It was a servant’s place to tend the household, not the people that owned it. But what was a household without a heart, and whom did the heart belong to if not the master and his lady wife?
The duke likely did not remember the treats that she’d snuck him when he was a boy and she a mere scullery maid like that lazy Lucy, but Agnes did. She also remembered when the duke’s father had closed his study door with the young duke inside and the crack of a birch rod that had soon followed.
She remembered when the duke stopped taking her chocolates.
When he became solemn and stern.
When his smile turned into a perpetual frown.
And she remembered the hope that had stirred in her breast when he’d returned to Southwick Castle to present his duchess, a lady as sweet and quiet as a lamb. Mara was everything that she’d ever wanted for the duke. Mara was everything that hedeservedafter all he’d been made to suffer at the hands of a father that had turned a kind, inquisitive, gentle boy into a cold, arrogant, unfeeling man.
But not cruel.
The duke didn’t have the streak of cruelty that his sire had possessed, and Agnes was thankful for small acts of grace. But how she yearned to take him by the shoulders and give him a solid shake! To march him right up to his lonely, lovely wife and show him what he was missing. What he was choosing to purposefully forsake.
Of course she wouldn’t dothat. Not if she valued her position and her livelihood, which she did, very much. But she could read a journal. And she could spread a rumor. And she could bring the duke to his duchess.
The rest...
The rest would have to be up to them.
Chapter Six
Rain lashed atthe windows as Mara entered the blue room and went straight to the stone hearth where a fire crackled merrily, just as Agnes had promised. Dragging a footstool across the carpet, she sat down in front of it and draped her hair across the velvet cushioning to dry, not unlike the maids hanging sheets in the sunshine. Then she closed her eyes and forced herself to take three deep, even breaths.
From the other side of the door connecting the blue room to her bedroom she heard the quiet hum of voices, indicating that Agnes had been joined by another servant. From the door that led directly to the duke’s private chamber she heard nothing... and she was grateful for the silence.
Maybe it meant that Ambrose was already on his way back to London, and wouldn’t that be a relief? Not so long ago she’d sat in this very parlor and wished away the hours until he visited her again. But that was then, when she had been a naïve bride, and this was now, when she’d become a disillusioned wife. A wife who wanted nothing to do with the husband who had used her and then abandoned her as if she were of no more consequence than a cloak gone out of style and relegated to the back of the closet with the rest of the unwanted garments.
Howdarehe assume that he could come here, snap his fingers, and she would trot to heel! Whatever rumors had spread of her planned misdeeds weren’t her fault, as she truly hadn’t told a soul. But it didn’t matter if thetonknew or not. She was done playing the part of dutiful duchess for a duke who didn’t want her! And she’d rather chew off her own tongue than accompany him to London.
When she went, she would go alone. There’d be no mutual outings, no public appearances of commitment, and she’dnotpretend to fall ill. This was her time to do what she wanted with whom she wanted.
Ambrose... Ambrose be damned!
The creak of a door’s hinges had Mara lifting her head, but it wasn’t the door to her bedroom that opened.
“What—what are you doing in here?” she sputtered, bolting upright and wrapping her arms around herself when her husband strolled languidly into the room.
He’d changed out of his traveling clothes and into a pair of straight black trousers and a white shirt that wasn’t yet buttoned to the throat. His satin waistcoat hung open and a cravat was tossed carelessly over his shoulder, a sign that he was in the midst of getting dressed. But even with his attire halfway complete, he was twice as handsome as any gentleman she’d ever met, and Mara swallowed convulsively when he took a step toward her, his glittering gaze unreadable in the firelight.
“I’m searching for my pair of gold cufflinks,” he said. “My valet, disorganized fellow that he is, seems to be under the impression that they may be in here.”
“Well, they’re not,” she said without bothering to take even a cursory glance around the parlor. “So you can leave.”
“Maybe I’ve found something better than cufflinks.”
“What’s—what’s that?”
A wolf’s smile cut into the corners of his mouth as he prowled even closer, trailing his fingers along the rigid back of a sofa. “My wife in nothing more than a dressing robe.”
Why is he looking at me like that,she wondered frantically.
He hadneverlooked at her like that.
As if she were an object to be coveted. Or a dessert to be craved, one spoonful at a time.
“You should leave,” she said, and her pulse kicked like a hare when, instead of exiting the room as she’d requested, he moved closer, his bare feet gliding soundlessly across the floor.
