Page 51 of The Rogue’s Embrace

Adalia jerked awake, fear thundering in her chest.

The twins. Where in Hades were they?

On her back, she searched around her. She was on a settee, one leg long on the cushion, the other stretched down to the floor. The room was dark—a big room.

For that matter, where was she?

The duke. The Duke of Dellon's home. His castle. His drawing room. She had made it into there, sat down on the settee with the girls. The last thing she remembered was the comforting feeling of the three of them being safe—finally—and then…nothing.

She jumped to her feet, her eyes starting to adjust to the darkness, and she spotted the door. Fumbling with the knobs, she flung the double doors wide and light hit her—not bright daylight, but just enough to blind her dry eyes for a moment and give her pause.

Darkness lined the far edges of the hallway in front of her—it was nighttime—and where were the girls?

"Josalyn, Mary?"

she yelled down the corridor, panic seizing her. "Mary, Josalyn? Girls?"

Thunk. She turned to the sound at the end of the hallway and ran toward it, desperate.

Laughter. She heard the laughter—the giggles—before she reached the room at the very end of the hall. The corridor growing darker the deeper she went into the castle, she focused on the light spilling from the open doorway of the room ahead as unyielding terror made her limbs shake.

Sliding to a stop in the hallway, she looked into the room, frantic to see the girls.

The giggles grew louder.

Adalia froze.

She recognized him, even from the backside. The Duke of Dellon.

He sat, both arms stretched out in front of him on a table, pieces of paper under his splayed hands. Josalyn was on his right, Mary on his left, and both of the girls were giggling uncontrollably, tracing his wide fingers on paper.

Then she saw all the paper. Scraps and tears and pieces of it all over the floor, the table. Strips tucked into every opening of the duke's dark tailcoat.

Paper in what looked like the shape of a chicken sprouting out of his collar to peck behind his ear. Small white sprinkles of paper dusting his head, stark against his dark hair. A creamy white paper snake trailing out from the other side of his collar, sliding down his back. A monkey hanging off the back edge of his cravat.

Paper animals all over his body.

Mayhem.

She had to shake herself once, twice, at the scene before she could react.

She clapped her hands. "Girls."

Both twins' eyes went wide as they dropped their pencils, looking up to Adalia in the doorway. Their lips drew inward, identically and in unison—caught doing exactly what they knew they shouldn't be doing.

Adalia stepped into the room as the duke turned in his chair, and she had to stifle a laugh—she couldn't afford to waver on her stern look directed at the girls.

The man looked ridiculous. What she had been able to see from the backside had only been a tiny part of the picture. Animals, every size and shape imaginable, stuck up and down his lapels, an entire zoo of creatures living on his chest. A snowy blanket of paper balls covered his lap.

And in the middle of it all, his face, blank, looking at her.

At least he wasn't angry. Or so she hoped. She guessed she wouldn't be able to tell one way or another with him.

She clapped her hands together again. "Girls, I am mortified by your behavior. Whatever are you thinking? We do not waste paper like this. Aside from the fact that this is not how we are proper guests in anyone's home."

Tears instantly swelled in Mary's eyes, and seeing it, Josalyn skipped in front of Adalia, looking up at her with wide, pleading blue eyes. "But, but, we are so sorry, Auntie Ada. Sir Duke asked what we could do with paper and we showed him. And he didn't stop us."

"Yes, well, the duke is unfailingly polite to his guests."

Adalia crossed her arms, leaving one finger out to point to the chaos. "The best apology is to clean all this mess up as quickly as possible."

Both girls turned, dropping to their knees and scooping up paper shreds from the floor, dumping them on the table. They stood, pushing the mess to a big pile in the middle of the table and turned to Adalia to measure their success.

Clean, by a seven-year-old's standards.

Adalia wasn't quite done with them. She nodded to duke. "And the duke."

"But—"

Josalyn whined.

"No. Him as well."

Both girls sighed, arms heavy with defiance as they began to clean all the little balls of paper off of him. One by one, they plucked the paper animals from his body, setting them onto the table and smoothing them with the utmost care.

Their masterpiece ruined. Even if it was a zoo on a duke.

A pang of guilt sliced through Adalia's ire. But she held tight to her censure. There was proper behavior, and then there was adherence to the proper behavior Adalia prescribed to. She knew her own bounds of propriety often stretched thin the meaning of the word. But decorating a duke like a bizarre paper zoo doll could in no way be considered proper.

