Page 18 of The Hidden Duchess

Caroline loosed a breath and waited in demure silence. She kept her head down and gaze on the floor between them. Lord Edward stepped forward and hooked a finger beneath her chin, drawing her gaze upward to meet his own.

“How about a kiss to warm a man on this dreary day?” he suggested.

Bold! She must have shown that she had been startled by the request because he chuckled. He leaned forward as if to kiss her. A lady would have slapped him in the face, but Caroline was not entirely sure what a maid was supposed to do. She froze. His lips aimed for hers, but diverted purposefully at the last moment to land on her exposed neck just beneath her ear. What a cad, she thought! He had meant to shake her, was testing the stubborn will that he seemed to sense bubbled beneath the surface. He was toying with her, she realized.

He chuckled softly.

While Caroline was still setting about collecting herself, Lord Edward strolled away whistling a happy tune.

She decided that she could not stay in the house any longer. Between the moody duke and his devilish rake of a brother Caroline was definitely over her head.

She had to get a letter out. She had to get word to her father that she was alive and in London.

She was fairly certain that she would not be permitted to send a letter, at least not one addressed in her name, false or otherwise. Still, she doubted that the wicked members of the household knew who she really was, and therefore, she hoped that they would not recognize that mail should not at all be sent to Gravesend Manor in Northwickshire. She wished Father was in London, but she knew he was not. Lords did not open for another week, even if Father chose to attend. The letter would take several days in travel to reach him in Northwickshire, and then, of course, Father would have to travel to Town. The thought made her seethe with impatience.

She scrawled a quick note. Nothing too obvious, just I’m in London, father. Please, come to the house. She did not sign it. She knew that her father was acute enough to place that his daughter was in London at what he would assume was either her husband’s townhome or his own. Anyone reading it could not have known that she had given away the specific location of her imprisonment. She folded the paper closed and left no indication of the sender. Then, she slipped the letter into the hallway basket that held several other outgoing letters from the staff.

With a deep breath and a solemn prayer, she went back to her work and awaited her rescue.

CHAPTER12

That evening she was too nervous to gather with the rest of the servants as they waited for the house to quiet before they finished their evening chores in secret. Many had gone to bed, but a handful remained playing cards in the kitchen and Caroline found that the raucous noise was too much for her agitated state.

She knew that Lord Edward was in the parlor sharing a drink with two of his schoolmates from Eton. They were loud and promised to be up for several hours before she could slip in and put the room back to rights.

The duke had gone out; his valet had said as much as he had taken a bottle of dark amber drink and the hand of Mary out into the alley. James had it easy compared to other valets, he often boasted. The duke did not like him to wait up and help the gentleman prepare for bed. That made for early nights and a surplus of free time for a position that had meant to be around the clock. Lord Edward was the more demanding of the two, but James did not seem to mind working for that brother.

All this meant, Caroline realized, that the study was empty, and she had several hours to herself. She had been eyeing the bookshelf for weeks. She had noticed that the lowest shelf beside the fireplace was filled with no less than two dozen novellas. It had been an age since she could lose herself in a book. She sorely needed the relief. The books must have belonged to the duchess before her passing and so Caroline supposed, in a way, they were hers. She had been waiting for the right moment to leaf through their pages but now she thought with excitement that she might even be able to sit by the firelight and read more fully while she waited for Lord Edward to clear out of the parlor.

The room was filled with shadow except for the spaces nearest to the dying fire. It was just enough light for her to pick over the adjacent shelf without needing to light a lamp.

She opened the door further and peered in. Blessed silence, she thought. With a deep sigh she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. If anyone were to enter, she would hear the door first and simply claim that she had been preparing to check the flame for the evening.

Quiet steps on the soft carpet made her stealthy as a feline. She approached the shelf, crouched before it, and pulled a volume from the mahogany bookcase.

She had to hold it in front of the fire to read the title. It happened to be something that she had already read, she noted, and put it back where it belonged. She checked another. It was old and worn, as if it had been thumbed through a thousand times. If the duchess had enjoyed this tale enough to read it over and over, then Caroline would take that as a solid recommendation.

She settled herself in front of the fire and cracked open the aged binding.

“What are you doing?” an amused voice asked from the darkness.

Caroline gasped and scrambled to get to her feet but found herself tangled in the thick layers of dress. It was not graceful and when she had finally righted herself, she was gasping from sheer panic as well as the effort.

The duke, on the other hand, was laughing. A deep, vibrant sound that sounded far more natural than she had expected, as if he were given over to the act often.

“You don’t bat an eye upon beholding my face but leap out of your britches doing what?” He chuckled and stood from where he had been seated in the far corner behind his desk to come take the book from her trembling hand. “Reading a romance?” he said. She wanted to remind him that women did not wear britches, but she understood his meaning and decided that it was best not to split hairs.

“I-I thought the room was empty,” she stammered. It was not really an answer, but it was all that she could manage in the moment.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said with a pointed lift of one brow. He offered the book back, and she snatched it, clasping it to her breast as if it were a shield between them. He expected her to put it back, she guessed. But first, she needed to apologize and explain.

“I didn’t want you to fire me. I need this job,” she lied. Well, it was a partial truth. “I was out of line other day and...”

“No. It is I who was out of line,” he cut her off. “A gentleman should not raise his voice.”

“I am only the help,” she began.

“Especially to the help,” he replied, “who have no recourse.”

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