The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Ten

Griffin’s official London residence was a white-stone town house in Bedford Square that his father had visited only on the occasional summer. The Georgian front door opened onto a marble entry-way lined with twelve ceiling-high columns, which stood like sentinels of a forgotten time. The rear garden was overgrown with weeds and boasted a quaint classical temple in its midst that had been taken over by pigeons.

Griffin would not have chosen to live in this fancy, unfriendly house in a hundred years. The looped damask curtains reeked of mildew and had not been opened since his mother’s death twenty years ago. His brother had admired the Gothic design, which featured a pedimented urn or recessed caryatid every time one turned a bloody corner. The only cheerful room in this house was the library, and Griffin all but encamped there. He seemed to be unduly drawn to warmth since he had arrived in London.

It was only as Harriet tiptoed into the hall that he noticed the front door had a lacy ironwork fanlight and that her eyes glowed like a cat’s in the dark.

“I told my nephew that there is little point in wasting money on renovations yet,” Lady Powlis said, removing her pelisse. “Not when the future duchess will want to have a say in things. Her tastes will undoubtedly run counter to mine. The duke, I suspect, does not care one way or the other. He will never like this house. I am not particularly fond of it myself. Nor was my sweet sister-in-law.”

Harriet stared up the yawning black staircase. “It wouldn’t hurt to open the drapes here and there, would it?”

She turned, emitting an involuntary shriek as a stooped gray-haired butler appeared from one of the columns to take her cloak. Griffin grinned. He couldn’t think of the old fellow’s name at the moment, but he’d been sneaking up behind people, and giving them a scare ever since Griffin could remember.

He stared at Harriet. “Well, what do you think?”

“It’s lonely.” She shivered slightly. “And a bit eerie. No wonder Lady Powlis wanted company.”

He bent his head to hers. “You’re going to regret this.”

“Am I?”

He stared down at her mouth, dropping his voice. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“Stop whispering in my companion’s ear like that,” his aunt said from the staircase. “You’re going to give her the impression that you’re as decadent as everyone says you are.”

“Do you suppose,” he asked Harriet very quietly, “that she and I may share you?”

Harriet lifted her brow, stepping carefully around his unmoving form. “It would be an honor to pick out your hankerchief in the morning and carry your reticule while we take brisk walks to build your stamina.”

“There is nothing wrong with my stamina, I assure you.”

“Well, maybe we can wear you out.” She whirled. “A little exercise never hurt anyone.”

He started to reach for her, a dangerous impulse, and then lowered his hand. What would he do if he caught her? His aunt had claimed her without a thought to the temptation she had put in his path. Not that he begrudged Primrose the right to seek such pleasant company. He had no desire to entertain the old lady every night.

And what he desired he would simply have to resist. If he could.

“Harriet!” his aunt shouted from the upstairs hall. “Is that rogue still keeping you down there in the dark?”

He saw Harriet pause on the landing to give him a fretful look before she vanished from his rueful scrutiny. He stared after her shapely figure with a smile. He might well be a rogue. He would have certainly kept his aunt’s companion down here far longer if he could have gotten away with it.

But all of a sudden he wasn’t alone in the dark.

In fact, he was standing directly in a circle of moonlight that had broken through the fanlight onto the floor.

And he swore that the light led directly up the stairs.

Harriet knew good fortune when it found her. From now on she wouldn’t be banished to sleep in a garret or basement like an ordinary servant. Lady Powlis was giving her the stranger’s suite, no less.

And a more strangely appointed room Harriet had never hoped to see. It was so hideous she could have run back down the stairs and-and thrown herself into the handsome duke’s arms.

“Well,” Lady Powlis said, biting her lip in pleasure as Harriet lit the taper on the bedstand. “What do you think? My sister, Glynnis, had it decorated several years ago after she returned from the Nile.”

Harriet gazed unblinkingly around the main chamber. The bed had been constructed to resemble an Egyptian barge, its four gilt posts engraved with hieroglyphics and snake motifs that would be a rousing sight first thing in the morning. Smack in the middle of the headboard sat some winged bosomy Sphinx with a floating eyeball, which Harriet could swear was following her around the room. It was positively abnormal.

Lady Powlis dragged her into the dressing closet. “Wait until you see the size of the clothes chest.”

Harriet gasped. Ye gods, what a horror. “So that’s the sarc-It doesn’t smell fusty in here by half. You’re not going to tell me your sister’s dead husband sleeps in that thing, are you? Because quite honestly, even I have certain standards.”

Lady Powlis lifted the heavy lid and sniffed. “This odor can’t be anything compared to a genuine sarcophagus. Imagine a coffin that could devour one’s flesh in days.”

Harriet swallowed. “What’s it do to your clothes, I wonder?”

“Nothing a little camphor and lavender cannot fix.”

Harriet retreated into the main suite. “I hope you’ll forgive my unthinking comment about your sister’s dearly departed.”

Lady Powlis sighed, regarding her with a wistful smile. “I’ll take you to meet my own late husband one day soon.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How odd, Harriet, that we should discuss him,” she mused. “He will have been interred in the family vaults for exactly a decade this Friday. When we return to the castle, I shall introduce him to you.”