The last animal, a giraffe, Adalia guessed, landed on the top of the pile of animals. The girls' downcast faces were almost unbearable.

Simultaneously, the duke lifted his hands, his fingers under each of the twins' chins. "They were done so well, I would like to keep the animals, if it is agreeable to the two of you?"

A heartbeat of wide-eyed silence, and then both girls broke into giggles, nodding their heads.

"Excellent,"

the duke said. "Do you both remember where your room is at the top of the stairs and to your right?"

"Yes, Sir Duke,"

they said in unison.

"Good. Will you please go up there and ready yourselves for bed? I have a maid searching for some nightclothes for you. She should be in there to help you."

Mary looked to Josalyn, and Josalyn looked to Adalia. "Auntie Ada, will you come up with us?"

"I will?—"

"She will just as soon as I have had a chance to talk to her."

The duke cut her off, drawing the girls' attention. "Do not fret, we only have a few things to discuss, and then she will be up. It will not take long. Go now."

Satisfied, the girls clasped hands and walked past Adalia toward the door. It wasn't until that moment that Adalia realized they were dressed in different clothing than what they had worn on the journey.

Watching them exit the room, she waited until she heard their footsteps on distant stairs before she turned to the duke.

"The girls, they are in different dresses."

"The clothes they appeared in smelled of fish."

"Yes, there were some characters on the stagecoach. We were next to a fishmonger for two days."

"You took the stagecoach?"

"We did."

Adalia studied him. He still had speckles of the paper in his dark hair. She pointed at them. "They did miss a few scraps in your hair."

His right eyebrow lifted, and he dropped his head forward, shuffling his hands through his dark hair—short, more so than fashion dictated, but most practical without the pomades her late husband had been fond of—and setting free the tiny paper balls. "It was snowing at the zoo."

Adalia couldn't swallow her chuckle. "So it was a zoo. I had guessed. They have been learning about foreign animals recently and are especially fascinated by the African ones."

The duke stood, brushing the stubborn pieces of paper off the front of his tailcoat, and then thought the better of it and stripped off his coat, snapping it hard and sending paper flying. "Their ability to tear the paper so precisely was impressive."

"Yes, well…little fingers."

Adalia eyed him, slightly taken aback that the removal of his dark tailcoat made him look even broader than she thought him. Usually, a man in a linen shirt and waistcoat looked much less imposing, but not this man. A wide chest that tapered down with his black waistcoat—he held no fat around his belly like her late husband had.

Her look lifted to his face. Handsome, with a strong jawline, neat nose, and canny brown eyes. Yet still he was a blank. No expression.

She still was not sure if he was angry about the entire scene he was forced to just be in with the girls, or if he was taking it with good humor. She hoped for humor, but since she had not seen the slightest smile from him since she walked into the room, she was preparing for the worst.

"I apologize for their behavior."

The last of the paper fluttered to the ground and Adalia moved to plant herself in front of him. "The girls, they have always liked to tear paper into shapes—but I do not let them do it with fresh paper—only with old correspondence that has served its purpose."

"I am not upset with them, if that is what you are wondering, Lady Pipworth."

"Oh. But this waste—this perfectly good paper now ruined."

"Was a perfectly good way to entertain them while you were asleep."

Slipping back into his tailcoat, he looked at her as he tugged the cuffs. For the first time since she had met him, his eyes held the slightest glimmer of curiosity. "Come. Let us sit at my desk."

"You do not appear surprised by our presence here."

"I have had several hours to grow accustomed to your appearance."

He started walking to the far side of the room where a heavy, wide desk of the darkest walnut sat. Adalia had initially assumed this room to be his library, with the three walls—interrupted only by a wide hearth—full from floor to coffered ceiling with row upon row of leather-bound volumes. It must be his study—or possibly it served both purposes.

"Yes, can you tell me how that happened—my falling asleep?"

Adalia followed him across the room, scooting onto the lone, simple wooden chair at the front of his desk. He waited until she was seated, and then sat behind his desk, his posture stiffly erect. "I only remember being shown to your drawing room, sitting down, and then in the next moment I was awake and came in here."

"You fell asleep on the settee before I appeared in the drawing room. The girls were awake, so we left you. We toured the castle. They were inquisitive. I showed them their room. They told me—Josalyn, primarily—of your journey here. We ate dinner. Then we came in here."

