Fucking hell.
The gentleman within him told the agent of the Crown he was being an arse, forcing her to walk when she was so obviously weak.
He told the gentleman to go to hell.
“No bath, then,” he said sternly, moving to place her back upon the bed.
“Please,” she said. “A bath, Your Grace. Please.”
He weighed his options. She did need one. And perhaps if he helped her, had her fully at his mercy, he could garner the information from her he so desperately needed. His men had discovered as much about her as they were likely going to: she had rented rooms near a millinery shop where she worked for the months before she had been hired on as governess for Edward. Her references had been forged, but forged with an impeccable attention to detail.
Her landlady proclaimed her quiet and proper, with a brother who visited often. A small, slight, tow-headed man who was almost certainly not the brother of the raven-haired Irish termagant in his arms.
A lover perhaps. A Fenian certainly. Mayhap a Fenian lover.
The thought made him scowl.
He wanted thebrother’sname.
He wanted all the information she had to give.
“I will carry you, but on one condition,” he told her. “You must answer my questions.”
Chapter Seven
Bridget had promisedto answer the Duke of Carlisle’s questions. But she had not promised to answer them truthfully. As he carried her with ease down the long hall to another chamber—tohischamber—and the steaming bath awaiting her within, she reminded herself of that important distinction.
She did her best to ignore the broad, solid, muscled strength of Carlisle’s arms engulfing her and the chest she was nestled against. No man had ever lifted her in his arms or held her so gently, as if she were fragile. That the duke was the man responsible was an improbability she would investigate later. When her mind was functioning properly. When her skin did not itch. When her body did not ache.
When she did not feel as if she had been run over by a carriage.
Inside the elegantly furnished bathroom adjoining his chamber, a male servant—the man, she guessed, who had drawn the heated water in the tub—bowed and left without saying a word. The bath looked like heaven, but when the door closed behind his back, they were alone. Carlisle’s penetrating stare was upon her, drawing her attention from the paradise she wished to enter.
She could not look anywhere but into it. “Thank you. I believe I can stand on my own now. You may put me down and go.”
“I will not be leaving you alone, prisoner.” He raised a brow. “Do you think me a fool? Nay, do not answer. Clearly you do, else you would not have dared to flee with my own bloody nephew with the aid of the head groomsman. Tell me, how did you ever imagine you would be clever enough to escape me once I had realized what you’d done?”
Desperation had made her reckless. His proclamation of additional arrests at the wedding breakfast had told her just how limited her time was. At any moment, she could have been implicated by whomever had been captured. Often, the jailed were only too happy to reveal information concerning their confederates if it meant saving their own skins.
She swallowed, choosing to ignore what he had said, for she had neither the intellectual acuity nor the strength to battle him just now. “I do not require your assistance in the bath. Free my wrists, if you please, and I shall manage perfectly well on my own.”
He laughed bitterly. “Regardless of whether or not you desire my assistance, you will have it. I do not trust you, madam, for reasons which must be painfully obvious to you.”
Her heart thumped madly. Surely he did not mean to watch her while she bathed? Or—good, sweetDia—to help her bathe?
“You cannot intend to remain here while I conduct my ablutions?” she asked.
“Of course not,” he said, and relief swelled within her. “I intend to conduct your ablutions myself.”
Any relief she had been experiencing dispelled instantly. She gaped at him. “But Your Grace, your presence within this chamber, alone with me, is improper in itself. To bathe me yourself…why, it is not only ludicrous, but impossible. I’ll not countenance it.”
Without missing a beat, he spun on his heel and strode for the door. “No bath then. Pity, for the water is warmed and prepared for you.”
“No,” she cried, for she had seen the bath. Had smelled it—it smelled of citrus and something else, something clean and wondrous. Her skin was fairly crawling with the need to be cleansed within its warm, welcoming depths. He could not take that from her. Not now.
Another thought occurred to her then. A sinful, vile one.
The Duke of Carlisle was attracted to her. He had kissed her. More than once. His tongue had been inside her mouth, his hands upon her body. Every action had shown her she was a woman he found desirable. A woman he wanted.
