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‘It is not that I am ungrateful, Rupert—’

‘No?’

‘Of course I’m not.’

‘You don’t sound grateful, Pandora.’

‘It is only—I wish you might at least have allowed me the time to dress before carrying me from my home. Or for Henley to pack a bag so that I might dress once I arrived here.’

‘It is time for bed, Pandora, a time for undressing, not dressing. Nor,’ Rupert continued hardily, ‘am I in any mood to deal with that ninnyhead of a maid tonight.’

‘She means well.’

‘I am sure that Attila the Hun believed himself to be in the right of it, too!’

‘Now you are being unkind—’

‘A trait for which Stratton is known far and wide, I do assure you,’ a third voice cut in with scathing hauteur, bringing an abrupt end to the conversation that had been taking place between Pandora and Rupert since he had carried her out of her home and deposited her in his carriage some minutes earlier, before instructing his driver to depart for Stratton House. ‘Good God, how dare you bring one of your whores into my home, Devil?’ The woman’s voice now rose accusingly.

‘I believe you will find that it is my home, madam, and I advise you not to forget it,’ Rupert bit out coldly as he turned with Pandora still held firmly in his arms. ‘Nor will I tolerate your behaviour in calling the lady in my arms by such a foul name!’

‘I will do exactly as I— Is that—can that possibly be the Maybury woman?’ Patricia demanded in obvious disbelief.

Pandora had stilled in Rupert’s arms the moment the other woman first spoke, relieved anew at having his evening cloak wrapped about her own scorched robes. She looked up warily at him now. She could clearly feel the leashed tension in his body as, having once again scooped her up into his arms once they left the carriage, he now held her imprisoned against his muscled chest.

A shiver run down the length of her spine as she found herself unable to look away from Rupert’s furious face; his eyes had turned a hard, icy grey as he scowled at his stepmother, cheekbones sharp as blades against the tautness of his flesh, his mouth a thin uncompromising line, the squareness of his jaw rigidly clenched.

He and Pandora might have disagreed all the way here from Highbury House, concerning Pandora’s reluctance to go to Stratton House with him, but never once during that time had Rupert looked at her with the intense and deliberate dislike with which he now so obviously viewed Patricia Stirling.

A woman whose existence Pandora had completely forgotten about until now, as well as the fact that she was already in residence in Rupert’s home!

‘It is indeed Pandora Maybury, the Duchess of Wyndwood,’ he rasped. ‘The lady whom I hope will very soon consent to become my own Duchess of Stratton.’

‘I believe you will find that I am the Duchess of Stratton!’

‘Not for much longer,’ Rupert said with grim satisfaction.

The outraged screech that split the air following this announcement was enough to shatter the eardrums and caused Pandora to finally look up to the top of the wide, curved staircase to where the other woman stood. Tall, her ebony curls arranged artfully about the patrician beauty of her flushed and angry face, the silk robe the Dowager Duchess wore over her night rail a perfect match, Pandora noted distractedly, for the colour of Rupert’s icy-grey eyes. Could that be deliberate?

‘Cease that disgusting noise immediately, woman!’ Rupert thundered. ‘Better still would be to remove yourself and your hysterics from my sight and hearing completely!’

Patricia drew in an angry breath. ‘How dare you speak to me in that tone?’

‘As I am sure you are all too well aware, madam, I will speak to you in any way I choose,’ he continued icily as he walked up the staircase with Pandora, sparing only a scathing glance at the other woman before striding off down one of the hallways.

‘You will not dare to sleep with that woman whilst I am in this house!’

‘I assure you, if I took Pandora to my bed then it would not be with any intention of sleeping.’ Rupert didn’t even hesitate in his stride as he coldly answered the woman who had once been his lover. A woman he now despised more completely than he would ever have believed it possible to despise anyone or anything. ‘And, as your sensibilities appear to be so outraged by Pandora’s very presence, I am sure that both she and I would be thankful if you were to vacate these premises as soon as is possible,’ he added.

