And yet he’d known all this time, and he hadn’t done anything.
She leaned toward the glass and adjusted her wig. It hadn’t been sitting right since she’d removed it this afternoon, even though she and Cara had both tried to put it to rights.
Of course he hasn’t done anything. Just look at you.
It was true. She stood back from the glass, realized that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Disguise or no, she wasn’t the kind of woman that Winston would take an interest in. So really, it didn’t matter that he’d figured out the truth. She was perfectly safe either way.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. It was Sacks, brows furrowed, mouth tight. “Have you seen ’is Grace?”
“No. I only just returned from the village.”
Sacks exhaled and glanced back at the door. “He hasn’t left ’is rooms all afternoon, so we finally sent up Miss Tensie to entertain ’im. Now they’re both gone.”
They’d sent up one of the whores. She didn’t have to wonder what that meant. A sudden pain caught her in the gut. “Perhaps they’ve rejoined the party.”
Sacks shook his head. “Harris said Miss Tensie never returned downstairs. Nor ’as His Grace.”
“Then they’ve gone off together, obviously.” The pain in her gut twisted hard. “Which is precisely what you wanted, is it not?”
And it was precisely what she wanted. He would never change his mind about Greece if he refused to join his company and engage in his usual sport. The man she’d first met in Paris needed to be restored. And if that involved intimacies with a whore...
“I’ve looked everywhere,” Sacks said with frustration. “If he’s gone off with ’er, they’ve gone to the bloody moon.”
Just then Harris walked in, lips tight. “I’ve found Miss Tensie—in a back stairwell with one of the guests. I’ve no idea where His Grace could have got to.”
“Bloody hell,” Sacks muttered.
The sharp twist in her gut released itself suddenly, but then, “He could have found other company,” she suggested.
Harris was shaking his head. “All the ladies are accounted for downstairs.”
“We’d best start looking,” Sacks grouched.
Except it seemed that the duke did not wish to be found, and she certainly didn’t want to be the one to find him—or them, if he wasn’t alone—but Harris and Sacks expected her to help, so she made a cursory search that turned up nothing. Forty-five minutes later, she was checking the rooms nearest to hers and his and was about to exit the room adjacent to hers when she heard a noise behind her.
She turned just in time to see a panel slide open and the duke emerge with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He stopped when he saw her. Cursed under his breath.
“You have a secret hiding place, after all, I see,” she said sourly, crossing her arms, remembering her search in Paris. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. I was beginning to fear you might have fallen somewhere and injured yourself.” Or gone off with a woman.
The bite of jealousy was so very, very irrational.
“An unwanted visitor found her way up to my rooms,” he said, looking at her...more closely than usual?
Nonsense.
“Given your present company, I’m not sure how that could be possible.” Miss Tensie, unwanted? “Unless it was one of the gentlemen,” she added for good measure.
“I’m not in a frame of mind for company.” Annoyance colored his tone. “In fact, I’ve been toying with the idea of having you work your magic again as you did in Paris. I’m not even sure I care what you tell them, as long as everyone leaves.”
That was alarming news, which didn’t explain the surge of relief that left her suddenly hopeful. “Surely you don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know what I mean.”
And what could that signify? “What a vexation, unplanned revelry and merrymaking,” she said a bit sarcastically.
“Oh, it was planned,” he said, slipping something from his pocket. “Only not by me.” He unfolded a piece of paper and held it out to her.
His Grace the Duke of Winston invites you to a...
“It would seem Harris and Sacks have been looking out for my interests,” he said wryly.
She handed the invitation back. “They’ve been very concerned. They meant no harm.”
“Don’t you mean we meant no harm?”
Her cheeks grew warm. Now he was looking at her more closely, more intently.
“Why can you not send them away yourself? You did that in Paris,” she said to distract him.
“It was one thing to evict friends when I was mere hours out of a fever. But this time— Bloody hell. Someone’s coming.”
The door was open, and there were voices outside. Laughter, a lewd comment—
“It’s Hensley.” The duke moved forward, taking her by the arm before she realized what was happening, pulling her into the secret closet and quickly sliding the panel shut behind them.
There was the scrape and flare of a match, a dim glow as he brushed against her, reaching to light a candle in a small holder resting on a shelf.
The room was barely big enough for two people. An old chair with worn velvet took up most of the space. And now they stood there, pressed together, listening to murmurs and laughter from the room they’d left just in time.
His scent filled every breath, sending heady yearnings deep into her most secret places.
He’d been in here, hiding from Miss Tensie.
And more the fool her, she was glad.
Through the wall, Millie could hear the murmur of Hensley’s voice, and she shivered. “Is there another way out?” she asked, turning to the opposite wall, which was made of panels like the one they’d just come through.
“No,” he whispered quickly. “I fear we’re trapped here for the duration.”
She put her hands flat against the panels. Realized, suddenly, what was on the other side.
Her dressing room.
The other night, when she’d thought she’d seen something move...
“These panels do open.”
