“Only if it is not an imposition,” Anna repeated. She would feel far worse if her servants were rudely woken up, just so she could bathe. They, too, had had a trying day after all.
Parting ways temporarily, Anna tiptoed up the stairs and along the hallway, quietly opening up the door to her dressing room. In truth, it had once been an adjoining bedchamber, but she had transformed it into a peaceful domain where she could bathe, dress, and prepare herself for each day, separate from where she slept.
Stifling a yawn, she began to undress, not bothering to wait for Katherine to assist her. She had never much liked having a maid to help in such things, unless she was preparing herself for a ball or undressing after a ball. Of course, they had been in shortsupply over the past year-and-a-half, since her wedding and immediate widowing.
Strangely enough, no one seemed to want to invite such an unlucky woman to their events, even if the doctor had confirmed that Robert likely passed from an inherited malady of the heart, like his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him.
Anna stepped out of the cooled bath and into the waiting linens held up by Katherine. It was everything Anna had hoped for—her spirits lifted, her body relaxed, and her mood lightened by the steaming, fragrant water. Even if Katherine had definitely woken the maids to help fill it.
“Thank you, Katherine,” Anna said, as she wrapped herself in the linens. “Truly, I do not know what I would do without you.”
Katherine smiled. “The feeling is mutual, Your Grace. Indeed, none of us know what we would do without you.”
And that is precisely why I will not be moved from this house.Anna did not say so out loud, for fear of worrying her staff further, but she felt it keenly. Yes, of course, she didn’t want to lose her home because it was her home and where she felt completely safe, but she cared just as much about the fate of those who had been so kind to her as she did about her own. They were connected, and Jeremy was a fool if he thought he could get rid of her that easily.
Quickly, Anna dried herself and pulled on a clean nightdress, scented with lavender.
“I will fetch your tea for you now, Your Grace,” Katherine said, as she bundled the wet linens in her arms. “Someone can come and empty the bathtub in the morning, so you’re not disturbed.”
Anna stifled a yawn and gave a grateful nod. “I may be asleep before I even taste a sip of my tea,” she said with a laugh. “But I can always drink it cold in the morning.”
“Well, I will be very quiet when I come in then,” Katherine replied, chuckling.
With that, the lady’s maid headed out of the dressing room, and Anna moved toward the adjoining door to her bedchamber. She could already feel the soft mattress beneath her, the bed linens cocooning her, and, after a night without sleep already, she was finally tired enough to rest. A dreamless sleep, with any luck, without any tall, dark strangers making her toss and turn beneath the coverlets.
Quietly, she opened the adjoining door and stepped into the darkened room, the drapes already drawn. One of the chambermaids must have prepared everything in Katherine’s absence, though there was no fire burning in the grate as usual.
No matter. It is no wonder that they are forgetful on a day like today, with everything in such disarray.Besides, it was not so cold in the bedchamber, her body still carrying some of the heatof the bath, and she would soon be warm in the soft, comfortable bed.
Feeling as if she might sleep for a week just to avoid running into the new Duke again, she padded toward her usual side of the large bed, closest to the window, and slipped beneath the covers.
Yes, that will do nicely.She smiled as she lay on her back and stared up at the canopy for a moment, but she had never liked to sleep on her back. So, she flipped onto her side, curling into a fetal position, wriggling for comfort, ready for a good night’s rest… when her backside suddenly bumped into something hard. Her feet, too, suddenly brushed against a solidity that shouldnothave been there.
“Seducing me won’t change me mind, Duchess,” a deep voice murmured sleepily.
CHAPTER 5
Shivers ran down Anna’s spine, a soft gasp of shock slipping from her lips as she realized what she had nudged against. Who she had nudged against.
I have never been in the same bed as a man!Her mind whirled in a daze.Why is there a man in my bed? Why ishein my bed?
Her body responded to the shock in her head as she leapt from the bed, grabbing for a blanket to cover her state of undress. No man had permission to see her in her nightdress! Even Robert had not seen her in that flimsy excuse for a nightgown she wore on their wedding night, though at least this one was not half as transparent.
What she did not realize until it was too late was that, in hurling herself out of bed and snatching up a blanket for herself, she had thrown the rest of the coverlets aside.
The Duke lay there, wearingfarless than he had by the cedar tree—an expanse of gleaming skin illuminated by the sliver of moonlight that slipped through the swaying drapes, stirred when she had leaped from the bed. More bare skin than she had ever seen, aside from her own, sculpted with muscles she didn’t know the names of and had never glimpsed in her life.
It looked as if some divine force had carved him into being: a broad and powerful chest, the defined ridges of his abdomen, the lines and muscles of his strong arms, and a deep groove that sloped down from his hip, disappearing beneath what remained of the coverlets. Fortunately, she had not ripped them away enough to reveal what existed beneath… though she had not forgotten the shape of his strong thighs.
Remembering herself, she spun around, dropping the blanket to cover her eyes. Illogical, perhaps, since her back was already turned, but her mind was too flooded with what she had just seen to worry about logic.
What is in the water in Scotland?she thought absently, before quickly shoving the musing away. It was unseemly to even think of that hard, strong, powerful body, and how she had accidentally nudged against it with her backside. Her cheeks flamed at the thought.
“What do you think you are doing in my bed, sir?” she snapped, still refusing to give him the dignity of calling him ‘Your Grace.’ Clearly, he did not deserve it if he came into a lady’s room, sneaked into her bed wearing nothing, and lay in wait for her.
Even Robert was not that sly!
“Did you think I would offer you my body in exchange for you leaving my home?” she blurted out, the awful possibility exploding into her mind. “Did you think I would give you my bodyas wellas my home? My goodness, what manner of beastareyou?”
