Daring the Duke (19 page)

And he wanted to unlock Audrey’s secrets. He needed to figure her out.

There was a vital link missing in the shipping plot. A key piece of information was unaccounted for, and it tickled the edge of his brain but wouldn’t coalesce.

He washed his hands and strode to the library. Lingering in the doorway, he watched her stroke the spines of several books. He felt the caress down to his toes.

"Chalmers, your butler said you were busy. If you wish, I can return tomorrow."

She never turned around. He had made no sound when walking toward the library, yet she had known. He found himself smiling. "First, to what do I owe the honor 0f this late-night visit?"

She turned, but didn’t smile. It was as if she were trying to determine if he were joking or not. Her solemn expression tugged at his heart. Someone had hurt her deeply. She looked more weary than she had this morning. It was as if she had more problems than just the hundred that had already been dropped on her head.

She visibly scanned him. "Been working in the backyard, Chalmers?"

He leaned against the doorframe. "Conservatory"

She nodded. She was clutching her reticule rather tightly.

He kept his tone light. "Would you like some tea?"

She cleared her throat. "I would love some."

Stephen nodded and rang for Grimmond.

"Yes, Your Grace?" Grimmond appeared in the door

"Tea, please."

"Of course, Your Grace. And I put Miss Kendrick’s bag in her room."

Her bag? Her room? "Thank you, Grimmond."

Audrey fidgeted. "I brought my case. I thought it easier to stay here tonight so that we could leave early in the morning."

Stephen was tortured by curiosity. She was obviously in trouble. But then again, since meeting him she was always in trouble. "Will you tell me what happened?"

She hesitated, then sat in one of the armchairs. "It is really nothing. Just old wounds I thought had healed."

"Can I help?"

She touched her brow. "No, but thank you for asking."

"Did you bring your maid?"

"No, I don’t want her. She reports to Travers, and since we won't be making social calls, I can attend myself." Her voice grew frigid, and her eyes narrowed. "Afraid you’ll have to marry me if we are seen together without a chaperone, Chalmers? Don’t make me laugh. I won’t get in the way of your heiress hunting."

Grimmond brought in the tea tray, placing it before her, thus interrupting Stephen’s growing irritation caused by her words.

"That’s not what I meant."

She sighed and leaned back in the chair. "I know. I’m testy, and I apologize."

His irritation vanished, and he was left speechless by her apology.

She seemed to interpret his thoughts and laughed deprecatingly. "I’m not totally devoid of manners, you know. I just don’t usually choose to employ them. May I serve you?"

He nodded and watched in fascination as Audrey poured tea into the fragile china cups and passed his to him as if to the manner born.

They drank the tea in silence. Stephen hoped she would relax.

"I have no problem with your staying here."

A bit of the tension left her shoulders. "Thank you."

"Come, let’s go to bed."

Let's go to bed
. Audrey’s heart leaped into motion. "What?"

"We need to rise early tomorrow. "

"Yes, but . . ." But what?

He waited patiently for her to continue. She floundered for a response.

He took pity on her. "You go up. I need to finish some things in the conservatory. I’ll see you in the morning."

Audrey exhaled loudly, not realizing she had been holding her breath.

Grimmond was waiting outside and escorted her to the room she had occupied the previous night.

Her case was inside, and she removed her nightclothes. Now was perhaps her only time to search Stephen’s chambers. He was downstairs, and his servants wouldn’t be in this wing of the house.

She walked down the hall to his room and opened the door. She wondered momentarily why he had left it unlocked with a thief like her around, but perhaps he assumed she’d just pick it open anyway.

She poked through his dressers and wardrobe, found several secret compartments that contained nothing unusual. She was on a mission to satisfy her curiosity, and since she didn’t know what he would say if he walked in, she finished her search quickly and returned everything to its place.

She felt momentarily guilty about rifling through her host's room, but changed into her nightclothes and slipped under the covers. She couldn’t bring herself to turn off the light. Now that she was finally alone, she couldn’t stop reflecting on their trip to Newgate. She had kept herself busy all day to avoid remembering. She had survived entering the prison again and felt stronger for the experience. But right now she didn’t feel like being alone in the dark.

The clock struck half past, and she continued to stare at the ceiling. She assumed the servants had retired since no footsteps had passed her door.

So why hadn’t Stephen returned to his bedchamber. What was he doing in the conservatory? Some type of mad work on something green, no doubt.

She whipped off her covers, slipped on a wrap, and grabbed the oil lamp.

Padding silently down the hall, stairs and foyer, she tried to jump from rug to rug to avoid the cold floors. Finally arriving at her destination, the same place where he had nearly seduced her last night, she pushed open the heavy door.

"Stephen?"

The interior was dark, and she held her lamp aloft, trying to see farther back. She wound around the plant stands and toward the back of the sweet-smelling room. A form was lying under the covers on the strange-looking sofa. She approached as silently as possible and held the lamp over him. He looked relaxed, his golden features perfect. The top of his bare chest was visible, and his arms were resting on top of the covers. The light from her lamp danced on his hair like sunshine. The world was never dark around him. She fidgeted, then turned to leave. His hand closed around her wrist before she even realized he had moved.

"What is it, Audrey?"

She turned and saw him regarding her. Had he known she was there the whole time? It occurred to her that he might have thought she was trying to murder him. She held out the hand not holding the lamp to show him it was empty.

"l was restless and couldn’t sleep. I was just wondering why you were still awake."

It sounded lame even to her ears, but she hadn’t really thought through why she was seeking him out. She had just been staring up at the ceiling and decided to come.

She rushed into speech before he could respond. "Why are you sleeping down here?" She shivered.

"l sometimes stay here if one of the plants is being fussy."

