself that she really didn’t know either who he was or anything at all about Hugo. Only he had lost his purse. And his horse and gig.
And then, to cap it all, she’d asked him to marry her.
A bustle in the room made her drop her hands and look up. A male servant had deposited a hip bath on a towel before the fireplace, and a maid was pouring water into it from a can of steaming water.
‘Now, Milly,’ Mrs Hoskins was saying sternly. ‘You are not to pepper His Grace’s intended with a lot of impertinent questions. She’s been through a terrible ordeal, as anyone can see.’
Both Milly and Sam darted a glance to where she was sitting, trembling and probably ashen-faced because she’d realised what she’d done, and adopted similarly sympathetic expressions.
Which made her cringe. If they only knew how outrageously she’d behaved they’d be sorely tempted to eject her from the property. As swiftly as possible. Which made her wish she wasn’t sitting quite so close to the convenient mode of exit a window might afford a brace of scandalised servants.
‘I’ll leave you with Milly now,’ said Mrs Hoskins. ‘She’s not what you’re used to, I’m sure, but she’s a good girl.’ Mrs Hoskins shot the blushing maid a stern, meaningful look before bustling out of the room, taking the male servant with her.
Milly dropped a curtsey. ‘Sam will be bringing up some more hot water shortly,’ she said. ‘But don’t you worry he’ll come in here a-gawping at you, for I shan’t let him. He’ll leave it at the door. So if you want to get started...?’
