Move on.
He walked past the cord the steward had laid in front of the doorway to the west wing, closing it off, and chose a different corridor instead. Rafe’s pace didn’t slow as he walked on, hunting out the one chamber he prayed would give him at least some comfort.
Perhaps it was mad to come to this chamber. After all, Evelyn had spent most of the night in the library. It would be logical to go there to hunt out some semblance of her. Yet he knew the library always smelled like musty books, and she was in this chamber long enough that she had to at least have left her mark on it a little.
I shall sleep here tonight. Perhaps her scent, the knowledge that she was there at all, will make me dream of her and not the past instead.
He reached for the door handle, turned it, and opened the door, striding into the room with a purpose.
“God’s wounds! Your Grace, what the hell do you think you are doing?” the sudden voice froze him to the spot.
Rafe nearly dropped the candle as he stared at Evelyn in the bright room before him.
Evelyn was half undressed, wearing her chemise and corset. She now flattened her gown over her body, in an effort to hide herself from him. Her red hair was loose about her shoulders, and her stockings were kicked off nearby.
“Your Grace!” she snapped again.
CHAPTERTWELVE
Evelyn couldn’t form words as she stared at the Duke. He was different tonight. His clothes were wild and unkempt, as if he had tugged at them many times. Even his fair hair was mussed, and she imagined he had been pulling at the tendrils in stress, making them into an unruly mess.
With his long lashes, his eyes blinked madly, staring at her as if he thought she would disappear.
“Your Grace!” she snapped, releasing one arm from her gown and waving it madly in front of him, trying to stir him from his stupor. “What are you doing in here?”
“I… I thought you’d left,” he managed to murmur.
“Left? In this!” She waved a hand at the window. She was angry. This was outrageous! Coming into a lady’s chamber in the middle of the night? Unheard of and scandalous in the extreme.
As she moved her arm around, one of the edges of her gown fell forward, and she realized it must have revealed part of her body in the corset and chemise, for the Duke’s eyes darted down her instantly.
The outrage that made her body tight, now coiled into something else entirely. At his look alone, a curl of pleasure started in her gut, then it shot somewhere much further south. Self-consciously, Evelyn shifted her weight from side to side, between her feet.
“What is going on?” she demanded to know again.
The Duke stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him.
“Oh,” she murmured, unsure what else to say when he crossed toward her.
He wasn’t quite completely steady on his feet. She stepped forward too, her eyes dancing over him.
“You’re in your cups.”
“I am.” He marched toward her. There was no firmness in his tone, just softness.
Evelyn couldn’t explain the reason behind her feelings at that moment. All she felt was sympathy as she stared at him.
Why is he drunk? Why get in such a state and come to this room when he thought I was gone?
“Your Grace?” She tried to get his attention again and backed up as he ambled toward her. She didn’t look where she was going. Each of his forward steps was mirrored by one of her own reverse steps. She stumbled on the edge of a rug and held her gown up over her body much higher than before. Eventually, she collided with the wall beside the window, heavily draped in curtains.
The Duke stopped in front of her, but only when he had planted his hands on either side of her on the wall. He didn’t touch her, but she could feel his presence. His scent wafted around him, that heady mixture of earth, must, and now brandy. There was something strangely alluring about it.
She’d never thought a drunkard was attractive before, but the Duke was no drunkard. He was just a man in his cups, unsteady, his eyes roving over her as his arms stabilized himself.
“Forgive me,” he murmured.
“Forgive you?” she spluttered in disbelief. “You have marched into my chamber and now have me pinned to a wall.”
