Page 1 of A Night of Desire with a Duke
Chapter 1
"Absolutely not! You cannot seriously expect me to sleep in the stables!"
The woman's voice carried clearly through the din of the overcrowded inn, causing Lady Catherine Mayfer to pause in the doorway, rain streaming from her ruined bonnet. She had just spent the last hour convinced that nothing could be worse than being trapped in a broken carriage while the heavens unleashed their fury upon the Great North Road but she was wrong. This, the Black Swan Inn packed to the rafters with stranded travelers, steaming with the scent of wet wool and desperation,….this was worse.
"I'm terribly sorry, madam," the innkeeper was saying to a well-dressed woman near the stairs, "but as I've explained, we simply haven't any rooms left. The stable loft is clean and dry..."
"The stable loft!" The woman's voice rose to a pitch that could shatter glass. "I am Mrs. Henrietta Ashworth of the Nottingham Ashworths, and I do not sleep in stables!"
Catherine sighed, adjusting her grip on her waterlogged reticule. Behind her, Martha stumbled through the door, looking like a drowned mouse.
"Oh, miss," Martha gasped. "It's completely full. Robert asked at the back but there's nothing, not even a corner in the kitchens."
Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Catherine surveyed the chaos before her. Every chair was occupied, travelers were actually sitting on their trunks, and the harried innkeeper looked ready to throw himself into the storm rather than deal with another complaint.
It was at this precise moment that she noticed him; a tall figure by the desk, calmly writing in the register while chaos reigned around him. Water still dripped from his greatcoat, suggesting he'd only just arrived, and yet he possessed the inn's register as if he had every right to it. More importantly, he appeared to be securing the very last room.
Oh, absolutely not.
Catherine squared her shoulders and marched forward, her sodden half-boots squelching with each step. She reached the desk just as the man set down his pen with an air of satisfaction.
"Pardon me," she said in her sweetest voice; the one her late father had always said could cut glass. "But I believe there's been some mistake."
The man turned, and Catherine's prepared speech died in her throat. She'd expected some portly merchant or aging squire. Not... this. Dark hair fell across his forehead, still damp from the rain. Grey eyes, the color of the storm clouds outside, regarded her with a mixture of amusement and surprise. He had the kind of face that would make debutantes write terrible poetry, all sharp angles and perfect proportions, with just enough stubble to suggest he didn't care about propriety.
"A mistake?" His voice was cultured, with just a hint of something else—military perhaps. "I wasn't aware I'd made one. Though the night is young."
Catherine recovered herself. She hadn't fled one insufferable man only to be thwarted by another, no matter how attractive. "The mistake, sir, is your assumption that you have any claim to that room. I've been traveling for hours in this tempest. My carriage has a broken axle. I am wet, cold, and in desperate need of accommodation."
"How fortunate then that you've found an inn."
"An inn with no rooms, apparently, since you seem to have claimed the last one."
"Claimed is rather a strong word. I prefer 'secured through prompt action and ready funds.'"
Catherine's temper, already frayed from the journey, ignited. "If you dare suggest I should wait in this wretched weather whilst you take the last room, sir, I shall be forced to question not only your breeding but your very sanity."
The man, gentleman, clearly, despite his road-worn appearance, leaned against the desk with infuriating casualness. The effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that water was still streaming from his sodden pelisse, creating a small puddle at his feet, but his expression remained maddeningly composed.
"I suggested nothing of the sort, madam," the gentleman replied, his voice carrying that particular brand of masculine amusement that made Catherine wish to do somethingremarkably unladylike—perhaps involving her reticule and his admirably straight nose. "I merely observed that as I arrived at the door first, and as you appear to have an entire traveling coach at your disposal whilst I have only my horse, logic would dictate..."
"Logic?" Catherine interrupted, noting with some satisfaction that his dark hair was equally plastered to his head, making him look rather less like the Greek statue he'd initially resembled and more like a half-drowned animal. A very tall, broad-shouldered animal with unsettling grey eyes, but an animal nonetheless. "How marvelously typical of your sex to invoke logic whilst standing in a biblical deluge. Tell me, sir, does logic keep one dry? Does it perhaps prevent lung fever? Or does it simply provide comfort to gentlemen who lack the gallantry to offer shelter to a lady in distress?"
The corner of his mouth twitched—whether in irritation or amusement, she couldn't quite tell. "You seem remarkably capable of distressing others without requiring the condition yourself."
Before Catherine could formulate a suitably scathing response, the innkeeper, a Mr. Hartwell, whose impressive girth suggested the Black Swan's kitchens were at least adequate, pushed between them with the practiced ease of a man well-versed in preventing bloodshed in his establishment.
"Now then, now then," he wheezed, mopping his glistening forehead with a handkerchief that had seen better days, possibly during the previous century. "No need for violence on such a night as this. As it happens, I've just had word from my boy that the large corner room is available after all—the merchant familymeant to take it has decided to press on to Kettleworth, though Heaven knows why anyone would venture forth in this tempest."
"The corner room?" both Catherine and the stranger said in unison, then glared at each other with matching expressions of proprietary interest.
"Aye, the corner room. Finest in the house, it is. Fireplace large enough to roast an ox, not that we've tried, mind you, and a proper sitting area besides the bedchamber." Mr. Hartwell's small eyes darted between them with the calculating gleam of a man sensing profit. "Course, on a night like this, with every room filled to bursting and folks sleeping in the stables, I couldn't let it go for less than..."
"I'll take it," Catherine said quickly.
"I'll pay double," the gentleman countered without missing a beat.
Catherine whirled on him. "That's absurd! You cannot simply..."
