Page 5 of The Duke's Counterfeit Wife

She was new at this motherhood thing, but in the last few months, she had become used to sharing time in the evening with her son. Tonight she’d been engrossed in her laboratory and hadn’t realized the time. When she finally emerged, the house was silent, and Bull wasn’t in his chamber.

The study had been the next place she’d checked.

The door was ajar, which could mean any number of things:

She was being burgled.

One of Mr. Calderbank’s children had crept out of bed and slipped into her home.

The cats had developed the ability to hold down the secret button while lifting up on the hidden latch, although that would indicate a surprising—and frankly alarming—level of cooperation among felines.

Bull had snuck out again.

Of the four possibilities, she preferred the burgled one.

Based on data collected, it is far more likely to be Bull’s fault.

Not the first time she’d caught him using one of the secret doors—which she’d never opened, not once in her ten years of living here!—since he’d moved in. He’d developed a friendship with the children next door, and the three of them could often be found causing mischief or playing cards or even doing their schoolwork together.

But never this late at night.

With a sigh, Felicity dropped her arms from around her waist. There was only one thing for it. She was going to have to go after him. If Bull was, in fact, next door, she would have to fetch him before Mr. Calderbank discovered his presence and had him…

Well, frankly, she wasn’t certain what the beast would do.

Stripes from a whip? Keelhaul on the Thames? Force Bull to walk the plank?

As far as she could tell, the man vacillated between “grumpy” and “angry”, with a dash of “cranky” thrown in. Since Bull had moved in, he’d had nothing kind to say to any of them.

And while she suspected that was mostly Bull’s fault, Felicity knew he blamed her for refusing to board up the door, which opened from her side of the brick wall.

You are putting off the inevitable.

Right.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled the door open just enough to poke her head through. “Bull?” she whispered.

No answer. Blast.

The room on the other side of the wall was dark, of course. She’d only been in the home once, but knew the floorplan mirrored hers. The family which had rented it prior to the Calderbanks used this room as a library, but now…

The room was empty, and her footsteps echoed strangely on the wooden floor as she slipped inside.

Why would the room be empty? She knew Calderbank had recently moved from America, but did he not have the furnishings to fill the house?

“Bull?” Felicity whispered again, not really expecting an answer.

If he was in this house, he was almost certainly with Marcia.

And she didn’t even want to think of the consequences of that.

Pressing her lips together, Felicity hurried across the empty room, and paused at the door to the hall. No light peeked from under any of the doors, but still she hesitated. Marcia’s room would be upstairs. It was a gross violation of decency to be in this house, unannounced, at this hour, and it would be even more so to venture upstairs.

Perhaps it would be best to retreat to her own study, and wait for Bull there? She could light the lamps and be waiting, arms folded and foot tapping, when he returned. That would show him her authority wasn’t to be trifled with!

Felicity’s brief spurt of mothering—most of which she’d gleaned from women’s magazines—faded as she glanced over her shoulder. She’d neglected to pull the secret door closed, which meant Cheeseburg—always on the lookout for food—could escape.

At that point she’d have more members of her household in Calderbank’s house than her own, which would be silly, considering how little furniture the man owned.

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