He looked at her through the mirror.
“Kit suggested that we… for safety… sleep in the same room.”
His eyes sobered instantly and he rose to his full height. “That is sensible.”
He went to her basin and soaked a clean towel in the water. He then sat on the edge of the bed beside her and handed it to her. She took it, feeling embarrassed about what she was about to do.
“May I?” he asked.
She had no words for a moment. “Is that what husbands do?” she finally said.
“That is what I do. For you.”
Nodding, she handed the towel back. Lifting the hem of her nightgown, he cleaned her gently. She saw his member growing, but he simply tossed the towel beside the basin and returned.
He blew out the candle and got into bed in his shirt. The mattress dipped with his weight, his warmth heating her cooling body. They both lay on their backs, staring at the canopy.
“Turn on your side, Violet,” his voice rumbled low in the dark. She turned. The mattress dipped once more as he came closer, his arm circling her waist. He pulled her back against him, her spine against his chest, her hips against his. She felt him, still hard, pressed against the small of her back. He was refraining for her safety. And that knowledge warmed her inside and out.
His face buried in her hair, his breath warm against her scalp. His arm was heavy over her ribs, his hand spread flat against her stomach, each finger warm through the linen. Her body began to relax and melt against his, her shoulders dropping and breaths slowing. She found his hand and laced her fingers through his. He exhaled a long, unsteady breath.
This was what safety felt like.
She closed her eyes, pressing her back into him, and felt his arm tighten.
Chapter thirty-one
The Muslin
Violet
She woke before he did. The room was still dark, the fire burned to embers, the curtains holding out whatever grey light the morning had managed. Henry lay on his side behind her, his arm still draped across her waist, his breath steady against the back of her neck. She did not move. She lay in the warm cave of his body and listened to him breathe and felt, for the first time in her life, the simple pleasure of being held by someone who cared for her.
She turned her head carefully on the pillow. His face was slack with sleep, the hard lines of his jaw and brow softened, his mouth slightly open. He looked younger. He looked like the man he might have been were it not for grief, guilt, tragedies. A strand of dark hair had fallen across his forehead. She resisted the urge to push it back because she did not want to wake him. She wanted this. Another minute of it. Another hour.
She smiled in the dark. It was a foolish smile, the kind she was embarrassed about even now in private.
Violet slipped out from under his arm and donned her dressing gown. She did not ring for Sarah. Instead she dressed herself with short stays underneath. She was fastening her earrings when she heard the commotion downstairs. A voice in the hall carried upward. Cranbrook.
She hurried to the landing. The duchess was already on the stairs, climbing like a woman with an undertaking, her portfolio under one arm and her expression murderous.
“What has happened?” Violet asked.
“What has happened is that the Iredell ball is to take place in a fortnight and your invitations have not gone out.” Cranbrook reached the top of the stairs and fixed her with a look that could have curdled the chocolate. “I assumed, when I left here yesterday, that you would attend to the cards. Was I wrong?”
“It has been only one-and-twenty hours since your departure.”
“I would think one-and-twentyhours is enough to write a few invitation cards.”
“I am sorry. We have been occupied.”
“Occupied,” Cranbrook spat, “London has been waiting. You ought to have sent at least the important invitations yesterday. If those cards are not in the post by this afternoon, half your guests will have accepted other engagements and the Patronesses will assume they have been forgotten, which is a slight from which there is no recovery. Come.”
They set up in the morning room. Cranbrook produced the guest list and a stack of ivory card stock with the Iredell crest embossed at the top.
“Two hundred and fourteen,” the older woman said. “Every card personally written. A duchess does not delegate her invitations. It signals indifference.”
“Two hundred and fourteen cards,” Violet repeated.