Page 50 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
Caroline looked at Mary. Mary looked at Caroline. Neither of them said anything. Neither of them needed to.
“The dress is lovely,” Valeria offered, turning away from the mirror before her face could betray anything else. “Thank you, Caroline. Both of you.”
“You are welcome,” Caroline said. “Now, sit down. We need to discuss the masquerade masks. I have three options, and one of them has feathers. I know how you feel about feathers, but I think in this case?—”
“No feathers.”
“Just hear me out.”
“No feathers, Caroline.”
They argued about feathers for twenty minutes. Mary laid out three masks on the bed, and Valeria chose the simplest one, a half-mask of white silk with gold edges that matched the thread on the dress.
Caroline wanted the one with peacock feathers. Valeria said no. Caroline said it would frame her face beautifully. Valeria said she would rather frame her face with her own hands than wear a dead bird on it. Mary said the white one was the correct choice, and that ended the discussion, because when Mary made a decision, nothing changed it.
After they left, Valeria sat on her bed in the blue dress and did not take it off. She sat there for a long time. The room was quiet. The lamp burned low. She could hear the house settling around her, the creak of old wood, the tick of clocks.
The drawing room. The carpet. The way Edward’s hands felt on her skin, steady and warm and patient. He had stopped when she did not ask him to stop, because he had already given her everything she asked for and was choosing to give her more. The sounds she made and the way he held her through them, and the look on his face afterward, open and unguarded and full of a feeling she was not ready to name.
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. They were warm.
I am in trouble,and I walked straight into it.
She took off the dress. Hung it in the wardrobe. Got into bed. Did not sleep for a very long time. But when she did, she dreamed about paint, laughter, green eyes, and a man who tasted her on his fingers and called her plenty of woman.
She woke up blushing. She blamed the pillow.
The following morning, a missive arrived for Edward.
Valeria was breaking her fast when he came into the breakfast room. He was dressed for riding. Boots, coat, gloves. He had not come for food. He had come to tell her something.
“I must go to London,” he announced. “Some old friends are in town. I need to see them. Make sure they are safe.”
Valeria put down her toast. “Friends.”
“From my former life. They would not have sent word unless it was important.”
“I will come with you.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is not safe. These men, they are not the kind of people ye bring a duchess to meet. I will go alone. I will be back before the ball.”
“And if you won’t?”
“I will be.”
She looked at him. He looked at her.
The breakfast room fell quiet. Caroline was watching from the far end of the table with her teacup frozen midair. John had stopped chewing. Even Richard, who usually noticed nothing that was not directly related to Caroline’s comfort, had looked up from his plate.
“I insist that I come with you,” Valeria said. Her voice was steady, but her jaw was tight.
She did not like being told where she could and could not go. She had spent three years being told where she could and could not go.
“And I must insist that ye stay.” Edward’s voice was calm. Not commanding. Not controlling. Just certain. “These are not men who will be polite in the presence of a lady. And I cannot protect ye and have the conversation I need to have at the same time.”
