Читать книгу A Promise by Daylight - Alison DeLaine - Страница 13

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY ARRIVED AT the estate in the moonlight, amid the loud clang and clatter of carriages and the shouts of footmen as they pulled to a stop in front of a palatial house ablaze with whale oil and candles. Outside lanterns around the grand entrance cast V-shaped spills of light against the smooth facade, and already the main doors were being opened, and through them Millie could see servants crossing this way and that in a glittering entrance hall with red-and-white marble floors, preparing for His Grace’s midnight arrival.

“I think the wound on my thigh is bleeding again,” Winston said as he prepared to get up.

Of course it was. They should have stayed in Paris, where they should have been making leisurely preparations for Greece.

“Fysikά,” she said under her breath. Instead, they’d made a reckless and hasty journey here. To England.

He looked at her sharply. “Pardon me?”

“Naturally,” she repeated in English, and much more deferentially. “I shall inspect it the moment you’re settled.”

“Did you just speak to me in Greek?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. We are in England, Your Grace.”

Those devil eyes narrowed at her. His humor had deteriorated steadily the closer they’d come to his estate—a ridiculously hard push of travel aided by a full moon and perfect weather in the channel, which had put them here in less than two days.

He had required her presence in his coach in case he needed her, but had spent most of the time trying to sleep, and she had spent most of the time trying to read. Harris and Sacks and a few others came in the carriages behind.

A footman opened the coach door. Winston stepped out, and Millie followed without being handed down, as any man in service would.

The house seemed to extend as far as the eye could see in both directions, the farther reaches of it covered by the shadows of night. Beyond loomed great murky masses of trees. It seemed to have hundreds of windows, all framed by carved stone, many flickering with light. Nobody was counting candles here. Above, silhouetted against the sky, dozens of chimneys testified to an enormous number of rooms.

Only imagine how many nude statues a building of this size could hold. The wild debauches that must take place here and that would no doubt begin immediately now that His Grace had returned.

Indeed, Millie thought as she was swept through the grand entrance on a wave of activity in His Grace’s wake, Lord Winston’s country estate was everything a ducal residence should be.

There was only one thing it wasn’t.

Greece.

Inside, Harris began giving instructions to half-a-dozen servants, and footmen carried trunks up a massive red marble staircase that curved in two directions. Winston exchanged a few words with Sacks, and then with a woman who looked like she must be in charge of the house.

The entrance hall alone was so vast one could probably build a ship inside it.

The walls were deep red, the ceiling covered with murals and edged with gold plasterwork. Five chandeliers blazed with candles.

And that was when Millie realized there wasn’t a nude to be seen save for the paintings on the ceiling. There was hardly any artwork at all. Few statues—a bronze horseman in a corner of the entrance hall, and through a doorway she could see the bust of a man on one side of a hall that looked as if it was made of gold and extended for a mile.

There were no paintings, few sculptures.

After what she’d seen in Paris, it didn’t seem possible.

And then Winston was climbing the stairs, and Harris came to tell her that she would be taking a room on the same floor and in the same wing as Winston’s so that she could properly attend him, and soon Millie was shown to another apartment, this one twice as grand as the one she’d been given in Paris, and ten times larger.

Footmen brought her trunk plus another that held all the medical supplies she’d collected in Paris and carried for the trip.

And still the question remained: What were they doing here? She never should have said a word to his guests that night. If only she hadn’t opened her bloody mouth and sent everyone away, giving him the opportunity to think. With all that distraction, he would never have considered returning to his estate.

If she’d known it was a choice between his ribald entertainments or this monumental setback...

She’d barely unlatched her trunk when the duke’s sharp bark shot faintly down the corridor.

“Mr. Germain!”

Devil take the man, anyway. She’d never known a person to change their mind as erratically as he did. And now here she was. In England.

She went down the hallway to the duke’s bedchamber and found him seated on the edge of a chair with his breeches around his knees and blood seeping through the bandage on his thigh.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered.

“You say that as if it’s my fault.”

“It is your fault. This never would have happened if we’d gone to Greece.” It was the kind of statement that could get her dismissed, but after crossing the channel and riding nonstop over rutted roads deep into the night, she was too aggravated to care.

“I don’t want to hear another word about Greece,” he said as she crouched in front of him and began unwinding the bandage. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Polú.”

“And I do not want to be spoken to in Greek.”

“Bene.”

“Or Italian. Or any foreign tongue.”

She tucked the bandage back in place for the moment. “I’ll have to bring more lint and fresh bandages. Lie down and elevate the leg on a pillow, and I shall return momentarily.”

There was no reason he could not have continued to recover in Paris. No reason at all.

Within a quarter of an hour, she’d stopped the bleeding, applied fresh dressings and bandages, and the duke was resting comfortably.

Except that he wasn’t.

“Devil take this blasted sling.” He shifted, reaching behind his shoulder, tugging on the strap. “I can’t quite seem to...”

