Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
The political dinner was a welcome prison, a necessary exile to ensure a respectable distance from his tempting governess, as his resolve threatened to thin.
Ambrose knew Imogen was perfectly safe within the quiet walls of his home, yet he walked a razor’s edge each day.
His presence in the same house had begun to feel like a personal.
In truth, it was not her safety that concerned him, but his own crumbling resolve.
He was aware of his recent recklessness; his retreats to White’s had become far too frequent.
Even the most loyal servants would soon begin to whisper if his habits did not mend.
He had an image to maintain and his wards to consider, yet every empty political platitude tonight only made him crave the one woman he could not have.
Ambrose sat in the rear of his carriage, his head resting against the cold glass as the wheels rattled over the uneven cobbles of St. James as he went home.
The soup had been bland, and the conversation even more tasteless.
Lord Cavendish had spent two hours droning on about the unrest in the northern counties, his jowls quivering with every predicted riot.
Ambrose had performed his role with practiced grace, leaning forward at the precise moment of a rhetorical flourish, murmuring words like indeed and indubitably into his crystal goblet when the silence demanded a verbal sacrifice.
But his mind was a traitor.
While the men around him debated the Corn Laws and the specter of revolution, Ambrose was staring at the ghost of a morning room door.
Behind his eyelids, he didn’t see the candlelight reflecting off the silver service.
Instead, he saw the sharp, elegant line of Imogen’s jaw as she had turned her head away from him earlier that morning.
He saw the way she had looked, not at him, but through him, as if he were nothing more than a trick of the light.
Her face had been a mask of ivory, resolute and terrifyingly still.
Even as he had stood in the hall, clutching the brass handle like a lifeline, she had remained a portrait of studied indifference.
It maddened him.
“Well, what say you about the possibility, Your Grace?” Lord Cavendish asked as they enjoyed brandies in the drawing room and cigars were passed around.
The possibility of what? Ambrose thought to himself, aggravated that he couldn’t follow a simple conversation.
“I am sorry, but that will be a talk for another day,” Ambrose said as he set down his glass. “I am afraid I am needed… elsewhere.”
“Ah, a young lad as yourself surely has his fun, eh?” Lord Morton laughed as he elbowed Lord Cavendish playfully.
“I remember those days, we were quite a pair… eh, Morton?” Lord Cavendish laughed, his pot belly jiggling under his crossed arms. “Then my Lady made an honest man of me. Is it as fun as we remember, Your Grace?”
“Something like that,” he said as he bowed and exited the room.
The carriage lurched to a halt before the darkened facade of his London home. The footman opened the door, the cool Autumn mist swirling into the cabin. Ambrose stepped out, the damp air biting at his throat.
Inside, the foyer was a cavern of flickering shadows, the home quiet as servants slowly retired below.
He handed his top hat and gloves to the lone remaining servant without a word, his gaze instinctively drifting toward the grand staircase that led to the upper floors, to the nursery, and to the woman who had turned his own house into a labyrinth of unspoken things.
He walked up the stairs and turned toward his quarters. He opened the heavy mahogany door and clicked it shut, leaning against it. He breathed in and out for a few moments, his heartbeat quickening as he thought of her.
Damn it.
He soon found himself on the other side of the door, walking the lonely hall toward the nursery wing. He told himself he was merely checking on Philip’s lungs, but his heart knew the lie. The boy had been well for some time now.
The nursery was bathed in the soft, flickering amber of a dying hearth.
The boys were sprawled in their beds, tangled in linens, their breathing deep and rhythmic.
It was a soothing sight, and for a moment, Ambrose thought of himself and his brother as young boys in a remarkably similar setup.
Yet, it was the figure in the armchair between the two beds that stole the air from Ambrose’s lungs as soon as his eyes landed on her.
Imogen was fast asleep. She looked like an elven maiden in the firelight, the fierce armor of the governess fallen away to peaceful sleep.
She really cares for them.
Her head was tilted back against the velvet wing of the chair, and an open book of poetry rested precariously in her lap, her slender fingers still tucked between the pages as if she had been overtaken by slumber mid-sentence.
Ambrose moved with the silent grace of a ghost toward her, his future actions unbeknownst to himself. He found himself reaching down, his pulse jumping as he carefully slid the book from her grasp. He set it on the side table, his eyes lingering on her hand, so small, so capable.
I know I should wake her…
Propriety demanded he wake her and send her to her own bed. But the sight of the dark circles under her eyes, born of her relentless caring for the boys, both in sickness and health, pulled him like a siren’s song.
I must care for this creature…
Moving with agonizing slowness, he slid one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her back.
He braced himself, expecting her to startle awake, but she only sighed.
It was a soft, broken little sound that warmed his heart as she leaned her head instinctively into the crook of his neck.
She nuzzled her nose against him, sighing a soft Mmm.
Her weight was sweet torture. As he lifted her, her scent, lavender and old paper, wrapped around him, more intoxicating than any brandy Lord Cavendish was offering the men that remained at his after-dinner party.
He carried her through the door just outside the hall into her small, neat bed chamber.
The room was dim, smelling of the fresh night air from a slightly cracked window.
He laid her down upon the coverlet with the reverence of a man handling spun glass. She didn’t wake, though her brow furrowed in the transition. He felt butterflies in his stomach at the reaction, the understanding that she preferred his arms to any surface, at least in her sleep.
Ambrose knelt by the side of the bed, his fingers trembling as he reached for the ties of her sturdy walking shoes. He eased them off one by one, placing them neatly on the floor.
She is so delicate.
He didn’t dare touch the buttons of her dress, much as a deep part of him wanted to sneak the smallest peek.
