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“ O h, Mrs. Loveless, you’re awake!”

Green’s cheerful voice interrupted Miranda’s perusal of her recipe collection. It took a moment for her to realize she was the one being spoken to and to recall that she, in fact, was currently “Mrs. Loveless.”

She looked up from her task, seated at the writing desk that was situated by an eastern-facing window.

She had been awake as soon as the fingers of daylight slowly stretched across the dawn sky.

Ever since leaving the town house she had occupied during her marriage to Ammondale, Miranda had been rising early.

There was so much to accomplish in her days and never sufficient hours.

“Good morning, Green,” she greeted with a smile.

The girl was ruddy-cheeked and beaming, fairly vibrating with the enthusiasm and optimism that was the hallmark of the unjaded and truly young.

Miranda wondered if she had ever been as filled with joyful cheer.

If she had, she could no longer recall that time or what it had felt like.

The misery of her marriage and divorce had eclipsed all else.

“You’re already dressed,” Green observed, her smile faltering as she bustled across the room. “And your hair, madam. I was hoping I might try to dress it for you today.”

Miranda had performed her morning ablutions and dressed herself in another of her serviceable gray gowns. Likewise, she had coiled her heavy hair into a tight knot at her nape. Her hair was parted severely down the middle.

The style was unbecoming, and she knew it. But particularly after the Duke of Whitby’s silken warning the night before, she had decided that she must make herself as unattractive as possible.

Before this week is over, you will be begging me.

A shiver passed through her, and she couldn’t fight the vexing ache that pulsed to life between her thighs.

“Are you cold, Mrs. Loveless?” Green asked, hastening to the banked fire in the grate. “Last night got quite cool, it did. I’ll fix this in a trice, and you’ll be warm in no time.”

She wasn’t cold. Not at all. Rather, she was overly warm. Overly warm thinking about the Duke of Whitby. And not for the first time since she had awakened to regret and a dry mouth this morning either. No, she had been thinking of almost nothing but Whitby.

She had fallen asleep on him. Had committed the sin of drinking too much wine in his captivating presence and then had promptly gone alone with him to the library.

She remembered enjoying the pleasant timbre of his low voice.

Remembered staring at the fire. And then she remembered slowly waking to the scent of musk and forbidden forest with a hint of citrus.

Recalled feeling warm and safe and utterly at ease until the moment she had truly jolted awake and realized where she was and whose side she had been intimately pressed against.

Worse, there had been a wild, foolish moment when her gaze had somehow strayed to his lap as they had been speaking, directly to the thick ridge straining against the fall of his trousers.

The most inane, inappropriate thought had occurred to her in that moment. The Duke of Whitby has an immense cock!

Shame filled her anew now as her mind played over that realization, the wicked words, the memory of that long, large member making a tent of his trousers.

With a groan, Miranda braced her elbows on the writing desk and sank her head into her waiting hands.

Another ache had begun throbbing, this time in her temples.

She was never drinking French wine again.

And certainly not with the Duke of Whitby.

No, she was never going to find herself alone with him again. Not for the remainder of the week.

“Is something amiss, Mrs. Loveless?” Green asked, fussing with the coals in the grate. “You’re not ill, are you?”

Yes, she was ill. But her sickness was all her own making.

She was to blame for her throbbing head.

Just as she was to blame for lowering her guard and falling asleep on Whitby last night.

Good heavens, she had even snored and drooled upon him.

Meanwhile, the peculiar man hadn’t seemed to even mind.

His stormy eyes had been glittering with mirth, as if he had enjoyed the way they had spent the evening. But that wasn’t right. He was a rake. Surely he would have been disappointed he had been denied the opportunity to ply his charm.

“Mrs. Loveless?” Green prodded.

Miranda blinked, realizing she hadn’t answered. “I’m well, thank you, Green. Merely caught up in the tangled web of my own thoughts this morning, I suppose.”

“Ah yes, that I can understand, madam,” Green said, working the fire back into a tidy little blaze that had further warmth washing over Miranda.

“My dear mother has always told me that she can tell the moment I begin gathering wool. Never listened well as a girl, I must say. Of course, I didn’t mean to suggest that you weren’t a nice, biddable lass as a young woman, Mrs. Loveless. I’m certain you were.”

