Page 35 of Taken By the Broken Duke
“I see…” Horatio replied, deep in thought.
He could not believe what he had been told entirely. But it had something of the ring of truth. Perhaps a lie, wrapped around a kernel of honesty.
He thought of Juliet’s eccentricities. Her caring for animals. Her stripping of clothes in order to swim with him. Could that behavior be a symptom of an unsound mind? If so, could he marry her knowing that a worse scandal might be in store?
He hated himself for thinking it. Did not want to think it of her. But, a cold, pragmatic part of him whispered that he needed to think less as a man and more as a Duke.
And as a Duke, his path was clear. He could not marry Juliet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Three days passed and Juliet’s patient recovered rapidly. She bound and dressed its wound, applying a poultice under the bandage to help the healing process.
As it recovered, she gave it the run of the guest rooms, taking care that it was always shut away in a wardrobe whenever the servants were around. To make sure it did not escape into the castle before it was well enough, she remained in her rooms to watch over it. In all that time, she saw nothing of Horatio.
At first, she was so caught up in her tending to her little patient that she did not notice.
By the second day, she wondered at his absence. She had felt a connection with him following their swim together. A small thing—but it was certainly there. A shared eccentricity, something she was unused to having in common with anyone. Perhaps that was too much to expect. Just because the Dukehad eccentricities of his own did not mean that he relished the prospect of marrying her.
By the third day, a gloom had settled over her. Her feelings were clearly mistaken. Horatio made no attempt to communicate with her and did not visit her rooms. Neither did her Aunt or cousin, though their absence was more of a blessing.
At midday, on the third day since her swim in the mere, she sat by a window seat in her bedroom. The rabbit lay nestled in her lap, having concluded that she was no threat to it and possibly associating her with the lessening of its pain and discomfort. Tea and sandwiches had been brought to her by a maid and she had summoned the courage to ask for an audience with the Duke. She would confront him about their future prospects.
Was she to be a wife in name only before being retired to a remote house and living alone and obscure? If so, she needed to resign herself to that. In turn, that would require her to know her fate.
It had seemed to her that it would be easy, once she knew. But that knowledge was proving difficult to reconcile. The prospect of being married to Horatio but being unable to touch him or even be in company with him was a heartbreaking one.
That was unexpected.
“What am I to do,Patch?” she whispered to the rabbit, named for the white patch around its right eye. “I thought myself ambivalent about him. I was, after all, being forced into wedlock.But now, I wonder exactly how unwilling I am. Has my head been turned by a handsome face? A handsome face, and a sculpted body comparable to Michaelangelo’s David…”
She trailed off, blushing furiously.
The notion of Horatio’s body was one that sent tingles through her own. The memory of being naked in his presence, her modesty protected only by a makeshift screen of leafy branches. Had he sneaked a look at her? Did he, at this very moment, hold the memory of her undressed body in his mind? Did he dream of her? Lust over her?
“Oh my, Patch!” she gasped with a little laugh. “I must control my imagination or it will land me in trouble. I must control my expectations. Some foolishness in a lake by two people behaving like children does not make a great love affair.”
A knock came at the door then. Taking care not to frighten Patch, she returned him to the nest she had contrived for him in her wardrobe and closed the door just enough to prevent him from escaping.
“Come in!” she called loud enough to be heard in the anteroom beyond the bedchamber.
A door opened, and footsteps sounded on the wooden floor of the anteroom. Juliet suddenly found herself breathless. She smoothed her skirts unnecessarily and fanned herself with her hand.
The door to the bedchamber opened soon after, but the butler, Mr. Hall, was revealed.
“Good afternoon, Miss Semphill,” he said gravely, bowing from the neck.
“Good… afternoon, Mr. Hall,” Juliet stammered.
“How may I be of assistance?” he asked solemnly.
It sounded odd, such formality in the accents of a West Country commoner. Odd, but refreshing. Juliet realized that it was a characteristic of Ravenscourt that she was coming to love. All of its refreshing freedoms. She felt a pang of sadness at the thought that while she would be living here, it would only be briefly, and then she would likely never see the house or its master again.
“I had asked for an audience with Horatio… I mean, withHis Grace, the Duke,” Juliet hastily amended.
“I regret to say, Miss, that His Grace has requested that he not be disturbed.”
Juliet frowned. “For three days?”
