Her Duchess to Desire by Jane Walsh

Author:Jane Walsh [Walsh, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781636790664
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2022-01-22T22:12:15+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The pounding on the front door was so loud that Letty could hear it clear into her workroom. She looked up from her sketches, smearing a dab of paint in the process. Was Fraser not in his showroom to handle his clients? It was early evening, so she supposed he had already locked up for the night.

She pushed her book aside and took off her painting smock. Fraser’s workroom was dark, and so was the furniture showroom at the front of the building. She knew the layout so well that she didn’t need a candle to find her way to the front door.

Letty unlatched the door and poked her head outside. Shock raced through her as she saw Anne standing at the other door beside the showroom, the one that led to her own apartment upstairs. Her hood was down and her hair was mussed, blond strands dancing in the wind and catching against her eyelashes and lips. Her ears were red. More concerningly, so were her eyes.

“Anne! What’s wrong?” When Letty raised her head to look for the ducal carriage and the habitual footmen that accompanied it, she was surprised that they were nowhere to be seen.

Anne threw herself at her. Her arms snaked around Letty’s waist, and she wedged her head under her chin. Letty’s hands were ungloved and icy, but she didn’t care. She clasped Anne tightly to her.

Anne couldn’t possibly be so upset at the way Letty had left her last night, could she? Guilt panged through her. She hadn’t been able to bear another minute in the magic of that bedchamber, the world that she and Anne had created for the two of them, filled with cake and firelight and laughter.

The problem was that it was a night encased in a bubble, an illusion of what Letty yearned for. They were of two different worlds, and once the lust had been slaked, the stark reality of it had torn at her heart. She couldn’t imagine staying the night in a duchess’s bedchamber, in a mansion where she didn’t belong.

She also hadn’t been able to convince herself to go to Hawthorne House today, deciding to stay home and work on plans from her workroom. Perhaps it was cowardice, but last night’s lovemaking had surprised her. Not the fiery passion that burned between them, but the deep well of emotion that she had felt afterward when she fled into the night.

That emotion pressed up against her heart again as soon as she saw Anne.

“I’m here,” she murmured, rubbing a hand up and down Anne’s back. She glanced around again. It was a quiet street, and no one was around. But she knew there were plenty of people who liked to peer from windows and gossip about the goings-on of their neighbors. “Come, let’s go inside. I shall make you a cup of tea and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Anne allowed herself to be led upstairs. “Where is Robert?”

Letty shoved coal into the fireplace. “He is working.

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