Pendrake's Chamber

"I smelled perfume on her that night—a hint of rosewater wrapped in lavender—and marked that as strange. A servant girl from the kitchens could not possess such fineries, and where would she have come across such a scent, anyway? I knew enough of her family to be certain that perfume was not a thing they could readily afford, nor would they indulge themselves so needlessly if they chanced into the boon of coins that would allow them such luxuries. So she must have stolen it—a splash taken from a noble woman’s chambers, I supposed. It did not matter. My mind was on other things: the roundness of her cheeks as she looked on me and laughed; the milk-white skin of her craning neck, tinted just a hint of rose as she flushed; the outward curve of her hips as my hand traced along it, squeezing her more tightly to me."
—Pendrake Sommer, Duke of Tersing