Page 60 of Five Nights with a Rakish Duke
The figure flinched, as though they knew they had been seen. With a tree between the two of them now, the branches and the leaves masked the figure more, but they could clearly see enough through the window to know they had been seen. They pulled the top hat lower over the brow of their face, turned and hurried away, rushing somewhere down the street so fast that Asher couldn’t move between windows quickly enough to keep them in sight.
At the third window, Asher gave up trying to follow.
“Who was that?” he asked aloud. Yet there was another question that bothered him all the more.
Why am I being watched?He turned away from the window, about to go and ask Walker to investigate if there was any evidence of the person still in the street when he stumbled on something on the floor. Holding himself straight again, he peered down, finding something bundled around his foot.
“Penny,” Asher whispered softly as he reached for the small paisley shawl she had left behind. He picked it up from the floor and encased the material around his fingers. Dark husky pink with a paisley pattern inlaid with mustard yellows and burnt oranges fell between his fingers, soft as silk.
With the shawl in his hands, he could remember all too easily what had happened the night before with Penny. He closed his eyes, remembering her heightened breaths and the moans she made, as well as the feel of her. The excitement of the evening still rippled through him, making him yearn to have her back in his arms.
I need that fifth night. Soon.There wasn’t a doubt in his mind what he hoped to happen on that fifth night.
Holding onto the paisley shawl, he walked out of the sitting room and through the hallway into the study, his mind distracted from the figure. Now he was thinking only of Penny. In his study, he sat in his chair, continuously running the shawl between his fingers.
“Your Grace?” a voice called through the open doorway, followed by a tap on the doorframe.
“Yes, Walker?” Asher called back, still not putting the shawl down.
“A letter has arrived for you,” Walker said, stepping into the room and presenting a sealed letter to Asher.
“Thank you,” Asher said with a nod and took the parchment. Recognizing Dorian’s handwriting, he waited until Walker had left the room before he broke the wax seal and peeled it open.
Dorian started by talking of his arrangements for a ball to be held at his father’s estate at the weekend, asking for Asher’s opinion on many things. At the end of the letter though, matters turned more serious.
‘Asher, have you yet asked the lady you are courting to marry you? Time is ticking, my friend! You should know the lady is happily telling people she meets in town of your courtship, and the pair of your names are being uttered by gossiping tongues daily. The quickest way to stop gossip is to take action. You wish to be married and follow through with your promise to your father? Then the time has come! Marry Lady Margaret soon, before the whole town is abuzz with the gossip.
‘Or marry Lady Penelope instead and make yourself happy.
‘Your friend etcetera, ‘Dorian, Earl of Upperton.’
“Dorian!” Asher muttered angrily as he tossed down the letter finding the paisley shawl still in his other hand. He jerked his eyes toward it, thinking on what Dorian had said. There had to be a reason every time Dorian suggested Asher marry Penny that his heartbeat quickened. For a brief minute, he wondered what it could be like to get married.
He could imagine himself standing at the altar, waiting for his bride to walk down the aisle. As he turned around, looking away from the vicar, his eyes found Lord Larson, escorting the bride toward him and the bouquet of flowers in front of her. Then she lifted her head and revealed her face to him, only the person who was smiling at him as she walked down the aisle wasn’t Lady Margaret, it was Penny.
“Your Grace?” Walker’s voice came again. Asher was so startled that he nearly dropped the shawl on the floor.
“Yes, Walker?” Asher said, looking toward the open door to find the butler peering round the frame again.
“You have a visitor.”
“A visitor? At this hour? Who is it?” Asher asked, folding up the shawl and hurriedly placing it in a drawer of the desk where no one would find it.
“Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Kendall, your stepmother, Your Grace.”
Chapter Twenty
“Josephine, I was not expecting you today,” Asher said, standing from the chair at his desk and glancing down to the drawer one more time, ensuring the paisley shawl was completely hidden from view.
His stepmother walked into the room, looking more drained than he could remember her being before. Her skin was pale, her cheeks a little gaunt, and she looked older without his father at her side. The dark eyes had softened too. They no longer looked at him with the keen and astute gaze she used to adopt but seemed to look through him instead.
“Josephine?” he said when she didn’t answer him. He walked around the desk and offered his hand in greeting to her.
“Asher, I am so glad to see you again,” she said softly, smiling with what appeared to be a genuine smile though it didn’t last long.
“Come, you look tired from your journey.” He took her hand and placed it through his arm, escorting her toward the sitting room. On route, he urged Walker to bring some tea for her then settled her in a settee near the fireplace.
He tried not to glance too long to the rug where he had laid with Penny the night before. His mind was still tormented by the memories of it, longing to return to that moment and this time get her to stay for a few minutes longer.
