Chapter 4
Chapter four
In Which Wanton Attempts to Chill, Is Surrounded by Towel-Bound Temptation, and Is Accused of Grand Posterior Theft
Wanton stepped into the frigidarium on shaking legs, towel cinched, dignity frayed.
The marble chill kissed her bare feet, a balm to both body and shame.
Cool mist curled from carved lion-head vents, sighing across the turquoise plunge pool like the breath of ancient Roman ghosts.
Statues ringed the domed chamber—marble heroes frozen mid-battle or mid-bath, depending on interpretation—and between their sculpted thighs rose fluted columns veiled in steam.
It was empty.
Thank the glute gods, it was empty.
She exhaled, slowly and reverently, as though afraid she might summon another noble backside by accident.
Crossing the mosaic floor, she made her way to the sherbet stand. A footman in white livery bowed, his expression carefully blank. “Lady’s choice?”
“Something soothing,” she said, “and utterly undeserving of judgment.”
Moments later, she held a delicate glass bowl of violet-lavender sorbet topped with a curl of candied lemon peel. She took a slow bite, sighed, and turned to soak in the setting she had so very much not come here to ruin.
The frigidarium truly was the crown jewel of La Société des Eaux Scandaleuses—all sculpted opulence and soundless serenity.
Here, guests came to cool down after enduring their various pleasures.
The plunge pool glittered in the sunlight, reflecting off the gilded frescoes above, and chaise lounges lined the walls like fainting couches for the emotionally overwhelmed.
She eased herself onto one, legs curled beneath her, spoon poised, and willed herself into relaxation.
She had not come here for drama. She had not come here to ogle. She had certainly not come here to trespass on ducal glute territory.
She came for relaxation, not—the door opened.
Wanton stiffened, half-afraid it was the Duke. (Well—entirely afraid, if she was being academically honest. Her fear was full-bodied, foot-to-follicle, and carried a not-insignificant undercurrent of anticipatory tingling.)
But, merciful buns of Minerva, it wasn’t the Duke.
It was merely one of the spa’s resident rogues, slinking in with the air of a man who’d seduced at least three dowagers before breakfast and left his morals drying on a chaise somewhere near the eucalyptus steam room.
Cassian Drake. No one quite knew where he came from.
He arrived and vanished with steam. Always damp. Never documented.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her.
He simply paused, eyes hidden beneath wet lashes, and surveyed the room like a man memorizing escape routes.
Then, without fanfare, he stepped down into the cold plunge pool.
The steam sauna hissed.
A moment later, the door creaked open again and Milton Avery emerged, bathed in scented fog and delusions of lyrical grandeur.
The spa’s poet-in-residence, a man whose work had been banned from at least three respectable ladies’ reading circles.
He claimed to find inspiration in the natural beauty of human anatomy. Particularly backsides.
He'd introduced himself to her with the words, “I believe in sonnets. And squats.”
No one had asked.
His red curls were wild from the heat, sticking out in every direction as if poetry had been violently extracted from his scalp. A towel was draped over one shoulder like a toga in decline, while the other clung to his hips in a precarious display of confidence over physics.
He padded barefoot into the frigidarium, a small leather-bound notebook already in hand, and paused—just long enough to observe the chill of the air and the light glinting off the marble floors.
Then he sighed, soulful and obscene.
Without looking at Wanton, he sat cross-legged on a chaise longue and began scribbling furiously, mouthing rhymes under his breath.
The main doors swung open with a sigh of well-lacquered hinges.
And in strolled Monsieur M.
Masked. Barefoot. Draped in nothing but a towel and mystery.
He moved like a man who had never rushed in his life and considered punctuality a low form of violence.
His lean frame glided across the floor as if the marble had been laid purely for him to promenade upon.
The towel was knotted with suspicious precision, high enough to be legal, low enough to be sued.
He paused near a sunken lounge, stretched like a feline debauchee, and eased himself down with the grace of a man who had absolutely just ruined someone’s marriage. His arms spread across the backrest. One leg extended. His head tilted, mask glinting.
No one knew who he truly was. Some said he was nobility. Others whispered he was French—which, in certain circles, was worse. Wanton had once overheard a dowager swear he was the bastard son of Talleyrand and a ballerina with flexible hips and even more flexible morals.
She couldn’t confirm the lineage, but the hips checked out.
And then—just when she thought she had survived the worst of the towel parade—the final door opened.
His Grace, the Duke of Arsbury, stepped into the frigidarium like a cold front entering a greenhouse.
Even in his robe de chambre, he made relaxation seem exhausting. His posture was martial. His scowl, pristine. He didn’t so much walk as issue silent orders to the floor to carry him.
Oh, no, his forearms were bare. By Newton’s knickers!
Wanton immediately looked away. Then looked back.
There ought to be a warning posted by the entrance: Please do not stare directly at the forearms. Risk of retinal burn and spontaneous combustion.
They weren’t just sculpted—they were a moral hazard.
Veins like sin, skin dusted with dark hair, muscle that hinted at restraint and punishment in equal measure.
She could imagine them braced on a desk. A bed. Her hips.
And suddenly, she had to remind herself—firmly—that she was at a spa. For relaxation. Not for… ocular arousal, mental debauchery, and unauthorized daydreams involving orthopedic-strength corset failure.
She licked a bit of sherbet from the corner of her mouth and attempted to look bored.
It did not work.
She’d seen his glutes immortalized in marble—had verified the Arsbury Hypothesis through hands-on, peerless fieldwork, and now, she could not look at the duke and not see, well the glutes.
It was a peril of science. A side effect no one warned you about in the Royal Academy.
Every time she made eye contact with His Grace, her brain whispered, Glutes.
