Free A Seduction at Christmas by Cathy Maxwell Page B

across the room. They’d spent the night cleaning his clothes the best they could.
    “It went fine ,” Fiona snapped. “And I’ll not take a penny less just because he’s so irritating .”
    “I’ve never seen you so emotional,” Grace observed.
    Fiona jabbed a finger in the direction of the curtain. “I saved that man’s life,” she said in a furious whisper. “I carried him through the streets of London and does he care? No! The only true reason I tied him up was to protect myself from his insane temper when he woke. And I’m glad I did,” she said, moving toward the hearth.
    From the other room, Holburn bellowed, “I’m hungry.”
    Fiona scowled at the curtain. “He needs to bequiet,” Grace worried. “What if Mr. Simon or someone else hears him?”
    “Fee, it’s time for one of those ‘other’ things,” Holburn yelled. “I’m hungry, Fee.”
    “I thought you didn’t like being called Fee?” Grace said.
    “I don’t,” Fiona answered. Only her brother had been allowed to call her “Fee.” How like the Duke of Holburn to instinctively know how to annoy her.
    “Fee-e-e,” he called. “Fee-e-ed me.”
    Now he was being silly. “He’s testing us,” Fiona said. “He doesn’t believe I am serious.” She stomped over to the hearth. She picked up a bowl from her cabinet shelf.
    “What are you doing?” Grace asked as Fiona started ladling the remains of the porridge the two of them had made and eaten for their breakfast.
    “He’s hungry,” Fiona said.
    “But you can’t feed him that ,” Grace said, hurrying over to the hearth. Keeping her voice low, she said, “He’s a duke .”
    “He’s a prisoner ,” Fiona corrected, aiming the last word toward the curtain.
    “Dukes don’t eat porridge for breakfast,” Grace answered.
    “They do if they are hungry,” Fiona replied.
    “I’m hungry,” Holburn complained from the other room. “I want a steak and a glass of ale, Fee.”
    “Oh, yes, porridge it is,” Fiona muttered to herself. She picked up a spoon and headed toward the curtain.
    Grace stopped her. “We must do something about his shouting. His voice carries.”
    “I know exactly what to do,” Fiona answered. She set down the porridge bowl long enough to take his neck cloth off the line. It was still a bit damp. She rolled it up, held it by one finger as she picked up the bowl and went through the curtain.
    Holburn greeted her with, “It’s about bloody time. Tad and I were growing lonely. Next time, you’d best be a bit more quick about it—”
    She cut him off by stuffing a spoonful of porridge in his mouth.
    His expression turned comical. He tasted the gruel and then all but gagged. “What is this?”
    “Your breakfast, Your Grace,” she said serenely. She’d set the porridge and rolled neck cloth on the bedside table so that she could close the open window. “Here now, I don’t want you to take a chill. Tad uses this window to go back and forth to do his business.”
    Still frowning over the taste of the porridge, Holburn said, “He can jump a floor’s height?”
    “There is a shed against the building. He can climb his way up.”
    The duke considered her a moment. “You don’t fear I’ll use this information to plan an escape?”
    She picked up the porridge bowl, making a great show of stirring the lumpy gruel, as she said, “I spent hours tying you down last night. I don’t believe you will be going anywhere.” She deliberately kept Grace’s involvement a secret. Holburn didn’t need to know everything.
    “Open up,” she coaxed him, holding up a spoonful of porridge.
    He clamped his lips shut.
    “I thought you were hungry?” she teased him.
    His glower said louder than words what he thought, so she was surprised when he dutifully opened his mouth.
    He really was a handsome man. His huge body took up all her cot and his hair was charmingly sleep mussed. A growth of whiskers darkened his jaw in a very attractive, masculine way—
    Her