What I Did For a Duke (17 page)

“Rescuing baby orphans,” he said softly. “What does it
look
like I’ve been doing?”

“It looks like you’ve been set upon by thieves.”

He winced. “No need to
scream
, Miss Eversea. I
was
set upon by thieves, euphemistically speaking. I prevailed. I generally prevail over five-card loo.” He grinned crookedly.

“I spoke in a perfectly ordinary conversational tone. Mother says you’ve turned the withdrawing room into a Den of Iniquity.”

She was teasing him. And she was whispering now to protect his sensitivities, which he suddenly found unbearably touching. She was always so
thoughtful
.

He also found the soft voice unbearably sensual. It was another texture of her, like that silken hair, and her luminous skin, and her hands that hinted she was everywhere soft. Whispers were the proper language for the dark, after all.

“I divested a group of gentlemen of a good deal of money in five-card loo. Harry included,” he said with a certain mildly cruel satisfaction. “He’s a surprisingly determined and bold player, and I would warrant he oughtn’t be playing at all, given what you’ve told me of his straightened finances, but that could be the reason he does play. He does lose as often as he wins. We’re in the country, for God’s sake. Outside of shooting and walking about, what is there to do besides playing cards?”

He was half-serious.

A thought slipped through his brandy-weakened defenses: She was the reason he was staying in the country at all. That, and ensuring Ian Eversea went pale every time he saw him and flinched at every loud noise.

He became aware that she was smiling.

“We
might
have had a good deal to drink throughout the game,” he conceded. “And a good deal to smoke.”

He won so frequently it had almost become dull. But then all the men present were able to go home with a story about how the Duke of Falconbridge bet chillingly large amounts and raked in astonishing winnings. Fearless, they’d called him. Ruthless. Cold. And etcetera.

She took a step closer and was about to take another one when she paused with her slipper hovering off the ground. Then stopped abruptly and moved the candle pointedly away from him.

“If I come closer you’ll ignite. I shouldn’t like you to become Duke Flambé. Did you
drink
the brandy, or bathe in it?”

He gazed at her. “You’re so
solicitous
of my welfare.” He was again touched that she didn’t want to set him alight.

“I’m more concerned about my mother’s curtains. That particular shade of velvet cost a fortune and I shouldn’t like to tell her I used a duke for kindling.”

He smiled broadly at her.

She smiled in return.

And all at once it felt like a bright light had entered the room, though illumination was provided only by her candle and the gray light that managed to push its way through the window.

And after a moment she settled the candle down on a tiny table.

It was a tiny, fraught gesture.

It meant she intended to stay. For a moment or two, anyhow.

Suddenly his heart was beating rapidly. He was cautious of moving too quickly, lest he frighten the moment away.

“What makes you so certain it’s brandy?” He was genuinely curious. “Can you truly identify it just by the smell?”

“You’ve met my brothers.”

The word “brothers” was unfortunate in his weakened state, when he was less capable of filtering feelings. His hand twitched as though it would still have loved to close around Ian Eversea’s throat. The very room seemed to tighten around them like a steel band, such was the new tension.

“They really
did
, you know,” he said softly, suddenly.

“Did?” She was puzzled.

“The roses. Remind me of you. They’re precisely the sort of flowers you ought to have.”

Those spectacular, throbbing, lush blooms that now stood guard over her bed.

With petals unconscionably soft.

Something almost like pain or joy flickered over her face. His words had penetrated deeply. And for a moment all either of them heard was the soft, soft sound of swift breathing.

“Well, I wish you an easy night of it, though there seems little hope of that,” she said quickly, suddenly. “I’ll ring for a footman and send him down to . . . help you. Good ni—”

“Please don’t go.”

Words as unbidden as her presence, and shaken loose by brandy.

And the hand he would have used to choke Ian Eversea reached out and landed just above her elbow and closed.

Firmly stopping her from leaving him.

Motionless, they stared at each other, and then they both stared down at his hand, as though it belonged to someone else, had naught to do with them.

