While the Duke Was Sleeping (The Rogue Files #1)(67)

She stopped and faced him, her expression stricken. “Is that what this was about for you? Beating your brother?”

He glared at her, the blood rushing in his ears. He longed to say yes. He wanted to fling that lie at her so she could feel as miserable as he did. “No,” he managed to get out. “I can promise you that Autenberry was the last person I was thinking about while shagging you.”

She flinched, her eyes wounded as she held his gaze. Turning, she moved swiftly from him, disappearing amid the hedges.

This time he did not go after her.

He waited several minutes, inhaling the sweet aroma of flora, letting her proceed far ahead of him and giving himself time to compose. At last he moved, striding from the conservatory and toward the study, eager for a drink. Or four.

He entered the room lined with bookcases and poured himself a brandy. He was on his second when the door to the study opened.

Lord Strickland’s voice rolled across the air behind him. “He wants to see you.”

Struan paused only a moment before downing the rest of his drink. “I imagine he does.” Turning, he departed the study and made his way upstairs to the duke’s chamber.



She eased into the chamber she had occupied so often over the last week, her slippered feet falling softly on the thick Aubusson carpet.

After she fled the conservatory and Struan last night, she had gone to bed without seeing the Duke of Autenberry. No one visited with him the previous evening save Lord Strickland and the physician. The physician agreed it was wise not to overwhelm him just yet.

She could only hazard a guess that he knew now of her charade. He couldn’t have been awake this long and not learned that he had a fiancée. Aside of an evening spent with Lord Strickland, the dowager had spent nearly an hour with him before breakfast. There was no way he could be unaware of her existence.

Poppy gazed across the great length of space to the bed, verifying he was awake. She didn’t want to disturb him if he slept.

Her pulse thudded in hard beats. The coward in her begged for her to turn, grab her sister and run. Leave this place without ever facing the duke. But she couldn’t do that. She owed him an explanation. Hopefully, he would bear no grudge. She had saved his life, after all. That must count for something.

He was not asleep.

“Miss Fairchurch.” He smiled at the sight of her, sitting up a little higher and waving her forward. “Lovely to see you. Come inside.”

She inched deeper into his chamber, immediately feeling at ease in the face of his welcoming manner.

“You look much better.” She could not disguise the relief from her voice as she rounded the bed. He looked the picture of health with his dressing robe parted at the front, revealing a vee of broad chest faintly sprinkled with hair. He might not be as muscled as his brother, but he was nonetheless a well-formed man. “There’s color in your cheeks again.”

“All thanks to you,” he returned with that smile she had forgotten. Sweet and tender as though she and he alone knew a secret. He had that gift, the ability to make others comfortable. That’s what had drawn her to him in the beginning.

But then she met Struan, and nothing was comfortable anymore.

Indeed, Struan did not make her feel comfortable. He made her feel like she was on fire from the inside out.

He made her feel necessary.

When he looked at her she felt as though she was the center of his universe. When he touched her she felt like she was everything to him—the difference between life and death.

Pushing thoughts of Struan away, she stopped at the foot of the bed. She and the duke stared at each other for an awkward moment, the duke seeing her, perhaps truly, for the first time and she seeing him with fresh eyes.

This was the man she thought she loved, whom she had built so many fantasies around. It had been a girl’s whimsy. She didn’t know him. She never had.

She knew Mackenzie. Struan. She knew how his mind worked. She knew how important family was to him for the very reason that he didn’t have any left. She knew how important this family—the dowager, Enid, Clara—had come to mean to him.

He was kind and generous even if he didn’t want people to know that about him. He never forgot where he came from or all he had suffered and he was compassionate to others.

And there was the way his mere gaze could light her afire.

She knew how he tasted. How he felt . . . the sounds he made when—

She gave herself a swift mental kick, killing such disturbing thoughts.

“I owe you an apology,” she began.

“You do?” He blinked. “For what? Saving my life?”

She inclined her head, feeling all kinds of awkward. “For coming here under false pretenses. For permitting your family to believe we are . . . closer than we, in truth, are.” Good heavens. She couldn’t even bring herself to put the awfulness of her deed into words before him. She sucked in a breath. “I’m fully prepared to explain everything and apologize to your family. Hopefully, they won’t hate me too much.”

He looked at her kindly. “I doubt anyone can hate you.”

Struan’s face flashed before her. He would hate her when he discovered that she had been lying to him this entire time.

The moment had come and passed for her to admit the truth. Lying in his arms, when there had been nothing between them, she had her chance and she let it slip between her fingers.