She had no illusion about what was happening. Baynton was moving her here. Her! Wet, bedraggled, muddy. People who would see them come in together and would surely think the handsome, dashing Duke of Baynton could find a better mistress. They probably would believe her some witch from the swamp.
The idea made her laugh but the sound came out as a sob.
He shepherded her up the stairs and down a long hall. A hotel porter followed them, stepping in front of the duke to put the key in a door and open it.
“This way,” Baynton said and with a gentle hand at her elbow escorted her in.
Sarah shuffled forward into a set of rooms fit for royalty. There was a sitting room with elegant chairs for the comfort of the occupants. A desk was in front of one of the room’s many windows and there was a table and chairs.
She did not need any help going to the bedroom. She was exhausted. Completely done in. She barely registered the soft blues and creams of the furnishings. The room was dark and she preferred it that way.
So, here she was.
In the place she’d vowed she’d never go—she was a kept woman.
She remembered Baynton’s request, that he was a virgin. Well, that was about to change—and she found she didn’t care what he did to her. Her plays were destroyed. She was an empty shell.
And that was enough, wasn’t it? Isn’t the shell all men really wanted from her anyway? All they’d ever wanted. Even Roland, her bastard of a husband.
Should she warn Baynton how much she detested sex? No, let him find out.
Sarah yanked at the ribbons of her cloak and let it fall to the ground. She stumbled directly to the bed and threw herself upon the coverlet, shoes and all.
The mattress was stuffed with cotton. She’d never felt one so soft. And the pillow was of feathers, lovely, lovely down.
Sarah buried her face in the pillow and tried to ignore the duke’s presence, and succeeded as she shut her eyes and fell into oblivion.
Chapter Nine
Sarah didn’t dream.
Her sleep was that deep. She hadn’t been truly conscious of closing her eyes and even now did not wish to open them. She drew a deep breath, inhaling the scent of clean bedclothes. They carried the mix of lavender and soap. Heaven.
She remembered falling upon the bed, so tired she’d lost the will to fight.
Now, caught in the hazy state between sleep and waking, her thoughts went to her last happiest memory. It was when she’d lived on Mulberry Street, when Charlene had lived with her.
Charlene. She’d loved her niece as fiercely as if she had been her own child. In truth, she would be the only child Sarah ever had. She’d never hold a baby in her arms . . . especially at the ripe age of four-and-thirty.
And now Charlene was living her own life, building her own family so very far away from Sarah, because that is what one did with people they loved—they let them live their own life.
Sarah was ready to drift back into sleep when she sensed movement. She wasn’t alone in the room. Someone quietly closed a door.
Complete recollection returned. Sarah opened her eyes.
She was in the room at the Clarendon. She knew without opening the bedroom drapes that it was late evening. She’d slept for several hours and she could sleep for several more.
A lamp burned low on the table next to the bed, its yellow light highlighting the whiteness of the sheets and the graceful carving on the bedposts. The door between the bedroom and sitting room was closed.
This is where the Duke of Baynton had brought her. She’d been evicted and her plays were gone. All of them. Everything that had mattered in her life had been treated as if it was of no consequence.
Realizing with a touch of horror she’d been sleeping with her mouth open, Sarah closed it and pushed herself up. Her hair was a shambles and her dress, her best dress, was hopelessly wrinkled. She still wore her wet shoes.
Sarah put her legs over the side of the bed and that is when she noticed the hip tub full of steaming water in the corner of the room. She rose and crossed to it. Someone had set a table close at hand and there was a stack of clean linen towels and soap. Finely milled soap. She picked it up and smelled it. The scent was floral, not heavy with rose or lavender but a soft mixture.
She stood a moment, listening. She could hear no sound from the sitting room beyond the closed door—and yet she knew he was there.
Baynton was waiting for her, and she knew why. She knew what he wanted.
