If he didn’t cease, she would never be able to sleep. She would lie there in a bright red stew of humiliation long after he had fallen into his dreams, no doubt of a libidinous nature.
“I imagine they’re exquisitely sensitive. Never having seen the light of day, so to speak. Do you allow yourself to bathe them? Or is it done with a far-off gaze, an admonition to feel nothing from your body?”
She drew the sheet down below her eyes. He really must cease now. To speculate on how she bathed was too much, especially since he was excessively close to the mark.
“I imagine your shoulders are beautiful as well. I should like to see you in an evening gown, something frothy and totally unlike you. Something overly feminine, perhaps.”
She was excessively feminine. Who was he to say such a thing to her? Their acquaintance had lasted a matter of hours. What did he know of her?
She shut her eyes and prayed for sleep. Let her be able to ignore him. Let everything he said be nothing more than the drone of an insect, or the sound of water like one of the fountains in the garden. She would simply treat his words like the trickle of water and pay no attention to the meaning.
“Breasts are vastly underrated, Lady Sarah. They are a source of great pleasure for a woman. Did you know that? It is not simply a place for a babe to suckle. A grown man likes to suckle as well.”
Water dripping over the stones, that was all his words were. In the water garden, there was a tiny little piper, Pan, standing atop a curling leaf, water pouring from his flute. Or there was a larger statue of Poseidon, the God of the Sea, roaring up from the curved bowl of a large fountain, balancing three voluptuous mermaids on his shoulders.
They were bare-chested as well.
“Cease, Mr. Eston.”
“Douglas.”
“I really must insist,” she said.
“Douglas.”
“I really must insist. Douglas.”
“Sleep well, Lady Sarah.”
She turned her head and frowned toward the bed. Had that been his intent all along? To get her to callhim Douglas? Could he be that Machiavellian, that cunning?
She was sleeping on a cot that was anything but comfortable, staring up at her husband, who was a little more than a stranger. Sarah had the distinct feeling that she’d been bested, and that Douglas Eston might be a bit more complicated than she’d once believed.
Chapter 6
An hour past dawn, Douglas found Chavensworth’s library.
Evidently, the Duke of Herridge had not been able to make his mark on this room to the degree he had his town house in London. There was no clutter here, no ostentation. The floors were whitewashed, the bookcases painted white, and the ceiling the same pleasant pale green as new grass. Scattered throughout the room were pedestals topped with marble busts of philosophers, Romans, and no doubt past Dukes of Herridge. At one end of the library were two heavily embroidered chairs with tall backs and deeply carved arms. Above them hung a portrait of a man, and beside him the painting of a woman, both dressed in outdated clothing. The first Duke of Herridge and his duchess?
Chavensworth’s library boasted two levels, one accessible from the main corridor on the ground floor and the second only gained through a circular iron staircase in the middle of the room. He found himself exploring the books, amazed at the number of them.
Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to catalog all the volumes. Each bookcase was labeled by subjectmatter, and the books in the fiction section had been shelved by author.
I am a woman who strives to be knowledgeable.Lady Sarah’s words. Was this library so perfect because of her efforts? Or had she hired someone to care for Chavensworth’s volumes? Either way, she evidently thought highly enough of the room to devote some attention to it.
Douglas made his way to the windows on the other side of the room. In front of them rested an enormous mahogany desk. He sat back in the chair, pulled his notebook from inside his jacket, and opened it, beginning to write what he’d learned the night before: How Sarah was to be addressed, and the fact that the daughter of a duke never loses her title—she simply changed her last name. When he was finished, he put the leather notebook back into the pocket of his jacket and stood, leaving the library and almost colliding with Thomas.
He’d evidently disturbed Thomas in his early-morning routine, because the young man wasn’t as sartorially perfect as he had been the day before. Instead, he wore a leather apron and smelled of something pungent and unpleasant.
“Cleaning the privies?” Douglas asked.
“Demonstrating how to make copper polish, sir,” Thomas said. “It’s Lady Sarah’s recipe, but I didn’t want to disturb her.”
Douglas tucked that knowledge away for later.
“Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”
“Nothing,” Douglas said. “I wake early as a habit.”