‘You are only doing this to spite me, and I refuse to be—’

‘And you dare to accuse me of arrogance?’ Rupert gave a scornful laugh as he bent to open a door halfway down the hallway. ‘What you do or don’t refuse to do is of absolutely no interest to either Pandora or myself,’ he informed her.

‘That is surely a little difficult to know with certainty considering your little mouse has not spoken a word since becoming aware of my presence,’ Patricia jeered.

Pandora bristled, both at being called a ‘little mouse’ and the condescension in the other woman’s tone. She had no more been born a Duchess than Patricia had, but she’d had just as many years to become one. ‘My present silence has nothing to do with your own presence and everything to do with the fact that it’s almost two o’clock in the morning and I’m tired and anxious for bed,’ she said stiffly.

‘And on that note we will both wish you a good night, madam,’ Rupert spoke with satisfaction before stepping into the room and kicking the door closed behind him, a candle already alight upon the bedside table to illuminate the bedchamber.

A very masculine bedchamber, Pandora noted as she looked about them: a large mahogany four-poster bed surrounded by gold curtains, a matching tall and imposing wardrobe, and another tall mahogany six-drawer dresser, with several beautiful paintings of horses upon the walls, the curtains at the windows matching those on the bed, an Aubusson carpet of deep and rich gold on the floor. It was without doubt a gentleman’s bedchamber. Rupert’s own room, perhaps?

Pandora’s cheeks were still slightly flushed from the deliberate way Rupert had implied to Patricia that the two of them were about to become lovers. ‘I wasn’t referring to your bed when I said I was tired and ready for bed!’

‘“Anxious for bed” was the way you described it, I believe?’ he drawled teasingly as he placed her gently down upon the gold cover on the bed before straightening.

‘I meant my own bed,’ Pandora corrected crossly as she sat up to pull his evening cloak more securely about her. ‘Which this most decidedly is not!’

‘Your own bed and bedchamber are unfit for use,’ Rupert reminded her as he shrugged out of his soot- and smoke-soiled jacket before discarding it on a chair.

‘And, despite what you said to the contrary only moments ago, this is your own bedchamber.’ She shook her head. ‘I really feel it would have been better for all concerned if you had taken me to either Sophia’s or Genevieve’s home.’

‘Would you really have wanted to put either of those two ladies in the same danger as you appear to be?’

Pandora’s cheeks were now as white as snow. ‘You are also of the opinion that this evening’s fire was set deliberately?’

Rupert’s jaw tightened. ‘I believe Bentley was perfectly correct in bringing tonight’s events to the attention of the authorities. No doubt you would have preferred he had not, just as you have instructed him in the past in regard to those other occasions upon which your home was broken into?’ He raised disapproving brows.

She avoided meeting that probing silver gaze. ‘I simply had no wish to … to bother the authorities with such trivial matters—’

‘The fire tonight was not trivial, Pandora,’ Rupert objected. ‘And, as such, I have every intention of ensuring that you are under my own protection.’

‘By my spending the night here?’

His jaw tightened. ‘It will do for a start, yes.’

Pandora ran her tongue across the dryness of her lips. ‘If you insist upon this—’

‘I do.’

As she had thought … ‘Then could you not find me another bedchamber in which to sleep?’

‘I would prefer that you remain here.’

‘But—’

‘How can I protect you if you are in another part of the house completely?’ Rupert cut in.

She still frowned. ‘It is not proper that I sleep in your own bedchamber.’

‘And who is to know where you sleep?’

Pandora gave a pained frown. ‘The Dowager Duchess will know.’

His mouth thinned. ‘And I very much doubt that she would wish to tell anyone of another woman’s presence here, let alone that the woman spent the night in my room.’

No, Pandora accepted dully, that wouldn’t suit Patricia’s own intentions towards Rupert at all. Even so …

‘I will sleep in the adjoining dressing room if that will soothe your shocked sensibilities,’ Rupert assured her. ‘And now, perhaps you would like some hot water with which to bathe away some of the soot and grime before retiring for the night?’ He purposefully changed the subject to a more immediate one.

‘Rupert—’

‘Pandora.’

‘It’s far too late to request hot water with which to bathe,’ Pandora refused, still distracted by the thought of sleeping in Rupert’s bed. It was far too shocking, even without his disturbing presence in the room.

