Her Every Pleasure by Gaelen Foley Read Free Book Online Page B

with a mumbled “Yes, ma’am” and made her way up the creaky staircase. But as the daylight waned, the house was getting dark. How was she supposed to see what she was doing?
    One thing was certain, she mused as she started with the console table in the corridor, lifting up each knickknack wearily and dusting under it, she had a whole new respect for all maids. With that, she sneezed at the cloud of dust she had stirred up.
    There were several rooms on the upper floor, but most of them looked like no one had set foot in them in years, so she made only a halfhearted effort to clean them. Now and then, she glanced out of the various windows, keeping watch for friend or foe, either her bodyguards coming to find her again or any sign of the villains who had attacked her entourage last night. Neither appeared.
    With daylight waning fast, she realized she had better find Gabriel’s room and get on with the job of tidying it as best she could and changing his bedding.
Laundry day tomorrow. Lord.
That sounded fun.
    She found the linens in the cedar chest just where Mrs. Moss had said they’d be, and took out a clean set of sheets for Gabriel’s bed. First she had to locate his room.
    Peeking into the various chambers that she had not yet reached in her dusting, she finally found Gabriel’s quarters. He had the largest bedchamber in the house, and the only one that looked lived in—a place of dark walnut furniture and faded blues, the walls a robin’s egg shade, with indigo draperies over the windows. Matching bed-hangings trailed down from the frame of the big, carved four-poster bed.
    An Oriental carpet covered some of the dark hardwood floor and carried on the blue theme with a few dashes of red and gold and more browns.
    Through the imposing frame of the canopied bed, she noticed an empty fireplace with a simple white mantel, a mirror above it. A large wardrobe stood by one wall, while, closer to her, a low night-chest sat beside the bed.
    In all, it was a fairly sparse chamber, with none of the gilded brilliance she was used to in her opulent interiors. Sophia let herself in quietly, surveying the room. She wasn’t sure where to begin, and as she walked deeper into his chamber, she could feel her pulse accelerating.
    It would have helped her peace of mind if she knew where Gabriel was. She hadn’t seen “the master” since this morning. And although Mrs. Moss had ordered her to do this, she couldn’t help but feel she was intruding.
    She halted just a few steps into the room, glancing around. Too intimidated at first to dare touch a strange man’s bed, she decided to start with the dusting.
    Setting aside the clean, folded sheets, she approached the night-chest with her feather duster. Feeling acutely self-conscious and all too aware of Gabriel’s bed right beside her, she made a few nervous passes over the old, scuffed wood—and then suddenly stopped.
    Her gaze homed in on the hilt of a sword that rested in the narrow space behind the night-chest and leaned against the wall.
Gabriel’s sword?
Of course, Leon always said it was wise to keep a weapon nearby in case of an intruder in the night, but Sophia was intrigued.
    With a careful glance over her shoulder, she set the feather duster down and lifted the sword and its thick leather scabbard out from behind the night-chest. To her surprise, it was a curved blade, though not the great, arched, deadly scimitar of the Turks, the traditional enemies of her people.
    No, if she was not mistaken, this was a cavalry saber.
    Hm.
Might that be what he meant when he’d told her he had a lot of experience around horses?
    Emboldened by her familiarity with all manner of weapons—Leon had been training her to defend herself ever since her eldest brother’s assassination—she pulled the saber only a few inches out of its scabbard.
    Almost at once, she noticed the aged bloodstains on the blade…and then she saw the notches on the hilt. As if its owner had kept a tally of