Collette lowered herself to her haunches and closer, noticing his breaths seemed shallow and labored. “Your Grace?” she whispered. “Are you unwell?”
“It’s nothing,” he barely managed to gasp. “I’m fine…” When he stared at her from those icy-blue eyes of his, the disdain from earlier was noticeably absent. Was that panic?
Was he having apoplexy?
“Get someone to open—” he inhaled sharply “—that blasted door.”
Collette nodded and then bit her lip. She’d once gotten herself trapped beneath her bed and thought she was going to die. Fortunately, the feeling had lasted barely thirty seconds as she’d managed to wedge herself out in her panic.
But the duke could not wedge himself out of this stairwell.
And he was, indeed, terribly unnerved.
“Stay right there.” She pressed a hand to his knee and then realized the futility of her advice as she pushed herself to her feet and started pounding on the door again. “Help! We’re stuck in here! Someone help!”
She paused every half a minute or so, hoping to hear someone answer, and then started up again when none came. The more she pounded in vain, the less fervent her shouts became.
If anyone heard her, they were being exceedingly rude not to come to their aid. She only wished that was the case.
“Everyone must have left for the picnic already.” She turned her back to the door and slid downward until her bum landed softly on the floor. He really was quite pale.
She hoped he wouldn’t faint, or vomit. Did dukes vomit? She immediately chided herself for being ridiculous. Of course they did.
He was a flesh and blood human, like herself—even if only in regard to the most basic aspects of his person.
A glance at her reddened fists had her contemplating that her voice felt equally raw. She hated feeling helpless. As the oldest of all her sisters, she was a doer—a fixer.
She couldn’t just sit here doing nothing! Collette rose, scrambled up the steps, and proceeded to pound and holler on the second, third, and then the fourth floor with the same dismal results.
By the time she returned to where he was sitting, although still pale, he was sitting up straight. If not for the sweat hovering above his lip, she could almost wonder if she’d imagined his anxiety.
“I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” she said between breaths.
At an utter loss, Collette scooted across the floor and then took the space on the step beside him. “No one is likely to worry over my absence from the tea—although they won’t be happy to have two less helping hands—but surely, your absence will not go unnoticed?”
If she hadn’t been sitting beside him, she would have missed the tremor that shook his much larger frame. The staircase was narrow, however, and most of her side pressed up against his.
“Fiona will be glad of it.” The words were the first she’d heard from him in nearly half an hour. He exhaled a long, shuddering breath.
Having dealt with her mother more than once when she’d become overset by one thing or another, Collette decided her best course of action was to take his mind off their situation. Someone would come soon. It wasn’t as though they were trapped forever.
“Likely, you are right,” she agreed. “I have two younger sisters myself and more than once I’ve been called the spoilsport. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”
She instinctively settled her fingertips on his knee, which was only inches from hers. Touch was another thing that had helped her mother—providing a connection to reason and calm.
Another tremor rolled through him, this one however, less pronounced. “One brother.”
“Is he younger than Fiona?”
“He is older than me.”
“But…” She frowned. He could not possibly have an older brother if he was the duke. “How does that work exactly?”
“My father did not marry my brother’s mother. He is what’s known as a bastard.”
Of course.
“I quite understand the concept.” She withdrew her hands and hugged her arms in front of her. “As a bastard myself.”
