Page 10 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Miss Anna Cartwell will be staying at the Hall for an indefinite period.” His voice was quiet but carried to every corner of the grand stone room, as if his power radiated without effort. “She is a guest of my sister’s and is to be treated accordingly. I want her rooms attended to, her comfort seen to, her requests considered just as you would consider Lady Rachel’s.” A pause. “Her presence here is not to be mentioned outside this house. Not to the village, not to tradesmen, not to your families.” His gaze moved across them, not threatening so much as certain, the look of a man who had never needed to repeat himself and saw no reason to begin. “If I hear otherwise, the consequences will be swift and they will be proportionate. I don’t anticipate hearing otherwise.”

I am so grateful to be referred to by my true name.

No one spoke. No one asked any questions. Anna was relieved.

“Good. I will leave you to it, Mrs. Hale,” he said to the woman Anna recognized from outside.

“At once, Your Grace,” she said with a curtsy, then turned to Anna and Rachel.

Mrs. Hale led her and Rachel to the East Wing with a taper and the pace of someone who had shown many rooms to a great many guests and saw no need for commentary.

Anna was relieved to be quickly ushered to her guest room. It was a serene light blue color with high ceilings, oversized windows, and a large four-poster bed that she could not wait to sink into.

“The fire was laid this afternoon,” she told Anna at the door. “I’ve had it lit and it should be warm in here shortly. There should be hot water within the quarter hour and there is a tray of fruit, bread, and hard cheese.”

“Thank you,” Anna said. “Truly.”

“Lady Rachel, your quarters are in order as well.”

Mrs. Hale gave a short curtsy and left them.

Rachel pulled Anna into the room, shut the door, and went immediately to the wardrobe.

It was full. Day dresses in pale muslin and deeper wool, two evening gowns in colors that would suit almost anyone. A riding habit in dark blue that Anna did not let herself look at for too long.

“Help yourself to anything,” Rachel said, pushing the wardrobe doors wider. “We’re near enough in size that the waists should do, and these are from a season or so ago. The hems might want pinning, but old Mrs. Henderson downstairs is very quick.” She glanced at Anna. “There are nightgowns in the second drawer.Stockings, gloves. I think there are spare hairpins in the blue box on the dressing table.”

“Rachel…” Anna pressed her hand briefly. “You don’t have to go through so much trouble?—”

“I want to, you’d do the same for me,” Rachel squeezed back. “Anything, Anna. I mean it. Whatever you need, for as long as you need it.”

“Thank you.”

“Whatever my brother says about scandal, consequences, and all the rest of it… and he is not wrong, exactly, it is very like him to be technically correct while missing the finer point… Either way, you are my dearest friend, and there is nothing in that wardrobe or in this house that is not also yours.”

The fire had caught properly now, and the room was warm, and the hot water would come, and there was a nightgown in the second drawer. Anna grew faint at the thought of such delightful comforts she had once taken for granted.

“Thank you,” she said once more, tears threatening to pour from behind her eyes. “From the bottom of my heart. I wish I can repay this kindness someday, somehow.”

“Thank you” is becoming an insufficient phrase for all the weight I place on it. I will have to find another way to show my gratitude.

“Anything for my dearest friend. Now, get some sleep.” Rachel smiled at her and winked. “You look dreadful.”

“Dreadful?” Anna joked. “I dare say I look like death run over, but I will accept ‘dreadful’. You are too kind.”

Anna stood alone in the center of the room for a moment. Once the hot water was brought in, she washed the dust off her body from head to toe and felt immediately ```1like a new person. She listened to the house settle around her, the creaking wood, the distant sound of the staff moving below. Not London sounds. Something slower and more deliberate, and so comforting.

She grabbed a towel and walked and sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at her hands in her lap, the ring around her finger. The bruising on her wrist had deepened through the day, both purple and green in the firelight, and she pressed her other thumb gently against it.

So, this is all truly real… it happened…

The thought jolted her. She had woken up in her cousin’s house in London this morning, then she was married. Now it was past midnight, and she was hiding in Derbyshire.

Oh, I must sleep…

She found the nightgown in the second drawer, just where Rachel had said it would be. She pulled on the soft gown over her body and crawled into bed. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, turned to her side, and fell fast asleep.

Breakfast at Rathbourne Hall was served in a breakfast room that was smaller than the main one. It had a beautifully set table near a south-facing window offset by a large buffet with all the fixings. It was the kind of room that a house acquired over time for the purpose of actual use rather than occasion, and Anna loved it as soon as she walked in.