Instead, he reached for the heavy duvet at the foot of the bed.
He pulled it up, covering her to the waist, tucking the edges around her to keep out the midnight chill.
He walked over to the smoldering fire and threw on another log, then shut the cracked window.
As he turned to leave, Imogen stirred restlessly. A soft moan escaped her lips, and she turned her head from side to side, her hand clutching at the air as if reaching for something she had lost.
“Don’t… Please! Stop!” she whispered nervously in her sleep, her face twisting with a phantom grief. “Not again. Do not make me—”
Ambrose froze. He knew she was dreaming of the lake, the cold, biting words of the wretch next door, or perhaps something even worse; he did not know.
Without thinking, he sat on the edge of the mattress and reached out to her.
He needed to comfort her then, and so, he began to stroke her hair.
His large hand moved in slow, rhythmic sweeps from her forehead to the nape of her neck.
“Shh,” he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration in the small room. “You are safe, Imogen. I have you. No one will hurt you here. Never…”
Under the gentle pressure of his hand, he felt the tension melt from her limbs.
Her breathing leveled out, and the frantic clutching of her fingers ceased as she settled into the pillow with another soft moan.
She turned toward his touch, her cheek almost brushing his wrist, a look of profound peace settling over her features once more.
She was a beautiful and remarkable sight.
Ambrose stayed like that for a long time, watching her sleep, his heart aching with a yearning so sharp it felt like the air in his lungs had been sucked out.
He was a Duke. Imogen was a girl with nothing, at least when it came to the material world. Yet in the stillness of the nursery wing, and in her bed, the world felt small… small enough that he could almost imagine a life where he never had to let her go.
Finally, he withdrew his hand, his skin warm where he had touched her. He stood, adjusted the duvet one last time to be sure she was comfortable, and slipped out of the room, leaving the moment behind in the shadows.
Ambrose slipped out of Imogen’s room; the click of the latch sounded like a gunshot in the quiet corridor. A distant clock ticked, and he realized it must have been two in the morning.
He leaned his back against the wood, his chest heaving as if he had just run a great distance. His skin still hummed from the contact. He could feel the phantom weight of her in his arms, the silk of her curls, the way she had almost sighed his name in her sleep.
Or did he imagine that?
He took a step toward his own quarters, only to freeze.
Standing at the far end of the hallway, bathed in the dim light of a single wall sconce, were Mr. Jennings and Mrs. Higgins. They didn’t move, nor did he. They simply stood there like a pair of ancient, sentinel gargoyles.
Ambrose straightened his waistcoat, his jaw tightening as he crossed the distance toward them. He tried to summon the icy, untouchable mask of the Duke, but he knew his eyes were a bit too bright, his breathing too ragged.
Pull yourself together, Ambrose. Think of something…
“Your Grace,” Jennings said, his voice a low, smooth vibration that felt uncomfortably knowing. “Is everything…”
“Is everything quite all right, Your Grace?” Mrs. Higgins finished for him.
“It is nearly two in the morning, Jennings,” Ambrose snapped, though he kept his voice to a harsh whisper. “And you, Higgins! Why are you not in bed?”
“We were concerned, Your Grace,” Mrs. Higgins replied.
She didn’t look at the door he had just exited, but her gaze lingered pointedly on his shirt sleeve, where a single strand of dark hair clung to the linen like an ever-fixed mark of shame.
“The girl has been at her wits’ end. We thought perhaps she might need… assistance with the boys.”
“She was asleep in the chair,” Ambrose said, the defensiveness rising in his throat, along with bile. “I merely moved her to her bed when I checked on my nephews upon returning from a social engagement. She was exhausted.”
“Indeed,” Jennings murmured. “Exhaustion of the spirit is a heavy burden as well. Especially for one so young and so… isolated.”
Ambrose felt the walls closing in on him then.
Of course she was lonely. He felt the weight of their long years of service, too, as the ceiling seemed to come down on him.
They had seen him as a boy, had seen his father’s temper and his mother’s grief.
They knew him better than he liked on most days, and right now, they were looking at him not as their master but as a man who was playing with fire.
“She is an incredible young woman,” Mrs. Higgins said softly, stepping closer. “She has a way with the boys that no one else has managed. It would be a great tragedy if she were made to feel unwelcome in this house because the burden of her station became too much to bear.”
“Or because of the complications of others,” Jennings added.
They are taking… her side?
Ambrose looked from one to the other. He saw the loyalty they held for Imogen and the warning they were issuing to him.
They were telling him that they knew something.
They clearly knew that he was drawn to her.
They knew the ruin it could bring to a woman of her standing if he were not careful, notwithstanding his own.
“I am well aware of my responsibilities,” Ambrose said, his voice regaining its iron edge. “To the boys, and to this staff, which I am grateful for. Miss Lewis is under my protection. That has not changed.”
“Protection is a broad word, Your Grace,” Jennings said, bowing his head just enough to remain respectful while delivering a final barb. “Sometimes the greatest threat to a bird is the very hand that keeps the cage. She needs a bit of life beyond the boys. It is only right.”
Ambrose’s eyes flashed red, but he could find no retort.
He is right.
“Goodnight, Jennings. Mrs. Higgins.”
“Goodnight, Your Grace,” they chorused in hauntingly perfect unison.
One ought to wonder about their goings on…
He strode past them, his boots silent on the runner. Yet, he could feel their eyes on his back until he reached the safety of his own door. He entered his room and threw himself into the armchair by the cold hearth, the silence of the house pressing in on him once more.
He was the Duke of Welton, master of all he surveyed. Yet, he felt utterly ambushed by the truth. His servants saw his heart more clearly than he did, and they were right to be afraid for her.