Page 16 of Once More, My Darling Rogue
“But if I don’t tell you how I prefer things, how will you know?”
“In the future, I won’t be preparing your bath or your breakfast. You shall handle that yourself. You will also be preparing my bath and my dinner. For tonight’s meal, you’ll find pheasant in the icebox.” He shoved himself away from the counter. “I generally awaken around five. Bath first and then dinner.”
He began striding toward the door. She came up out of the chair as though he’d lit a fire beneath it.
“Hold a moment!”
He stopped, studied her. Doubt flickered across her face, washing away any lingering signs of haughtiness, of entitlement.
“You’re leaving me?”
“Yes, I’ve been up all night. I’m ready to be abed.”
Her features seemed to fold into amazement, into gratitude that had his stomach tightening, his resolve weakening.
“You went without sleep to tend me,” she said softly.
“No, in order to tend you, I did not see to my business. I’m a creature of the night, dusk is when I come to life. During the day I sleep.”
The softness dissipated. “What is your business?”
“I manage a gentlemen’s club.”
“A place of sin?”
“Quite right.”
Her brow furrowed once again. “How do I know that?”
“I’ll leave you to ponder it. If I tell you all the answers, you may never regain your memory. I think you need to exercise your brain. Wake me at five, after you’ve prepared my bath.”
This time as he left she didn’t call out to him, and he wondered why he was hit with a stab of disappointment. He’d spoken true. If he allowed her to ferret out the answers to the questions herself, her memory would no doubt return. He quite envisioned himself awakening to a shrew determined to have her own revenge against him. His bath would be scalding, his pheasant laced with arsenic.
He bounded up the stairs, strode into his bedchamber, and staggered to a stop. The bed remained rumpled, his shirt pooled on the floor. She wouldn’t tidy up after herself, now would she? When he’d first come into the room this morning, he’d retrieved his coat from where she’d abandoned it the night before and hung it back in the wardrobe.
He picked up his shirt, folded it, and set it on the chair, to be washed later. He preferred order and routine, and was quite obsessive about cleanliness. Came from spending the first few years of his young life living in squalor. He remembered the first time that the duchess had scrubbed his body clean. He’d feared that she’d take his skin with the brush, and while he’d complained mightily, he’d felt reborn.
His tired mind was journeying into odd musings. No doubt the reason that his plan to tell Ophelia she was a servant had seemed like such a splendid idea. Still, little harm in it really.
He removed his shirt, folded it, and set it with the other one. After tugging off his boots, he added his trousers and undergarments to the pile. Then he crossed over to the bed, stretched across it, brought the covers over his body, and settled in. The fragrance of his lemony soap wafted around him, but mixed within it was the scent of her, her skin warming beneath the blankets, her unique bouquet of womanhood. His body reacted swiftly and painfully. He cursed it for having no taste whatsoever. It cared only for breasts and thighs and the sweet haven that resided between them.
Striving to tame his needs, he brought up images of her gazing down her long, aristocratic nose at him, of her ordering him about, of her snubbing him—publicly and privately—any chance she got.Keep your distance, she had telegraphed frequently and accurately.You’re not good enough.
What did he care what she thought of him when her thoughts so accurately mirrored his own? Perhaps that was the ironic twist. That she saw him more clearly than anyone else, and he didn’t much like that they agreed on something.
Chapter 6
She couldn’t recall how to cook creamed eggs, but she was supposed to know how to prepare pheasant? Dear God, she didn’t even know how to heat the stove.
She nibbled on the dry toast. She liked it with more butter, so where would she find that? In the icebox, she supposed. Sliding off the hard-backed wooden chair, she wondered if a more uncomfortable piece of furniture existed in all of Christendom. She could not be expected to sit in it for every meal. It required pillows. She required pillows. Softness, comfort. Why would anyone settle for less?
She wandered over to the wooden box, released the latch, opened the door, and screeched.
The bird stared accusingly at her.
Slamming the door closed, she stepped back, her breathing harsh and shallow. It was dead, she knew it was dead, but it still possessed its eyes, its entire head. She couldn’t cook something that had the ability to glare at her, to make her feel guilty about preparing it.
Drake Darling was going to have to make do with something else for dinner, because she had no desire whatsoever to touch that creature. Shivering, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms, then wished she hadn’t because the material itched. It was incredibly stiff and scratchy. She thought of Mr. Darling’s shirt—how soft it had been—and she longed to be wrapped in it once more. She didn’t care that it was his. The linen was much more to her liking. She would put it on as soon as he left this evening.
