Page 14 of The Duchess in His Bed
The rap came again.
“Enter.” When the door opened, he didn’t turn his attention away from the etching because he could tell by the shift in the air that his brother Beast had walked in. For one so tall and broad, he was incredibly graceful, and it was as though space, the atmosphere, and everything around him bent to his will, accommodated his size and movements, without hesitation, the way one might quickly issue obedience to a king.
“That’s an unusual rendering,” Beast said, his voice deep but smooth, like fine whisky. “Or an odd way to etch someone. You’re missing the middle portion of her face.”
Setting his charcoal aside, Aiden crossed his arms and gave the sketch a critical appraisal. It wasn’t yet what he wanted or needed it to be. “She wore a mask.”
“One of the women who frequents here then.”
“Frequent is too generous a term. She’s been here only once.” But he was hoping for more encounters, although after she had her bedding, she might not return—unless he gave her cause to want to, unless he ensured she found the fornicating an addiction she couldn’t live without. He clapped his hands in order to turn his attention away from her and focus on his brother and the purpose of his visit. Beast seldom stopped by without a pressing reason. “Care for something to drink?” He walked over to a small table where a decanter of whisky sat at the ready.
“I wouldn’t object to two fingers.”
Aiden poured the amber liquid into the tumblers and passed one off to his brother. “So what brings you here?”
“Haven’t seen much of you lately.”
“I’ve been busy. I don’t know how Mick does it with all the irons he has in the fire.” The first of their group brought to Ettie Trewlove, Mick was considered the eldest. He was tearing down decrepit parts of London and building them anew, with so many projects going it was impossible to keep track—but his brother had become a wealthy man in the process, gaining the recognition and reputation he’d always longed for.
“He thrives on keeping busy and has an unquenchable need to succeed.”
“I’d say that describes all of us.”
Beast gave a nod to that, sipped his whisky. “Even Fancy.”
Their baby sister, the only one of them born to their mum, was the result of an unscrupulous landlord taking payment in sexual favors when Ettie Trewlove had been short of funds for her weekly rent. Aiden and his brothers had been fourteen when Fancy came into the world and they’d discovered the price their mum was paying to keep a roof over their head. They might have been lads, but they’d been big and strong—and there had been four of them. When they’d finished giving the landlord a taste of their fists, breaking his jaw, he’d never again darkened their mum’s door—or taken anything other than coins from another woman. They’d kept a close watch on him until he’d finally sold his properties to Mick.
“We’re all gathering together this coming Thursday to help her get her shop ready for business,” Beast continued. “We hoped you might make time in your schedule to join us.”
Fancy would soon turn eighteen, and they all spoiled her rotten, Mick worst of all. She wanted to open a bookshop, so Mick had given her one of his recently built buildings for that purpose. “She could have asked me herself.”
“I’m not sure Mum is keen on her coming to your house of sin.”
“Better here where I can keep a watch over her than elsewhere. She’s of an age where she’s going to be curious. Mum can’t possibly think she’s not going to engage in a bit of naughtiness somewhere.”
“Her shop will keep her too busy for that. Then next year, if Mick has his way, she’ll have her Season and marry some lord.”
“We all strive to keep Fancy innocent”—he thought of his duchess—“but eventually she’ll rebel. God help us when she does. It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.”
The quiet ones, the shy ones, the ones who hid beneath masks.
Chapter 5
By half past six in the morning, dressed in black bombazine up to her chin and down to her wrists, Selena made her way down the stairs and into the front parlor where additional chairs had been brought in to fill out the various sitting areas because the wake for Arthur James Sheffield, Duke of Lushing, would be held here throughout the day and into the evening. He’d passed away shortly after midnight on Friday at the estate. It wasn’t until yesterday, Sunday, that they’d accompanied the casket to the train station for Lushing’s final journey to London. Servants had lined the drive at the manor house to pay their final respects. Villagers had gathered along the edge of the road leading to the depot. The Duke of Lushing had been loved by many.
So she wasn’t at all surprised now to see Viscount Kittridge occupying a chair near the gold satin-covered dais upon which the casket encasing the duke rested. It was a fanciful thing, Spanish mahogany inlaid with silver, bearing the ducal crest. Her husband had purchased it some time back, but when his fever was at its highest, he’d ordered it brought up to his bedchamber, so he could gaze upon his eternal home. She’d found it standing upright in the corner a morbid affair, as though it were waiting for him to get out of the bed, stroll over, and close himself up inside. Not that he’d have been uncomfortable there. The entire thing was lined with stuffing covered in satin. On the inside of the lid, the silk carried an embroidered crest, as though he expected to be able to view it from his position and take comfort in it. Like many of his friends, her late husband, bless him, had a macabre fascination with death.
The crinkling of her dress announced her arrival and the viscount rose to his feet. He appeared wan, with dark shadows beneath his eyes, and she did hope he wasn’t on the verge of succumbing to the illness that had taken the duke.
“You’re here early, Kit,” she said quietly as she approached him.
He sighed heavily. “I wanted to pay my respects in peace, before the others begin arriving.” Taking her black-gloved hand, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, scrutinizing her as he did so. “How did you sleep?”
“Not so well,” she admitted honestly, knowing he would attribute the blue half circles beneath her eyes to her mourning when in truth Aiden Trewlove had been responsible for her restlessness. He’d come to her in her dreams, his luscious mouth doing wicked things to hers, filling her with guilt because all her thoughts should be focused on her dear departed husband.
Kit offered his arm for support as she lowered herself into the chair, before taking the one next to her. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Kit and Lushing had been the best of friends, hardly inseparable since their earliest days at Eton. Kit had accompanied her and Lushing on many of their travels. She did have to give her husband credit for that: through her marriage to him she’d seen a good bit of the world. She placed her hand over Kit’s, and he turned his up, threading their fingers together. “I fear the next two days will be trying.”
