Page 45 of Falling Into Bed with a Duke
He looked so young, and she felt remarkably old. “Consider the army, my lord. It’ll give you backbone.” Turning on her heel, she began the long trek home.
It was several minutes before he loped up to join her. “You won’t tell anyone about my offer will you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Thank you, Miss Dodger.” They walked in silence for a while before he said, “What if I can’t make a go of it on my own?”
“I have faith in you, my lord. It won’t be easy, but if you really love the girl, you’ll find a way. One that doesn’t involve someone else’s dowry.”
As they carried on toward her home, she wondered how her life had come to this. Last night had contained no disappointments. It had been only joy and pleasure.
She wanted another night with Ashebury—on her terms.
“YOU rang for me, Your Grace?”
Standing at the window in his library, sipping his scotch, Ashe watched as twilight crept over the gardens. He was going to miss the quiet, miss not slamming into memories every time he turned a corner. For hours, he’d roamed the familiar hallways of his youth, remembering a few times worth savoring. His mother spritzing him with her perfume, tickling him until he laughed and begged her to stop. His father tying thread around Ashe’s first loose tooth, securing one end of it to a doorknob, then slamming the door closed, jerking out the tooth in the process. Patting Ashe on the shoulder. “Good lad. You’ll do well as a duke.”
And Ashe never again telling his father when he felt a tooth beginning to wobble. Then no longer having the opportunity to tell him.
“We’re taking up residence at Ashebury Place. Have the servants begin preparing it for our arrival. I should like to be moved in within the week.”
“Very good, sir. We’ll have to take on additional staff.”
Because Ashebury Place was twice the size of this house. “We’ll make do with what we have for now.”
“As you wish.”
It wasn’t what he wished. Truth be told, he probably needed to let some of the staff go. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn them out when their only crime was having an employer who had fallen on hard times.
“Will there be anything else, Your Grace?”
“No, that’s all for now, Wilson.”
“Very good, sir.” Wilson left as quietly as he’d entered.
Ashe pressed his fist to the window, leaned his forehead against it. He didn’t want to keep reliving the memories that had visited him today, but it was as though he were trapped in a barrel that was rolling down a hill. For the first time that day, he smiled. At Havisham, they’d once taken turns climbing into a barrel and being rolled about, so he was very familiar with the sensation. He’d taken pride in being the only one not to cast up his breakfast.
The thought about his pride brought him to his photos, which brought him immense satisfaction. Following that thought was an image of Lady V lying across the bed with legs revealed, waiting for him to part them, to bury himself between them.
He needed her tonight. He desperately hoped she’d be there.
Chapter 11
SHE was three minutes late, one hundred and eighty seconds past the last gong that marked the witching hour, and he’d already found a replacement for her. With her heart clamoring and bitter disappointment settling into her breast, she stood transfixed in the doorway leading into the parlor of the Nightingale Club and watched as Ashebury nodded and smiled at a woman wearing a deep purple mask and elegant evening gown. It barely occurred to her to wonder why the lurid female wasn’t dressed in the simple attire of every other lady in the room.
Instead, she was more concerned with why she thought she’d meant something to him, why she’d given any credence to his invitation, to the pleasure he’d brought her, to the exceptions he’d claimed to make where she was concerned. Lies spouted from his luscious, deceiving mouth like that of every other man who had ever deemed to give her attention. When she was out of sight, she was out of mind. She. Lady V.
She castigated herself. Had she really thought that a woman who visited a place like this was going to be revered and hold a man’s affections for more than the time it took to bed her?
Then he was striding toward her, his smile broadening, and it occurred to her that it had never been for the woman in purple. That it had been for her the second she’d stepped through the doorway, and he saw her.
She had been three minutes late. It wasn’t even a minute later, and he was at her side.
“Seems you’re not wanting for a partner this evening,” she said, hating the churlishness in her voice, striving not to reveal the full extent of her irritation and disappointment by shaking off the large, warm hand that he had curled over her shoulder, offering the touch she had planned to welcome with every aspect of her being.
His smile dimmed slightly, his gaze held hers commandingly, not allowing her to look away. “Lady Eliza is the proprietor. She was reassuring me that everything I asked for had been seen to.”
“What did you ask for?”
