One Night Scandal

ked her up and brought her inside the warm house. Several servants swarmed around them.

“Get a hot bath and put her in my bedroom. I will bathe in another bedroom.” He walked toward the steps and then looked back. “I want a fire in my bedroom, too.”

He didn’t wait for a reply but carried her up to the third floor where his bedchamber was located. He placed her in the chair by the fireplace and hoped her teeth would soon stop chattering.

She blinked her eyes open but her dark brows furrowed.

“Shh,” he whispered. Speaking in Italian, he said, “I ordered a bath for you.”

“Grazie,” she said softly. “Where am I?”

“I brought you to my friend’s home. You can bathe to get clean and warm. The servants will find you something to wear. Then I shall escort you home.”

The minutes passed in silence as they waited for the water to heat. She kept her eyes closed much of the time either trying to ignore him or to keep the pain of her accident away.

Finally, a knock sounded at the door and then the servants entered with a large tub and steaming buckets of water. They placed the tub by the fireplace as he requested.

She blinked her eyes open and watched the bustling activity in the room with a frown. She rubbed her head and winced.

“Are you all right?” he asked slowly. “Does your head hurt?”

She stared at him a moment then nodded. “My head hurts but I believe I shall live.”

Hearing her resigned tone, a horrible thought crossed his mind. “Was it your intention to die?”

Her soft laugh danced in the air around him. “No, signore! I did not try to kill myself. It was an . . .” she paused a long moment. “An accident.”

The pause made him wonder if she spoke the truth. “Shall I call for a physician?”

“No, I am all right. Grazie.”

“I will have a maid assist you,” he said, and then left the room. Walking to the second bedchamber, he wondered about the woman who bathed in his room. With her black hair, gray eyes, and oval face, she was one of the most beautiful women he had seen since arriving in Venice. Though she wasn’t as olive toned in complexion as most of the women he’d seen here.

He tugged at his wet cravat, which only seemed to tighten the knot at his neck. He pulled a knife out of his ruined boots and cut the offending garment off. After stripping out of his soaked clothes, he slipped into the warm clean water of the tub.

His mind wandered back to the beautiful woman in his room. As he thought about her, naked in the tub across the hall, his cock hardened with desire. He hadn’t had that swift of a reaction to a woman in ages. He was tired of the artifices of women. Most of them wanted the one thing he wasn’t willing to give yet: marriage. The others wanted the gossiping rights to say they slept with a future duke.

The only woman he knew not like that was now married and had a son. And she had never considered him anything but a friend, or worse, like a brother to her. Then again, he never had the nerve to discover if anything more was possible. Perhaps she might have been amenable to a different relationship. Not that it mattered now, he had wasted his chance.

But the woman in the tub had no idea who he was, and he intended to keep it that way. If she discovered his identity then she would be as shameless as all the rest of the women he had met. Not that any of it mattered. He would return her to her home and never see her again. For all he knew, she was married. And he avoided married women.

He finished washing the stench of the canal off him and stepped out of the tub. Standing by the fire, he dried himself and then poured a splash of brandy in a snifter. As he glanced about the room, he noticed his valet had not delivered dry clothes to him yet.

He pulled the bell and waited for a servant. Now dry and warmed by a fire and the brandy, he wanted to dress and find out more about the lady in his bedchamber. If only his friend Dominic was still here. He might know of the woman. But Dom had urgent business in Milan and left Nicholas to enjoy his Venetian home.

“Si, signore?” the servant asked as he entered the bedroom.

“Per favore, send Lane in with my clothes.” He sipped the last drop of brandy and placed the glass on the table.

“Signore,” the servant started and then paused.

“Si?”

“The lady in your bedchamber locked the door and won’t open it.”

He chuckled softly. “She must want her privacy. Ask Signora Costa to knock on the bedroom door and explain the situation.”

“Si, signore.”