They were briefly interrupted by a maid with a hot towel on a silver platter that Ariadne took. “May I?”
He pulled the cold crystal from his temple, looked at her for a long while before nodding once. Gently, she laid the heated towel on his face, and his eyes closed in visible relief.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything else I can do for you?” Ariadne asked while mentally telling herself to store laudanum in her chambers in case this happened again.
To her surprise, Cedric stood and held the rag with one hand before turning, lifting a hand, and briefly touching her cheek. It traced down to her jawline and tipped her chin upward.
“You are a curious one,” he said. “I do not know what to make of you.”
“Or I you,” she breathed. “I suppose we shall have years to make sense of each other. That is, if you spend any time with me at all, but I don’t think you intend to.”
His eyes dropped to her lips, and she wondered if he meant to kiss her, certainly not with his confusing, dismissing, and at times abrasive attitude from earlier. She was astounded by his statement, and she took him in anew then, trying to understand him.
Now that he stood but a few inches before her, she could feel him. The power of his body, the delicious scent of citrus, spice, and something she could not quite identify.
He angled his head towards her, and given the vast difference in their height, she tilted her head back, determined to meet his gaze without hesitation.
But then, much to her amazement, he coasted his thumb across her bottom lip and pulled it out from where she had trapped it with her teeth. “Don’t do that.”
With those words, he walked away, and the world damn near spun around her. This was madness! Silently, she pressed the back of her hand to her lips and watched as his broad back vanished around the corner.
“Good god,” she whispered. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Chapter Twelve
Blowing out the lamp on his desk, Cedric gave up on working and turned out of his study, bypassing his grandfather’s grandfather clock that chimed eight.
It was the earliest he could ever recall going to bed in years, as he was wont to stay awake to midnight most nights, sorting out the never-ending requests from parishioners and demands from the Crown.
A soft whine from Athena had him looking up and laughing, “I know, I know. Stopping work before midnight seems egregious. You must be asking who this strange man is standing in your master’s study.”
He called for a bath and changed into a robe while shooting a look at the door separating his room from Ariadne’s. Was she inside or back in the library, tempting fate with that damned ladder?
Sitting on the edge of his bed, he rubbed his dog’s ears. “The little miss surprised me today. She did not panic when I got the flare. It tells me she is not one to get flustered easily.”
Athena cocked her head, making him laugh, “You don’t think so? I suppose she did panic upon knowing she ended up in my brother’s bed.”
“Your Grace,” a footman bowed from the doorway to the bathing chamber. “The tub is ready for you.”
He spared a glance at the young man. “Thank you.”
With a last rub, he headed to the substantial chamber, noted the lit sconces on the wall while he shucked his robe and sank into the warm water. His body was so tired of whimpering, but she couldn’t seem to stop. The water, doused with sage and lavender oil, began to loosen his tense muscles.
The large copper tub at the center of the room had a flickering hearth behind it. Resting his head against the back lip of the tub, he stretched one sinewy arm draped along its edge as he let the heat do its work.
He wondered what to do about her; how to distract her day by day so she had no time to meddle in his business. “The orphanage and the girl schools will have her busy, but… I suppose if I pack her sisters in here, she’ll be more distracted with them.”
Resting his head on the tightly rolled towel behind him, his thoughts turned to earlier that day.
His spasms were something he had not wanted anyone to ever see; it still peeved him that one of his darkest secrets was out there.
Earlier, was she looking for a kiss?
Kissing Ariadne was something he had not planned to do at all, not even once during their marriage. It had been years since he had such an urge to kiss a woman, and while he doubted that he would ever do it, he did enjoy the feeling that was awakened.
“Cedric?”
For a moment, he thought he’d imagined it, but when it came stronger, and the door pushed in, Ariadne stood, blanketed in mist, her fresh, beautiful face pink with the heat and her eyes—for the second time—as wide as dinner plates.
