The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1)(33)

But the duke she’d married was a different sort of beast.





Chapter Thirteen




Bang.

Ash lifted his head from the accounts ledger.

Don’t mind it, he told himself. Mrs. Norton will see to whatever it is. It’s not your concern.

But when he lowered his head, he found himself unable to focus on the work at hand. He pushed back from the desk and stood, leaving the room in brisk paces.

If he’d ever possessed the ability to ignore explosive noises, he’d left that talent behind at Waterloo.

After tense moments of searching, he discovered the source of the clamor. A brass embellishment had crashed to the morning room floor. That sight, in itself, was nothing particularly remarkable. What took him aback was the other half of the scene: His wife standing on a ladder and clinging to the curtain rod, a good twelve feet above the floor.

She craned her neck to look at him. “Oh, hullo.”

“What is this?”

“I’m taking down these draperies.”

“Alone?” He crossed the room and put his hands on the ladder. Someone had to be near her in case she tumbled and fell.

“Sorry if I alarmed you with all that noise. I lost my grip on the finial.”

She’d lost her grip on the finial. Bully for her. Ash was losing his grip on his sanity.

“Since you seem to need reminding, you are a duchess. Not a circus performer or a squirrel.”

She made a dismissive noise. “It’s a ladder, not a trapeze. And I engaged the wheel lock. I promise, I do know how these things work.”

“Yes, but apparently you don’t know how servants work.” He braced the ladder under her feet, wheel lock or no. If she insisted on risking her neck, he felt entitled to bark at her. “Come down from there, then.”

“I may as well finish what I came up here for. Or else all of this effort will have been for nothing.”

“Oh, do go ahead,” he said in a bored tone. “It’s not as though I have anything else to do. I’m only amusing myself overseeing estates all over the country. Making improvements to the land. Looking out for the welfare of thousands of tenants.”

“I won’t be but a minute.”

“Fine.” He tilted his head. “But as a penalty, know that I’ll be looking up your skirts the entire time.”

He couldn’t see all that much, unfortunately—just a pair of slim legs disappearing into a cloud of petticoats—but the sight stirred him all the same. Her stockings were knitted of plain, pale wool. Demure, innocent. Unspeakably arousing.

“There,” she declared.

A waterfall of blue velvet rushed to the floor. The room flooded with sunlight.

Ash caught the ghost of his reflection in the windowpane. What a picture. Emma, descending from the heavens above him on a cloud of muslin, and him, the monster lurking beneath.

When she neared the last rung, he placed a hand on the small of her back to steady her. He extended his fingers as far as they would stretch, claiming as much of her as he could.

All too soon, her slippers met the floor.

He took a few steps in retreat before she turned around. There was too much light, and she was too close. He didn’t wish to startle her.

She brushed the dust from her hands. “Oh, that’s so much better.”

“No, it’s not. I can’t imagine what you have against draperies.”

“To begin, this house is a cave. We can’t live in the dark.”

“I like the dark.”

“It’s not good to work and read in dim lighting. You’ll go blind.”

“Hah. If frigging myself raw in adolescence and having a rocket explode in my face haven’t accomplished that . . . Doubtful.”

“Well, I’m not doubtful. I’ve seen it. It’s what happens to seamstresses after too many years of fine stitching by weak light. Even I can’t read for more than an hour at a time, and it’s only been six years.”

What an inconveniently affecting statement. It made him want to roll her into a ball and hold her in both hands forever, so that nothing could wound or frighten her ever again.

“Anyhow, these are lovely fabric.” She reached for the edge of the fallen drape. “This velvet could be put to better use.”

“No.” He put his foot down, literally. With his boot, he pinned the river of blue velvet to the floor. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

“Forbid what? You can’t even know what I have in mind.”

“Yes. I do. You have the ridiculous idea that you’ll make a gown out of draperies. And I forbid it.”

She stammered and flushed. “I . . .”

“You,” he interjected, “are a duchess. You shop for your gowns. You ask servants to climb ladders. And that is the end of any argument.”

This wife he’d acquired was far too enamored of economy. She’d come by the habit out of necessity, he supposed. Ash could understand that—even admire it, to a degree. He didn’t like waste, either. However, she was under his care now. There would be no “making do” or scrimping for the mother of his heir.

She certainly wouldn’t be caught wearing draperies.

“Tomorrow, you’ll order a full wardrobe. I’ll see that you have lines of credit at all the best shops in Bond Street.”