Deceiving the Duke of Kerrington

Chapter Ten

Taking a deep breath, Hope shakily opened the door leading into the hall. She poked her head out and glanced back and forth to make sure no one was there before stepping out onto the cold parquet floors. Her feet were bare, and she had on a simple, white morning dress, her hair flowing freely down her back. She felt silly being out and about in such disarray, but it was an important part of the plan. Without her lady's maid, Noelle wouldn't have been able to properly dress and ready herself for the day.

Hope began walking tentatively down the hall, knowing that Lord Brattondale would most likely be found in the breakfast room taking his morning tea. She dreaded going into that part of the house, knowing there was no way she could go undetected—there would be a surplus of servants scurrying about attending to their daily duties. As she came to the corner that would take her down past the drawing room and towards the breakfast room, she straightened and took a steadying breath before slipping into her role as a frantic Noelle who had just discovered her lady's maid had gone missing in the night.

Grabbing her skirt, she forged ahead at a hurried pace, attempting to look frantic. And though she was only acting, she did indeed feel frantic but for entirely different reasons. From somewhere behind her she heard a noise that startled her and quickly averted her gaze. The moment she looked down she felt herself collide with a solid mass, causing her to push back in resistance and trip into the mahogany bench sitting against the wall. Before she could steady herself, she felt her back arch and reached her hands back to catch herself on the piece of furniture that proved to be too close to the ground to offer any help and immediate support.

Instead of her hands coming in contact with hard wood of the bench, they flailed wildly as she desperately tried to grab onto something, anything to keep her upright, but to no such luck. She fell to the ground awkwardly with a thump, her left ankle twisting unnaturally beneath her in the process. The sharp pain in her ankle that accompanied her fall momentarily distracted her from her mortification. She reached down and pulled up her skirt to inspect her foot, rubbing it to ease the pain, oblivious to the stranger watching her every move.

Pierce sat back and stared in shock. He had been waiting in the drawing room for a quarter of an hour and was growing impatient with the delay. The butler had told him that Lord Brattondale would be with him shortly, but he had yet to grace Pierce with his presence. When he heard a noise in the hall he had stepped out to see what was going on, when he felt, more than saw, someone crash into his chest. He then watched in horror as the girl did an un-choreographed dance with the bench only to finish by falling gracelessly to the floor in a heap of white muslin and golden waves of hair.

Pierce had reached forward to try and steady her, but it had all happened so quickly that he had not been able to respond in time, so he watched helplessly as the girl fell to the floor. He immediately made to assist her to her feet, but was distracted by her motions when she pulled up her skirt to reveal a slender ankle and one dainty foot. The appearance of that one bare limb had him mesmerized—it was a provocatively feminine leg, and he couldn't seem to peel his eyes away.

He watched for a second while the girl rubbed her foot before his brain seemed to kick into gear and start working again. He squatted down next to her and cleared his throat. The girl looked up sharply, seeming to become aware for the first time that she was not alone.

"Oh! I apologize." She quickly pulled her skirt down, much to his regret, to cover the view he had just been appreciating so fully. "I was just looking for my father."

Pierce looked at the disheveled girl in front of him with new eyes. Could this be Lady Noelle? By father, certainly, she was referring to Lord Brattondale. He briefly scanned her body before returning to look at her face. If this was indeed Lady Noelle, then Elliot had been wrong, terribly wrong, for this girl was not plain in any way. Her long hair fell all around her shoulders in cascading waves of honey, tempting him to reach out and run his hand through the thick locks. How had Elliot described her? Nondescript. She was the farthest thing from nondescript he had ever seen—her pale face was artfully arranged with full pink lips, a straight nose, and when he looked into her eyes, he gasped. She had the most amazing eyes he had ever looked into! They were the color of brandy and he couldn't seem to look away. He had a sudden desire to reach out and brush a wayward strand of hair from her face, stopping himself before he did just that.