Page 43 of Unwillingly His

“Excuse me?”

“Suzette is already drawing your bath. You have fifteen minutes before breakfast is served.”

He turned his back on me but didn’t leave the room.

Instead, he continued, directing the never-ending parade of other maids and butlers and what looked like a like a few gardeners as they brought in garment bags, hat boxes, and even the Vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunk that my grandmother had given me.

It was everything that I’d had not only in the hotel room, but also in my rooms in my parent’s estate.

He’d sent people to my home. Invading my private space, my parent’s private space, without permission.

Lucian really had moved my entire life without my consent.

Then again, my consent didn’t really seem to factor in on his list of concerns.

It was clear the staff was not going to leave. By the way the butler lifted his wrist out and tapped on his watch, I knew I was on a countdown clock.

This was ridiculous.

Tightening the sheet around my body as much as I could, careful to cover every inch that needed to be covered, and not give the help a free peep show, I made my way into the large ensuite bathroom.

Sure enough, there was a maid there in a traditional maid’s uniform, with the ruffled hat clipped into her hair and everything, leaning over the bathtub and filling it with hot water and some of the most delicious smelling oils.

“What is that?” I asked her. “It smells amazing.”

“Mr. Manwarring had it brought specially for you. It’s a bath oil designed to sooth your muscles and accentuate the scent of the perfume he got for you.”

“What perfume?”

“Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl. It really is a very fetching scent.”

Of course, it was Carolina Herrera’s Good Girl.

I took a deep breath in slowly through my nose and out of my mouth, stopping myself from screaming at the poor maid.

This wasn’t her fault, and I did not take things out on the help. I found it tacky and gauche and refused to be one of those overprivileged, entitled women. I mean, I was overprivileged and entitled, or at least I had been, but my situation had nothing to do with the maid.

“Is there anything else that you need help with, miss?” she asked.

“No, I can bathe myself.” The words may have come out a little too harshly, so I immediately followed them with, “Thank you so much for your help.”

“Of course, miss,” she said and dropped into a short curtsy before leaving the room.

That was odd.

I’d had a maid my entire life, and none of the staff had ever curtsied to me. Then I thought back to the butler and realized he had an accent and was an actual legitimate English butler.

Even the suit Lucian put on I was pretty sure was English. There was something about the subtlety of the check pattern in the dark gray, and the cut not only hugged his body perfectly so that it looked tailored, but there was also something in the way it was cut closer to his body, and how the shoulders seemed larger and yet still tapered perfectly to his waist.

He was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but his suit still gave him a sleek silhouette.

I shook those thoughts out of my head.

If he was an anglophile, that was the least of my concerns. His other quirks like making me love the things that I should hate and making me feel warm when everything else left me frozen—those were the things I should be more concerned about.

He’d only left me a moment ago, and the cold was already starting to creep in.

As soon as Suzette left, closing the door behind her, I dropped the ruined sheet to the ground and went to step into the steaming water.

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