How to Forget a Duke

by Vivienne Lorret

  Reflexively, her fingers splayed over his waistcoat and over the broad expanse of muscle beneath. Struggling to catch her breath, she was pressed against the entire length of him, from her cheek to her ankles. Even his firm thighs anchored hers in place, chasing away any errant shivers of fear.

  “I did not expect to find you here, Rydstrom,” she said, her voice raspy, her heart beating in a peculiar, fluttering rhythm beneath her breast.

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “Well, it was a rather rudely worded question, wasn’t it?” And yet she wasn’t offended in the least. A peculiar thrill trampled through her from those passionate expletives, the gruffness in his voice. Or perhaps it stemmed from the way he held her so tightly, as if he would never let her go. And, considering the turbulent state of their acquaintanceship thus far, that notion was as confusing as it was appealing. “Besides, shouldn’t you be occupied with duke business or something?”

  “‘Duke business’?”

  At her temple, she felt the shift of his cheek as if it were lifted in a grin. But was that even possible?

  Part of her wanted to draw back just to see if her speculation was correct. However, the rest of her—the parts that were pressed wantonly against him—wanted to know what he might feel like without this waistcoat.

  Absently, her fingertip brushed the crisp border, where the superfine wool met with his linen shirt beneath. “Oh, you know, ordering people about, locking visitors in your tower room . . . finding an heiress to marry. That sort of thing.”

  Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. She could tell he was glowering now—not simply with his brow, but with his entire person.

  His hands slid down her back, tightened at her waist briefly, and then released her. Taking a step away, he moved to the yawning archway and jerked the door closed with such force that the crackle of splintering wood tore through the stilted air. “You were supposed to be in the library.”

  “I was in the library,” she said, looking around for the book she must have dropped during the ordeal. She found it, half hidden beneath her skirts and bent to pick it up. “See?”

  He said nothing in response. Instead, his gaze drifted over her face, darkening with irritation and . . . something she hadn’t seen before and, therefore, could not catalogue it with the various forms of his glowers.

  Needing to know what it was, she asked, “Why are you staring at me that way?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “There was no particular way. I was merely noticing your ears.”

  He’d noticed her mouth, too. Her lips felt plumper now because of it.

  “What about my ears?” At the moment, she couldn’t remember what they looked like. She couldn’t remember much of anything, not with the way his strangely intense gaze roamed from one ear to the next, pausing briefly to study her mouth as she spoke. Self-conscious, she wet her lips.

  He expelled a breath that flared his nostrils. “I have never before seen a pair that were solely designed to be ornamental. Just a pretty shell on either side of your head.”

  Under his scrutiny, she felt them grow hot, burning beneath a thin layer of flesh.

  “In the future, Miss Bourne,” he continued, his voice deep with warning, “I would prefer if you would use them to listen to me. I will not always be nearby to save you from your own foolish mistakes.”

  “Perhaps if you would say something of interest, then I might listen. But all you seem to do is rail at me and bark orders. Surely, my uncle expected us to be better friends than this, or else he wouldn’t have introduced us.”

  She waited for a beat to see if he would confirm this with a word, a twitch, something. Yet the moment he lifted his brows in clear exasperation, she knew he hadn’t taken the bait.

  “Come, Miss Bourne,” he said, striding past her and around a hidden corner.

  Without further conversation, he guided her through a maze of corridors and down the stairs. Though, to his credit, he stayed close to her side, his watchful presence returning a sense of security that—she didn’t realize until now—had left her while she’d been wandering the castle alone.

  By the time they reached the familiar mischievous faces carved into the corbels of the minstrel’s gallery, she was feeling more like herself. Or at least, what she knew of herself.

  “I like it here.” She slowed her steps, lifting her gaze to the vaulted ceiling where various shades of green and blue paint created the illusion of a leafy canopy and a clear sky overhead. Over time, it had faded and bits of plaster must have fallen away, for there were a number of sections of newer, white plaster that overlapped the design. “There’s a sense of joy here, as if the walls remember the sound of laughter and music.”

  Her escort grumbled with impatience. “Enjoy it while you can, because you’ll likely not return.”

  “Back to the tower for me, is it?”

  That unidentified glower returned as he looked at her, his expression and stance both hardened with coiled tension. Then he turned away and strode toward an open door just beyond this hall. Beneath his breath, he muttered, “I should be so fortunate.”