‘Perhaps you should leave me to be the judge of that?’ He arched an arrogant brow.

Pandora’s spirits had brightened slightly just now at the suggestion of bathing away some of the soot and smoke, only to dampen again as she recalled that it was two o’clock in the morning, a time when most, if not all, of the household servants would be abed. As her own household would be quiet now that all the fear and excitement had ended.

In truth, Pandora was totally bewildered still by the fact that Constable Smythe believed that the broken window in Barnaby’s study and the fire in her own bedroom were connected, and that someone had deliberately and cold-bloodedly tried, as Henley had so graphically described earlier, to murder Pandora in her bed.

Could someone really dislike her enough to actually wish to see her dead?

Pandora knew that many in society looked upon her with disapproval and suspicion—well, the women mainly felt that way; the gentlemen viewed her in quite a different light!—but she had not thought that anyone felt such strong emotions towards her as to want her dead.

Just the thought of her near escape was enough to make her tremble and quake.

Rupert had been waiting for the moment that the full import of this night’s near brush with death finally dawned upon Pandora—indeed, he had deliberately set out to incite her temper as they drove to Stratton House in an effort to delay that reaction until he was in a place where he might more easily comfort her. Inciting her temper had seemed the safest option at the time, when just to look at Pandora, with that tumble of golden curls loose down the slender length of her spine, was enough to inflame Rupert’s desire. A totally inappropriate desire on his part, he told himself, when she might have died earlier this evening.

‘Pandora …? Pandora, look at me,’ Rupert insisted as he moved down on to his haunches in front of her, causing her to finally raise her lashes to look up at him with eyes that were slightly unfocused, if still incredibly beautiful. He reached out to take her trembling hands into both of his. ‘You will be safe here with me,’ he assured gruffly.

The tip of her tongue appeared to moisten her lips before she answered him. ‘Will I?’

Rupert held her gaze unwaveringly. ‘Yes.’

‘How can you be sure?’ she whispered.

The truthful answer to that was he could not. But as far as it was within Rupert’s power to do so, he meant to ensure that no harm befell this woman. Now, or in the future. Indeed, it was now his intention to ask Benedict to use his connections in the government to make suitable enquiries about the late Barnaby Maybury, and to learn the identity of the woman Rupert was sure had previously stayed clandestinely at Highbury House with her lover.

‘Do you doubt my ability to protect you, Pandora?’ The teasing tone of Rupert’s voice was completely belied by the hard glitter in his eyes as he contemplated the fate of any person who might dare, in future, to harm a single golden hair upon her head.

She gave a wan smile. ‘No, of course I don’t. I only question whether it is possible for you, or anyone else, to ensure I will ever feel completely safe again.’

Rupert looked at her searchingly. ‘Do you have any family at all?’

‘None.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘My parents were both only children and they died of the influenza almost two years ago. Nor do I have any siblings of my own.’

Apart from his aunt and uncle and their children, Rupert had no close relatives either and, whilst he still missed the mother who had died when he was but twelve, his relationship with his father had not, as he had already confided to Pandora, been close in nature, so, whilst he mourned the death of his father, he did not particularly miss him.

He gave her hands a reassuring squeeze. ‘Then, as we both appear to be virtually alone in the world, perhaps we should seriously consider marrying and making a family of our own.’

Pandora’s eyes widened in the pallor of her face. ‘You still wish to marry me?’

He eyed her quizzically. ‘Still?’

‘If Constable Smythe is to be believed, then, once married to me, you might also expect to one night be burnt to death in your own bed.’ Pandora shuddered at the memory of the hot and leaping flames that had surrounded her earlier this evening.

‘In our own bed,’ Rupert corrected huskily.

She blinked owlishly, a warm blush colouring her cheeks as she saw the hot appraisal in those grey eyes looking so deeply into her own, and telling her—warning her!—that if she accepted Rupert’s offer then the two of them would indeed share a bed once they were married. Before they were married, if the deepening of that appraisal, as his gaze now swept slowly, lingeringly, over the firm swell of her breasts, was any indication.