She dusted her hands off on her skirts as she spoke, looking worried now.

“Fear not,” Miranda reassured the younger woman. “I was not offended in the slightest.”

“Oh, good.” Green gusted out a sigh of relief and grinned. “The fire’s settled now, madam. Mightn’t I take a look at your hair?”

Miranda reached up, her fingers smoothing over the tightly bound strands that were all but pasted to her scalp. “That won’t be necessary. I have already finished it.”

“I can see that, madam. But your hair is so beautiful, and I have a style in mind that I think would serve you ever so much better, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

It was apparent that the girl was new to her position. No seasoned lady’s maid would dare to gainsay the woman she attended. Miranda wanted to deny Green’s request, but her hopeful countenance of unfettered friendliness and sanguinity had her sighing.

“Very well, if you insist, Green.”

“Oh, Mrs. Loveless, I can promise you that you won’t regret it,” Green gushed, before gathering up the tools of her trade and bustling across the room to the writing desk.

She was a whirlwind of energy and vigor, and Miranda couldn’t deny she found the girl’s enthusiasm catching.

With smooth, efficient motions, Green plucked the pins from Miranda’s hair.

Some brushing and separating, and then her hair was plaited into elaborate braids on either side of her head, leaving a smattering of curls free at her temples, the heavy fullness of the remaining braid coiled into a high, looser chignon.

“Your hair has such a lovely curl to it,” Green praised, examining Miranda from the front as she wound a few strands of hair around her finger for good measure. “There. Perfection, if I do say so, madam. Although, a day gown with a spot of color might prove even more appealing.”

“My curls are the bane of my existence,” Miranda said without bite. “They never do what I wish them to do.”

Which was also why she smoothed them into tight chignons. It had been quite some time since she’d last had a lady’s maid of her own or cared what happened to her hair. Hair had simply become a task instead of another part of her toilette .

“I have two younger sisters with curls,” Green told her, beaming as she inspected her work. “I’ve had ample time practicing taming their hair into whatever I wish. There. Now, and don’t you just look impossibly lovely, madam? Come and have a look in the mirror.”

Solely to pacify the excited lady’s maid, Miranda rose and crossed the chamber to inspect her new coiffure. She couldn’t deny that Green was a dab hand at dressing hair. She had fashioned Miranda’s stubborn curls into an elegant and feminine style that was quite becoming.

“What do you think?” Green asked, fairly bouncing on her toes in her eagerness.

“I think you have worked wonders upon my hair,” she said, turning back to the lady’s maid with a smile. “Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure, it was.” Green grinned. “Is there aught else you’ll be needing from me this morning, madam?”

“That will be all,” she said, before rethinking mid-sentence. “Unless you might ring for a tray of breakfast? I am famished, and I have some work awaiting me this morning.”

She gestured back to her recipes, still laid out neatly on the writing desk and in need of review. Perhaps with some food to fortify her constitution, she would be able to concentrate upon the task at hand instead of dwelling on the maddening Duke of Whitby.

Green’s countenance suddenly turned sheepish. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Loveless. I almost forgot to tell you that His Grace is wanting your presence in the breakfast room this morning.”

Anticipation coiled in her belly, along with something else. Something she refused to acknowledge for how perilous it was.

“Have any of the guests begun to arrive yet?” she asked her lady’s maid hopefully.

“Not until this afternoon, I believe, madam,” Green informed her.

Miranda forced a tight smile. “I suppose I shall descend to the breakfast room, then. Until later, Green.”

Abandoning the recipes she had scarcely been able to concentrate upon and the safe haven of her room, Miranda descended to the dining room.

The absence of servants was once again notable.

Not a hint of a maid or footman to be seen.

Not even a flurry of movement out of the corner of her eye.

It was as if Wingfield Hall had been left empty.

Had Whitby truly kept the servants from view specifically for her?

It hardly mattered, Miranda told herself as she hastened toward the room where they had dined the night before.

“There you are.”

The all-too-familiar voice had her breaking her stride and turning to find the duke approaching her, dressed this morning in country tweed that made his golden mane even more pronounced, his blue eyes twinkling with their customary mischief as he sauntered toward her.

She remembered herself, dipping into a hasty curtsy. “Good morning, Your Grace.”