Page 38 of The Enslaved Duet

She fluffed a pillow, stood back to survey the bed, and nodded contentedly. “Master Alexander had the room prepared for you. This is where you will sleep.”

Tears bloomed in my throat, but I swallowed them down. “You mean I don’t have to stay in the ballroom anymore?”

“Oh, darling girl,” she cooed, rushing forward to take my hands even though I flinched away from her kindness.

Noel’s kindness yesterday had only bought me pain.

“You won’t believe me, but I do empathize with your plight. The Davenport men can be… mercurial at the best of times, and they are absolute demons once angered.”

“I was with his father playing chess. I was hardly doing anything wrong,” I muttered.

“So much is not what it seems. I would imagine a girl so oft judged like a book by its cover for her beauty would understand the deeper meaning of things.”

I blinked and looked away from her, ashamed and confused by her words.

It was easy to judge Alexander, and I felt I’d been given more than a cover to do it by. I’d spent hours with the man now; I lived in his home and had taken him into my body.

Wasn’t that enough?

But then, what did I really know about him?

He was an earl, heir to the Dukedom of Greythorn and the master of Pearl Hall, an estate that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to run.

I knew the way he looked, admittedly well. His aristocratic feature crowned by the thick, silken gold of hair, overlong slightly at the top and pushed back from his broad forehead. There was age in the creases there and beside his eyes, bracketing his firm, masculine mouth that was only a few shades pinker than his golden skin. He was so symmetrical I could not find fault with any of his features, and each time I looked him in the face, I found I didn’t want to.

His eyes up close were like twin moons, pale with silver starlight but dark and cratered with mysteries I wanted to discover like an ancient astronomer.

He was abnormally tall, wide through the shoulders and narrow in the waist the way a swimmer was, with big hands that were elegant despite their breadth. I’d wondered what they might feel like on my body.

And now I knew.

No, I might have judged Alexander by the cover, but that didn’t discount the horror of the monster depicted on it.

“I’ll have one of the maids bring some supper for you. Master Alexander went to London, and we don’t expect him back until late this evening so you can dine in your room. I imagine you’ll want to rest early.” Mrs. White clapped her hands and then stared at me as I wandered to the windows to look past the drapes.

The bedroom overlooked an immaculately laid out garden of sculpted hedgerows and brightly coloured flowerbeds. It was perfectly ordered with each wild thing put in its place. I thought wryly that it was a suitable view for a slave.

Beyond that, the land gently crested, then erupted into a thicket of dense trees like something out of a sinister fairy tale.

That, too, made sense.

“There’s one more thing before I leave, Ruthie.”

I jerked away from the window to look at Mrs. White, shocked that she would call me that.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, Lord Greythorn has instructed the staff to call you by the name of Ruthie. He is excessively kind that way.”

“Kind?”

“Yes, well, he knew some of us would find it hard to remember such a strange name, and he knew you would have a difficult enough time as it is assimilating to British culture. It’s a wonderful remedy, really.”

“I would prefer Cosima,” I told her as my spine cooled and hardened with steel.

“Well, what’s done is done.” She ignored my statement with a wave of her hand and then clapped when someone knocked on the door. A moment later, a maid entered bearing a ridiculously ornate golden telephone and cradle. “Your second surprise is here, my dear. A telephone call home.”

My previous irritation evaporated as I was struck down by her words.