Her mind ticked back to the duke's bedchamber. The unmistakable creak at the door—just before she dove out the window. She hadn’t been alone. Every one of these men had arrived at the frigidarium after her. Any of them could have taken the statue.
She glanced at the Duke. His jaw was set like a lock.
“Your Grace,” she said, turning back to him. “Anyone here could have done it.”
“Except,” he replied coolly, “only one person was seen inside the room. Alone. Without an alibi.”
Wanton’s breath hitched. The frigidarium had gone utterly quiet. Even the steam seemed to hush.
Her gaze swept across the other guests.
Cassian Drake lounged in the cold plunge like a Greek hero recovering from espionage.
Milton Avery was still muttering rhymes into his notebook.
Monsieur M casually peeled an orange.
One of them had a marble posterior hidden somewhere in this spa, and she’d be damned—damned—if she went to the gallows for someone else’s highly sculpted behind. Great glutes of Olympus! If she could outwit ecclesiastical mobs and outpace a rampaging baker, surely, she could turn sleuth, and sniff out a misplaced marble arse.
Her spine straightened. Her jaw set. She turned to the Duke with academic gravitas and scandalous intent.
“I can find the real culprit.”
He studied her again, and this time when he stepped forward, his presence closed the distance like a velvet noose.
“You have until the end of the day.”
Then he turned to the room. “No one leaves the frigidarium until the statue is recovered.”
A pause. “And I want everyone’s towels accounted for.”
Chapter five
In Which Wanton was Lifted, Laid Flat, and Very Nearly Kissed in a Spy’s Bedchamber
Wanton stepped inside Cassian Drake's room with caution and very little coverage. The air was warm and dark, laced with a musk she suspected was either exotic cologne or weaponized pheromones. Velvet curtains clung to the walls. The lighting came not from candles but from strange, pulsing sconces hidden behind silk screens—as if the room itself were in a permanent state of seduction.
The Duke followed her inside like a judgment in boots. He moved silently to a chair, sat, crossed his arms—and his forearms, good heavens—and watched her as if this were all vastly more entertaining than it should be.
She ignored him.
Her mission was clear—find clues of sculpture theft. Something damning. A letter from a collector? Marble dust? A ransom note readingreturn the glutes or else?
“I don’t trust this room,” Wanton whispered. “It’s too... intentionally moody. Like a boudoir designed by someone who’sdefinitely poisoned a rival before breakfast. Who exactly is Mr. Drake?”
“I care less about Drake,” the Duke said, voice deceptively mild, “and far more about why you constantly place yourself in danger.”
She paused, then continued rifling through the desk. “Danger? This is a simple investigation.”
His voice sharpened. “You arrived here alone, escorted only by a chicken. You traipse into gentlemen’s bedrooms with scandalous disregard for propriety. And you seem hell-bent on testing every boundary placed before you. It’s reckless. It’s dangerous.” His voice lowered, almost a growl. As if he were incredibly vexed that he even cared for such a mundane subject as her. "I don't approve of it. And when I don't approve of someone's choices, Miss Wallflower, I have a tendency to spank them."
Her pulse quickened, and her backside tingled with an excitement entirely disproportionate to the threat.
“I’m a female explorer,” she retorted, trying desperately to sound composed. “I only bow to science.”
“Then consider me your new professor,” he drawled, “specialized in discipline.”
She flushed furiously, but choose to ignore the thrill coursing down her spine. Nonchalantly, she flipped open a ledger. Inside was a sketch of a Grecian wrestler, scandalously detailed. She snapped it shut.