“Stop fussing and let me do it,” she said, and leaned across him.

“I’m not fussing.” His voice feathered her jaw as if he spoke against her skin, even though he was inches away.

The front of her coat grazed his chest as she adjusted the sling.

Her hip pressed against his arm.

And it didn’t matter how many times she’d done this for him... Little sensations shot through her, tickling her lungs and tripping through her belly.

He stopped struggling—seemed to stop everything, even breathing, while she worked at the strap.

And then it was finished, and she stepped back. “Better?”

“Yes.”

She turned to her medical supplies even though there was nothing she needed.

“What in God’s name am I supposed to do now?” he muttered behind her, as if it wasn’t the wee hours of the morning.

“May I suggest sleeping?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She turned back to find his gaze shifting about the room as if he’d never seen the place before. “I’m sure there will be no need for that question once your company arrives,” she said.

“There isn’t going to be any company.”

She looked at him. “No company?”

“Rest and solitude,” he said shortly. “That is your prescription, is it not?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” And that was why he was here? For rest and solitude? “Although I seem to recall Your Grace referred to it as my strict regimen of boredom and frustration.”

He grunted an unhappy acknowledgment.

She clenched her jaw. Now he wanted to follow her advice? Now that her entire plan was in tatters? Bloody nobles and their whims—and she was the one to pay the price. Greece or England...what could it possibly matter to him?

And now, looking around, she saw that his apartment was just as free from lewd knickknacks as the entrance hall had been. There wasn’t a breast or phallus to be seen. “Is this where you always come to withdraw from entertainment?”

He looked at her. “Quite,” he drawled, and his lip curved a little in that semi-amused smile that made him look impossibly wicked. “I’ve always liked to think of Winston as my refuge from all things carnal.”

* * *

MOMENTS LATER, OUTSIDE Winston’s apartment, Millie found Harris and Sacks conferring tight-lipped at the top of the stairs.

“Everything’s been put away,” Harris told her in an alarming tone when she joined them. He took a pinch of snuff and scowled down the staircase. “The paintings, the sculptures...I’m told a letter arrived from Paris only this morning, instructing that everything of a certain nature be put away in the attic.”

Everything of a certain nature?

“Even the portrait in ’is bedroom is gone,” Sacks grumbled. “Princess What’s-’er-Name from Prussia. I’ll miss that portrait,” he said, irritated. “She was a damned ripe one.”

Refuge from all things carnal, indeed. And yet... “He instructed them put away?” Millie asked.

Sacks took his turn at the snuff, sniffed, rubbed his nose and nodded. “The whole lot of it.”

“When he decided to return to Winston,” Harris said, “I was convinced that all was finally becoming as it should be. After all...” He gestured lamely toward the staircase.

“After all,” Sacks said, “there’s never any lack of sporting activities ’round here.”

There wasn’t, was there?

“So I am to understand,” Millie said slowly, “that His Grace normally entertains while he is in residence.”

“Entertains!” Harris barked, then hushed his voice. “This house has seen routs that would redden a harlot’s cheeks.”

Of course it had. Millie stared down the corridor toward the duke’s apartment. Rest and solitude. Apparently he had gone to great lengths to achieve it. Because of his health?

If she’d realized that, she would have taken special care to emphasize the benefits of a warm climate.

“It can’t be permanent, can it?” Harris asked her. “His Grace’s lack of interest?”

“He seemed interested enough in Paris, didn’t he?” Millie snipped.

“That?” Sacks lowered his voice. “He hasn’t interested himself with a single one—not since the accident.” Suddenly his monstrous dark brows knitted completely together. “The accident didn’t—” he gestured in front of his crotch “—damage his vitals...?”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. “No.”

“He spoke of nothing but Grecian orgies for weeks before we left for Paris,” Harris told her. “He spoke of little else in Paris, as well.”

“Well, now he says he doesn’t want anything to do with Greece,” Millie said. “He says he wants rest and solitude.”

“Rest and solitude.”

She didn’t believe it for a minute. He was being flighty, making more out of his injuries than he needed to, and costing her the price of travel from England to the Mediterranean in the process.

If he’d just gone to Greece, the trip would have cost her nothing, and she would have been collecting wages the entire time.

“We ought to bring the whole bloody lot down from the attic while he’s sleeping,” Sacks grumbled. “Let ’im wake to that magnificent pair of Prussian breasts and see if it doesn’t restore ’im to full operation.”

Millie looked at him.

Sacks shifted his gaze to Harris, who frowned. “We couldn’t simply...” The idea hung in the air. “Couldn’t we?”

“Indeed,” Millie said slowly, considering the possibilities. “In fact, I might even recommend it. As a restorative measure for his health.”

As changeable as the duke clearly was, a bit of encouragement could be all it would take for him to abandon this plan and set out once more for Greece.