“Stop.” His hand covered hers, pressing firmly. “Hensley will hear. Even Harris and Sacks don’t know about this closet,” he hissed in her ear. “God help me if that cad Hensley discovers it.”
His hand was large. Warm. Sensations from his touch raced through her arm, spread through her body all the way to her knees. His breath feathered her ear, and she felt it low in her belly.
Felt him right behind her, felt his body pressed up against hers, even if only lightly.
And awareness of him boiled together with awareness of something else. “You were in here,” she hissed back. “The other night.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She wrenched her hand free, dug her fingers at the edge of the panel, only to have him stop her more firmly with both arms around her, grasping her wrists, pulling her hands away.
“You watched me in the bath!”
“Be quiet.”
She struggled against him, whispering furiously. “There is another way out, and you bloody well know it, and you used it to peep—”
“I did no such thing.”
“You spied on me.” In the nude. She’d been in the nude! “Let go of me. I’m leaving this closet at once, through this panel,” she said, fighting him to keep her hands on it and pull, “because I know bloody well that it—”
The panel slid open.
Opens. I know bloody well that it opens.
The struggle suddenly ceased, and she stared into her dressing room with Winston still holding her arms, the rise and fall of his chest against her back and his breath against her ear.
The panel really did open. And there was no doubt, none at all now, of what had happened.
“How dare you.” Her words were a breathy hiss as she fixed on the spot where the tub had sat.
“The temptation was too great,” he murmured, and his voice traveled across
her skin to all the places he would have seen that night.
She tore away, turning to face him, throwing her pointing finger toward the door. “Leave,” she ordered. “Immediately. I don’t want you in here—nor in there,” she snapped, glancing toward the open panel. “That panel will be nailed shut tonight, even if I must do it myself, and it will not open again.”
“Miss Germain—”
“Mister.” She stalked to the door, jerked it open, raised her chin at him.
“You have my sincerest apologies.” He exhaled, mouth grim. “And my solemn promise that none of this will happen again.”
This being assessing her nude body, comparing her to the kind of women he was used to, violating her privacy in the most humiliating way imaginable.
“You’re bloody right, it won’t.” She looked pointedly at him and pulled the door fully open. “Good night, Your Grace.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MILLIE’S HEART STILL raced after he’d gone, and she glared at the door—at the gaping panel—cursing him.
Devil take him, he was no better than Lord Hensley. Which should come as no surprise.
But her skin still tingled with the memory of his nearness, and each breath still carried his scent. She turned her face, pressing it into her shoulder, sniffing...
And yes, the scent of his cologne lingered there on her clothes, even though they’d been pressed together for a matter of seconds, and now the merest whiff did things to her on the inside—warm, heady things she wanted no part of.
She unbuttoned her coat, tearing it from her shoulders and tossing it over a chair, but it was as if the smell of him had penetrated her skin. She went to the panel and studied its fitting, making a mental list of the materials required to nail it shut. Serving aboard a ship taught a person about more than just sails and wind.
Bloody bastard. At least now, she wasn’t afraid to tell him exactly what she thought of his lewd behavior.
Years ago, when Lord Hensley had unfastened his breeches and made her touch him, she hadn’t dared object. And unlike Winston, he’d made no promises that it would never happen again.
It always happened again. She’d hated the feel of Hensley’s member. The sounds he’d made, and the mess afterward. She thought of him in Winston’s room next door, probably availing himself of those whores even now, and felt a little sick.
But she reminded herself of all the reasons it didn’t matter that Lord Hensley was staying in this very house. She was safely hidden in her disguise, and it seemed Winston would not unmask her.
What did matter was the fact that Winston was not responding to any of the temptations presented to him, yet somehow found it irresistible to spy on her, damn him.
A few minutes later, wearing a fresh coat with a short materials list tucked into the pocket, Millie found Harris and Sacks at the top of the staircase. “I found him,” she told them irritably. “He’s in his rooms now.”
“Where was he?”
“Hiding. In—” It would serve Winston right if she told them. “In one of the spare rooms.” She didn’t need them spying on her, as well.
“I checked all the bloody rooms,” Sacks said.
“He was hiding from Miss Tensie,” she practically snapped. “He didn’t want her company. Doesn’t want any of this. Bloody sod—there’s plenty here to entertain him. He wants for nothing.”
They looked at her.
Sacks’s dark brows knitted together, and Harris frowned a little. “It isn’t His Grace’s fault if he’s feeling out of sorts,” Harris said.
“He can be a bloody aggravation, but he deserves no disrespect,” Sacks added disapprovingly.
She inhaled deeply. Silently. “Forgive me. I meant no disrespect, naturally. I’m merely frustrated that he presents such a...a stubborn case. I could not convince him to join his company, and I fear he’s thinking of throwing them all out. I can’t think what else can possibly be done.”
But it was easy to imagine how much money it was going to cost to travel to the Mediterranean on her own.
