Chapter Thirty-Six
The Briarly stables were lit up like Vauxhall Gardens and at least five servants scurried about the courtyard when they rode up.
Knowing their master well, nobody chattered or asked questions when Katie and the duke arrived on only one horse.
Dulverton swung down first and then lifted her down. Rather than slowly sliding her down his body, an activity she heartily enjoyed, he set her on her feet and gestured to Thomas.
“Escort your mistress back to the house and see that a bath is brought up to her chambers.”
“Mrs. Cranston has already got water on the boil, Your Grace,” the footman said.
“Go with him,” Dulverton said to Katie.
“But… aren’t you—”
“I have several matters to attend to.”
Katie nodded, her heart leaden as she walked the short distance back to the house. She did not even reach the door to her chambers before it flew open.
“I am so sorry, Your Grace! I had to tell him! I had to,” Becky cried, her eyes red and swollen. “I have packed my things and can leave in—”
“Shhh, Becky. I will never be able to thank you enough,” Katie said, briefly embracing her stunned servant before turning away.
“Dear God, your poor face!” Becky reached out and cupped Katie’s cheek. “Did His Grace—”
“Of course not!”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Katie said wearily.
The door opened and Jeremy entered with a large steaming cannister of water. “For Her Grace’s bath,” he murmured, looking anxiously from woman to woman.
Katie nodded and gestured for him to fill the tub, waiting until he’d gone into the other room before turning to her friend. “I will tell you the whole of it tomorrow,” Katie said, struggling to keep back her tears. “But I am too tired now.”
Becky gave her a concerned look but squeezed Katie’s shoulder. “I will see to your bath.”
“Thank you.”
Katie found herself in steaming, chin-deep water less than ten minutes later.
The tub had been built for her husband, which meant she could stretch out and wallow in her misery in comfort.
She closed her eyes and tried to forget about Dulverton’s pained, betrayed words.
She deserved his anger and more. What if Becky had not told him about tonight?
Katie would be tied up in a carriage on the way to Dover right now.
God! She was such a fool.
She heard a footstep behind her and dashed away her tears. “You can go to bed, Becky. I will wash my own hair and see to—”
“It is not Becky.”
Katie jolted, sending water sloshing, and twisted while sinking lower in the water.
Dulverton stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves and buckskins, his coats and cravat gone, a large V of muscular chest exposed.
In one hand he held the short stool Becky used when she washed Katie’s hair.
He set it down near the head of the tub and then lowered himself onto it, looking huge on the tiny stool.
He glared as he reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “This is swollen. You should have a beefsteak on it.”
“That is what Bec—er, Stone said. But I do not want to hold meat on my face.”
“Hmm.” He looked as if he wanted to argue but dropped his hand and proceeded to roll up his sleeves, which she saw had already been freed of cufflinks. Once he’d exposed his thick, muscular forearms he reached for the bar of soap. “I will wash your hair.”
“But—” She broke off.
“But?”
“I thought you were angry with me?”
“I am no longer angry.”
“You said it would take time!”
He shrugged. “Time has now passed.”
Katie gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “I thought you meant months or maybe even years.”
“I have already wasted enough of our marriage being a stubborn fool. I am not about to waste another minute.” He hiked an eyebrow. “Why? Did you wish me to be angry longer?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“Good. Now, dip your head—”
“I don’t use that soap for my hair. There is a bottle over there”—she pointed to the collection of glass stoppered crystal. “The tallest one.”
He replaced the soap and fetched the decanter, setting it on the marble floor before moving the footstool behind her head until she could no longer see him.
She heard some clinking and a sniff.
“Mmm, this is why your hair smells so good. What is it?”
“Chamomile and some other herbs. Stone makes it for me.”
“Dip your hair in the tub.” One of his palms settled on top of her head. He did not push hard, but she slipped under fast and came up sputtering. A fistful of toweling appeared in front of her.
She snatched it from him and wiped off her face. “A little warning would have been nice.”
He made a sound that might have been a chuckle and began to massage her scalp with strong fingers.
Katie closed her eyes and reveled in his firm, caressing touch, speedily forgiving him for almost drowning her. He slowly moved from her head to her neck. Katie bit back the first few moans of pleasure but stopped caring when his strong fingers began to knead her aching shoulders.
Katie must have dozed because she startled when his hands disappeared. “That was nice,” she said sleepily, yawning hugely.
