A whimpering tot couldn’t have sounded more pathetic. Pity welled, thickening a lump in Ami’s throat. The lady really must be terrified to wish her to stay, and she could more than relate to having a father who was always preoccupied.
Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she gently pried Violet’s grip from her robe. With the hem of the fabric, she dabbed away the woman’s tears while humming “Nami, Nami,” the same Egyptian lullaby her grandmother had used to quiet her after her mother’s death.
“Mmm,” Violet murmured, eyelashes fluttering. “Pretty.”
With a light touch, she brushed back the locks of hair clinging to Violet’s sticky face—and continued to do so until the woman’s breaths evened and her eyes closed.
Rising ever so slowly, Ami tiptoed to the door. Out in the corridor, she debated a moment about turning back to her own bed, but it was probably better to alert Barnaby to summon Violet’s maid in case the woman suffered any more nightmares.
At the end of the passage—right where she thought she’d seen the figure—her toe sent something skittering against the baseboard. Bending, she plucked up a small, thin piece of curved metal, like a broken part of a spectacles frame. Odd, that, for the maids kept the floor spotless. She pocketed the item. One more thing to ask Barnaby about.
The corridor opened onto a flat landing where the grand staircase descended. Overhead, a large domed glass window bathed the area in a ghostly glow. The perfect haunt for specters, if one believed in such things. Just past the stairway at the entrance to the east wing, where the men slept, another small lump sat on the carpet trapped in a ray of moonlight.
Pausing her butler-finding mission, Ami forged ahead and collected the trinket—the other half of the curved frame. Sheglanced down the passageway, scanning the floor, but it was too shadowy to see very far.
She tucked the piece away with the other. None of the guests she knew wore spectacles, nor any of the staff she’d had contact with. Unless she was wrong about the source and the metal had fallen from some other contraption. But why here?
Curiosity piqued, she set off down the men’s corridor, sweeping an intent gaze from wall to wall as she went. A fruitless search. She made it all the way to the end, where a curtain billowed from an open window, flapping against a small table with a vase of red roses. If the breeze gusted any harder, that crystal container would crash and wake whoever slept behind the nearest door.
An easy fix, though. She grabbed the sash and pulled. The frame budged only an inch. Giving it a bit more muscle, she tried again, but the thing was wedged tight. Bosh! A quick coating of tallow would have made this a much easier task. This time she gave it a good valiant shove. The window plummeted.
And her elbow smacked into the vase.
Flowers flew.
Crystal shattered.
Glass glinted in the moonlight all around her feet.
Herbarefeet.
Good heavens. That hadn’t gone as planned. She crouched, carefully collecting as many large shards as possible when the nearest door brushed open.
“Miss Dalton? What are you doing here?”
She glanced up, and her jaw dropped. It couldn’t be helped. Nor stopped.
For there stood Edmund Price in all his glorious manhood, bathed by moonlight. He’d donned a robe the colour of midnight, the silk accentuating the flesh—and darkly curled hair—on his chest where the material didn’t close tightly. She ought to look away, for this was far too intimate a sight.
Yet all she could do was stare.
And he stared right back.
Instant heat flamed in her cheeks. In her shift and gauzy wrap, she was garbed no more decently than him.
“Miss Dalton?” He stepped closer. “Are you all right?”
She shot up a hand, forcing her gaze to fix on his face. “Stop right there. I am fine; however, the crystal vase that was on the table is not.” Carefully rising, she held out her open palm, revealing the largest pieces she’d collected. “Step any closer and you’ll be picking out glass slivers from your feet.”
“Leave it. Mrs. Buckner can have a maid deal with the mess in the morning. I’ll not have you risk getting cut.”
“I appreciate that, truly, but I can’t very well fly past this broken glass, and I’m afraid I’ve not got any shoes on my feet.”
Humor pulled at his mouth. “It always comes down to shoes with you, eh? Wait there.”
Wheeling about, he disappeared inside his bedchamber. Surely he didn’t have a spare pair of women’s slippers in there ... did he? She set the glass pieces on the table, pondering what he might be doing.
A few moments later, he reappeared with shoes on his own feet, his heels grinding crystal into the carpet as he strode to her and slung her up in his arms. His chest was a fortress, his bare skin feverish. Or was that hers? Hard to tell, for fire licked along every nerve she owned. Such an embrace was wrong. Shameless. Forbidden. And yet as he carried her past the sharp bits littering the floor, she didn’t care. She could live in this moment, relishing the shift of his body against hers. Forget about pyramids and mummies and think only of the life they might build together.
