A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove #2)(60)

“Not even close, Min.” He bent to pick up the trunk. “Not even close.”

Chapter Eighteen

If Winterset Grange looked austere and forbidding from the outside, its interior resembled something out of Ancient Rome at its peak of debauchery and excess.

Being without her spectacles was both a hindrance and a blessing. Everywhere Minerva turned, she saw blurred depictions of flesh. Paintings of lascivious nudes covered the soaring walls, stacked bosom-to-backside three tiers high. Decadent sculptures winked out from alcoves. Some ambitious decorator had splashed gold leaf over everything.

The sculpture nearest Minerva appeared to be Pan, cavorting and twisting atop a Corinthian column. If she squinted, she could make out the fine silver and rosy veins of the stone. Italian, most definitely.

“Such lovely marble, to be so misused.” She ran her fingers over the cool, smooth stone. Then withdrew her hand immediately when she realized the cylindrical protuberance she’d grasped was not a horn, nor a pipe.

Casting about for a safe place to rest her gaze, she looked to the wallpaper. A traditional, pleasant gold-and-white toile pattern of couples dancing. Or were they?

She squinted and peered closer, forcing the pattern into focus.

No, the couples weren’t dancing.

“Payne! It is you.” A man sauntered across the hall to them, dressed in a lazily tied banyan. He seemed young—near to Colin’s age, she’d imagine—and he brought with him an air of cultivated dissipation and the vague scent of opium smoke. He was flanked by two women even more scantily clad than he—one smooth and fair, the other titian-haired. Minerva couldn’t make out the women’s expressions, but their sensuality was a palpable force. She felt their gaze on her, cool and prickling.

This mousy girl can’t be one of us, she imagined them thinking.

I’m not, she wanted to shout. She had this brief, vivid vision of giving Colin, his debauched friend, and these two loose women a good dressing down, smashing priapic Pan to the floor, whirling on her heel, and—

But she had no money. Nowhere to go, and no means of getting there. She didn’t even have her spectacles.

So Minerva lifted her chin and cocked her hip. She shuffled closer to Colin and moved to prop her arm on his shoulder. Of course, with her vision so hampered, she misjudged and propped her arm on air. She stumbled and fell into him instead, splaying one arm over his chest and trying for all the world to look as though she’d meant to do that.

She didn’t think anyone was fooled.

One woman began giggling. The other laughed out loud.

Minerva wanted to sink through the floor.

“Ladies,” the man she presumed to be the Duke of Halford said, “you remember my good friend Payne.”

“But of course,” one of them cooed. “We’re old friends, aren’t we?”

Now Minerva wanted to sink through the floor and die there. She understood Colin was angry, but how could he do this to her?

Colin inclined his head. “Always a pleasure, Hal. Sorry to arrive unannounced. Hope you don’t mind the imposition.”

“Never an imposition! But gods, you did appear from nowhere. I didn’t even hear your carriage in the drive.” The man relinquished his hold on one of the ladies and gave Colin a genial punch on the arm. “The butler told me you’d arrived, and I didn’t believe him. Last I heard, that cousin of yours had you on a short leash.”

“I’ve slipped it, apparently.”

“Good for you. Your timing couldn’t be better. Prinny’s expected to pop round later this week. Girls, go find that puckered housekeeper of mine and tell her to ready Payne’s usual suite.”

“Yes, your grace.”

Halford sent the ladies on their way with a resounding smack to the backside. Then Minerva felt the duke’s gaze slide to her. Her skin crawled.

“Now,” he said, “let’s see to your baggage. Aren’t you going to introduce her, Payne? Don’t believe I’ve seen this one before.”

“No, you haven’t.” Colin trailed a reassuring touch down her back. “Melissande is new.”

Melissande? She briefly closed her eyes to avoid rolling them.

“Not your usual sort, is she?” the duke asked.

“I’ve always enjoyed variety. She may look innocent, but in the bedchamber she’s very surprising.”

“Is she, now?” The duke spoke to her. “Well, then Melissande. Surely my friend will have told you, we’re all friends at Winterset Grange. Aren’t you going to show your host a bit of appreciation? Perhaps you could start with a kiss.”

Her stomach lurched.

Colin’s arm tightened around her waist, lashing her to him and forbidding her to move. He said easily, “You’ll have to excuse her. She doesn’t speak a word of English.”

“Not a word?” The duke chuckled. “Parlez-vous francais?”

“No French, either. She hails from some tiny Alpine principality. Can’t even recall the name of it. They have their own dialect.”

“Hm.” The duke considered. “Fortunately, pleasure is a universal language.” He swept a finger over Minerva’s bared shoulder.

She glared at him, seething. Duke or no duke, ruse or no ruse, symposium or no symposium—Minerva refused to abide such treatment. Even if she lacked a proper lady’s beauty, accomplishments, and social graces, she was a gentlewoman and a free-thinking individual. She had her dignity.