“This is the Pearl Room.” He waited for her to enter ahead of him.
“Why is it called that?” Harriet asked.
Redmond followed her inside, admiring her figure from behind. “See for yourself.”
She pulled her arm free of his to go and explore the room. A tall four-poster bed was decorated with curtains of black velvet embroidered with silver and gold. Pearls were sewn into the curtains, creating patterns like falling rain amid the embroidered silver and gold stars.
“It’s a shower of stardust,” he said, reaching out to touch the curtains. “That’s what my grandmother used to call it.”
Harriet’s eyes were wide with awe as her hands joined his to brush over the velvet.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. No, I cannot stay here. This room is more suited to a…” Her voice trailed off.
“A duchess? Yes. It is. Please, stay. A room like this should not remain empty.”
Her blush vanished as she suddenly paled. “Did your wife stay here?”
“Millicent? No, she stayed in the Green Velvet Room, or my bed when I…” He swallowed hard as shame colored his tone.
“When you what?” Harriet looked up at him with an innocence that made him want to hold her close in a way he’d never expected.
“When I asked her to. She was not fond of sharing my bed.” He wasn’t sure why he admitted to such an intimate detail of his life, but he didn’t want her to think he and Millicent had had a perfect marriage. He wanted… What did he want? For this woman he barely knew to see how empty his life had been of love? To pity him?
To love him?
“You have a lovely bedchamber, Your Grace. Forgive me for saying so, but I don’t think the duchess should have slept apart from you.”
“You don’t believe in separate rooms?” That intrigued him. Most of society expected separate rooms.
“No, I don’t. When it’s a love match, I believe a man and woman who love one another should share a bed. Perhaps my view is affected by my childhood perception. My parents were not aristocrats, and our home in the Cotswolds was small by comparison. My parents shared a bedchamber, and I believe it kept them in love, to be so near to one another.”
Redmond touched a pearl on the nearest curtain. He’d longed for a love match and had foolishly thought Millicent was his.
“I agree. The intimacy of sleeping beside another person is remarkable. Few barriers exist between two people who choose to share a bed, to share dreams and midnight whispers.” He thought of how Harriet had slept in his bed last night and how he had wished to hold her, to sleep beside her. How could he long for that in a way that seemed so much deeper than it had ever been with Millicent?
Because Millicent had never truly been his. She’d belonged to Thomas from the moment they had met. But Harriet? She was someone who might yet belong to him and he to her. The thought surprised him, but he did not deny it. After seven years, he wished to shed his solitude, yet he was still afraid to trust in love again. And so was she.
“I shall light a few of the lamps for you. Please, make yourself comfortable. Maisie will continue to see to your needs for as long as you stay. I’ll have a footman come up shortly to light the fire.”
He caught her hand and bowed over it, kissing her fingertips. She didn’t pull her hand away, which at least reassured him that she no longer feared him in any way. He left her alone and carried that little bit of hope with him back down the spiral stairs.
Harriet spun around in the Pearl Room long after Redmond had gone. She felt giddy and excited staying in such a stately, dreamy room. The brooding duke she had feared was fading like a mirage before her eyes. She no longer saw him as a devil, but as a lost soul. A man still lost and still in pain.
She wished she knew the truth of what had happened to his wife and brother. That was the only mystery that still worried her. But perhaps she would soon coax that story out of him. She also admitted that she could not envision this man as being friends or even acquaintances with her stepfather now that she was coming to know him. When she’d first arrived last night, she’d refused to trust him, but now? She felt it might be possible.
Maisie knocked on the door a few minutes later and entered with a stack of boxes in her arms. Timothy the valet followed behind, carrying a set of even larger boxes.
“We emptied the attic, with His Grace’s approval,” she said as she put the boxes on the bed. Timothy added his load to the pile, and with a wink at Maisie, he left the two of them alone.
“A bit of a rogue, that one is.” The maid giggled as she eyed the valet’s retreating form.
“Who? Timothy?” Harriet asked as she helped Maisie open a few of the larger dress boxes.
“Aye. He’s courting me. We only got permission from Mrs. Breland yesterday. Normally that sort of thing is forbidden, but, well, the Christmas spirit seems to have taken over the house in ways it hasn’t in years.”
Harriet couldn’t help but smile. “That’s wonderful to hear.”
“What about this one?” Maisie lifted a deep-rose-colored silk evening gown from a pale-blue box.