And then his hand slid slowly up her arm as if it were a road he had no choice but to follow. Up the slim, soft bare skin of her arm. It was so cool, such a silken, heartbreakingly soft path.

She tensed beneath his hand.

And when it touched her hair lying draped over her shoulder, he exhaled softly. He sank his fingers into it, then drew them slowly, slowly out, in aching wonder.

“It’s what this night would feel like if I could seize hold of it.”

More words let loose by brandy and darkness and foolishness. He wasn’t sober enough to feel embarrassed by their lyricism or to wonder how that sort of poetry got inside of
him
and kept emerging around her. They merely struck him as accurate.

She gave a breathless, astonished laugh.

The laugh excited him. And he knew very well what short breath meant.

He knew that Genevieve Eversea was excited.

Her eyes were shadows in her pale face, but he didn’t sense fear, only fascination. Her breath came swiftly through parted lips. She didn’t move to test whether he’d release her.

He wondered if he
would
release her if she tugged.

He decided he wouldn’t.

But she didn’t tug.

“Genevieve,” he murmured speculatively, landing hard on that first syllable, gliding over the next, as though they were soft rolling Sussex hills, as though each syllable had its very own character and deserved equal attention.

He wound more of her hair in his fist, again, and again. So soft. And this manner he reeled her absurdly closer to him.

And she came to him.

She was so close her breath landed softly on his chin.

She looked up at him. Their gazes fused.

“What did you
think
would happen, Miss Eversea, if you ever encountered me alone in the dark?” he murmured.

And then he eased her head back with a final tug on her hair, and brought his mouth down to hers.

He didn’t savor or coax or indulge or finesse. He invaded. With a hint of mockery, a hint of self-indulgent cruelty, his sinewy tongue got between her lips and set to work plundering with the same skillful, carnal recklessness he’d kiss a greedy, experienced lover. To show this clever girl how much she didn’t know. To breach her defenses before they had a chance to stir.

Her body was rigid with surprise. Her mouth was hot and soft and sweet as cognac. Her lips were a wonder of give. He knew he had but a second or two before whatever animal instinct lived strongest in her recovered from shock and either kneed him in the baubles; or discovered she actually enjoyed kissing, and surrendered, like any proper wanton.

He hadn’t counted on a third option.

Stealthily as a liqueur or an excellent drug, in much the way she’d been doing for days now, Genevieve Eversea—her heat, her scent, her generosity and kindness, her devastating sensuality, entered his bloodstream. Beneath his hand, the lush, lithe give of her body just barely brushing against his chest, the hum of that passion she kept so tamped, burned through him.

The invader becoming the invaded—that was the third option.

He was hers now.

He loosened his hand in her hair and cradled her head, tenderly, tenderly, as though it was made of porcelain. His mouth eased, softened, and surrendered to properly discovering the wonders of hers. Inconceivable that her blossom lips should be so soft, and yet so demanding, and yes, she had begun to demand. She had an instinct for this.

It would be his undoing.

He drew in a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. Paused for an instant, resting his mouth delicately against hers, loath to relinquish the feel of her even for the moment it took to breathe.

Her hands slid up his chest, lingering over where his heart thumped. The cool, soft fingers landed on the vee of skin left bare by his unbuttoned shirt and loosened cravat, her touch at first tentative and cool, then more confident when her curiosity became courage. It slipped deeper inside his shirt, slid against his hot skin, over his hard chest, and he heard himself murmur and sigh, “Dear
God
,” as it slid over him, raked lightly into the hair there.

He was shaking.

And so was she.

His big hand fanned and slid over the blades of her shoulders, settling in that sweet space between them, where it fit as though it had been carved just for him. Then slid down the eloquent line of her spine, to the small dip of her back, to cup the sweet curve of her arse.

And then he pressed her hard, closer to the hard swell of his cock.

A shock of pleasure for both of them, and she made a small primal sound in her throat. And she pushed herself against him.