Adalia's jaw dropped. She had missed all of that? "How long was I asleep?"

His left hand went to the top of the desk, his little finger absently tapping the wood. "You slept a long time—five, six hours."

"I was awake for a long time."

She inhaled a deep breath, shaking her head. Unforgivable, she had let her guard lapse, let the twins be in danger. No matter how safe she had felt, she should have stayed awake. Should have verified the duke's willingness to assist them.

"So I gathered. Josalyn's version of the trip here was that of a fun adventure. I imagine the reality was more arduous?"

Adalia shrugged. They were alive. Unharmed. It didn't matter what it had taken to get there.

"I saw you walking up the drive with one of the girls on your back, Lady Pipworth. How far did you carry them?"

"Just from the village where the stagecoach deposited us. I traded off between carrying one at a time. They were very brave when they had to walk."

The duke's head tilted slightly, and he set his other arm on the desk, leaning slightly forward. "Why did you not ask for a ride from the village?"

"I…my…my…"

Not able to force the words out past the sudden lump in her throat, she reached down for her reticule, still dangling securely from her wrist. Opening it, she pulled free the now crumpled note from Theodore. Carefully, she set it on the desk between them, smoothing it flat before nudging it in front of the duke.

He scanned the note quickly, his look hard when his brown eyes lifted to meet hers. "This is what sent you here?"

The lump still heavy in her throat, she swallowed, forcing it down into her chest so she could spit out her words quickly. "Yes. And they found Theo's body in the rookeries."

Gripping the edge of the desk for stability, she fought back the threatening sob with a quick breath. Now was not the time for tears. "And Mary was almost taken only minutes before the note and the news of Theo's death arrived."

"So that was true?"

"Yes."

"The girls told me the story—how their wolfhound saved them. It was fantastical and I was not sure if it was real or not."

"It was. It is why we took the stagecoach. Why we walked. My brother said trust no one. No one until I reached you."

She leaned toward him. "I have reached you, your grace. My life has just been shattered and I don't know why. So I want to know why we are in danger. Why Theo would have sent me this letter, why he would send me to you, and you alone."

The duke opened his mouth, then shut it as he sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I do not have an answer for you, Lady Pipworth. The only communication Theodore sent me was a day ago when a cryptic note arrived from him. It said he was invoking the vow he withdrew from me years ago."

"Which was what, exactly?"

"To…look after you. As I have told you in our previous meetings."

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. "You paused. What did he truly ask of you?"

"I did no such thing."

"You did. I both saw and heard the pause quite distinctly."

"No."

He shook his head, his look dismissing.

Adalia scooted forward on her chair, the side of her ribcage hitting the front edge of the desk. "I have spent the last four months studying hiccups in mannerisms at the gaming tables—and untold years before that studying my brothers for the very same thing. And you just hiccupped, your grace."

Her forearm went long against the edge of the desk as she pinned him with a stare. "Why?"

"Your mind is as fantastical as your nieces' minds are. You saw an imagination, Lady Pipworth, not a hiccup."

Adalia knew exactly what she saw in him, and now he was denying it.

Yet questioning him was not going to get her any answers. Hiccup aside, she still needed to gain his assistance.

She retreated from the desk, settling her hands in her lap. "Someone has threatened the girls, your grace. I do not know who, and I do not know what to do. Theo told me to trust you, and I trust him. So I ask you, your grace, for your help to keep them safe. At least until I can determine what the threat is."

"What about you, Lady Pipworth? Who will keep you safe?"

"Me?"

Her head tilted to the side. "Why, I will keep myself safe."

"You are not worried on your own safety?"

"I would be a fool not to be worried. But my main concern is for my nieces. They were the ones that were attacked, not me. And I have not a clue as to who would do such a thing to them. You must understand, your grace, that they are my heart, the only ones left of my family, and I could not bear it if they were harmed in any way."

She offered a small smile. "Can I depend upon your assistance?"

He stared at her as his elbows went to the arms of his chair, his fingers clasping under his chin. The unnerving stare. The one he had used in her office at the Revelry's Tempest.

She resisted a squirm. He could stare at her all he wanted, just as long as he agreed to keep the twins safe.

"Frankly, Lady Pipworth, I have my hesitations."