A Scandal By Any Other Name-Chapter 73 - Seventy Three

The morning sun was not gentle. It did not creep into the room; it invaded.

It streamed through the gap in the heavy velvet curtains of the Blue Guest Suite, hitting Delaney Kingsley squarely in the face. It was bright, cheerful, and entirely unwelcome.

Delaney groaned as she woke up.

She tried to turn over, to bury her face in the pillow and pretend the day had not started, but her body betrayed her. Her limbs felt heavy, like they were filled with sand. Her head throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache that sat right behind her eyes.

She sat up slowly. The room spun for a second before settling.

She touched her head, her fingers massaging her temples. A headache was definitely starting to form. It wasn’t the sharp pain of illness, but the heavy, dragging weight of emotional exhaustion.

"That same old memory," she whispered.

Her voice was raspy. Her throat felt dry, as if she had been screaming in her sleep.

She realized she had dreamt about her parents’ death. The rain. The mud. The sound of the carriage snapping. The feeling of her mother’s cold hand in hers. It was the same nightmare that had haunted her for twenty years, playing on a loop in the back of her mind. She hasn’t had one since she started staying at the Hamilton house. Maybe, she thought, it is because of Lord Hawksley’s presence.

Usually, she woke up from it screaming. Today, she had woken up in silence.

She rubbed her eyes, trying to clear the image of the gray sky from her mind. She looked around the room.

It was the Blue Suite. The fire in the grate had burned down to cold ash. The chair where she had sat yesterday before moving to the floor was empty.

Delaney shifted in the bed linen. The sheets were soft, smelling of lavender—the scent she had ordered for Lady Celine.

She looked down at herself.

She froze.

She was not wearing her yesterday’s dress. She was not wearing the shoes Rowan had bought her. She was not even wearing her stockings.

She was in her chemise.

It was a simple white cotton garment, thin and intimate. Her arms were bare. Her shoulders were bare.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the fog of her headache.

"How... how?" she whispered to herself.

She grabbed the quilt and pulled it up to her chin, covering herself. Her heart began to hammer against her ribs.

I was on the floor, she thought frantically. I was in the corner. I was crying. Rowan was there.

She closed her eyes, forcing her mind to go back to the evening before.

She remembered the fear. She remembered the name "Hawksley" echoing in her head. She remembered the feeling of the walls closing in on her.

And then, she remembered him.

She remembered Rowan.

She remembered the way he had sat on the floor with her. He hadn’t cared about the dust. He hadn’t cared that he was a Duke. He had wrapped his arms around her.

She remembered snuggling into Rowan’s arms. She remembered the solid wall of his chest. She remembered him calming her, his large, warm hands rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles. She remembered his hand smoothing her hair, tucking her head under his chin.

He held me, she thought. He held me until I stopped shaking.

A phantom sensation brushed her nose.

"He smelled familiar," she thought to herself.

He smelled of sandalwood soap, crisp linen, and something uniquely him—something warm and safe, like a library on a rainy day.

But then, the memory went blank. She must have fallen asleep in his arms.

And now she was in bed. In her chemise.

Delaney brought her knees to her face, curling into a tight ball. Her dark curly hair, loose and tangled, fell forward to cover her face like a wrinkled curtain.

Her ears turned bright red. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"I have done the worst," she said to herself. Her voice was muffled by her knees. "I fell apart. I let him see me broken. And then... did he put me to bed? Did he... undress me?"

The thought made her want to disappear into the mattress. If Rowan had undressed her, it was a scandal. It was improper. It was... intimate.

"How do I face him now?" she moaned.

She was supposed to be the professional matchmaker. She was supposed to be the "cousin." She was supposed to be the strong, efficient woman who made lists and ordered him around.

Instead, she was the weeping girl who needed to be carried to bed.

Knock. Knock.

The sound made her jump.

Delaney sat straight up. She pushed her hair back, trying to look composed. She clutched the sheet to her chest with white knuckles.

"Come in," she called out. Her voice wavered only slightly.

The door opened.

Sarah, the young maid who had been assigned to her, bustled in. She carried a tray with a pitcher of water and a glass. Her face was kind, but she moved with the brisk energy of someone who had already been awake for hours.

"Miss Kingsley," Sarah said, setting the tray on the bedside table. "Are you alright?"

Delaney nodded quickly. "I’m fine. Good morning."

"Good morning, Miss."

Sarah poured a glass of water. The sound of the liquid hitting the glass was loud in the quiet room. She handed it to Delaney.

"Drink this," Sarah instructed gently. "You slept very deeply."

Delaney took it. Her hands were shaking a little, so she held the glass with both hands.

"Thank you," she said.

She took a sip. The water was cool and clean. It washed away the dry taste of the nightmare.

She watched Sarah over the rim of the glass. The maid moved to the wardrobe. She opened the doors and began to sort through the dresses Aunt Margery had bought for her stay as the Hamilton cousin.

"What shall it be today?" Sarah mused. She pulled out a soft beige dress. "This one, perhaps? It is calm. And warm."