"Are you in pain? Have you been hurt?"
"No, no. Jus' a moment. It's . . . it's coming . . . I . . . thinking . . . thinking . . ."
Emilie removed her spectacles, wiped the lenses, and replaced them on her nose. "Don't strain your faculties too hard, your lordship. You'll need them in the morning. I have in mind a most rigorous . . ."
He snapped clumsily. "I've got it!"
"Got what, your lordship? I really must be in bed."
Freddie pointed at Emilie's chin. "It's your whiskers, Grimsby. Your . . . damned old . . . whiskers. Where the devil have they gone?"
FIFTEEN
At half past four in the morning, Emilie gave up trying to sleep. She rose from her bed, dressed with clumsy fingers, stuck on her whiskers, and went downstairs to the library.
God knew she was tired enough. She'd slept a fitful hour immediately upon lying down, and then started back awake just as the duke's body lowered itself upon hers and began to transform from skin into fur, his growl of pleasure to sharpen into a snarl. She lay awake, breathing hard, unable to move at the vivid reality of it all.
It's your whiskers. Where the devil have they gone?
She'd told Freddie she'd shaved them. What else could she say? She could only hope that he was drunk enough to have forgotten the whole thing in the morning, or at least believe her when she denied knowledge of the episode. He was certainly drunk enough to accept the bit about the shaving without a blink of surprise. Oh, right, he'd said blearily, and turned around to vomit into the washbasin.
The day outside was still winter dark, as black as midnight, and the air was chilled. Emilie crept down the back stairs with every muscle aching. The sins of the night had come back with a vengeance: She felt as if she'd been wrung out, piece by piece, and laid out to stiffen in the sun. Between her legs, her flesh tingled and stung, scraping with acute sensitivity against the seam of her trousers.
Perhaps dresses weren't such a nuisance after all.
The library lay on the other side of the house. The dear and comfortable library, her favorite room: Surely there she could nestle with a book in one of the wide chairs. She could lay the fire-she knew how to do that, now-and perhaps even fall asleep for a precious hour or so, before the rest of the household awakened.
She scampered down the cavernous hallway, the spine of the house, from which all the principal rooms connected. Past glowering portraits and a pair of knights sprung from some impossibly giant race-Ashland's height was evidently not an accident of nature-and the white marble statue of Apollo, her favorite, though his essential bits had been made sacrifice at some point to delicate English sensibilities.
She was just crossing past an open doorway when a faint sound reached her ears. A rhythmic beat, sharp thumps muffled by the walls.
She turned to the door. A hint of yellow light glowed from the bottom of a long and narrow staircase.
For an instant, her dream reared up before her, more vivid than before: Ashland's snarl, his damp fur beneath her fingers.
Don't be ridiculous, she thought. It's only the servants, beating carpets or . . . or churning butter. Some household chore or another.
Was that grunting? Just before each beat, almost merged together.
Emilie hesitated, poised at the top of the stairs. She looked down the hall toward the library, quiet and peaceful. Empty.
Of course this was nothing. Dreams were nothing.
She would walk down those stairs right now and prove it.
Emilie gathered her breath and took one step. And another.
The sounds continued, grunt-thump, grunt-thump, grunt-thump. Louder now, more resolved. A scent rose up from the stones, not unpleasant, slightly damp. Like a cave at the seaside.
At the bottom of the stairs, the passage went left. A rectangle of light lay upon the plain gray stones. Emilie's last thought, as she turned the corner, was that it should have been colder down here. That the dampness held a trace of warmth.
Before her, the hall opened up into a room, lit by several oil lamps. In the center of the room danced the Duke of Ashland, barefoot, stripped to the waist, his white hair wet and blazing, both hands covered in dark leather gloves. He was thrusting his arms, punching a large oblong leather bag that hung from the ceiling and swayed mightily at every strike.
Both hands: Of course she meant his hand and his stump, but they were equal now, with those padded gloves fixed snugly at each wrist. He was facing away from her, at an angle, the massiveness of his body balanced with weightless grace on the balls of his feet. His back gleamed with sweat, each muscle etched in perfect symmetry by the light, tapering to a pair of hips covered in snug pale trousers.
