LITMIR.BIZ

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random incident.

CHAPTER FIVE

      THEY ARRIVED AT the estate in the moonlight, amid the loud clang and clatter of carriages and the shouts of footmen as they pulled to a stop in front of a palatial house ablaze with whale oil and candles. Outside lanterns around the grand entrance cast V-shaped spills of light against the smooth facade, and already the main doors were being opened, and through them Millie could see servants crossing this way and that in a glittering entrance hall with red-and-white marble floors, preparing for His Grace’s midnight arrival.

      “I think the wound on my thigh is bleeding again,” Winston said as he prepared to get up.

      Of course it was. They should have stayed in Paris, where they should have been making leisurely preparations for Greece.

      “Fysikά,” she said under her breath. Instead, they’d made a reckless and hasty journey here. To England.

      He looked at her sharply. “Pardon me?”

      “Naturally,” she repeated in English, and much more deferentially. “I shall inspect it the moment you’re settled.”

      “Did you just speak to me in Greek?”

      “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. We are in England, Your Grace.”

      Those devil eyes narrowed at her. His humor had deteriorated steadily the closer they’d come to his estate—a ridiculously hard push of travel aided by a full moon and perfect weather in the channel, which had put them here in less than two days.

      He had required her presence in his coach in case he needed her, but had spent most of the time trying to sleep, and she had spent most of the time trying to read. Harris and Sacks and a few others came in the carriages behind.

      A footman opened the coach door. Winston stepped out, and Millie followed without being handed down, as any man in service would.

      The house seemed to extend as far as the eye could see in both directions, the farther reaches of it covered by the shadows of night. Beyond loomed great murky masses of trees. It seemed to have hundreds of windows, all framed by carved stone, many flickering with light. Nobody was counting candles here. Above, silhouetted against the sky, dozens of chimneys testified to an enormous number of rooms.

      Only imagine how many nude statues a building of this size could hold. The wild debauches that must take place here and that would no doubt begin immediately now that His Grace had returned.

      Indeed, Millie thought as she was swept through the grand entrance on a wave of activity in His Grace’s wake, Lord Winston’s country estate was everything a ducal residence should be.

      There was only one thing it wasn’t.

      Greece.

      Inside, Harris began giving instructions to half-a-dozen servants, and footmen carried trunks up a massive red marble staircase that curved in two directions. Winston exchanged a few words with Sacks, and then with a woman who looked like she must be in charge of the house.

      The entrance hall alone was so vast one could probably build a ship inside it.

      The walls were deep red, the ceiling covered with murals and edged with gold plasterwork. Five chandeliers blazed with candles.

      And that was when Millie realized there wasn’t a nude to be seen save for the paintings on the ceiling. There was hardly any artwork at all. Few statues—a bronze horseman in a corner of the entrance hall, and through a doorway she could see the bust of a man on one side of a hall that looked as if it was made of gold and extended for a mile.

      There were no paintings, few sculptures.

      After what she’d seen in Paris, it didn’t seem possible.

      And then Winston was climbing the stairs, and Harris came to tell her that she would be taking a room on the same floor and in the same wing as Winston’s so that she could properly attend him, and soon Millie was shown to another apartment, this one twice as grand as the one she’d been given in Paris, and ten times larger.

      Footmen brought her trunk plus another that held all the medical supplies she’d collected in Paris and carried for the trip.

      And still the question remained: What were they doing here? She never should have said a word to his guests that night. If only she hadn’t opened her bloody mouth and sent everyone away, giving him the opportunity to think. With all that distraction, he would never have considered returning to his estate.

      If she’d known it was a choice between his ribald entertainments or this monumental setback...

      She’d barely unlatched her trunk when the duke’s sharp bark shot faintly down the corridor.

      “Mr. Germain!”

      Devil take the man, anyway. She’d never known a person to change their mind as erratically as he did. And now here she was. In England.

      She went down the hallway to the duke’s bedchamber and found him seated on the edge of a chair with his breeches around his knees and blood seeping through the bandage on his thigh.

      “Oh, for God’s sake,” she muttered.

      “You say that as if it’s my fault.”

      “It is your fault. This never would have happened if we’d gone to Greece.” It was the kind of statement that could get her dismissed, but after crossing the channel and riding nonstop over rutted roads deep into the night, she was too aggravated to care.

      “I don’t want to hear another word about Greece,” he said as she crouched in front of him and began unwinding the bandage. “Do I make myself clear?”

      “Polú.”

      “And I do not want to be spoken to in Greek.”

      “Bene.”

      “Or Italian. Or any foreign tongue.”

      She tucked the bandage back in place for the moment. “I’ll have to bring more lint and fresh bandages. Lie down and elevate the leg on a pillow, and I shall return momentarily.”

      There was no reason he could not have continued to recover in Paris. No reason at all.

      Within a quarter of an hour, she’d stopped the bleeding, applied fresh dressings and bandages, and the duke was resting comfortably.

      Except that he wasn’t.

      “Devil take this blasted sling.” He shifted, reaching behind his shoulder, tugging on the strap. “I can’t quite seem to...”

      “Stop fussing and let me do it,” she said, and leaned across him.

      “I’m not fussing.” His voice feathered her jaw as if he spoke against her skin, even though he was inches away.

      The front of her coat grazed his chest as she adjusted the sling.

      Her hip pressed against his arm.

      And it didn’t matter how many times she’d done this for him... Little sensations shot through her, tickling her lungs and tripping through her belly.

      He stopped struggling—seemed to stop everything, even breathing, while she worked at the strap.

      And then it was finished, and she stepped back. “Better?”

      “Yes.”

      She turned to her medical supplies even though there was nothing she needed.

      “What in God’s name am I supposed to do now?” he muttered behind her, as if it wasn’t the wee hours of the morning.

      “May I suggest sleeping?”

      “That’s not what I meant.”

      She turned back to find his gaze shifting about the room as if he’d never seen the place before. “I’m

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