The Princess and the Rogue (Bow Street Bachelors #3) - Kate Bateman Page 0,31

features were saved from being pretty by a masculine jaw and the upward slant of his eyebrows, which gave him a faintly diabolical air. His self-confidence bordered on arrogance, but she couldn’t deny the allure of the glint in his eyes. The man was a walking promise.

His nearness made her aware of him as a man and herself as a woman in a way she’d never before considered. They were unchaperoned, completely alone, save for some distant servants belowstairs. And yet she trusted him. Rogue he might be, but there was honor at his core, beneath the cynicism. He was clearly no stranger to violence, but unlike Vasili, she doubted he’d ever use force with a woman. He was so charming, so beguiling. He could probably tease out desires a woman never even suspected she possessed.

Anya gave herself a mental shake.

She would not be another one of his conquests.

Chapter 13.

Anya spent the rest of the day reading through the pile of correspondence Wolff had given her, noting down the various names.

She also scrawled a brief note to Elizaveta, and another to Charlotte, telling them not to worry, but that she was being personally protected by the dowager duchess’s great-nephew, and would be staying at the Tricorn Club for an indefinite period.

She smiled as she imagined their different reactions to reading that. Elizaveta would be scandalized at the impropriety and worried for both her safety and her morals. Charlotte was far more likely to crack one of her saucy, speculative smiles and pour a drink in her honor.

Anya folded both sheets together and directed them to Haye’s. Vasili had somehow managed to learn that she worked for the dowager duchess. It wasn’t impossible that he might also discover her home address and set someone to intercept the mail. Since Haye’s received a great number of missives every day, from gentlemen making “arrangements,” one more note would hopefully not attract any undue attention.

At lunchtime, Mickey brought in a tray of stew and crusty bread and agreed to have the stable lad deliver the letters for her. The baguette was as good as the ones Anya had eaten every morning on the Rue de Passy in Paris; Wolff clearly had a talented chef.

It was a pleasure to enjoy even simple soup when it was made with gristle-free steak and more than one vegetable. Elizaveta was a competent cook, but their straitened circumstances meant they’d rarely bought the best cuts of meat or the freshest produce. Desserts had become a distant memory.

She went back to the translations. They were frustratingly difficult to decipher, thanks to some truly appalling handwriting, and all were exceedingly dull, concerned mainly with rations and supplies, troop movements and ammunition requests.

By dinnertime, she was thoroughly bored and no closer to discovering anything useful than she had been that morning. She pushed back from the desk and tried to ease the aching muscles in her neck. As if on cue, Mickey appeared, hunching his giant shoulders in what she assumed was his way of trying to appear less intimidating.

“’Is lordship thought you’d like a bath.” He gestured to a door just across the hallway. “There’s one of ’em new-fangled bathing rooms in there. Linens too.”

Anya almost did a little dance of delight when she discovered the large copper tub filled with water. It was big enough to immerse her whole body in, double the size of the miserable tin hip-bath she and Elizaveta shared back at their lodgings.

She stripped with unseemly haste, piled her hair in a haphazard coil on the top of her head, and sank into the steaming water with a sigh of bliss. Tension leeched out of her as she luxuriated in the warmth. She let down her hair and washed it thoroughly, noting that the soap was a feminine jasmine scent. She raised a brow. Did Wolff have such a regular supply of women who bathed here that his household kept a supply of floral soap? Or had he somehow guessed it was her favorite? Probably the former.

When the water finally cooled enough to be unpleasant, and her fingers and toes resembled wizened prunes, she dried herself off and ducked across the corridor to her own rooms. The idea of putting her dirty dress back on was depressing, but she stopped short on the threshold of the bedroom when she saw what lay across the bed—a dress, one that certainly didn’t belong to her.

She stepped closer, reaching out to touch it before she even realized what she