She reached out and pulled up his coverlet a little, thinking about it.
“Has the local doctor anything to say?” Dautry said it quietly, in case Villiers was sleeping lightly.
The doctor had said no more than she had guessed for herself. “If he survives the night…but Dr. Treglown doesn’t think he will. Do you?”
She saw the answer in his eyes, and it echoed the truth in her own heart.
“What will you do when he dies?” His voice sounded different. The drawl was still there, but roughened by desire.
“Nothing,” she said, turning around to face him. “Weep.”
“I’ll come sit with him to night,” he said, turning to the door. “I need to eat. Keep me company?”
She looked at Villiers but he was sleeping in that profound way he had, as if every breath were too much and he might just slip away. It was tiring, watching a man die.
“Come sit with me,” Dautry said, his voice a little softer. He held out his hand. “You can return later. We’ll both come back later.”
Blount disapproved. He did his butlering duty, of course. He placed the couple at a snug table in the morning room. He served them himself, because he saw the lay of the land, the way Dautry smiled at Miss Tatlock, and the way his hand lingered on her shoulder. No point in allowing that Jezebel to corrupt one of the young footmen.
But he was aware of a great uneasiness. He had identified the woman as a concubine of the Duke of Villiers, and here she was with the heir. Laughing.Talking. What sort of woman was she?
He lingered as much as he could while bringing in the courses, intent on learning her secrets. The conversation didn’t seem particularly salacious. They talked of India (godforsaken place, to Blount’s mind), and pirates (godforsaken people), and then about whales (he had no particular opinion, but he was suspicious).
He was pouring the second bottle of wine before he discovered what made Miss Charlotte Tatlock so irresistible. It was the way she talked back to Dautry. Talked back! Inconceivable for a young woman. Yet she did. He refreshed their wine glasses during a conversation in which she was arguing in the most lively way about smugglers. Defending them, if you please!
Blount made up his mind on the spot. They got no more wine. None! Not even if the Jezebel herself rang the bell.
So it was disappointing when they sauntered back to the Duke of Villiers’s bedchamber, almost as if they didn’t notice that their butler had forsaken them.
They were talking that hard.
Chapter 48
Poppy wasn’t herself. She wasn’t the meek, silly daughter of Lady Flora. She wasn’t the kind of person who could be screamed at, or told what to do.
She was more likely to scream. And tell people what to do.
She felt powerful. She let Fletch carry her into the room because it felt good to be in his arms, to be carried about. As soon as they were in the bedchamber, she pulled free. She had to control the night.
She walked away from him slowly, leaned back against the bedpost so that her breasts arched forward. Fletch was standing next to the door and what she saw in his eyes made her heart beat even faster.
It was working.
But she had a plan, a plan that Jemma and Louise had drilled into her upstairs, and she wasn’t going to deviate from it now. Not after practicing it twice, even after Isidore fell on the bed and went to sleep, complaining that no man was worth all the energy.
So she let her lips curls into a sleepy, inviting smile. “I hear,” she said, “that you’re tired of your spouse.”
“I—”
But she didn’t let him answer. “Bien,” she said. “Because as it seems, I am in the same position.”