Scandal And The Duchess

Only Rose had been kept from her spoils.

They entered a room that was little more than a cluster of furniture. At one time, it had been a sitting room of some sort, but now appeared to be a place to store things that didn’t fit in the other rooms.

Rose moved unwaveringly to the end of the room, two large windows letting in light there. Her skirts billowed as she knelt before a cabinet and gestured to it. “This.”

The cabinet was about three feet long and two and a half high and as wide, inlaid with satinwood and other exotic woods Steven couldn’t identify. Rose opened the cabinet’s double doors to reveal a stack of shallow drawers.

Steven saw the cleverness of it as Rose pulled out the entire bottom half of the cabinet, drawers and all, on hidden rollers. The top drawers, which were shallower still, stayed in place.

The entire piece, with its burnished wood—deep golds and ambers with a touch of red—seemed to light up the corner it stood in.

It certainly lighted Rose’s face, or maybe that was her flush of joy. “I always loved this piece. It’s a collection cabinet—for medals or coins, or whatnot.” She opened a drawer in the top section, which was empty. “No one’s used it for years, but I liked it. I was going to keep ribbons and things in it.”

Steven touched the top where a strip of ebony inlay alternated with lighter satinwood to create a chevron pattern.

“It’s lovely,” he said with sincerity. “Old, I take it?”

“About seventy years old. George Bullock was the maker—very famous in his day, I believe.”

Steven liked the feel of the wood under his fingertips. Care had been put into the making of this cabinet, even love.

“This is your choice?” he asked.

“Yes.” She pursed her lips in a moue, and Steven’s heart hammered again. She really should not do that, shaping her mouth in the perfect form to be kissed. “Now to see if Albert will let it out of his sight.”

“Bugger Albert,” Steven said. He grimaced. “On second thought, I won’t. We have a cart waiting outside, and servants to help move it. I say you take it and to hell with Albert. What about the second piece?”

Rose remained on the floor. “Have you abandoned the idea that Charles might have left me something inside the furniture? That it might hold the key to something else?”

Steven had—it was far-fetched. The duke had been a doting, but not very intelligent man, as far as Steven could tell. He’d probably trusted that his son would feel an obligation to take care of Rose and hadn’t worried—reasoned he’d live a long while and buy her plenty of things along the way. He’d likely had no idea his son was a turd.

Steven shrugged. “Let us look.”

He sank down next to Rose, breathing in the scent of her. He needed her—her body around his, the taste of her in his mouth. Her breast had fit well into his large hand, but he’d felt more cushion of it to explore when she was unfettered. A lush woman, barely contained by her stays. Naked, she must be heaven.

Steven didn’t truly believe there was anything in the cabinet, but he couldn’t bear to disappoint her. He started pulling out drawers.

They found nothing. After about half an hour of examining the insides and undersides of the many drawers, nothing turned up. Not a cache of diamonds or other costly jewelry or a small painting by an ancient master worth thousands of guineas. The cabinet had been thoroughly cleaned out.

Rose said nothing, but her disappointment was apparent. “The piece itself must be worth something,” she said. “To an antique collector if nothing else.”

“I can find out for you,” Steven offered.

Rose ran her hand along the edge of the inlay of the top, her fingers lovingly brushing it. Steven couldn’t stop himself imagining those fingertips running as sensually over himself, and he went hard again.

“I hate to let it go,” Rose said, her low-pitched voice completing his ache. “It’s rather special to me.”

“Then keep it.” Steven cleared his throat as he got stiffly to his feet, turning so she wouldn’t see any sign of his lust that might be pressing out his kilt. “I’ll round up someone to tote this out for you. Hell, I’ll carry it on my own back if I have to. It’s going home with you today.”

“Home.” Rose looked wistful. “Only I haven’t got one.” She met his gaze. “Doesn’t that sound sad?”

It did. Steven’s hard-on deflated a little, though not much. If he thought about it, Steven didn’t have a home either.

Not quite true. Steven was always welcome with his brothers—Patrick, who’d raised him, had a comfortable house in Edinburgh; Elliot had a huge monstrosity of a castle in northern Scotland, overrun with Indian servants and his growing family; and Sinclair had plenty of spare bedrooms in London, even if Sinclair’s unruly children did terrorize the house.

But Steven had nothing, no home to return to, no place to put down roots. He enjoyed his visits with his brothers, but in the end they were only visits. His brothers had families. Steven did not. He’d made halfhearted attempts to change this in the past, but put any thoughts of marriage aside when he returned to the army. It was no life for a wife and children—at least, he’d never met a woman robust enough to share it but tender enough to fall in love with.

If he couldn’t change things for himself, though, he could change things for Rose. “I swear to you,” Steven said, “at the end of this, you’ll be able to go home. Wherever you want that to be.”