Page 35 of The Duchess in His Bed
“I don’t know why I did. I knew only that I didn’t wish to be alone and you provided such comfort last night.”
He’d provided a good deal more than that, but now wasn’t the time for reminding her or teasing her about it.
“It was selfish of me to impose on your kindness.”
Although he’d not known her long, he’d managed to discern selfishness was a stranger to her. He’d known selfish women before. They wouldn’t have pulled a dodge in order to ask questions of him; they’d have used the opportunity to speak of themselves or to have him slathering over them. Even succumbing to her wishes had proved to be no burden. “If I didn’t want to be here, I’d have said no.”
With a sigh, she looked toward the window, no doubt forgetting that the curtains prevented her from seeing the passing scenery. “I should have gone to the funeral. I think it would have helped put matters behind me. At the moment I feel untethered. I suspect you have a dim view of me now that you know I sought out pleasure so soon after falling into widowhood.”
“People grieve in different ways.”
Her gaze came back to him. “Have you had cause to grieve, then, Mr. Trewlove? You told me no one you held dear had ever died.”
“There are all sorts of losses.” When his brother Finn had been sent to prison, he’d felt as though the iron door had been shut on him as well. He’d mourned the loss of someone who had been a part of his days, his nights. But fury had tempered the grief, and he’d known he’d see Finn again. Her husband was now lost to her forever. “I’ve been spared the misery of death.”
“You’re fortunate. I’m all of twenty-five and have had far too much to mourn.”
Her husband might not have brought her pleasure in bed, but it was obvious she’d cared for him.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and she appeared uncertain, even as she angled her chin in an attempt to put on a brave front. “We’ve arrived.”
For the life of her, she couldn’t explain why she’d gone to him, asked him to accompany her. She’d known only that she’d longed for his company, but not in the role of a lover—simply as a friend. A friend who laughed when she bested him. Knowing she would give away her identity no longer seemed to matter as she was relatively certain he’d have figured it out eventually. They conversed far more than she’d anticipated, but she found she rather liked it. And if she required naught but silence as they strolled through the cemetery, she knew he would sense her needs and provide only his presence.
If they’d been allowed to stroll within. But when they reached the gates, and he held the lamp he’d taken from inside the carriage aloft, she could do little more than stare in overwhelming disappointment at the padlock that held them securely closed. “I’d not considered that they’d lock it up for the night.”
“To discourage graverobbers I suspect. If you can spare two hairpins, I’ll unlock it for you.”
“Are you also a thief, then?”
His grin, somewhat self-mocking, flashed in the night. “My brother was.”
Glancing around, she realized if constables were wandering about, they might be arrested. No, they would not. Her position would see her needs indulged. Reaching up, she removed two pins and handed them to him.
“Hold this.” He extended the lamp toward her, which she took without hesitation. He crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet, an extremely masculine pose. “Bring the light nearer, so I can see.”
Again she followed his order, watched as he placed one hairpin between his teeth, securing it as he straightened it with his fingers, then did the same to the other. “So your brother thought you might need this skill at some point?”
He inserted the pins into a hole in the lock. “My siblings and I had an understanding—if one of us learned something, he or she would teach it to the others. Mick taught us all about the nobility, peerage, titles, rank, how to address the nobs, how to drink tea around them.” His fingers stilled; he twisted around slightly, glanced up at her, and winked. “I could drink tea in your parlor with the Queen present, and she wouldn’t know I’d begun my life in the gutter.”
He returned his attention to his task. “As I told you, Gillie was about posh talk and knowing your liquors. Finn, the thief, was a young lad when he embarked on that career. Our mum got wind of it and took nearly an inch of flesh off his backside with her switch, so he became a horse slaughterer. He taught us about all the various equines. The different types, how to ride them, care for them. Then Beast... well.” He looked back up at her and grinned. “You’d be surprised by the things I know.”
A click echoed around them. He removed the lock, slipped it into his pocket, and pulled the chain through the bars on the gate, setting it aside. He pushed himself to his feet, tucked her pins inside his jacket, and she mourned the fact that they were ruined to such an extent he couldn’t tuck them back into her hair, not that she wanted the pins so much as she wanted his fingers skimming over the strands. “You have another sister. I saw her at Lady Aslyn’s wedding, although I didn’t get a chance to speak with her.”
“Fancy.”
“What did she teach you?”
“That children are irritating little buggers. I was fourteen when she was born. Not a lot she could teach me by the time she was old enough to provide lessons.” He took the lamp from her and offered his arm, which she gladly took. “Do you know where we’re going?”
“Yes.” Lushing brought her after he purchased the plots, so she would know where they would be laid to rest. “Once we enter, we turn right at the first pathway.”
“He seems to have prepared for things. Did he know he was going to die?” he asked as he escorted her into the cemetery.
“No. He took a chill in the winter. It worsened into this horrible gurgling cough.” Influenza morphing into pneumonia, the physician had told her. Until eventually he hadn’t been able to draw in air.
“I’m surprised he’s buried in a public cemetery rather than at his estate. There’s a mausoleum there, surely.”
A very ornate one of stone. “He preferred the gardens here at Abingdon Park. He was never particularly close to his father. My husband’s mother died when he was around fifteen. He and his father had a terrible row shortly thereafter. As a result, his father forbid him to use his courtesy title, cut off his allowance, disowned him for all practical purposes, although he couldn’t stop him from eventually inheriting. Lushing was the legal heir, and the law protected his inheritance. Thank goodness for Kittridge. His father had passed a few years earlier, so he’d already inherited the title and properties that placed him in a position to provide a haven for Lushing—or Arthur Sheffield, as he was known at the time—until the titles and properties passed on to him. Or so I was told. I was only a child when all this started. Lushing was twelve years my senior.”