Pandora looked away from the heat of that appraisal. ‘I— Is this— Can this be the ducal bedchamber?’ It was certainly grand enough to be. Although tidy in appearance, with no clothes left about the room to distinguish it from another, there was a certain lingering smell of lemon and sandalwood in the air. The same clean smell that Pandora now associated with Rupert.

His mouth compressed. ‘No.’

She looked up at him quizzically. ‘No?’

‘No,’ he confirmed. ‘Those apartments are on the other side of the house. Next to the bedchamber still occupied by my father’s widow. This room is the same one which, until four years ago, was always prepared for my use whenever I was in town.’

Until four years ago … Until Rupert’s father had married Patricia Stirling. Listening to the way the two of them had spoken to each other earlier, Pandora no longer had any doubts as to Rupert’s antagonism towards the woman who had once been his own mistress. As there had been no mistaking Patricia’s outraged reaction to Rupert’s announcement of his intention to marry Pandora.

‘One of the first things I will require of you, Pandora, once you have agreed to become my wife, is to choose completely new furniture and decoration for the ducal apartments,’ he continued. ‘Not that I am suggesting the two of us would ever wish to use them, I merely wish for all trace of that woman to be removed from this house.’

Pandora knew that the harshness of his tone and expression was not directed towards her. ‘You really do dislike her …’

‘I detest her utterly.’ Rupert’s eyes glittered with the emotion. ‘Did you ever doubt it?’

She had … wondered. Until tonight, she had felt a small lingering doubt as to whether Rupert’s previous vehemence towards the Dowager Duchess was completely genuine, or merely a result of chagrin because the other woman had married his father shortly after they had argued. A doubt which had been fully erased the moment she had heard Rupert in conversation—if it could be called that!—with the older woman earlier tonight.

She gave a rueful shrug. ‘I have learnt that what a gentleman chooses to say is not necessarily the whole truth.’

Rupert studied the haunted beauty of Pandora’s face through narrowed eyes. ‘Might I enquire from which gentleman you learnt this lack of trust?’

‘You are curious, perhaps, as to whether it was my husband or one of my lovers?’ she came back tartly.

Rupert released her hands to sit beside her on the bed before he turned and gently placed his own hands either side of her face as he looked down into the depths of her beautiful eyes. ‘Has no one ever warned you that the sort of bitterness you are currently expressing only succeeds in destroying the person who feels that emotion?’ he chided gently.

It was a lesson which Rupert had learnt himself this past four years as he watched his own father being played the fool by his new wife and he would not wish that disillusionment upon one so tender hearted as he now knew Pandora to be. Indeed, he hoped they would very soon start a new life together, one that would not include past disappointments for either of them.

Pandora frowned, her expression wary as she looked up at him. ‘You’re not really the Devil at all, are you?’

Rupert laughed softly at Pandora’s use of the name which he knew society had given him during the wildness of his youth and which they still used on occasion. ‘I trust you’ll never try to convince anyone else of that notion, for I am sure none would believe you.’

Perhaps they would not, Pandora acknowledged, but then they hadn’t seen that part of Rupert which he had chosen to reveal to her these past few days. Oh, he would never cease to be the arrogant, imposing Duke of Stratton, but she now knew with a certainty that he was so much more than that.

He was that same gentleman who had rescued her at Sophia’s ball, literally, from the clutches of Lord Richard Sugdon, before escorting her safely back to her own home. Admittedly he had stolen a kiss along the way, but he had not attempted to force any further attentions upon her, merely stated it was his intention to call upon her the following day.

At which time he had bullied her into going to the opera with him that evening with two of his relatives—after which he had stolen much more than a kiss or two!—before then seeking her out at Genevieve’s home earlier today and making her an offer of marriage …

Was it really possible that had happened only a few hours ago? So much seemed to have happened since then. Not least the terrible crushing fear she had suffered earlier as the heat of the flames had leapt and danced about her as she lay in her bed. If not for Bentley’s timely action …!

She shuddered. ‘Do you know if Lord Sugdon has left town yet?’

Rupert scowled. ‘His departure is set for the day after tomorrow, I believe.’

