How to Tame Your Duke(35)

"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."