Every time he passed her in the hall, her inner voice offered a reverent, Hail the hemispheres. It was, frankly, exhausting. And it wasn’t her fault. She was a scholar. The subject had simply been… exceptionally well presented.
His mouth was set in a hard line. His eyes scanned the spa like a general preparing to assign blame.
She shivered. Whose backside was about to be tanned?
Before he uttered a word, his valet stepped from his shadow. Mr. Trumbuttle. A man whose personality was built entirely of starch and suspicion. His expression was that of a man who’d smelled something beneath him, which was unfortunate, because it was usually everyone.
She ducked her head, praying he wouldn’t see her.
Truly, she had not come here to be condescended at by human vinegar.
She began to tiptoe toward the exit, sherbet in hand, dignity in tatters.
“There she is!” the valet screeched, pointing at Wanton like a scandalized parrot in breeches.
All eyes turned.
Wanton blinked, halfway to the exit, sherbet spoon frozen midair. “Pardon?”
“You!” he cried, storming forward. “You’re the thief!”
Wanton glanced behind her. “Me?”
“Don’t play coy, madam,” Trumbuttle hissed. “You were seen entering His Grace’s private quarters this morning.”
“Seen?” she scoffed. “That’s a bit much. I came here to relax, not receive accusations.”
“No?” the valet sneered. “Then explain this!”
He snapped his fingers.
The maid scuttled into the room, apron smudged with preserves. She wouldn’t meet Wanton’s eyes.
Wanton groaned.
“I—” the maid squeaked. “She bribed me, Your Grace. Said she just wanted to see it.”
There was a beat of silence. Oh, Lord. Wanton needed a fainting chaise immediately.
The Duke turned to Wanton. “What did you want to see, Miss Wallflower?”
Wanton blinked. Her knees turned to syllabub.
“The statue,” Wanton said, mustering her courage. “In your room.”
He took a step closer. “Which statue?”
He was holding a riding crop.
Where in God’s name had it come from?
He wasn’t brandishing it, exactly. Just... holding it. Casually. Slapping it against his open palm with a soft, rhythmic smack.
Wanton forgot how vowels worked.
“There are several statues in my room,” he continued, circling her now. “You’ll have to be specific.”
She had to keep him in view, which meant turning in a tight, awkwardly like a dizzy debutante at a dress fitting.
“It was... elevated.”
“Go on.”
“On a pedestal.”
“Most are.”
Smack.
Wanton inhaled sharply.
“The, ah… nude one,” she tried.
“That narrows it slightly.”
She groaned.
He stepped behind her, and she could feel the heat of him. The air between them was saturated with bergamot, authority, and dangerous possibilities.
“Miss Wallflower,” he murmured, just behind her ear, “did you trespass into my bedchamber... to admire my backside?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes.”
“And did you admire it?”
“Thoroughly.”
He stepped beside her again, back in her line of vision. The crop tapped once, lazily, against his thigh.
“Describe it.”
“What?”
“Describe. The sculpture.”
She gaped at him.
He waited.
“Fine,” she whispered, flushed to the roots. “It was… life-sized.”
“Hmm.”
“Anatomically correct.”
“Is that so.”
She swallowed. “Carved with such reverent detail that it felt... blasphemous to look away.”
“And?”
“And I may have called it divine. Possibly out loud.”
He arched a brow.
“I also may have sighed. Stroked the base. Wondered if it flexed when no one was watching. But I promise you this: I didn’t steal it.”
A low hum from him.
“I see,” he said, tapping the crop once more. “And what, exactly, should I do with a woman who breaks into my room, ogles my sculpture, steals it, and then lies about it in public?”
“Please,” she said breathlessly, “don’t call the constable.”
He stepped closer, all heat and judgment.
“Oh, Miss Wallflower,” he said darkly, “I have far better ways of making someone talk.”
Her thighs pressed together entirely on instinct.
“Your Grace,” the valet snapped. “Send her to the gallows!”
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Wanton said. “Do I look like I could smuggle out a life-size marble sculpture of your hindquarters in a towel? Honestly?”
The Duke didn’t answer.
Which was almost worse.
“I didn’t steal it,” she said, louder now, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders as best she could in a spa robe. “But someone clearly did.”
She turned to face the room, surveying its gleaming marble corners, its suspiciously oiled inhabitants.
Her mind ticked back to the duke's bedchamber. The unmistakable creak at the door—just before she dove out the window. She hadn’t been alone. Every one of these men had arrived at the frigidarium after her. Any of them could have taken the statue.
She glanced at the Duke. His jaw was set like a lock.
“Your Grace,” she said, turning back to him. “Anyone here could have done it.”
“Except,” he replied coolly, “only one person was seen inside the room. Alone. Without an alibi.”
Wanton’s breath hitched. The frigidarium had gone utterly quiet. Even the steam seemed to hush.
Her gaze swept across the other guests.
Cassian Drake lounged in the cold plunge like a Greek hero recovering from espionage.
Milton Avery was still muttering rhymes into his notebook.
Monsieur M casually peeled an orange.
One of them had a marble posterior hidden somewhere in this spa, and she’d be damned—damned—if she went to the gallows for someone else’s highly sculpted behind.
Great glutes of Olympus! If she could outwit ecclesiastical mobs and outpace a rampaging baker, surely, she could turn sleuth, and sniff out a misplaced marble arse.
Her spine straightened. Her jaw set. She turned to the Duke with academic gravitas and scandalous intent.
“I can find the real culprit.”
He studied her again, and this time when he stepped forward, his presence closed the distance like a velvet noose.
“You have until the end of the day.”
Then he turned to the room. “No one leaves the frigidarium until the statue is recovered.”
A pause. “And I want everyone’s towels accounted for.”