‘Do you think that he might have— He was so very angry the night of Sophia’s ball …?’

‘Don’t think on this further tonight, Pandora,’ Rupert soothed, having already considered that Sugdon might be the perpetrator of these past two nights’ mischief, in revenge for Rupert’s humiliation of him, and just as quickly dismissed the idea; Pandora’s home had been broken into three times before this, and as far as Rupert was aware Sugdon had no connection with Barnaby Maybury. Still, he would mention the other man’s name to Benedict Lucas.

‘Did you mean what you said earlier?’ Pandora now looked up at him anxiously. ‘In regard to finding employment in one of your own homes for all of my own household staff if I agree to marry you?’

Rupert had said that earlier, in an expansive fit of gratitude for Pandora’s lucky escape. Nor, having said it, would he now go back on his word. ‘Henley may pose something of a problem to my patience,’ he acknowledged drily.

Pandora’s expression lightened. ‘She has a kind heart.’

‘As I said earlier, I’m sure Attila the Hun also had his moments of lucidity.’ Rupert gently smoothed back the hair at her temples. ‘But I would no more relish having him as a member of my own household than I do the excitable Henley!’

‘Henley is my companion as well as my personal maid.’

‘If you agreed to marry me, I would then become your companion. Your personal maid, too, if you would allow it?’ he added in a low tone, sure that he would enjoy nothing more than helping this woman to undress.

Her cheeks coloured prettily. ‘You would have other calls upon your time and so not always be available.’

‘For you I would make the time,’ he promised.

Pandora smiled. ‘I could not be so cruel as to dismiss Henley when she has no one else in the world who cares for her.’

Rupert’s mouth quirked. ‘If you’re making the irritating Henley a part of your agreement to becoming my wife, then I accept.’ He arched an enquiring brow.

Had she meant that? Pandora wondered uncertainly. Was she— Could she seriously be contemplating Rupert’s proposal of marriage, after all?

There was no doubting that she felt safe in his company—at least, from dangers other than himself! And the danger Rupert posed to her was a purely physical one, a physical arousal which Pandora knew she had enjoyed, and which still held deep curiosity for her. But was either of those reasons enough for her to seriously contemplate accepting his proposal?

Rupert Stirling was not only magnificently handsome—to the point that it made her pulse quicken just to look at him and she was filled with trembling awareness as his finger slightly caressed her temples—he was also in possession of a deep-seated kindness which he chose to hide from himself as much as he did from the people he allowed close to him. As he was currently allowing Pandora close to him …

More surprisingly, he also seemed totally unconcerned about her reputation of being an adulterous wife, and as such responsible for her husband and lover dying in a duel.

Something he dismissed with the claim that he would rather know the true nature of his future bride than not.

In other words, he could just be the one chance Pandora might ever have of marrying again. If she wished to be married again, which in all honesty, she wasn’t sure she did. Marriage to Barnaby had become a nightmare from which Pandora had believed she would never awaken, and marriage to Rupert might become just as much of a nightmare, if in a different way, once he became bored with her company and began to seek out other women.

That was something Pandora found she couldn’t even bear to think about, let alone live through.

‘Let’s not talk of these things any more tonight, Pandora.’ Rupert, having watched the plethora of emotions flickering across Pandora’s expression and delicately pale face, now stood up briskly as an end to that particular topic of conversation. ‘It has been a long and exhausting night for you, and this is not the time for making decisions. Instead I will go downstairs to acquire warm water in which you might bathe.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘Taking into account your disapproval of my rousing one of the maids to bring you hot water, I have decided to see to the task myself,’ Rupert continued wryly.

Her eyes widened. ‘I could not possibly ask it of you.’

‘You didn’t ask, I offered.’ His eyes reflected his amusement.

Pandora gave him a teasing look. ‘Have you even been down to your kitchens before tonight?’

‘Not that I recall, no,’ he admitted openly. ‘But there’s a first time for everything, is there not? And I advise that you enjoy the experience, for it will not soon be repeated!’

Just as Rupert, once he had acquired the warm water, had every intention of thoroughly enjoying the experience of helping Pandora to bathe …