Later, he would accuse himself of not thinking straight as he leaned toward her, brushing his lips against her own. He would not have blamed her for jolting back from him, but she did nothing of the kind. Instead, she inched a touch toward him, allowing the moment to linger, sealing their lips together gently.
Something warm coiled in his stomach at her touch, the kiss so soft, almost sensuous, he was in danger of pushing the boundaries too far. Her hand drifted to the collar of his waistcoat, dangerously close to touching the burn mark on his neck.
What would she think if she touched it? She would be repulsed.
Suddenly, he pulled back from her, the kiss abruptly ending.
“Goodnight, Charity.”
He retreated to the floor, lying down beside the bed. When the lightning flashed beyond the windows, he saw in the light Charity laid down too on her side, her face arched slightly in his direction.
“Goodnight, Your Grace.”
CHAPTER 6
Charity blinked a few times, her breathing growing labored when she felt how different the covers were beneath her fingertips from her usual duvet and pillow.
I am not home.
It struck her at once, everything that had happened before.
“It was no dream,” she whispered breathlessly and quickly sat up.
It had to be morning. She could hear the blackbirds and robins tweeting beyond the windows, greeting the dew, and she could feel a slight warmth from the direction of the glass; sunlight streaming through to her chamber.
Gently, she placed her stocking-clad feet on the floor, then someone breathed nearby, and she froze.
That deep breathing was unmistakable. Someone else was sleeping in the room. She tilted her chin downward, recalling the rest of the events of the night, and she bit her lower lip anxiously once she finally caught up.
The Duke of Axfordshire… surely he was not still…? True to his word, he had kept his promise to sleep beside her, to watch over her. A flutter of butterflies cavorted through her belly at the thought of his kind gesture, which must surely have inconvenienced him.
Quietly, Charity moved to her feet. She considered bending down and reaching out for him, to gently rouse him, but then she thought the better of such a foolish idea.
With her soberness came the realization ofeveryfoolish thing she had done the night before. She had pleaded with a stranger, begged him to take her to his home, and she had wandered his house lonely at night, terrified of a storm. When he found her, she confessed every fear she had to him, then beseeched him to sleep beside her, lest she feel afraid.
He must think I am pathetic. Perhaps Edith and Papa were right. I truly am devoid of autonomy.
No. She swiftly shrugged that awful thought aside. It was not true. She merely had to find her own two feet after being coddled and imprisoned for so long.
She stumbled quietly around the bed, reaching down and fumbling to find her slippers, struggling to remember whereprecisely she had kicked them off when she returned to the chamber. She found them by the foot of the bed and hurried to pull them on, before standing and moving in what she hoped was the direction of the door.
There was one final thing that had taken place the night before – one other thing that should have mortified her now. She allowed her fingers to linger to her lips, thinking back to that chaste kiss.
It had lit something inside of her, ignited a feeling, a want, a longing. In her sleep, she’d had dreams of being tangled in a bed with the bearer of that deep, gravelly voice, of feeling more kisses, of feeling his touch in other ways, eliciting new, pleasant sensations.
In her distraction, she bumped into something. Was that a table? No. It was a large standing vase! She grappled with it, clutching at it as if it were some dance partner about to fall to the floor. She scarcely managed to right it in time, then tiptoed back again.
She had to be reaching the door soon. When she found the handle, she turned, straining to listen for whether the duke’s breathing would alter. It stayed just as even as before.
Charity slipped out of the door into the hallway, aware that the heat of the air grew here. There had to be many windows, with the sunlight of the day pouring into this part of the house. Determined to explore, to find out something about her situation, and perhaps to find a glass of water to help with her headache, she trailed her hand across the wall, keeping closeto it. At all times, she walked slowly, in case she came upon a staircase.
What struck Charity as rather strange was the fact there was so little on the walls. She occasionally found a sconce for a candle, but there were no paintings, no canvases—in fact, nothing framed of any kind had been latched to the walls. When she did at last find a staircase, Charity walked slowly down it, feeling her way constantly.
In the back of her mind, she counted the steps and mapped the curve of the staircase, so she would remember it for next time.
…Twelve… Thirteen… Fourteen…
There were twenty steps in total, taking her to the bottom floor. The house was rather grand, she deduced.