  She hastened her step to follow, only to have him stop at the threshold, turn to her and say, “Wait here.”

  Well, of course she didn’t listen. Frankly, it surprised her that he would speak the two words designed to incite her curiosity. Foolish man.

  Strolling in behind him, she quickly found herself in a room covered in weapons. Rows of swords and shields hung on the walls, along with a pair of suits of armor standing sentinel on opposite sides of the door. A pleasant, earthy fragrance lingered in the air, inviting her to draw a deeper breath that hinted at cedar. Her gaze shifted to Rydstrom automatically, to the broad shoulders straining against the seams of his coat as he reached for a sword on the table and carefully set it on the hooks extending from the wall.

  Aside from the scrape of his footfalls against the stone floor, the stillness here evoked a sense of reverence. Not a single dust mote floated in the air, and every blade was polished to a mirror gleam. Even these strange, spiked iron balls attached to chains held a certain luster.

  Not knowing what they were or how they were used, she studied them, her fingertips gliding along the grooved wooden handles. “What are these called?”

  Yet before the question went past her lips, she accidentally dislodged the handle from its mounting. Unthinkingly, she gripped it hard to keep it from falling. But she was too late.

  Rydstrom was at her side in an instant. His hand enveloped hers as the spiked iron ball fell, the weight of it jerking her wrist as it swung like a pendulum in a grim reaper’s clock. Yet she felt no pain from the sudden movement because he was there to guide her in a slow downward arc, giving way to the impetus of the iron ball. Together, they became part of the weapon’s swing, watching as those filed points coasted over the layers of muslin near her leg. But she had no fear that it was going to touch her. She knew that Rydstrom would never allow it.

  All the same, Rydstrom let out a heavy breath, and growled, “Must you interfere with everything, Miss Bourne?”

  Intuitively, she knew his statement encompassed more than their brief acquaintance here. Rankled by the fact that she couldn’t remember what had happened between them before, she lashed back with equal vehemence. “As a matter of fact, yes. Curiosity fills me like a swarm of bees that never rests. At the very least, you could tell me the name of the object in my grasp so that I can quiet the hive for a single minute.”

  “It is a flail,” he answered, his voice deeper as he leaned closer to dislodge the thick handle from her grasp. At the touch of his long, adroit fingers and the rasp of his warm, callused palm over her bare knuckles, a pleasant shiver stole over her.

  Then, too soon, he took the weapon and moved away to put it back in place. “And what is its purpose?”

  “That wasn’t even a minute. Your curiosity seems more like a swarm of wasps, stinging repeatedly, without tiring.” His eyes n
arrowed in speculation, his mink brown lashes crowding. And yet, one corner of his mouth twitched in the faintest specter of a smirk. “In the right hands, a flail is designed to reach out past an opponent’s shield and disarm him.”

  Jacinda imagined that it could do a great deal more than disarm a man, but Rydstrom wasn’t the kind of gentleman to speak of such things in front of a woman. Already, she understood that he not only guarded himself, but those around him as well.

  While she may have found it frustrating, it certainly wasn’t a terrible attribute for a man to have.

  “Has every weapon in this room seen battle, then?”

  “Yes. They are kept here because it is important to honor those who have gone before me.” He scrubbed an absent hand along his jaw before he briefly pointed to the wall of shields. “See that one at the top, the one that’s rent in two and looks like a pair of splinters held together by a peg?”

  “Mmm-hm,” she murmured with a nod, but if she were honest, all of her attention was on Rydstrom. The easy richness in his voice and bright gleam in his hazel eyes made it clear that he took great pride in the memory of his ancestors, and in the history of this keep.

  Yet it was more than that. There was something different about him. In here, surrounded by his own history, he seemed more in his element, freer.

  “The first of the Montagues to take up arms against invaders. He’d been little more than a farmer, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing everything he could to protect his wife, his children, and his home. And that grit in his blood, was also in his son’s, and his son’s and . . .” Rydstrom stopped on an indrawn breath and cleared his throat in apparent discomfiture.

  Thoroughly enthralled, her heart pulsed a half beat faster, warming the blood within her, warming toward him.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” he said, his brusque tone breaking the spell she was under. “You don’t belong in this part of the castle. Come, I’ll take you back to the library.”

