A Promise by Daylight. Alison DeLaine

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СКАЧАТЬ Harris, I absolutely will not require any assistance. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. In fact, I’m used to it.”

      “Of course you are,” Harris said, handing her an envelope that doubtless contained the ridiculous sum she had demanded. “But there’s no need, while you’re here. Bernet’s been only too anxious for an upstairs assignment,” he added with a wink. “I’m sure you’d hate to disappoint him.”

      “Perhaps he could look after one of the guests— Attendez!” Bernet was kneeling in front of her trunk with his hands on the latches. She rushed to stop him. “I’ve got half of an apothecary’s shop in there,” she said now. “Very delicate—I shall need to unpack it myself. Truly.”

      That seemed to satisfy him. He inclined his head, stood up and backed away.

      Now she lifted her chin and summoned a tone she’d heard Philomena use often enough to dismiss servants. “That will be all for now.”

      “Très bien,” Bernet said with a bow.

      “You may give me a list of any supplies you’ll need for His Grace’s care,” Harris said now. “Otherwise, you have only to ring if you need anything, and Sacks will let you know if His Grace requires your attendance.”

      The moment they were gone she dropped to her knees in front of the trunk, jerked the lid open, dug through shirts, waistcoats and pairs of breeches and men’s stockings. Yanked out the shifts she should never have kept. And at the very bottom, a tiny box with a pair of dangling silver earrings, and the two colorful scarves she hadn’t been able to part with. She paused, running her hand over their silken texture, letting her fingers play with the bright blue fringe at the ends, remembering that day at Constantinople’s grand bazaar—she, Katherine, Philomena and India.

      The scarves and earrings had been a silly indulgence. She’d never even worn them.

      With the shifts and scarves wadded in her hands, she hurried into the bedchamber, threw back the drapery at the back corner of the bed and stuffed them beneath the mattress.

      It would do until she could find a better place, which she would have to do before the maid came tomorrow morning to make the bed. She returned to the dressing room

      Now what? Would the duke expect her to return to his rooms or wait to be summoned? Would his guests ever leave? And what would happen if they did?

      He would be alone, and bored, and may well seek out more company or an impromptu medical examination.

      She touched the hilt of the smallsword at her hip. What good fortune that a fashionable man wasn’t dressed without one. But if the duke sought her out at night, perhaps finding his way into her rooms while she was abed and not fully dressed...

      That simply could not happen. She would not give up the freedom of her disguise that easily, not even if she had to sleep fully clothed. Still...

      She went to the door and turned the latch. But, of course, he would have a key.

      She spun on her heel. Surveyed the room: one door led out, another led to her new adjoining bedchamber, where there was yet another door she would need to consider.

      Moments later, she dragged a chair over and shoved it against the door that led from the dressing room to the corridor, and then stood back. Tonight, after she’d gone to bed, that might work. But...

      She looked suspiciously at the curio cabinet. Some grand houses had secret passageways, or so she’d heard. Furnishings that were merely false fronts. She inspected the edges of the cabinet, running her finger along the seam where it met the wall, finding no discernible space. Muted laughter drifted from the other side. Was not his bed directly opposite? So there couldn’t possibly be any kind of...

      Of course there could. The entire house could have a network of secret passageways through which His Grace made surprise visits on unsuspecting guests.

      She got another chair, dragged it next to the curio cabinet and climbed up. Reached to the back paneling and tapped—lightly, so she wouldn’t be heard—but could determine nothing. She reached to remove a bronze obstacle but snatched her hand back, seeing now that it was a sculpture of a man with his face buried between a woman’s—

      Ugh. Disgusting.

      Tap-tap-tap. Did the wall sound hollow?

      She moved a benign porcelain horse instead and tried a different section of paneling.

      Tap-tap-tap.

      Behind her, a man cleared his throat.

      She whirled around, losing her balance, grabbing for the cabinet to keep from falling. The duke stood in the doorway to the bedchamber, watching her with amused interest.

      “Please,” he said, holding up his hand. “Do not let me interrupt.”

CHAPTER TWO

      MR. MILES GERMAIN was apparently debating whether to climb down from the chair.

      Yes, Winston had definitely expected someone older. And someone male, which he had a strong suspicion Mr. Germain was not.

      Apparently he hadn’t asked Philomena enough questions.

      He studied his new medic now—average features, nothing to draw a man’s eye. No hint of breasts. Even lips, plain, straight nose, ordinary rounded chin. Slightly arched brows, thick lashes that weren’t too long, weren’t too short. All of which, set above a modest suit and topped off by an awful bagwig, did little to betray her sex.

      But he’d been a breath away from too many graceful female necks not to have noticed the smooth, curving throat when his new medic had adjusted his sling.

      And there was the matter of Mr. Germain’s ear.

      It was a small ear. Delicate. Dainty, really, with a tiny, almost imperceptible hole in the lobe, which didn’t mean anything—Sir William Jaxbury and his gold hoops were proof of that—but that was no male ear.

      “I once had a cabinet fall,” Mr. Germain said now, as if it were the complete truth. “Toppled to the ground. Very dangerous.” He—almost certainly she—even looked Winston in the eye when she said it.

      Interesting.

      Winston glanced at another chair that had been shoved against the dressing room door in an apparent attempt to keep someone out—that someone, he assumed, being himself. “You’ve also had trouble with doors flying open, I see.”

      “Occasionally.”

      It explained why he’d had to come in through the bedchamber. “Perhaps, to put your mind at ease, you’d like me to call a carpenter.”

      “That won’t be necessary.” A small crease appeared above her upper lip—a lip that, on closer inspection, was a bit too full to appropriately frame the mouth of an average male medic.

      “I want you to feel entirely safe here, Mr. Germain,” he said.

      “I can’t think why I wouldn’t,” she said evenly, finally СКАЧАТЬ