Amelia wavered on the threshold. She really should leave. She should go downstairs and explain to Letitia that she had not been able to find him.
But I already know what Letitia will say. I bet she’ll tell me to go inside. I’ll look like a fool. Aren’t companions supposed to be practical? Problem-solvers? Useful? If I’m going to be here for months, I had better make myself useful.
Steeling herself, Amelia clutched her notebook and pencil to her chest and took a few steps inside.
“Your Grace?” she called again.
Still no response.
The parlor, a large and well-appointed room, was empty. At the end of the room was another door, this one half open.
Amelia tiptoed toward it, the plush carpet muffling her footsteps.
Go back,warned a tiny voice in the back of her mind. And yet her wretched legs kept moving. How tiresome.
She reached the door and poked her head around it.
No prizes as to which room this is,she thought, eyeing the oversized bed. It was even larger than the one in her new room. How many women did he plan on entertaining in that bed?
Don’t think of that. He has a large bed because he is a large man. Well, tall.
Now that she was in his bedroom, which was also empty, it was pretty plain to her that now was the time to retreat. She should certainly not cross the room, stepping over a pile of crumpled clothes, to the ajar door set deep in the corner.
She should certainly not push open the door, letting out a plume of steam, and peer inside. It did not matter that strange noises were coming from inside; she was almost certainthat Stephen was not hurt, and she should not go any further.
No. She should do none of those things, without a doubt. She should?—
Amelia pushed open the door and found herself blinking through the steam into a moderately sized washroom. It was a highly modern space, with a large clawfoot porcelain bathtub in the center. Hot water dripped from the rim and pooled on the tiled floor.
Stephen, sitting chest-deep in the tub, his hair slicked back from his forehead, leaned forward and stared at her in disbelief. Water dripped down his bare neck and shoulders, curving over his chest and rejoining the rest of the water in the tub. His arms were slung over the sides of the tub, water dripping from his fingers, the curve of his biceps clearly visible. When he shifted, even a little, water sloshed over the rim.
From where she stood, she could see the wobbling outline of his body beneath the water, and she hastily averted her gaze.
“Amelia?” he called. “What are you doing in here?”
Her feet had apparently rooted themselves to the floor. The pencil slipped from her hand, bouncing across the tiles. Stephen watched its progress with consternation.
“You… you’re naked,” she gasped.
He stared at her. “I am in the bathtub, Amelia. How doyoutake a bath? Fully clothed, I assume?”
“I… I should not have come in. I… I never meant to spy. I’m not spying!”
“Defensively put,” he observed.
“I did not mean to come in here and see you in the… in the bath!”
His earlier surprise had vanished entirely. “Now, that is exactly what somebody would say if theydidintend all of that.”
“No, you must believe me, youmust!Ask your grandmother!”
“My grandmother told you to come and look at me in the bath?”
“Yes. I mean,no! You are teasing me.”
“Yes,” he drawled. “I think you deserve it, frankly. Whyareyou here? If you wished to have a peek at me unclothed, you only had to ask.”
She groaned loudly, pressing her hands over her eyes. “Letitia wants a guest list for the party. She told me to come and ask you, that it would take too long to send a servant. I… I tried to say that it wasn’t a good idea, but she would not listen.”
