Fearless Duke by Scott Scarlett

Author:Scott, Scarlett
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Historical
Publisher: Happily Ever After Books, LLC
Published: 2020-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“Your bath is ready, miss,” announced Whitmore, the kindly lady’s maid who ordinarily served Callie. “That should be just the thing to warm you after the day you have had, wandering about in the cold. For shame, those awful scoundrels, taking a lady from her home, dragging her all over London, and then leaving her to walk the streets in January. And today a foggy and chilly day, too.”

Whitmore harrumphed, her face pinched with disgust. She was a tall woman, bold of temperament, rather like Callie, with a shock of wild red hair tamed in a stern knot. Isabella had liked her instantly when she had rapped upon the door to the opulent bedchamber she had been assigned at Westmorland House and introduced herself.

And she had been right. Whitmore had instantly taken the reins, getting her meager belongings settled and drawing a bath in the bathing room adjoining her chamber. Now, it was almost impossible to think mere hours ago, she had feared for her life, bound and blindfolded in a carriage with two strange men intent upon doing her harm.

The pink-and-gold chamber was bedecked with damask roses everywhere, the finest carpet, beautiful wallcoverings, an exquisite bed of carved mahogany dominating one wall and a Louis Quinze writing desk arranged before a window. All the lights were electric rather than gas, and the water in the tub Whitmore had just readied was piped in, already heated.

The private apartments of Westmorland House were a miracle of modern function, blended with old-world elegance. She knew without being told the enhancements were all the doing of Westmorland himself.

Benedict, he had asked her to call him.

But she must not think of that now.

“Will you be wishing for me to attend you in your bath, Miss Hilgrove?” Whitmore asked next. “You look a wee bit tired. I cannot imagine how you are still standing on your own two feet after all you have suffered today, my dear.”

“I will manage on my own, Whitmore, thank you,” she said. “I have always done for myself. That will not change now.”

Though she had allowed the lady’s maid to fuss over her a bit, Isabella told herself that had been down to shock.

“Certain, Miss Hilgrove?” Whitmore sounded skeptical.

“Certain,” she echoed. “I shall be fine. Thank you.”

She watched the lady’s maid depart the chamber before venturing toward the bathing room. Whitmore had not been wrong, of course. She felt tired. She also felt confused.

Her time with her captors had been the most terrifying moments of her life. She had been so certain those men intended to kill her, or at the very least to do her great bodily harm. And then, in the end, they had merely abandoned her. Left her behind a used book seller’s shop, all alone in an alley.

How she had ever found her way back home was in itself a sort of miracle. She had walked in a stupor, buffeted by cold she had not felt. Grateful to have been spared. All the strength within her had fled at the sight of the duke standing there, his arms open for her.

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