He was magnificent.
She stood there openmouthed, eyes agape, not making a sound.
Without warning, Ashland whipped around. "What the . . ." He steadied the leather bag with one hand. "Oh! It's you, Grimsby. What the devil are you doing up so early?"
Emilie's limbs turned to jelly.
From behind, he had been magnificent. From the front, he was godlike. His hard face bore its black mask like a badge of honor; his shoulders were broad enough to pull a plow. His chest heaved up and down with male exertion. Not a single wrinkle of extra flesh marred the musculature of chest and abdomen, like an anatomist's model. A pair of converging grooves pointed suggestively downward under the fastening of his trousers.
"Grimsby? Is something wrong?"
She returned her eyes to his face and gulped. "Nothing, sir! I beg your pardon. I couldn't sleep. A bit befuddled, I'm afraid. I wasn't expecting you."
His eyebrow arched. "Were you wanting a swim?"
Emilie's brain was a muddled collage of blade-sharp quadriceps and flexing pectorals. Her mouth filled. "Swim?"
Ashland made a motion with his arm. "The pool."
She glanced in the direction he indicated. A flash of light came from around the corner, as if reflected from water.
"The pool," she said numbly, "of course."
Ashland angled his head to the leather bag. "Go on, if you like. I won't be finished for a while yet."
Emilie realized she was staring at his lips. A few hours ago, those lips had been kissing her. The tongue inside that mouth had been eating her alive, making her scream with pleasure. That ridged chest, those shoulders, those impossibly trim hips had been driving into her.
This was what lay behind those layers of clothing he wouldn't remove.
Dear. Heavenly. Father. She was going to faint.
Ashland was frowning. "Grimsby, are you certain you're all right? You look a little queer."
A mist was rising before her eyes. She really was going to faint.
"Grimsby, your spectacles," said Ashland.
"My spectacles?"
"They've fogged over. It's the pool, I'm afraid. We keep it heated during the colder months. Freddie's damned idea; I prefer it bracing."
"Oh!" Emilie removed her spectacles, ducking her head as she did so. She wiped away the steam and put them back on her nose. "Of course you do," she muttered.
Between her legs, she was feeling rather . . . warm. She shifted her weight.
"You're welcome to pick up a pair of gloves and spar with me, if you like," Ashland was saying. His eyes swept briefly over her. "You look as though you could use a bit of heft. Strengthen you up."
"No, no. I don't, er, spar, as a rule. I am a . . . a man of peace." She straightened herself. "And stronger than I look."
Ashland shrugged. "Do as you like, then. As I said, you've free use of the place, and swimming's excellent exercise. Shall stroke off myself shortly." He turned back to his punching bag, all sinuous power. His trousers fit economically around the hard curve of his buttocks.
His trousers, which he would undoubtedly remove to (dear God!) stroke off in the bathing pool.
Emilie swallowed. "I think . . . perhaps . . . I shall find a book in the library instead."
* * *
Why does His Grace keep a bathing pool in the lower level of the house?"
Freddie looked up from his plate of steaming morning offal. His face bore a gray green cast, like a lump of clay left to gather algae in a stagnant pond. "Must you do that?"
"Do what, your lordship?"
"Talk."
"The breakfast table, your lordship, is, or ought to be, the scene of civilized conversation, where members of the household come together with convivial . . ."
Freddie brought his cup to his lips, tilted back his head, and drained it.
". . . fellowship." Emilie eyed her charge. "That is tea, isn't it?"
"Coffee, Mr. Grimsby. Black."
"Ah yes. Just like your father. Which returns me to the point: Why does the duke maintain a bathing pool?"
The footman moved up noiselessly to refill Freddie's cup. He stared queasily at the stream of black liquid. "Oh, that. He had it installed soon after he returned from abroad. The doctors recommended sea bathing, but of course he wasn't going to a public seaside like the rest of humanity, oh no."