Say Yes to the Duke (14 page)

She kept glaring at him.

“Sit,” he insisted, “or I’ll pull you down next to me. If you try to run away, I’ll
capture you. And if I have to do that, I promise I won’t let you escape until I’m
good and ready to let you go.”

She let out a gusty sigh and lowered herself to the straw. “All right. This once,
I’ll sit. But don’t threaten me again. You’re still a groom, and I’m a woman of influence,
as you’ve noted. I can get you removed from this property without a reference. I could
make your life a living hell.”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that before.” He gave a small yawn, just to rile her. “And
you won’t do it. You’re too kind. And you don’t really want me gone.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She refused to look at him. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because”—he slid over so that she could see his eyes—“there’s something I have to
find at the house. And you’re going to find it for me.”

“How dare you order me about?” she hissed. “If you need assistance, you should ask
politely. I refuse to listen to anything you have to say until you show that basic
courtesy.”

He couldn’t resist turning that rounded chin so that she faced him directly again.
Her eyes were stormier than ever.

“I’m not asking,” he told her. “I’m ordering. There’s something I need that belongs
to me—and you’re going to look for it.”

“You”—she gulped—“are extremely rude. And you’re also out of your mind. You can’t
order me to do anything.”

“Certainly I can,” he said. “I’m doing it now. You have until the end of the week
to find it—that’s six more days—and if you don’t, I’ll tell Oscar you’re in danger
from the duke, and Oscar will feel compelled to take you home immediately.”

She gasped. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you simply ask me to help you?”

“
Ask?
Why would I do that?”

“I can’t believe you said that. You are
so
arrogant.”

“I don’t like to be beholden to anyone, my lady. Besides, if I had asked, you’d have
said no.”

“How do you know?”

“Would you have said yes?”

“No.”

“See?”

She folded her arms again and glared at him. “So you think coercing me is an acceptable
alternative?”

One of the puppies stirred. Esmeralda nudged it and looked at Luke and Lady Janice
with worried eyes.

“Why not?” Luke pitched his voice lower so as not to disturb the dog. “If it works?”

“Well, it won’t,” Lady Janice whispered. But she was so adamant and agitated, her
braid swung from one shoulder to the other.

“All right, then,” Luke said. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll tell Oscar that the duke is
a dangerous man. You might be snowed in, but you can bet Oscar will find a way to
get you to the village, even if it means he has to carry you over his shoulder.”

“Don’t you dare speak to Oscar!”

“You want to stay, don’t you?”

“Yes. As you well know.” She frowned at him. “So tell me what it is I’m looking for.”

“A journal. It belonged to my mother, Emily March.”

“Your mother?”

He nodded. “Why so shocked?”

“What’s your mother’s journal doing at Halsey House?”

Two puppies woke up and made little grunting noises.
You’re too loud,
Esmeralda’s expression seemed to say.

Luke gladly moved a few inches closer to the warm woman next to him. “She worked for
the dowager duchess.”

Lady Janice leaned away. “Really?”

“Yes. Long ago, before I was born.” He couldn’t stop looking into the blue depths
of her eyes for the secret to her attractiveness. It was something he couldn’t define.
It went beyond standard good looks. She was very pretty, but he’d seen women who’d
turn more heads. Yet none of them had ever captivated him the way she did.

He wondered if someone had put something in his tea. Some sort of potion.

“Stop staring at me that way,” she murmured.

“What way?”

“Like that.” She pushed on his chest. “And move back.”

He didn’t budge. “
S-s-sh
. You’ll wake more puppies.” He wanted very badly to kiss her, but it wouldn’t be
a good idea. “Look at Esmeralda,” he said in a moment of inspiration. “She’s bothered.”

It took Lady Janice a good few seconds to drag her gaze away from his and look over
her shoulder—a delay that tortured Luke. Her mouth was calling to him.

“Sorry,” she whispered to the dog.

Esmeralda thumped her tail.

