“No, I do not.” She shook her head. “I think it best he and I avoid one another’s company in my remaining time here.”
“If you wish it, of course, my Lady.” Petra smiled. “Here, I shall have a bath brought for you too.”
“Thank you. That would be a good idea.” Evelyn sighed with relief. She thought at least with a bath, she could wash away the lingering feelings of the Duke’s fingers pressed upon her body from the night before.
CHAPTERTEN
Rafe stood in the doorway to the castle, refusing to step out into the snow. He was heavily clothed against the chill, with a thick frock coat around his shoulders and the collar turned up that he kept breathing into. His breath clouded the air around him regardless, the cold penetrating every part of him.
Cursed snow.
He hated the very sight of it. With a blink, he could be back there the night that his betrothed had died, where he had scrambled to be away from the news, falling into that snow. The cold, the ice, all of it reminded him of what could have been and what he had lost.
“Your Grace?” one of the gardeners called from the driveway.
Rafe lifted his head, showing he was listening, though he did not step out into the snow. He feared he looked arrogant by refusing to come to the gardener, but that was not the reason he would not step onto the ice. It was fear.
The gardener loped toward him, struggling in the snow and nearly slipping more than once. He tried to dust the fresh flecks of snow from his hat and where they clung to his dark beard. When he slipped on the icy step, Rafe reached for him and caught his arm, stopping him before he could fall.
“Come, step inside. Shelter from this snow for a few minutes at least,” Rafe pleaded.
The gardener looked shocked, his brows raising at Rafe’s kindness, but he made no comment.
“It’s not clearing, is it?” Rafe asked, knowing what the gardener would say before he could.
“No.” The gardener shook his head. “As fast as we’re clearing it, more snow is falling.” He gestured out to the clouded skies that were rimmed with a golden light. It was the sort of snowy day where one cloud was indistinct from another, the sun murky behind the vapors. “We can keep trying, but…”
“No.” Rafe tried not to reveal his disappointment as he rubbed his hands together, trying to ward off the snow. More than anything did he want to get out of this castle and return to London. With his ordered repairs on the west wing now begun and underway, he had no need to stay, but clearly, there was no way he could escape now.
Did Evelyn leave?
He hadn’t seen her all day. He’d peered into the library in the last few minutes, but it was empty. The only sign of what had passed between them the night before at all was his discarded dressing gown, coiled up on the chaise longue.
“Take a rest,” Rafe pleaded with the gardener. “All of you, please. It’s too dangerous to be working in this for so long, it’s better to wait for the snow to slow. Go to the kitchens, warm up, and get something to eat.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. Many thanks.” The gardener bowed to him and hurried out to tell the others.
Rafe watched him go, folding his arms across his chest as his gaze narrowed on the snow. He hated it so much that his eyes focused on the dimples left by the gardener’s footprints. He prayed to see some sign of the snow melting and the grass beneath it, but all he saw was more ice.
“Ahem.” The clearing of a throat startled Rafe and he spun around.
Stede approached from the shadows, his gaze repeatedly flitting between Rafe and the gardeners beyond the door. Rafe wondered briefly if Stede had overheard their conversation, and if it could at all improve the butler’s opinion of him.
Probably not.
“I have some bad news, Your Grace.” Stede stood calmly beside him, looking out at the snow. “The workmen that were due to arrive today for the west wing have not arrived.”
Rafe sighed heavily, his body growing taut. “I feared as much.”
“This weather looks rather set in.” Stede wrinkled his nose as he looked at the skies. “With the air so cold, even if the snow was to stop, it would take a long time for what has settled to thaw. Perhaps days, even weeks.”
“Weeks!?” Rafe repeated in fear. Would it take that long to return to London now? “We could clear the drive if it stopped snowing.”
“What of the roads beyond?” Stede reminded him calmly.
Rafe lost all hope. He leaned on the doorframe, cursing inwardly as he stared at the ice.
Once again, this cursed weather has left me isolated and alone, somewhere that I do not wish to be.
