Silence descended.
Fifteen
Courtesy of her earlier, futile efforts to loosen Del’s silken bonds, the pillows now hid said bonds from view. She’d look as if she’d simply fallen asleep with her arms splayed out. Which was what, furious and defeated, she’d eventually done.
She feigned sleep until the housemaid left. Then she called Bess. “Don’t ask questions-just come and untie me.”
“
Deliah raised her arms, displaying the scarves wound about her wrists.
Bess’s eyes widened even more. “Oh, my.”
“No questions.” Deliah waggled one wrist.
Bess fell to picking apart the knot securing it.
Del had gauged the bonds so while she’d had some play in her arms, she hadn’t been able to reach one hand to her other wrist, and undo the knot herself. She’d tried every contortion possible, to no avail.
When Bess had both her wrists free, she nodded with what dignity she could muster. “Thank you.”
Sitting up against the pillows, she rubbed her wrists, then noticed Bess was frowning. “What?”
Her expression disapproving, Bess gathered the scarves and set them on the dresser. “I don’t know as I hold with tying up, no matter the reason. I had thought the colonel quite gentlemanly.” Bess was quite a few years older than Deliah, and occasionally, when she deemed it necessary, could become quite motherly on Deliah’s behalf.
Deliah waved Bess to her robe. “If you must know, he tied me up so I couldn’t go with him, or follow him to the cathedral. Not until all the action is over-then, mind you, I’m supposed to join him. Huh!”
“Oh.” Returning to the bed with the robe, Bess looked thoughtful. “So he was protecting you-that’s why he tied you up.” She held up the robe as Deliah slid from the bed. “If that’s the case, I don’t suppose I can hold it against him.”
Belting the robe, Deliah leveled a narrow-eyed look at her maid. “You don’t have to.
With a frustrated humph, she headed for her washstand. “Incidentally, apparently it wasn’t only me who was tied up. You might slip downstairs and make sure all the other lady’s maids have gone up to free their mistresses.”
Bess had followed her. Deliah heard a smothered giggle from behind her, then Bess said, “Yes, miss. I’ll just slip down, if you don’t need me for a moment?”
With haughty grace, Deliah inclined her head.
Left alone, she washed, then poked in her armoire, wondering what to wear.
Wondering how she felt.
Her principal conclusion was that she felt far too much.
Elated because she and Del were to marry-that he loved her, actually
But perhaps that was what love was, what it did? Presumably it was love that made Del overlook all her flaws…no. He’d said he loved her
Even better. The fiend.
He loved her, and he’d made her love him-set her free to openly love him. She’d already loved him before, but now…
Now she loved him unreservedly.
And now she was worried. Now she was afraid.
For him. The damned man had gone off to face who knew what without her to watch his back. No her to step out of a carriage with a sword this time. So who was going to distract the enemy for him today?
She pulled out a forest-green pelisse, frogged with gold braid, that she’d yet to wear. That he’d paid an exorbitant sum for it was a point in its favor. Tossing it on the bed and resuming her hunt for a gown to go beneath it, she reminded herself that Del had the other men with him.
Presumably Devil and the others would watch his back, as she had no doubt he would theirs.
But…this loving someone, being free to love someone and therefore fall victim to all the accompanying feelings, was new to her.
Fear for another-another who now meant a very great deal to her-was new to her.
And she wasn’t at all sure she liked it.
She pulled out an elegant gown in pale green wool. It had long sleeves and was closed to the throat. If she was to go to the cathedral, she would need all the warmth she could wear, and hadn’t he said something about going on to Wolverstone’s residence afterward? In which case, she’d need the elegance, too. Laying the gown on the bed, she went to find underclothes.
Bess returned, breathless. Deliah suspected it was from laughing, not running.
“All the other maids have gone up and freed their mistresses. The duchess has called a meeting in the breakfast parlor as soon as maybe-they’re rushing to serve breakfast now-so we’d better get you dressed and ready.” Bess hurried to help her tie off her petticoat, then lifted the gown over her head.
Gowned and laced, Deliah sat at the dressing table, let Bess brush and braid her hair, and wondered what the other ladies thought. She strongly suspected they’d be as unimpressed with their spouses’ actions as she was with her spouse-to-be’s.
While she’d lain in the bed tied to the headboard waiting for dawn to arrive, she’d had plenty of time to consider the timing of Del’s offer for her hand. Being a spouse-to-be gave him certain rights-one of which he’d claimed mere hours later.
Had he made the offer so he would have the right to do what he felt he had to to protect her? Was that why he’d offered for her hand?
The uncertainty tried to insinuate itself into her mind. She considered it, but rejected it. Felt confident enough to reject it. Del was too practical a man to, as it were, sacrifice his future merely to protect a woman he considered to be in his charge-a woman he had no real feelings for. He could have tied her up without her promise to marry him, risking her wrath and subsequent alienation, if he’d had no feelings for her. If he hadn’t wanted a future with her.
She remembered enough of his words, his declarations of the night. He’d been sincere and absolute in his wishes and wants, his view of them together as the cornerstone of his future.
And the very fact that he’d gone to exceedingly domineering lengths to protect her was an irrefutable indication that he did, indeed, harbor strong feelings for her.
But she didn’t like being tied up, helpless to help him.
That, she was going to make very clear, simply would not do.
“There.” Bess slid the last pin into place. She glanced at the pelisse. “Will you be going out later?”
“Yes.” Deliah rose, tweaked her gown straight. “And I suspect it will be sooner rather than later.”
Turning, she headed for the door and the breakfast parlor. “I’m going to see what the other ladies think.”
On more than one front.
“So he proposed, and then he tied you up? Congratulations!” Eyes twinkling, Alathea beamed at Deliah. “On the proposal front, I mean. As for the rest.” Wryly, she glanced around the table. “Welcome to the club.”
