A Duchess a Day (Awakened by a Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,10
Helena inquired for the direction of the duke’s study. The girl pointed left, and Helena asked her to return with a basin of water and cloth.
“Put him there, if you please,” Helena directed when they reached the study.
A floor-to-ceiling window rose above a leather divan in the corner; the groom deposited Lusk in an inebriated sprawl. Helena took a candle from the hallway and hurried to light the lamps. Each flickering wick revealed polished mahogany, grommeted leather, and books—so many books. Naturally, the study would keep pace with the grandeur of the house—more a library than a study, with a maze of bookshelves towering behind a giant desk.
When the room glowed with soft candlelight, Helena leaned over the duke. “Now, Your Grace, isn’t that better?”
Lusk made a snorting noise and flopped onto his back.
The maid arrived, and Helena applied a warm, damp cloth to the duke’s eyes. “Simply rest, Your Grace,” she soothed, and took up a blanket for his legs. Within moments, the duke began to snore. Helena backed away, willing him to remain unconscious for at least ten minutes.
“Now what?” asked the groom beside her.
“Shhh.” She shot him a look.
“Trust me, he’s out for the night.” The groom cocked an eyebrow. “But I assume that’s what you want.”
“You’ve no idea of what I want. You may go, Mr. Sham.”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“Wait? Wait for what?”
If she hadn’t seen his eyes before, she saw them now. They were deep, molten brown. Gone was all trace of shyness or chagrin.
“You may go,” she repeated firmly. She nodded to the door.
On the divan, the duke jerked, flopping one arm over his head. He stretched his other arm, flexed his fingers, and then flopped his hand in the area of Helena’s skirt and made a clumsy grab for her leg. Helena skittered back.
“I stay,” the groom said, stepping up. Helena stared at him in wonder.
He added, “In case you need me.”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
Helena blinked at him. “Actually,” she said, “I haven’t the time to argue. Go or stay, I don’t care.”
If a voice in her head told her she should care, she did not hear it. She wasn’t ready to admit that she’d been wrong to agree to this groom. It was too early in her plan to be making wrong decisions.
She looked around, noting that the study looked wholly unused. Exactly what she would expect from a man who did not manage his own estates, write his own correspondence, or enjoy anything so cerebral as “reading.” There was a scattering of paper on the desk, and Helena lifted the top sheet.
“What’s that?” asked the groom.
Helena glanced up. “You should be aware that I will go about my business without explaining myself.” She looked at the paper in her hand, a bill for hair tonic, and then back to Shaw.
“You came to the library for some other reason than settling the duke,” he said.
“And you came to the library for some other reason than conveying a drunk. I propose that I not ask why and you not ask why.”
“I could be of more use,” he said, “if I knew what you were doing.”
“More use as my groom?”
“Of course.”
She nodded knowingly. “Unless I am mistaken, grooms manage horses and carriages and shopping and umbrellas. What use would I have of a groom in a library?”
“Well,” he began, the word heavy with facetiousness, “if I knew—”
“Why were you in the dining room?” She’d dropped the paper and glared at him. “Why did you follow us?”
“I—” began Shaw, but he stopped.
She nodded to herself. Direct questions had that effect on all but the most astute liars. He didn’t have the look of a liar, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t another of Girdleston’s puppets. How could she have been so foolish as to accept anything or anyone offered by Titus Girdleston?
“Are you a spy?” she asked casually, returning to the papers. Certainly he behaved less and less like a groom.
“What?”
“You’ve admitted to a new post inside the house, despite your insistence that we regard you as a groom. You’ve tailed me from dinner. And you are still here, in the library, where no groom ever need tread.”
She came to the bottom of the stack and found only markers for gambling debts and bills for hair tonic and snuff boxes.
“Are you suggesting that you could have dragged the duke all this way yourself?” he asked.
“I could have managed. Never let it be said that I am ungrateful for your assistance. Thank you, Mr. Sham.”