But when Lady Janice turned back to him, Luke’s momentary reprieve from wanting to
crush her to him and kiss her was over.

“Why can’t you just knock on the door and ask Halsey for this journal?” she asked.

“Because he might not want to give it to me.”

“Why?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Then I refuse to help.”

“You keep forgetting that I’m
making
you help.”

She was wrong for the job, Luke knew. All wrong. But deuce take it, she could be right.
He could make her so. He’d been seeking a
man
to help him, had been waiting six weeks for just the right one, someone sympathetic
and intelligent—a footman, perhaps—who’d have the guts to search Halsey House for
the diary and who could be trusted not to stab him in the back.

He’d no idea that the best candidate would turn out to be a woman.

Lady Janice grabbed his coat collar. “Tell me why the duke wouldn’t want to give you
the journal, Mr. Callahan. Or—or I’ll turn the tables on
you.
”

“Will you? How?” He pried her fingers loose from his coat.

“I need to think about it. But it will be devastating, I assure you.”

He was amused by her robust attacks upon his person. But he also admired her nerve,
so he would reward her with a small piece of the whole truth. “My mother may have
been mistreated here. And if so, she likely would have written about it in her diary.
That’s why the occupants of the house might not want to hand it over.”

“Oh,” she said, seemingly pacified. “Did she tell you herself she might have been
mistreated?”

“No, the nuns at St. Mungo’s Orphanage told me.”

“The
nuns
? And what’s this about an orphanage?”

“It was Sister Brigid in particular, and my mother and I lived at the orphanage. It’s
a long story, and I’m not the sharing sort.”

Lady Janice shook her head. “You’ll have to get beyond that. If you want my help,
I
must
know more. Why were you in the orphanage? And what happened to your mother?”

“Just go find the journal. There’s a chance, of course, that it’s no longer there.
Perhaps someone found it long ago and threw it away. But on her deathbed, my mother
confided in Sister Brigid that she hid it and wanted it found.”

“She didn’t say where it was?”

“No. She was practically incoherent. For all we know, this story was part of her delirium.
But I want to find out for myself.”

And for the residents of St. Mungo’s. And for every person who’d had their happiness
stolen away by Grayson or his father.

But Lady Janice didn’t have to know that part.

“You have to tell me more.” Lady Janice’s voice was trembling with intensity. “I can’t
go looking for Emily March’s journal and not know why she was delirious, why you were
with the nuns, and why she hid her journal.”

“Yes, you can. I’m coercing you.”

Lady Janice closed her eyes. “You’ve no tact.”

“No.” He picked up her braid and caressed its golden silkiness with his thumb. “Why
should I? I’m a groom.”

She opened her eyes again and took her braid back. “You’ve given me six days to find
this journal?”

“Yes.” Was that pretty confusion in her voice? Was he distracting her somehow? Because
he was certainly losing focus himself. The journal seemed less and less important.
Touching Lady Janice—kissing her—seemed much more imperative a goal at the moment.

Could he give himself that moment? He knew the bigger picture. He did. But right now—near
her—he wanted to stop thinking about it.

For a little while.

“If you expect me to have any luck at all”—she brushed a tendril of hair off her face—“I
need to know everything
you
know about Emily March. I need to feel her as I’m searching. It’s got to do with
feminine instinct.”

“I admire feminine instinct.”

“Do you?” Her voice was a little breathy.

“Yes.” He wanted—

Oh, dear God, he simply wanted.

Her.

It was stupid of him. Careless. It went against everything in him. But there she was,
her concern for a woman she didn’t know—a woman who wasn’t even alive anymore—making
a mockery of the rules of survival he lived by.

“There’s a male instinct, too, you know.” He picked up her hand and traced a circle
over the back of it with his finger.

“Mr. Callahan—” The words were practically strangled in her throat.

He stopped tracing and looked up. “Yes?”

“I need my hand back.”

“Are you sure? I’d like to borrow it another few seconds.”

She shook her head. “That’s not a good idea.”

