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“Good morning,” she shouted back, her eyes closed still. “Please inform my husband that I’ll be downstairs for breakfast shortly.”

“Breakfast? Goodness, no. We have work to do, Your Grace, and breakfast won’t be ready for at least two hours!”

Sophia now opened her eyes, confused. “Who… who are you?”

The door opened, and a slender, well-dressed man strode in, mistaking her question for permission to enter her private quarters. She yelped and pulled the coverlets to her chest as the man came to a halt with the posture of an army general and the flair of an opera singer.

“What are you doing in my room?” she squeaked.

The man bowed. “My name is Pietro, Your Grace. You can call me Peter. I will be your dance instructor.”

His accent was odd. Definitely not English or any other she had heard before.

“Pietro what? What is your title?” She grappled for some semblance of dignity, too embarrassed to tell him to get out.

Perhaps, where he hailed from, it was perfectly acceptable to walk into the bedchamber of a duchess while she was in her nightdress, her hair resembling a bird’s nest.

“No title, Your Grace. Just Pietro. You are expected to be in the music room in ten minutes. Do not be late,” he commanded and waltzed out of the room as abruptly as he had entered.

Sophia stared around her in confusion. She checked her window and, in the crack between the drapes, realized that the sun was just now starting to rise.

What… what time is it?

She brushed her hair from her face.

Oh, I shall box your ears for this, Thomas. You are doing this on purpose.

Heaven forbid she should be allowed to steep in the memory of the previous night. Evidently, Pietro’s rude arrival was a message—Don’t think that what happened between us has changed anything.

She sat in listless quiet for a while, considering whether to go back to bed or get up and obey the dance instructor. The pillows whispered to her, and the bed feltsosoft.

No, I won’t give him the satisfaction of having to drag me out.

She felt her stubbornness punching through her tiredness and untangled herself from the coverlets.

After a few minutes, she had put on a comfortable dress—deliberately in the pea-green shade that Thomas disliked—and shoes, and then rushed downstairs to the music room, only stopping momentarily to avoid dizziness, her brain still half asleep.

You won’t succeed.

Whether her thoughts were directed at Pietro or Thomas, she didn’t know.

The music room looked as if she had decided to redecorate, the chairs and tables moved to the side to create a dance floor of sorts. Another figure sat at the pianoforte, not so unknown to her. Apparently, the butler was to be witness to her ineptitude.

Meanwhile, Pietro stood silhouetted against the garden doors at the far side of the room, his back to her.

“Good. You are here. Let’s begin with a country dance.” The dance instructor whirled around, gesturing to the butler. “Sir, something lively if you please.”

“Mr. Pietro, please… I just woke up. Have mercy on me,” Sophia said, the first notes of a jaunty tune rattling up her spine.

“Hard work waits for no one, Your Grace,” Pietro replied, smirking. “Of course, I am no monster. Drink this first.”

He picked up a small glass from the top of the pianoforte and held it out to her. It resembled something scooped from a pond, bits floating in the brownish liquid.

“What is this?” she asked warily.

“For waking you up. For lively dancing!”

Sophia took the glass and brought it up to her lips. She tried to down a small gulp, but the smell hit her nose before the taste hit her tongue. ‘Vile’ was not a horrendous enough word to describe the flavor.