“That is to say,” she went on, “it’s never a good sign when a person loses interest in his usual activities.” That much was true. And it wasn’t as if the duke weren’t capable of enjoying himself—hadn’t Paris proved that?

It had.

Now Sacks was nodding. Harris raised a considering brow. And Millie could not believe she was suggesting this, but if it would work...

“A dose of his usual mode of living,” she said authoritatively, “could be just the curative he needs.”

* * *

WINSTON STOOD IN his library the next morning, staring at the empty spot above the fireplace where a carved wood panel from India used to hang, and contemplated ordering his bags packed for Greece, after all. Or at least Paris.

What the devil was he doing here?

He needed company. Women. In his bed, on top of his desk, against his bloody wall, and he needed them now.

This was folly. Changing his entire existence because of a freak accident...

Because it could have been you.

But it wasn’t.

And because of Cara and Edward.

Devil take it. One incident fifteen years ago—something that couldn’t be changed—had no bearing on the present.

He treaded lightly toward the windows, careful not to disturb his freshly bandaged leg. The empty house felt like a tomb. Looked like a bloody monastery. At the very least he could order all the adornments taken from the attic put back in place.

He didn’t even know what to do with himself.

One very particular activity leaped to mind, and God’s blood, this was what it had come to? Fantasizing about pleasuring himself?

Reading, Miles had suggested. But all his favorite books had been stored away in the attic with the rest.

He paced a few feet to the nearest bookcase, built between two windows, and pulled a book from the shelf. Flipped through its pages. Slammed it shut.

He didn’t want to read. He wanted to do something very, very different from reading.

His hands tightened around the book.

He breathed deeply. Forced himself to remember the accident. The burial. The widow and her five children, standing in the gray drizzle while the priest tossed clumps of mud into the grave. The way those clumps had hit the coffin with a soft splat.

He would do this. He would sit his arse down and read this goddamned book and he would not think about any of the things he wasn’t doing, because the man in that coffin wasn’t doing them, either.

He sat. Opened the book cover. Fauna of the Tidal Flats of Devon.

Perfect.

He leafed through the pages, found a plate illustrating a clam digging through mud. And damnation if the clam’s extended foot didn’t look exactly like a man’s—

“Excuse me, Your Grace. I thought I should see if you require anything for your comfort.”

Miles’s voice cut into his thoughts and nearly startled him. She stood there looking...younger than he might have liked. His comfort? Oh, indeed—but not at all in the manner she meant. “Thank you, Mr. Germain. I’m doing well enough at the moment. Are you settling in?”

“Yes.”

“And everything is to your satisfaction?”

“Not at all, Your Grace.”

Somehow that was no longer a surprise. He watched her wander into the library and wondered if she realized how much her face gave away as she stared at the vast shelves.

She had a hunger for these books that he could scarcely fathom.

Her lips were parted a little, and he studied them, only now realizing that he knew their curve and color by heart.

He returned his attention to the book. “There are some who find my estate quite comfortable, believe it or not,” he said, feeling unaccountably grouchy.

“No doubt they do.” From the corner of his eye, he saw her move closer. He shifted his eyes, watching her legs as she moved. “What are you reading?”

His gaze snapped back to the page. “A treatise about tidal flats.”

“Have you a particular interest in tidal flats?”

“Yes.” He’d never thought about tidal flats in his life. “I find them fascinating.”

“Indeed? I never would have guessed.” She didn’t sound pleased.

“I can hardly keep my eyes from the page.” He started to read aloud. “‘The lugworm is a creature that buries itself in the soft, wet sands,’” he began, then wished he hadn’t, because the concept of being buried in anything soft and wet was not helpful. He skimmed ahead. Ah, yes. “‘It feeds on detritus left behind by other creatures, such as the fecal matter of clams and other burrowing mollusks.’” He looked up at Miles and smiled. “Fascinating.”

That line appeared above her lip. “Such a marked change from your interests in Paris, which as I recall, were—”

“I am quite aware of what they were.” He looked up now, straight into her eyes—good God, he knew those by heart now, too, with their deep brown streaks set in rich walnut—and held her gaze on purpose, but she refused to look away. “As I’ve said, this house is my retreat from the world.” Starting yesterday, anyhow. “When I’m here, I indulge all of my quieter interests.”

“Such as reading.” She said it doubtfully, as if she wondered whether he could read at all.

“Among other things, yes.”

“What other things?”

Oh, for God’s sake. “Any number of things. Was there something you wanted, Mr. Germain?”

Because the longer she stood there, the more there was something he wanted, and he could not start down that road or there would be no end to the torment. He was alone in this blasted house, and the only women here now were the servants, whom he refused to turn to because he wasn’t running a brothel...

And her.

She smiled tightly. “Not at all, Your Grace. I shall leave you. Happy reading.”

Oh, indeed. He let his eyes follow her as she walked out—her legs, anyhow, encased in their breeches—and thought of something that would make him incredibly happy, and it had nothing to do with reading.