She looked at the darkened workbench. There were a few leafy silhouettes, but nothing she could identify. "Oh."

"Do you need something? I can ring the staff."

"No, no." She shook her head and shivered. The sold floor seeped into her toes. "I was just having trouble sleeping." Her brain supplied the rest of the sentence,
sleeping alone in that dark room
, although she refrained from saying it aloud.

She met his eyes for a long second, and he shifted onto his side and lifted the cover. It took but a second more for her to put the lamp on the floor and scoot under the covers he had already warmed. She blew out the lamp and promptly fell asleep with her feet tucked next to his.

Audrey woke slowly, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day. She had spent a dreamless night, the first one in a long time. Light filtered in through the windows, and she snuggled back into the warm body holding her.

It took a moment for reality to sink in fully. There was a warm, pulsing body cocooned next to hers. She rolled to her right. Dark green smoldering eyes met hers.

"Good morning." His voice was husky, but his eyes were unreadable.

"Did you sleep well?"

She glanced away unaccountably embarrassed. She had, after all, been the one to seek him out in the night.

"Uh, good morning." Her mind registered the sunlit conservatory a pair of trousers tossed across a chair, and the sounds of the servants moving through the house. She wanted to pull the covers over her head and expire on the spot. She was in her nightclothes and was going to have to get out of bed and walk across the entire house to reach her traveling case.

She moved her leg a bit. His legs were bare. Therefore, who would rise first and retrieve her clothing? Having often worked with men who forgot she was a woman, she was no longer embarrassed at seeing a half-naked man. But the thought of seeing Stephen in such a state made her stomach do little leaps.

She shifted to allow him to rise, but brought herself in closer contact. He put a restraining hand on her arm. "Please stop moving around. Unless you wish to sorely strain my last ounce of reserve." His voice was tense.

"Oh." She froze, then scooted out from under the covers, grabbing the blanket as cover and removing the choice of who would rise first. Well, actually on further inspection, he had risen first, just not in . . .

She blushed furiously. "I-I-I am just going to return to my room. I’m sure you want to get up . . . I mean leave soon."

He gave her a sardonic look, and she turned to go. His voice interrupted her flight. "You can use the circular staircase if you’d like. It comes out next to my room. I’m sure you can find your way to your chambers from there." He pointed to the staircase in the corner.

She ran for it, trying not to look back down at him lying on the sofa. At the top of the steps she peeked into the hall. No one was present and she ran into her room. She was appalled to see the time. It was nearly noon.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept that long. Changing took little time, and she found herself with nothing to do but fret.

She answered a knock at her door, and a maid announced breakfast. She followed her and saw a footman enter and retrieve her case.

Stephen wasn’t in the dining room and Audrey put some food on her plate and pushed it around. She was becoming too reliant on Stephen’s generosity, first in Newgate, then again last night. She needed to stop the progress of dependence.

She forced herself to eat everything she had heaped on her plate. She’d need the energy and refused to let her emotions override good sense again. At least for now. She had the feeling that her emotions, usually reined in, might be her downfall. It would be an amusing notion if it weren’t so discomfiting. She was known as icy. If any of Flanagan’s men could see her now, they would laugh.

Stephen walked into the room, whistling, and served himself. "We will leave in fifteen minutes, unless you have anything else you need to retrieve?"

There was nothing she could retrieve at the moment. "No, I’m ready."

She found herself alone with him in the carriage exactly fifteen minutes later.

"We’ll stop at Bailey’s Inn for dinner."

"That’s fine." She pretended interest in the scenery as they left the city.

"Why didn’t you wake me earlier? I can’t believe I slept that long."

He gave her another unreadable glance. "You needed rest, and it was no problem to wait the extra few hours. I sent word ahead that we will arrive late."

"Then we won’t be able to search tonight."

"Searching tonight wasn’t on the agenda." .

She narrowed her eyes, hoping for a fight. “Whose agenda? If we hadn’t slept so late, we would have been ready to look tonight."

He leaned back and looked out the window. "Our getting attacked or killed is not going to help your sister."

"But at night we would have had the element of surprise."

He gave her a barely passing glance, as if she were nothing more than a pest. His disregard irritated her more than if he had shown anger.

"Does your nerve challenge you, Chalmers?"

He continued to look at the passing countryside, the bluebells and wildflowers swaying in the breeze. She again felt the unease of swirling emotions. She latched on to her anger as something she could control.

"I wouldn’t have thought it of you. You seemed such a commanding individual at one time."

He turned to her. "Audrey, I don’t know what you hope to accomplish with this tirade. Would arguing cure whatever ails you?"

She knew she was behaving irrationally, but her hackles went up immediately at his charge. "Forget it, Chalmers."

"You only call me Chalmers when you are irritated."

"Better than being called Your Grace. I only call you that when I dislike you."

A smile nearly touched his lips. "I do hate that."

She left the ambiguous comment alone. Conflicted emotions swirled through her. She looked at her hands. His smile warmed her, and although his presence drew her in, she didn’t want it. Relying on people had never been a good option for her in the past, and she didn’t know why that would change now. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to rely on people. It was just too rife with danger.

She was annoyed at how cowardly that made her feel.

"I saw you examining my books. Voltaire and I Swift. Do you like their work?"

She peeked at him, but he seemed interested, not just poking fun. She nodded. "Yes. I love satire."

"You and Calliope would get on famously. Which authors do you like best?"

She frowned at the mention of the other woman, but answered his question, which started a serious dialogue about satire, religious intolerance, and the role of literature. The interchange was invigorating. It had been a long time since she had been able to talk and argue with someone who shared her interests. Interests that her gentle parents had loved.