Page 4 of The Scarred Duchess Deal
Tessa lifted her hand and hovered it over the burned side of her face as if she could pretend in her reflection that it did not exist. This was not how she had wanted her life to go; this was not where she was supposed to be. All of these changes and not a single one of them for the better.
Frustrated, she pushed herself up off her bed and pulled her sheet free. Unable to stand to look at herself for another second, she stomped across the room and threw the sheet up and over her vanity in its entirety. In the good half of her face, she saw only her mother’s features and that brought nothing but pain. The burned side evoked pain of another kind.
Perhaps Sophie was right… she was cursed.
ChapterThree
“Interesting,” Leo Keats muttered to himself softly as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He could not remember last night at all. He must have enjoyed himself very thoroughly as he could not recall crawling into bed nor could he remember bedding the woman beside him. Or rather, the woman who was draped half across him.
Leo blinked blearily down at the sleeping beauty resting against his chest and tried his very best to recall even one single detail about her. She was stunningly beautiful, even in her sleep. There was no denying it – but apart from that, he could not recall her name let alone where they had met, what they had done. He could not have even guessed what the color of her eyes was. She was wholly and utterly forgettable, apparently.
It likely should have bothered him in some capacity that there was a woman in his bed, but it did not. What bothered him was that he would have to ask her to leave quickly so that he would not have the conversation that he hated. It was always the same. They would inquire when he would see them again and he would be forced to lie. He did not like it, but the only alternative would be to break their heart. That was eviler than being brutally honest. At least, he thought it was. Hedidvalue the time that he spent with these women, but that was all he felt. If only there were a simpler way to explain that.
He had rather hoped when he had arrived back in England that his reputation would have somehow preceded him and that he would not have to go through all of this again. Apparently, he had not been nearly rakish enough during his travels in order to have accomplished such a feat.
Slowly, Leo attempted to extract his arm from where it was trapped without waking the woman. He felt that was a perfectly acceptable thing to do – no matter how disreputable it was. He managed to liberate a single leg from the tangle of bedding and pulled his arm most of the way from underneath the woman when the door started to creak open with a loud squeak. The woman started to stir. Leo glanced at her as she started to awaken. There was no way out of it.
Her eyes opened the same moment that a cat jumped up onto the foot of the bed. The creature walked in a small circle, and then its yellow eyes locked on the female guest in the bed. A low growl from the back of its throat forced her awake more quickly.
“Good morning,” she rasped in her sleepy voice.
Leo grinned with too many teeth to be genuine. “Good morning, dear. Time to greet the day.” He slipped his arm the rest of the way free and the woman fell heavily into the mattress. The cat started to growl louder and even hissed at her.
“I am afraid that is your cue to leave.”
“Leave?” she repeated in surprise. Leo nodded.
“Yes, I know. Very sad. However, there is much to do. For you as well, I would imagine. Think of the cat’s hissing as an alarm clock or take it as a cue to be on your way – either suits me just fine. You must leave before his owner comes searching for him. Things will not end very well for me if you do not make yourself scarce and quickly,” Leo explained lamely.
“What? But… I had thought–”
“I know. However, whatever it was that you thought might happen will not be possible. Now, unless you wish to have to scramble to hide underneath the bed while in the nude, I suggest that you start moving,” Leo added as he pulled a random shirt over his head.
“You cannot be serious,” she protested.
“Oh, but I am.” Leo grinned.
The cat growled and hissed. A knock came on the slightly open door. Leo sighed as his shoulders slumped.
“Any chance you wish to dive under the bed now?” he asked, knowing the answer before he even asked the question. The woman pulled the bedding up over her chest as the door started to open. An older man came into the room with a robe far too long for him trailing on the ground behind him. Even from across the room, Leo could see the cat hair covering the robe. The man’s beard had long since turned white and he walked with his arms perpetually folded, his hands hanging limply at the wrists. His spectacles sat low on his nose and he squinted to see in the low lighting of the room. Leo did not like early mornings and had forbidden the staff to come and wake him before he called for them in the mornings. As such, it still gave the impression of the evening despite the fact that breakfast had likely come and gone at least an hour ago.
“Leo… Leo my boy, have you seen Sweetie Whiskers?”
“I am not going to call him that.”
Sweetie Whiskers growled and hissed at the woman on the bed once more. Leo bent forward and snatched the woman’s gown from the floor beside the bed and gracelessly held it aloft for her to take. The woman snatched it bitterly and started to slide off the side of the bed, taking a sheet with her. She wrapped it around herself as best as she was able while still holding the gown with one hand. Leo made no effort to stop her.
“Oh, there he is!”
“Did you think that you had lost him again, Grandfather?” Leo asked plainly. He indulged himself in a deep stretch of his arms over his head as he yawned to chase away the last vestiges of sleep. He did not so much as glance in the woman’s direction as she slunk out of the room and into the hall. There would be plenty of servants to attend to her there and set her up with anything and everything that she should require. All the better for him as that meant that he was no longer the one that would have to do it.
“Well, I was not sure what to think. Normally Sweetie Whiskers is by my side all day. When he disappeared after breakfast, I did not know what to think. I had rather hoped he had found himself a rat to chase.” Grandfather Aurelius came to sit on the side of the bed near Leo’s feet.
“I am not going to call him that.”
“What? Whyever not?” Aurelius sounded completely shocked.
“Because it is a terrible name for a cat. Not to mention it does not suit him in the slightest.”