He lifted it to his mouth, palm up, and kissed its center. Her skin was sweet and
warm. He couldn’t help closing his eyes, inhaling her scent, and pressing that hand
against his jaw.

“No,” she whispered.

He opened his eyes. “Did you know that
no
means ‘yes’? Just for today?”

She giggled. “You’re outrageous, Luke Callahan.”

He was, too. Still holding her fingers, but now cradling them in his lap, he leaned
through the foot of air separating them, pulled her close, and kissed her lush mouth.

Chapter Twelve

The air in the stable stall smelled of straw, warm puppy, and virile man.

When Luke Callahan put his arm around Janice’s shoulder, pulled her close, and slanted
his mouth across her own, she knew that she’d asked him to put a lantern in the window
for that very reason—so she could kiss him again, feel his body pressed close to hers.

Yes, she cared about Esmeralda and the puppies, but the truth was, Janice was just
as eager to see the man whose mouth covered hers so possessively that she whimpered
aloud.

She was worse than one of those puppies craving Esmeralda’s maternal attention.

Janice craved this man. What was it about him that made her forget everything proper?
She shouldn’t kiss a groom. Plain and simple.

But ladylike reservations went out the window when he pressed her back into the straw.
She let it happen, just as she allowed him to keep kissing her, his tongue delving
deep into her own mouth, seeking out her response, which she gave wholeheartedly.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured near her ear.

He kissed her jaw, caressed her temple, and ran his other hand over her coat near
her hip.

As she had that afternoon on the long, snowy driveway, Janice felt adored. It was
such a heady feeling that she let her head fall back even farther into the tickly
straw so that the impossible-to-resist groom could continue exploring her neck.

He nipped her ear and brought his head up.

She had to focus her eyes. “Yes?”

“This isn’t working,” he said in such a rough, manly voice, she ached to pull him
down and kiss him again.

And then she heard what he said, and a dark rush of embarrassment flooded her being.
“You’re right,” she breathed. “What was I thinking? I’m sorry.”

She immediately pulled herself up onto her elbows and was struggling to get to a sitting
position when he stood and held out a hand.

He didn’t grin, exactly. But his eyes twinkled with something like amusement while
the corner of his mouth tilted upward. “That’s not what I meant. Here.”

She took his hand, and he pulled her to a standing position.

“Your coat’s in the way,” he said. “And the straw is, too.” He pulled four large pieces
out of her hair.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “But now that I’m standing again, I can see that we really shouldn’t
have—”

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her long and deep.

By the time the kiss was over, Janice’s knees were literally missing. At least it
felt
like they were. She was so wobbly that when he began to unbutton her coat she simply
stood there and watched. And then she allowed him to turn her around while he removed
it.

“There,” he said when he was done.

He looked her up and down. “You came out in a night rail?” His pupils were dilated
with what could only be shock at how silly she appeared.

“I had no idea I’d be taking off my coat,” she said as primly as possible. “I should
put it back on.”

He didn’t say a word. He merely took off his own coat, threw it in the straw, and
advanced a step. A thrilling sort of fear shot through her, setting off shimmering
sparks of desire at the juncture between her legs, which was moist and wanting.

Ready.

He’d made it so.

His eyes were half-lidded when he put a hand on either side of her face. Did his entire
body feel as heavy as her own felt? When he kissed her again, his hands slowly descended
to her shoulders, then her waist, and then her lower back and hips.

It was heaven. Absolute heaven.

And then he butted his masculine hardness against her belly.

Ah.
So there was more to heaven, after all.

She pressed right back and moaned her wonder and pleasure into his mouth.

“
Damn
you,” he murmured as he pressed kisses against her neck.

And then he kissed her mouth again, but this time there was something different. Something
fierce. He ran his hand liberally over her body. And when he cupped her breast in
his hand she reveled in the sensation even as she was still shocked at his words.

He was a man who enjoyed teasing.

The sensible part of her mind stirred. What did she mean to him beyond a temporary
pleasure and a way to get to his precious journal?