Page 54 of The Forger and the Duke
“As if I wanted to learn to shoot and ride to hounds with him, and bow to his duchess when it should have been my mother in her place,” Mal said. “Christine could have been the most generous, noble woman in the world, and I still would have hated her. Though she was a paragon compared to Sybil,” he added.
Beatrice smiled fondly at his tall, broad back. “Aye, you were a tough nut, our Mal o’ Misfortune,” she said. “But at the last you let him send you to school, and you’re doing all right now, aren’t you.”
“If you call being robbed of my income and the children abandoned by their stepmother and servants in their own home all right.” Mal emerged from the storeroom to join them in the kitchen, swiping a handful of pitted cherries from his aunt’s bowl and popping them in his mouth. She swatted at him with her free hand.
“Aye, you’ll sort that, I’ve no doubt. Sounds like our Miss Amaranthe extracted you from a proper scrape. It takes a clever woman, I always say.”
“You always say it takes a strong back, when you want me to do something.” Littlejohn swung across the room, a bundle of wood beneath his arm, and deposited the fuel next to the hearth.
“You always told me it takes cleverness in a lad, which is why I should let the duke pay me through school.” Mal reached across the table and plucked a few pitted cherries from Amaranthe’s smaller bowl. She didn’t protest, feeling absurdly pleased by the attention. In the comfort of the family, with his coat off and cravat discarded, his state of undress was unbearably intimate. She could see every line of his body, and he was as well-made as a man could be.
“Where is she buried?” Amaranthe asked. “Marguerite.”
“Around the corner at Saints Philip and James,” Mal replied. “The duke was so kind as to give her a memorial in the church, though she wanted to be buried in St. Mary Redcliffe, which is where she swore Vernay pledged his vows to her, though the priest never could produce a record of the marriage, either.”
“We can take her daisies,” Amaranthe said, and his smile filled her with a giddy pleasure from head to toe.
After a pleasant evening she headed to bed in the room she’d been given, one of the nicer rooms overlooking the rear gardens and away from the noisy bustle of the yard. She’d shared the room with Miss Pettigrew, and it felt strangely empty though the girl had hardly filled it when she’d been present. She had washed her face, cleaned her teeth, and was braiding her hair for the night when a knock on the door surprised her.
“Come in.”
The sight of Mal’s face, caressed by the dancing shadows of the candle he held, pulled a chord deep in her belly. Ordinarily it would have shocked her to have a man in her room, even Joseph, but something about working, traveling, thinking out loud side by side with Mal over the past days and weeks made it feel natural for him to be in the room. At her side.
That was a silly thought. She pushed it aside. “Did you need something?”
“I came to see if you wanted a change of linens. Bea says she’ll do the washing tomorrow.”
Amaranthe made a face. She did not look forward to helping with laundry. “I think these are still fresh enough to take with us to Penwellen. I’ll have Favella’s staff launder them while we’re there.”
Traveling with one’s own linens was one of the many small bits of advice from Miss Gregoire’s Academy that had made a lasting impression on Amaranthe’s mind. The Green Man sheguessed was subject to far less vermin than many other places, but still, it never hurt to be cautious.
“Very well then. We’re still leaving tomorrow?” he asked.
“If the chaise is ready, and you.”
She tied a strip of cloth around the end of her braid to hold it, then met his eyes. The breath stopped in her throat. He still lacked a coat, and his powerful body made the room seem small. His hair had come free of its queue—he hadn’t worn a wig for days—and she longed to run her fingers through the thick mass to see if his hair could truly be as soft as it looked. In the light of the small candle beside her bed his face looked harsh and handsome, planed by the stubble covering his jaw. His lips were warm and firm and curved into a smile as she stared.
“I think your mother’s name is in my book,” Amaranthe blurted, undone by his presence in the small, darkened room where she slept. What fortune that she hadn’t stripped down to her shift yet. She’d never have let him in the room if she were undressed.
Would she? Some part of her wanted to tempt Malden Grey. Wanted him to look at her again the way he had in the coaching yard when she saw Joseph off. When he meant to show her, presumably, how a man looked at a woman he truly prized, and she’d shied away, too afraid to hold his gaze.
A curiosity was growing beside her fear. A curiosity to know where such things led.
His eyes were veiled in shadow, their bright blue muted by the dark. The scent of flowering quince drifted through the open window, a welcome change from the ever-present coal smoke of London. Behind it swelled the damp reek of the sea, the scent that suffused her childhood. Something about that smell and its memories made Mal in her room, he undressed and she ready for bed, feel perfectly natural and right.
“In the book your cousin stole from you?” His voice was low and soft, a caress that curled around her. She lifted her shoulders to her ears.
“Yes. I cannot say why, but I’m sure of it. Her name is in there. Marguerite, Lady Vernay. She would have styled herself such if she thought they were truly married.”
How she hated conjuring Reuben in this intimate space. He was a draught of cold, dank air dousing the warmth.
“I’ll help you get your book back simply because you want it, Amaranthe,” he said softly. He stepped forward and took the end of her braid between his fingers, rubbing the dark curls. She watched, fascinated, warmth spreading through her body. Yet she shivered when his eyes met hers, dark, unfathomable. “I don’t need any other reason.”
“I do wonder how she came by the book, and how it traveled to Callington. But if I can get it back from him, you’ll have a piece of her. Or something that was hers, I mean.”
His mother’s name in her book was a way to bind him to her. As if his hand in her hair wasn’t entanglement enough. She was bound to him already, like it or not.
“I think my mother would have loved you as much as Beatrice does. You’ve won them over completely.” He laid her long braid against her shoulder, the thick mass touching her breast, and let his fingers trail across her cheek as if he were exploring that texture, too. His thumb traced beneath her lower lip and her knees buckled.