“We may have a solution,” Harris said tentatively, “but it cannot be guaranteed. I heard from one of the guests that Princess Katja—” he looked pointedly from Millie to Sacks “—is in London. I sent her an invitation yesterday. If the princess answers the invite, I think it’ll do the trick.”
Princess Katja. The one in the portrait. They’d invited her.
“I can’t think how,” Millie said, “when he didn’t even want to look at her portrait. If he wasn’t tempted by that, and he’s not tempted by any the women downstairs, he’ll hardly be tempted by one more.” And he wasn’t interested in Tensie or the other whores, who were every bit as voluptuous as the princess.
Harris smiled at her as if she was a dull-witted fool. “The princess is hardly one more woman.”
Sacks snorted. “Right, that. She’d do the trick for a dead man.”
* * *
TEMPTATION, THY NAME is Miles.
Winston took a swallow of brandy and swirled the liquid in his glass, staring at his empty bed, pondering the possibilities downstairs but wanting only one thing:
Miles, fully unclothed, in his bed and open to him for the rest of the day. Hell, the rest of the week.
But that was not going to happen. He’d found a vow that meant something, a manner of considering his ways that he could fully comprehend, and that was the end of it.
He’d meant what he’d said. It would not happen again. Nothing. There would be no touching her, no spying on her, no bloody fantasizing about her, which was easier said than done because she grew more tempting by the hour.
He knew better than to call her in for his evening’s examination.
He was about finished with examinations, anyhow. His wounds were scabbed over now, healing nicely, she’d said, and all he needed her for were the ones he couldn’t reach on his back. Those had been the deepest, the most in danger of festering.
But even they were healing now. And he had a good mind to rid himself of this sling.
It was probably time to rid himself of Miles, as well.
He needed to stop this nonsensical hiding away in his rooms and rejoin the entertainment downstairs. Get a bit foxed and take advantage of those Spanish vixens, whose lusty thighs would willingly part for him. He could spend himself there and forget all about Miles. Or close his eyes and pretend it was Miles—nothing wrong with that.
He could only imagine what Edward would say to that, and devil take it, this was no time to be thinking of Edward.
Consider your ways.
He was considering his bloody ways. What more could possibly be asked of him?
He drained his glass and went downstairs.
* * *
ONE MORE AVAILABLE female was not going to do the trick for anything, Millie thought as she tapped the last tack into place as quietly as possible. She left the secret compartment through the other panel into the study on the other side, with Lord Hensley and his companion long gone.
After a quick test from her side of the panel and finding it secure, she turned her attention to another of the musty old volumes from the duke’s library, leafing briskly through pages filled mostly with superstition and wives’ tales.
She’d barely settled in the chair when Sacks poked his head in the room to report that Winston had joined the company in the grand salon.
Had he.
After Sacks left, Millie stared blankly at the page in front of her while her mind conjured up graphic images of Winston...joining the company. Her chest squeezed, and her throat tightened up.
She flipped a page, shoving the thoughts away. This was a hopeful sign. Even now, he could be—
Never mind about that. He was finally turning his attention in the proper direction, the direction that would take them both to Greece.
Until Sacks poked his head in again, an hour later, to complain that Winston had already returned to his rooms, having done nothing more than play a round of cards, wat
ch a bit of dancing, and oblige a pair of Spanish breasts that had been presented for his entertainment.
“It’s more than he’s done yet,” Sacks said hopefully. “Perhaps he’s on the mend, after all.”
Millie tried not to imagine what was involved in obliging a pair of breasts and quietly disagreed.
Except the next morning, when she went to Winston’s bedchamber, she was met by a startling sight.
“What are you doing?” she snapped the moment she entered. “It’s too soon for that.”
He stood by the window, tentatively flexing his arm, while his sling lay draped over a nearby chair. He wore his blue banyan over his breeches and waistcoat. Without his wig, his own dark hair curled up at the base of his neck. A thought flitted through her—a fleeting desire to touch it.
She did not want to touch Winston. She didn’t. It was just...
Nothing. It was nothing.
“I disagree,” he said, and continued flexing his elbow, moving his arm in slow circles from the shoulder. “It’s feeling a good deal better.”
“So you’ve told me, but—”
“If it worsens, I shall put the sling back on.”
He glanced at her, and their eyes held just long enough for a shiver of memory to cut through her—his whisper against her ear, her back against his chest, his arms practically around her...
Only because he was trying to stop you from discovering what he’d done.
“Very well.” She plunked her medical bag on the table and yanked it open.
“I’d like to take my horse out—”
“Your horse!”
“You did say my wounds were healing,” he said irritably.
They wouldn’t be for long if he began racing across the countryside on horseback. “I can’t stop you,” she said shortly. Because, as she well knew, the duke did as he pleased. “But riding horseback is not advisable at this time.”
She felt him looking at her, but she only continued setting out the light bandages she would need now that his wounds were scabbed over and, indeed, healing. Just a bit of protection to keep them clean and prevent chafing against his clothing.
“I understand you went to visit Cara yesterday,” he said now. “How did the examination proceed?”
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