My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1)(18)

“Is anyone here?” Mrs. Campbell finally asked.

“Yes. Always.” Jack thumped on the door again. “But we’re not expected.”

“I gathered,” she said sourly. “A spur--of--the--moment kidnapping.”

“Stop saying that.” He glanced at her, irked. “You wanted a bit of adventure and you got some.”

“I didn’t want it with you,” she shot back.

“Let that be a lesson to you, then. Don’t make wagers you don’t wish to honor.” His ears caught the scrape of the bolt, and he stepped back as the door opened.

The butler stared disdainfully at them through the narrow opening. “Who is there?”

“Ware.” Jack removed his hat, ignoring the rain. “Open the door, Wilson.”

The butler’s eyes nearly popped from his head. He threw the door open wide and bowed deeply. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. We received no notice of your visit—-”

“I know.” Jack brushed past him. The house, per his instructions, was kept almost at full readiness. Alwyn was his retreat from London, where he could slip away from the relentless pressures of the dukedom for a few days. It wasn’t a total escape, as most of the work followed him, but here it was quiet and peaceful. His mother hated the house, it being too far from the society of London, and Philip found it old--fashioned, so he always had it to himself.

Except tonight, obviously. In the middle of unbuttoning his coat, he glanced back to see Mrs. Campbell hesitating on the doorstep. “Come in,” he told her. “Unless you’ve taken a liking to the rain.”

Her eyes narrowed and her lush mouth twitched in irritation, but she came inside, allowing Wilson to shut the door behind her.

Jack turned at the patter of footsteps. The housekeeper was all but running down the stairs. “Your Grace,” she said breathlessly, making a hasty curtsy. “We didn’t expect you—-”

“I know, Mrs. Gibbon,” he assured her. “It was a decision made on the spur of the moment.” He avoided Mrs. Campbell’s gaze as he repeated her words, and shed his greatcoat into Wilson’s waiting hands. “This is Mrs. Campbell. Draw a hot bath and prepare a room for her. Are you hungry?” He swung around to address his guest.

She looked dazed. There were still raindrops clinging to her eyelashes. “Er—-No. Tea would be lovely, though . . .”

“Very good. Mrs. Gibbon, I leave her to your capable care.” Jack headed through the door for the stairs. His boots squelched at every step, and he was fiendishly anxious to pry them off.

“Sir!” He stopped at Mrs. Campbell’s cry. One foot already on the stairs, he looked back.

She had removed her cloak. As expected, her scarlet gown was drenched and clung to her body from her shoulders to her knees. The outlines of her stays were visible beneath the wet gown, and Jack imagined he could see her nipples, hard and erect. He imagined unlacing that dress and peeling it down, tasting every dewy wet inch of her skin. He imagined drawing her down with him into the large copper tub that was surely being set up even now in his dressing room, and his breath shuddered.

God help him. He was worse than Philip.

“Yes?” he said curtly, fighting the reaction of his body to the unwanted images running through his brain.

“What . . . ?” She made a helpless motion with one hand. “What am I to do?”

Strip off that wet dress. Let down your hair. Smile at me the way you did at Philip.

“Get warm and dry,” he said. “After that . . . we shall talk.” And nothing else, by God. He turned and went up the stairs.





Chapter 6




Sophie barely restrained herself from saying something very rude to the duke’s retreating back. He was insufferable.

The housekeeper was waiting, trying to conceal her rabid curiosity. The butler took her sopping wet cloak and quietly slipped away. She gathered herself. “Good evening,” she said to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Gibbon, is it?”

“Yes, madam.”

Sophie plucked at her wet skirt. The bright crimson cotton had been one of her favorites, and now it was surely ruined, spattered with mud up to her knees. “The carriage got stuck on the road, nigh on a mile away. I imagine it’s been raining all day?”

“Since yesterday, ma’am.” Mrs. Gibbon hesitated, then asked incredulously, “Did you walk a mile?”

“Oh yes,” Sophie said. “There was no choice. It was rather hard going at times, I must say.”

The woman’s face softened. “With His Grace you were perfectly safe, although it must have been miserable! This way, madam. We’ll get you warm and dry.” She led the way up the stairs.

“I’m so sorry for the extra work it must put you to,” Sophie said as they climbed the broad stairs of polished wood. She tried not to think of the wet footprints she was leaving on them for some hapless servant to wipe clean.

“Have no worry on that score,” the woman assured her. “His Grace always leaves proper orders for the house.”

Sophie took another look around her. Everyone kept calling it a house, as if it compared to the narrow brick home she had in Alfred Street. This looked far more like a mansion to her, even more so inside than out. The walls were robin’s--egg blue, and parquet floors gleamed in the glow of the housekeeper’s lamp. She glanced up and gasped quietly at the high arched ceiling that shone with gold leaf even in the low light.