“Return… but his grace will be bringing home a wife. I didn’t think that we-that you and I-would have to leave London.” Quitting the academy was one thing, but Harriet could not imagine herself gallivanting around the world. And would the duke accompany them?

“Who knows?” Lady Powlis said, as if reading Harriet’s thoughts. “Perhaps we shall travel together to Egypt and have great adventures. Glynnis could be our guide. Would that not be delightful?”

“It sounds frightful,” said a deep voice from the hall. Griffin popped his head around the door. “You aren’t going to put her in that tomb with the last companion you had?”

“Some women say sleeping in a sarcophagus restores their youth,” Lady Powlis said, closing the door to the closet.

Griffin leaned against the doorjamb, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen a more hideous room in my entire life.”

Harriet sat down on a leopard-skin stool supported upon gilt palm-leaf legs and clawed feet. “You know, I might prefer a garret bedchamber, after all. It’s warmer up there, and I don’t need to take up all this room. A room this size should be reserved for proper company.”

“But then you wouldn’t be near me, dear,” Lady Powlis reminded her. “And I shall want you available at all times.”

Griffin abandoned Harriet to his aunt and her bedchamber of horrors. From the instant she stepped into his house tonight, the rules as he dimly understood them had changed. Suddenly he had been forced into the role of protector. Not one who claimed the rights that his male body clamored to assert, but one whose position was defined by an ancient code.

He sat on the edge of his bed, contemplating his boots.

His physical self knew nothing of chivalry. It generally disregarded rules and scorned discipline. It wanted, therefore it would have. His carnal nature craved soothing in the most fundamental of ways.

This arrangement would never work. It was unfair to him, but mostly to Harriet.

He decided that his aunt was the devil disguised in fine gray hair and fragile bones. Why else would she place temptation in his path?

When, in truth, had he ever been so tempted?

He wasn’t the rakehell his older brother had been.

He wasn’t much of a duke, either, for that matter.

He was rather lonely and at a loss as to what he was supposed to do with himself.

He already wanted another reason to see his aunt’s companion.

Should he remind her that the sarcophagus was unsafe? Would anyone hear her cry for help if she fell inside the blessed contraption and couldn’t get out? Why hadn’t the servants noticed how damp that side of the house was at night? And why did he find it so easy to talk to her?

He glanced up from his feet to the door.

He really ought to ring to have the hearth in her room cleared of debris and lit. And while he was at it, he should warn her about the loose carpet at the top of the stairs that he had noticed only earlier that day. It wouldn’t hurt to remind her he would not be far during the night, if the thought of mummies coming to life in her dressing closet kept her awake.

He got up. He had a responsibility to make everyone under his roof reasonably comfortable.

She couldn’t have gone to bed yet. Perhaps she would be too unsettled by her surroundings to fall asleep.

He knocked at her door. It was neither a furtive knock nor one so insistent that Primrose would hear and demand to know what was going on.

Harriet opened the door in understandable hesitation. She was still dressed, not a button undone. He had no idea how she had managed it, but a small fire illuminated the room. Did she harbor a knack for pyromancy?

She had a book clasped in her hand. Her bright gold-bronze hair fell in a thick rope down her back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I only wanted to make sure you’d be warm.”

She blinked. “His grace jokes. It is like an oven in here.”

“You won’t sleep in that tomb thing, will you?”

“No.” She gave him a strange look. “I thought I might use it to store my parasols and odd bits when they come tomorrow. Or perhaps I’ll pretend it isn’t there at all.”

“That might be rather hard to do, considering its size.” His eyes traveled over her. She appeared to be anything but a damsel in distress. “I know I can tease at times, but I have to ask again… are you sure you made the right choice?”

“No,” she admitted, her eyes glinting. “I’ve never lived anywhere this quiet before.”

“It won’t be quiet tomorrow, I promise you.” He was running out of excuses for being here. Her soft mouth curved in a knowing smile. He wasn’t going to kiss her, no matter how sensual he imagined she would look lying across the bed behind her, or even how pleasant it would be to sit together in the firelight. He wasn’t going to think of how much he had enjoyed dancing with her last night and how her presence had already brightened this house. And he certainly was not going to pace in his room the rest of the night, listening for any small sound she might make.

She cleared her throat. “Is that all you wanted?”

His gaze fell to the book she held against her. He exhaled, regaining mastery of his errant thoughts. “Has my aunt got you working for her already?”

She seemed reluctant to answer. Perhaps she had guessed he was only bargaining for time. He had not employed the most devious strategy in coming to her room.

“This is my book,” she said, her fingers curling around the spine. “It’s about a monster made up of dead body parts. He goes on a killing rage because the doctor who created him refuses to make him a wife.”

“Another woman drawn to the dark and macabre,” he mused. “Primrose would probably enjoy such a story. You should read it to her. No. You shouldn’t. It might give her ideas.”

She pushed her hand against the door. “Your aunt appears to be a dear lady devoted to her family. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for making fun of her all the time.”

He sighed, duly caught out. “That’s exactly what she keeps telling me. Just remember-she isn’t at all as sweet as she appears.”

Harriet smiled. “I know who I have to keep my eye on, thank you.”