CHAPTER 36: CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Carcel stared at the spreading, dark stain. It looked like an inkblot. It looked like guilt.

Rowan stared at him. "Good God, man," he said, truly alarmed now. He signaled a footman, his voice sharp. "Clean this up. And bring the Duke... a cup of tea and water. He is clearly not himself."

Carcel didn’t speak. He couldn’t. His throat was tight. He was frozen. She’s coming. She’s coming down. He felt a desperate, primal, and utterly cowardly urge to flee. He wanted to run from this table, from this house, to get on his horse and ride until his lungs burned and the memory of pale blue silk and lavender soap was scoured from his mind. He could not face her. He could not.

Just as the footman was dabbing at the spilled coffee, Edith appeared in the doorway.

Carcel’s head snapped up. His muscles were rigid, his entire body a knot of agonizing suspense. She’s not coming. She’s ill. She’s...

Edith looked flustered. She curtsied deeply, her eyes fixed firmly on Rowan, pointedly not looking at the disheveled, red-eyed, coffee-spilling duke.

"Yes, Edith?" Rowan asked, his voice crisp with impatience. "Where is my sister? It is not like her to be this late."

Edith clasped her hands in front of her apron. "Yes, Your Grace. The young lady sends her deepest apologies. She said... she said she is very busy with something urgent."

Rowan’s fork paused, halfway to his mouth. "Urgent?" he repeated, his brow furrowing. "At this hour? What could possibly be more urgent than breakfast?"

Edith’s gaze flickered, just for one, tiny, traitorous second, toward Carcel. She had, after all, seen him enter the library that morning. She looked back at Rowan, her face pale.

"Yes, Your Grace. It... it seems she is writing her diary."

The word hit Carcel like a blow.

Diary.

He almost laughed. It was a hysterical, barking sound that he barely managed to swallow. It came out as a strangled cough, which he covered by taking a gulp of water.

That ’diary,’ huh, he thought, his gaze dropping to his own teacup. His hands were shaking. Of course. The ’diary.’

He could picture her. He had a sudden, vivid, and entirely unwanted image of her.

He had, he realized with a jolt of agonizing irony, cured her writer’s block. Last night, with his mouth and his hands, he had provided her with an entire new volume of research.

I can’t believe she even writes it in the morning, he thought, his mind reeling. What, in God’s name, is she writing now? Is it a review? A critique of my performance? A sequel?

He gripped his teacup.

That ’diary’... he mused, the thought dark and bitter, ...was the start of everything. This entire, impossible, house-of-cards mess. I had no idea. I truly had no idea that picking up a single, fallen piece of paper... he remembered it, that cream-colored vellum, so innocent in his hand... would lead to... to...

He glanced at his best friend. Rowan was calmly eating his eggs, oblivious. He looked back at his own hands.

...to such a complicated, ruinous, and utterly... his mind supplied the memory of her, arched back on the desk, her eyes wide and dark, her mouth open in a silent cry... ...enthralling situation.

He took another sip of water. His throat was dry. He thought of her. Ines.

Not the trembling, shocking, responsive creature from last night. But the Ines he had known. The girl he had been friends with from a safe distance.

A smart and intelligent woman, he thought, trying to force his mind back to a safe place. Peculiar, yes. Stubborn as a mule, absolutely. But conversations with her were always... delightful. She was one of the few women in London who had actually read the books in her father’s library. She had opinions. She wasn’t a simpering, giggling fool like so many of the debutantes.

To someone like me, who has no siblings... she was like a sister.

The thought was a blade of sharp guilt, twisting in his gut. A sister.

I never, ever imagined she would have such a... such a scandalous hobby. Such... desires. Such...

He had believed her lie, for a moment. The one about needing money. But now, in the cold, harsh, whiskey-soaked light of day, it was absurd.

Money can’t be the reason, he thought, his mind clear on this one, single point. She’s a Hamilton. She is, as I told her, one of the wealthiest women in England. She doesn’t need to sell... that.

So, if it wasn’t money... and it wasn’t, as he had first horrifically assumed, a past trauma...

She must have written it out of raw curiosity.

He pictured her face in the library again. Her, in that ridiculous, beautiful, transparent nightgown. Her, with her list. Her, peering at him over the top of the paper, her eyes wide with fervor. "What does it feel like to kiss a woman?"

She hadn’t been trying to be seductive. She hadn’t been trying to trap him. She had been... researching. And he, like a fool, had taken her research... and turned it into a practical, hands-on, explosive demonstration.

The sheer madness of the situation hit him. The absurdity. He, Carcel Anderson, the Duke of Carleton, a man known for his self-control, a hero of the war, had been reduced to a babbling, lust-driven, nocturnal "tutor." All because a curious, sheltered, and ridiculously stubborn girl had written a naughty book.

A small, dark, and utterly involuntary smile quirked at the corner of his mouth. It was a smile of pure, weary, frustrated, and slightly hysterical amusement.

"Carcel?"

Rowan’s voice, sharp and confused, cut through his thoughts.

Carcel looked up, his smile vanishing, but not before Rowan had seen it.

"What on earth are you thinking about?" Rowan asked, his head tilted. He looked completely and utterly baffled. "A moment ago, you looked as if you were preparing for your own funeral. You spilled coffee all over my mother’s linen. And now you are suddenly... smiling... into your teacup? You are in a very strange way this morning, my friend."

Rowan leaned forward, a genuine, friendly curiosity on his face, his own breakfast forgotten. "If it’s something interesting, I would love to hear it, too. We could all use a bit of good news."