“I am about to rinse; so there is your warning.”
She closed her eyes and mouth just as warm water streamed over her head.
Once he’d rinsed away the soap, he caught her hair up in his fist and squeezed most of the water from it.
Katie began to stand, but his hand curved around the back of her neck, stopping her. “Where do you think you are going?” he asked.
“I, er, thought you were done.”
The loud scritch of the stool answered her, and Gerrit appeared at her side. “The washcloth is dry, so you did not yet wash your body. I will clean you.”
“Oh. You don’t need to—”
“Hush.”
To Katie’s utter astonishment, she hushed. But only because I am so tired, she assured herself.
Dulverton dipped the cloth in the water and then worked up a lather. “Give me your arm.”
She lifted the arm closest to him, and he cleaned from her shoulder to the meaty part of her upper arm and then down to her forearms, massaging her as he went.
Katie groaned. “Why does that feel so good?”
“You do a great deal of work with this arm,” he answered gruffly, his strong fingers moving to her hand, which he proceeded to rub in lovely ways.
“Where did you learn to do this?” she asked, forcing her eyes open.
He raised one eyebrow.
The happy, lazy feeling that had filled her vaporized like a drop of water on a hot stove. “Oh. I see. From one of your m-mistresses,” she snarled, infuriated at herself for stammering.
One corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and he took her other arm, now stiff with anger, and began to wash it. “I am almost eight-and-thirty, Kathryn. Of course I have had other lovers.”
Lovers. The word scraped on her nerves like a razor. Katie hated how curious she was about his mistresses—even more so than about his first wife. After all, he had chosen his mistresses while his wife had been foisted upon him.
You are an idiot. Asking questions will only lead to pain.
She knew that. And yet she burned to know every detail about her reserved husband’s past.
The irony that she had been the one meeting a former lover tonight and yet she was the one boiling with jealousy did not escape her. Nor did it escape her that she had just as much control over her husband’s past lovers as she did over his future ones.
Her mother had told her, and her sisters, over and over again that all aristocratic men engaged mistresses.
The countess had been adamant that a well-bred woman should pretend they knew nothing about such matters.
Her eyes had glittered viciously whenever she’d spoken about the subject, her white-lipped fury telling her daughters far more than her words had done.
Five Seasons in London had taught Katie her mother’s warning was almost always true. The only exceptions she’d met were her sisters’ husbands.
But those marriages had all been love matches.
Unwanted, her mother’s voice pushed into her thoughts.
You will be grateful when your husband takes his base, vulgar needs elsewhere.
But Katie would not be grateful. Just thinking of Dulverton with another woman made her want to hit him with a brick. It also made her want to crawl on top of him and tear off his clothing and mark him as hers. And it made her want—
“What is going on inside your head, Kathryn?” Gerrit asked, pausing his ablutions to tuck an escaped curl behind her ear.
Katie shrugged and glared down at the water. The bubbles had mostly disappeared and the soap-clouded water did a poor job of concealing her body.
“Kathryn.”
She refused to look up.
Dulverton lifted her chin.
Katie closed her eyes.
“Look at me.”
The only reason she opened her eyes was because she heard a rare hint of humor in his voice. But she saw no evidence of a smile on his stern mouth, and his pale eyes looked strangely dark in the low light as he absently stroked her chin with his thumb, his jaw flexing.
“What?” she demanded rudely.
His penetrating eyes lifted to hers. “Why are you so angry?”
“I am not angry,” she snarled.
He leaned forward and kissed her, the hand holding her chin sliding around to the back of her neck.
It was a deep, drugging kiss that left not just her eyelids but the rest of her body feeling heavy.
By the time he released her and sat back on his ridiculous milking stool, Katie was weak and breathless.
“Why are you angry?” he asked again.
“How can you do it?”
He frowned. “Kiss you?”
“How can you just p-pay a woman to be your—to do the same things you and I do together?” she finished miserably, wishing she had never opened her mouth.
He regarded her silently for what felt like hours. Katie had given up on any answer when he said, “Nothing I’ve ever done with anyone else is anything like what you and I do together. And that is because there is nobody else like you, Kathryn.”
Katie realized her mouth was open and shut it.
“Now, will you let me finish bathing you?”
Katie was stunned into silence by his declaration and all she could manage was a nod.