Taking the candle, Arabella climbed the stairs and walked right past the man in question—unaware he was pressed back in the shadows, having heard every word of the devoted pair’s conversation.
* * *
Behind the screen in Arabella’s room, Magdala had left her a hip tub filled for her use. Setting her candle aside, the baroness ignored the almost spent fire and began tugging at the laces on the front of her bodice.
When the door opened behind her, she sent her servant away. “It’s late. Go back to bed, Magdala. I will tend to myself.”
While she struggled with a knot, Gregory put his hands on her shoulders, his fingers curling around the bones. She went stiff as a corpse as he turned her about.
There was no conversation. Batting aside her hands, he tore the knot, unlacing the homespun roughness of her dress until the filthy thing fell to the floor.
His gaze unabashedly surveyed her exposed figure until furious pitch eyes found hers, the look in them frightening.
He motioned for her to go to the tub.
She obeyed.
Watching her, his elbows on his knees, Gregory took a seat on the edge of her bed while Arabella scrubbed away days’ worth of dirt. As the water was no longer warm, and she was nervous, she did not linger. Reaching for the nearby linen, she dried herself and reached for the night rail laid out upon the bed.
The glaring male’s weight was upon it, Gregory making no move to set it free.
Exposed, Arabella hung her head and gripped the trapped fabric. “I’m cold.”
He took her wrist, pulling her hand away from the gown. “Look at me.”
After several painful heartbeats, she raised her head. The way he was looking at her, Arabella wanted to hide. Not from what he was doing, but from knowing he must have overheard the shameful things she’d spoken of with Payne. Knowing he would see her as foul.
Harrow’s voice was hard, his expression harder. “Who were the other men?”
His tone cut. Silent tears fell. All she could do was shake her head and confess. “His friends... anyone Benjamin wanted something from or owed something to. I can’t tell you how many, I don’t know.”
Releasing her wrist, Gregory placed a solid hand to her waist and pulled her to stand between his spread thighs. He looked murderous. “Get into bed.”
She took a guarded step back before scrambling under the covers. When he crawled in behind her, she had not expected such a thing. Nor had she anticipated the heat of the arm that pulled her beneath a body as naked as her own.
A possessive caress followed a guttural proclamation. “It changes nothing.”
Trying to read the man’s face lit only by the light of one small candle, she whispered, “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” And gentle lips brushed hers, searing, and nothing like the aggression he’d unleashed on her body in the moors.
* * *
When the first stir of waking came upon him, Gregory reached for the woman at his side, eager to possess her again before the household was up. Searching fingers found only cold linen, not a cool, soft body.
She was not there.
Leaning up on an elbow, he scanned the dawn shadows and found the filthy garments had vanished and his clothing, even the items he had left in his room, were folded neatly nearby.
Once dressed, Mr. Harrow walked silently down the passageway in search of the missing Imp. Near the stairway, sounds of soft murmured speech between women floated up from below stairs.
“Drink your tea, my lady, before it grows colder.”
Mr. Harrow found Arabella sitting in the large leather chair, her chin in her hand as she looked toward the fire.
Magdala hovered nearby, watching her mistress brood. “Drink.”
“Your foul tea is the least of my concerns at this moment, Magdala.”