The fit of their bodies was sublime. Unexpectedly right. Their lips nipped, clung, slid; his tongue plunged to taste her again, her head bending back against this sensual assault even as she took as much as he gave. He felt the floor opening up beneath him, and gravity release its hold. Surely he was flying.

He could
taste
the wildness in her, the wildness he’d sensed the way one could taste an approaching storm in a breeze. It felt infinite; it shocked him. He knew she struggled against it, was buffeted by it, but for the moment was utterly in command of it. As she was in command of herself at all times.

Her control excited him almost unbearably. He would steal it from her. He wanted it unleashed. He wanted to be over her and inside when the storm finally broke.

And this is why he ended the kiss.

Not abruptly. He eased it to a close with the grace of an excellent actor ending a scene. He held her close to him, one hand resting on the curve of her arse, the other still wound in her hair, and for a moment their chests rose and fell against each other. Her breasts were crushed against him. Her breath fell softly through parted lips against his chin.

And just as slowly as he’d wound her hair, he unspooled it. It fell from his fist as though it was a yard of silk he’d spun all on his own.

Now that he’d unleashed her, he stood back.

Neither of them spoke. He could hear the roar of his own breath but felt as removed from the sound as though he were listening to the wind blowing down the chimney. And yet he was acutely aware of the surface of his skin; it was feverish, aching from the need to contain the tide of . . .
want
. . . that swelled in him. He was acutely aware of the insistence of his swollen cock and the nausea he recognized as thwarted desire fluttering in the pit of his stomach. Of the quivering tension in his limbs, and the sweat cooling on his back now, all evidence of how fiercely ramped his desire had become with just one brief kiss.

He’d been reduced to heat and ache . . . and astonishment.

He could not recall the last time he’d felt
astonished
.

Disconcertingly, as it turned out,
she
could speak.

“So did it?”

She whispered it. But it was a surprisingly bold question.

He opened his mouth. Then shut it again.

He knew precisely what she meant: Did that kiss nearly destroy the memory of all other kisses, and become the benchmark against which all future kisses would be measured? Did it live up to his pompous, purple rhetoric, designed to inflame her dreams and get her bosom heaving and to remind her how very little she knew of kissing?

It was a second before he knew precisely the right answer.

“Almost.”

He wouldn’t be the Duke of Falconbridge if strategy wasn’t as second nature as breathing, and this was far too important to botch.

Her head jerked a little. She went utterly still.

She had the advantage; the dim light of the room framed him, and she remained mostly shadowed as she studied him. He doubted she had the lovelier view.

“You should see your expression,” she said softly.

“The duel one?”

“No. It’s more like . . . when a snarling dog is swatted across the nose by a kitten. Surprised and affronted. As though the natural order of things has been subverted.”

He blinked. Bloody hell, but he was charmed speechless by the analogy.

A second later he was ferociously indignant to be the subject of it.

“Snarling . . . dog . . . ?”

He said it quietly, but his tone suggested he was considering whether to call her out.

The corners of her mouth went up in a quick smile.

It delighted and unnerved him that she wasn’t afraid of him. She very much ought to be afraid of him. Perhaps she was, and was simply testing him over and over.

Testing herself, over and over.

And even though he knew who was bound to win and how this would end, he wanted to applaud her.

She was still all pale, blurred, shadowed softness. Her hair was a tumbled and almost comical mess now. She sported a slight halo of fuzz because of his rummaging hands. He knew his own hair was in disarray. He deliberately refrained from fussing with it.

It struck him as unfair that she could read his expression and he couldn’t see hers. It was as disorienting as though he’d been deprived of the use of all of his own senses. In so short a time he’d grown accustomed to gauging his own emotions by whatever hers happened to be.

The fire was still low; he likely still stank of brandy and cigar smoke; dawn through the window was still just a suggestion in the form of pale light on the far horizon. Everything was exactly the same. And yet everything was completely unfamiliar. Just like that blessed second after waking from a vivid dream, when the full weight of the life he’d lived hadn’t yet seeped in, and he was new as a baby.