Page 27 of Rules for Heiresses
The reply was quick. “No.”
Seized with alarm, she began to struggle in earnest, the comfort of her captor’s arms suddenly becoming a pair of heavy brackets that trapped her in place. She did not want to be confined! “Ravenna, cease! It’s me, Courtland. You’ve had a bit too much to drink. I’m taking you to your room.”
“I hate my room.”
“You hate your room?”
She wanted to weep. “I hate you, too.”
The softest of kisses feathered over her brow, so soft that she could have sworn she imagined it. “I know.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I needed to think.”
The fissure in her heart widened. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
Courtland paused for a second, exchanged words in a low voice with someone, and then she was being gently set on top of a feather mattress. Blearily, she took in the details of the magnificent stateroom, noticing that it was not hers. For one, the mural on the ceiling was quite different. She’d studied hers for hours when sleep had eluded her, memorizing every bend and line of the ornamental cornices, every tender stroke of the artist’s brush. This was not her chamber or her bed.
“Where are we?” she mumbled.
But Courtland was gone. In his place was Colleen, that darling maid of hers. “Come now, Your Grace. Let’s get you into your night rail.” Within a few quick moments, her clothing had been deftly switched out.
Ravenna reached out. “Don’t be afraid of the duke,” she told the girl.
To her surprise, Colleen sent her a shy smile. “I’m not, Your Grace. In fact, he’s rather dashing, isn’t he, rescuing you as he did?”
Rescuingher?
Ravenna blinked through her muddled mind. Surely she wasn’t so much in her cups that she couldn’t remember having to be rescued. Had there been cutthroats? Pirates on the high seas? A fire-breathing dragon, perhaps?
When her lady’s maid gave her a quizzical look, Ravenna realized she had asked the questions out loud. Her poor maid backed out of the room so fast it was a miracle she was ever there at all. Ravenna’s mind spun as she settled back against the fluffy pillows. Her limbs felt quite strange—like they were sinking into a cloud.
Good heavens, she was never drinking French brandy again!
“It wasn’t brandy,” that voice that did unconscionable things to her insides said. Drat and blast, had she said that aloud as well? “Yes, you did.” There was laughter in the reply. She groaned. A familiar green bottle waved in front of her face, and she fought the urge to make a grab for it. “Brandy is brown. This is pale green. You consumed nearly a quarter of a bottle of absinthe.”
“Absinthe?” she repeated somewhat dimly.
“La fée verte.”
“I know what absinthe is, you big lump,” she told him with an imperious look, though it was ruined by the indelicate slurring of her words. “The green fairy,everyoneknows. I assure you, sir, this is not it.”
“I assure you it is.”
“It turns white when you mix it with water, did you know?” She wrinkled her nose. “No, no, it’s brandy. Really terrible, possibly spoiled, dreadful brandy.”
“And you still consumed it?” he asked, a pair of dark thundercloud eyes drilling into hers.
Ravenna did not want to admit that it was the first bottle she snatched, nor that she’d set out to get completely sotted so it hadn’t mattered which liquor she swigged. “Heavens, Ashvale, are you always this fatalistic? I’m fine.” She attempted to stare him down and failed. “As you can well see, I’m here in my chamber, safe and sound.”
“These are my rooms.”
“Why am I in your rooms?”
The duke groaned out loud. “Confound it all to hell, woman! You’renotfine. You were prowling around the ship with no idea where you were. How you ended up in the library is anyone’s guess. If Bingham hadn’t stumbled upon you, Lord knows what could have happened to you. You could have gone overboard!”
