She was in the wrong bedroom.
Clementine realized her error the moment she swept into the chamber, breathless and abuzz with anticipation of the prank she intended to play on her friend, Lady Charity Manners. It was the scent that alerted her first.
Musky and manly with a decisive edge of citrus and a note of something richer. It was an enticing scent, she couldn’t lie. The sort of scent that made her wonder to whom it belonged.
And then it was the personal items neatly laid out on a nearby dresser, including a leather case which had been left open to reveal a brush, a razor, and a small tin of shaving soap. Beside that, a box of cigars and some matches. These were the trappings of men and most certainly not the delicate, elegant brushes and pots to be expected in the toilette of a lady.
“Oh dear,” she muttered to herself.
She had, quite clearly, managed to land herself in a gentleman’s chamber. And the footsteps beyond in the hall, coupled with the deep, masculine voices, told her that it was entirely possible the gentleman in question was about to return.
Frantically, Clementine searched for a means of escape as the voices in the hall came nearer. But there was no other means of exit save the door she had just entered.
As a self-professed matchmaker, Clementine knew better than anyone just how damning it could be to find one’s self unexpectedly alone in the wrong room with someone. Particularly when she had no notion of who that someone was.
Where could she go? How could she hide? A glance at the imposing high tester nestled against the far wall proved hiding beneath it an unreliable option. She would never manage to squeeze herself, bustle and all, under the frame. Her gaze lit on the voluminous curtains bracketing the window that overlooked the Sherborne Manor park.
Perhaps she could hide herself behind one half of the drapery.
Frantic, she hastened across the Axminster before sliding behind the curtain. She scarcely had a moment to arrange the window dressing around her and attempt to flatten her skirts before the door to the bedroom swung open.
“…a game of billiards later, old chap.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the voice, for she knew exactly to whom it belonged.
And the Marquess of Dorset despised her.
The feeling was mutual.
It all stemmed, she suspected, from her matchmaking attempts between Lady Anna Harcastle and the Marquess of Huntly. Attempts which had proven successful when Lady Anna and Huntly had fallen desperately in love and married. How was Clementine to have known that Dorset had possessed a secrettendrefor Lady Anna himself?
She closed her eyes tightly, wondering why of all the rooms she might have inadvertently entered by mistake, she should have foundhis.
Because that was the rotten nature of the luck she had. Which was to say, she had none at all. It would have been a fate far better to have found herself accidentally inside Lady Featherstone’s chamber, and the dowager marchioness was a vicious-tongued gossip everyone sought to avoid at all costs.
The click of the door closing was followed by footfalls on the carpet.
She held her breath.
“Since when do curtains have feet?” he drawled.
Oh, blast. Her heart plummeted. The dratted window covering wasn’t long enough, and he had spied her. Perhaps if she said nothing, he would be a gentleman, understand she’d entered the wrong room, and go away so that she might escape in peace.
Any hope of that was dashed when the curtain was whisked aside, and she was presented with the sight of the Marquess of Dorset hovering over her, too tall and vexingly handsome, his vibrant, green eyes narrowing when he recognized her.
“You,” he growled, his lip curling into a sneer.
“My lord,” she began, only to be interrupted.
“What the devil are you doing in my room, Lady Clementine?” the marquess demanded.
She cleared her throat, giving him her most winning smile in the hopes it might dim some of his ire. “I have a perfectly good explanation.”
His jaw tensed. “If you’re intending to cause more trouble, be warned, madam. I’ll not suffer your machinations.”
His disdain for her was palpable. He had made his dislike for her known on several occasions at Society events. However, he had never been so brutally earnest.
“I was seeking Lady Charity’s chamber,” she explained. “I intended to give her a fright when she entered. However, I must have made a mistake, because this is not her room.”
