Grey growled as he groped around for his trousers. He stomped toward his bag, pulled out a shirt, whipped it through the air to dislodge some of the wrinkles and pulled it over his head. As he thudded back to the bed and located his boots, Gravenhurst sat up in the bed next to Grey’s. And then a slighter figure with a distinctly flowery smell sat up beside Gravenhurst.
Grey chuckled to himself. At least one of them had not wasted their first night at Court. “Good morning, Gravenhurst.”
“By all accounts it should be,” Gravenhurst grumbled.
“Did your company keep you up too late?” Grey didn’t bother to conceal the sarcasm in his voice.
A derisive, feminine snort came from the woman. The brown blanket covering her head fell to her shoulders. Grey couldn’t quite make out the color of her eyes in the lingering predawn shadows of the room, but a streak of sunlight cutting through the air from the stained-glass window touched the top of her head. By damned she had the reddest hair he’d ever seen. But a pretty red, like fine burgundy.
“Lord Gravenhurst kept me up, not the other way around.” Her tone held amusement. “I was begging for sleep.”
“I imagine you were, Lady…?”
“It’s kind of you to grant me the courtesy, but we both know I’m no lady, don’t “we?” The woman rose from the bed with the blanket wrapped around her slender figure, but low enough that a good portion of her ample breasts showed. Grey didn’t turn away. If she wanted to display her wares, he’d be happy to look, but that didn’t mean he’d be buying. The sun now hit her full on in the face, and amusement filled her green, slanted eyes. This was a lady who enjoyed being stared at. She was not a lady in the class of someone like Lady Madelaine, but no average chit either. He had had met plenty of both kinds of women and this fiery wench was bold as brass and not a wink ashamed of waking up naked as the day she was born in front of two men, one definitely a stranger and one a semi-stranger. “Do you work in the castle?”
“I do.”
“Talkative chit, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “Most men I meet don’t want to talk.” She dropped the blanket and stooped to pick up her gown. Her amply curved body looked like one made specifically for pleasure, but for once he wasn’t filled with the rush of desire a beautiful woman usually caused. The woman pulled on her dark, threadbare gown and turned her back to Grey and Gravenhurst, who now stood fully clothed by Grey. “Lace me up?”
Gravenhurst quickly obliged. When he finished, the woman swiveled around, planted a kiss on his mouth, and then reached behind her and twined her long hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. “You were exactly what I needed last night, my lord.”
“Likewise.” Gravenhurst handed the woman a gleaming, gold coin.
She tucked the coin between her breasts, and then locked her gaze on Grey. “You’ve a reputation, you know.”
“So I’ve been told. Am I to believe I’m so notorious now that I’m the talk of the—?”
“Ladies-in-waiting.”
He instantly pictured Lady Madelaine. “If you’re trying to intrigue me, miss, you’ve succeeded. Do tell.”
“I accidentally overheard them placing wagers on who would win your heart.”
That could be a boon or a curse, depending on which side of the wager Lady Madelaine placed her blunt. “You accidentally overheard them?” He raised a questioning eyebrow. “As in you eavesdropped?”
“Nay. I was tidying the queen’s drawing room when they came in. I had to hide because we chambermaids aren’t supposed to be seen.”
A sarcastic comment burned to be said, but he had no wish to give her anymore reason to despise the queen’s ladies as her derisive tone indicated she already did. Instead he asked, “Did all the ladies place a wager?”
The woman’s smirk turned to downright amusement. “Don’t tell me a particular lady has caught your fancy?”
The question made Grey grind his teeth. Lady Madelaine had bewitched him a bit, but it was nothing a good romp wouldn’t cure. He wasn’t his father. He didn’t want to get married and have children so he could ignore all but one of them. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go falling in love with Lady Madelaine and pledge his life to her. That would be just like his father, and he was done trying to please the old bastard. “Not really.”
“All wagered but one.”
“Which lady?”
“You’re quite certain one of them hasn’t stirred your appetite?”
Madelaine had done more than stir his appetite. With one encounter she’d unleashed it, and it seemed his need to know her was only growing. “Quite certain.” The words barely escaped his clenched teeth.
“If you say so. Goodbye, milords.” The woman was out the door without waiting for a reply.
Grey grabbed his coat off the chair, shoved his arms in and glared at Gravenhurst. “I’ll not have time for breakfast thanks to you allowing your guest to sleep over.” He was being unaccountably surly toward Gravenhurst, but he couldn’t seem to stop his growing irritable mood.
“Don’t try to tell me we kept you up. We were long finished by the time you crept in.”