  “I hope you realize that I am a person and not a misplaced object.”

  “If only you were the latter, Miss Bourne, for then I could lock you away in a cupboard. For now, however, I shall escort you to the north wing so that you can return that book.”

  “I don’t want to return it.” She stiffened. “I want to read it.”

  He glanced down at the tome. “It is in French.”

  “And?” Jacinda peeked at the book, too, only now realizing why Mrs. Hemple had wrinkled her brow in confusion earlier. It hadn’t even occurred to Jacinda that it was written in another language because she could decipher it so easily. This was certainly an unexpected development.

  Those mocking brows lifted. “Are you fluent in French?”

  “Apparently so.”

  He took a step closer and placed his hand on it, tilting it away from her bodice to see the cover. His fingertips grazed hers and suddenly she went still.

  This was . . . familiar.

  “I feel as if I’ve been here before. Not this room, but another one somewhere, with paneled walls and . . . and . . .” Jacinda held her breath as tingles and tingles—so many tingles!—coursed through her body.

  The memory was flashing too fast behind her eyes for her to see it clearly. She closed them to better concentrate.

  But she might as well have tried to grasp a breeze and tuck it in her pocket. It was useless. The image was gone.

  Subtle traces lingered, however. She was almost certain she had felt this way before, rapid breaths, heart rising to greet the pulse fluttering at her throat. Inhaling, she focused on the sweet, not-quite-musty fragrance of the book mingling with the permeation of cedar and the faint hint of aniseed. “Your hand and mine on a book. Our close proximity. The scent of your breath . . . tastes like . . . a licorice lozenge on my tongue.” Her mouth watered, lips pulsing as if they remembered being pressed to his. “You and I have stood like this before.”

  * * *

  Crispin went stock-still, trapped by the keen light in her bright turquoise eyes. They seemed to close in on him.

  He took a step back. “No such familiarity was part of our brief acquaintance. I can assure you—”

  She took a step forward. Studying him, her eyelids lifted slowly in a fan of dark, burnished brown lashes that tilted at each corner. “I think you’ve kissed me.”

  An instant hot flame burst low in his gut, flowing in thick pulses through his veins like molten iron. On a single indrawn breath, her sweet essence filled his nostrils, and his mouth watered. Even now he couldn’t stop wondering what she might taste like.

  Reckless, his gaze dropped to her lips. Something shifted inside him—the sudden weight of a terrible notion, overloading the scales where his sanity usually rested.

  He swallowed. “Whatever would inspire you to conjure such an outlandish notion?”

  “I’m quite perceptive, remember? And perhaps it was the way you looked at my mouth just now and earlier, too, like you’d . . . sampled it before.” The temptress pressed her lips together. “Hmm. Is that the reason you glower at me? Because I’ve forgotten our kiss? Likely that is a deathblow to any man’s ego.”

  And suddenly, there was a completely new type of mischief in her gaze. A feminine, sultry type that no conniving, spying debutante with amnesia ought to have.

  He was burning up, his cravat itchy. He fought like hell not to pull the linen away from his throat and give away his discomfort. Likely, she would make more of the gesture than it was—which was merely a reaction to starch. Yet even as the excuse formed in his mind, not even he believed it.

  “You have not wounded my ego in any way because the event you mentioned never occurred.”

  Then the lips he’d never sampled spread in a guileless grin. “So you say, Rydstrom.”

  He gritted his teeth, letting her have the last word as she sauntered past him. It was the safer thing to do. But damn it all if he wasn’t tempted to pull her against him and prove that there was no possible way she could ever forget his kiss.

  Chapter 14

  “And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very considerable one—that I made the match myself. I made the match . . .”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  When a brooding Rydstrom escorted her to the library, and summarily left her there, Jacinda surprised herself by waiting dutifully for Dr. Graham’s return. Not only that but, she even began reading the book like she’d promised.

  Well, after she rearranged the chairs, angling them toward the window. It was much cozier this way. And once Rydstrom saw this arrangement, she was sure he would appreciate her assistance.

  A soft wry laugh escaped her at the idea. If she knew one thing for certain, it was that Rydstrom wanted all the objects and the people inside this castle to remain precisely where he thought they should be.

  Though, considering the events of earlier, she decided to heed his warning.

  At least for now.

  Thinking back to those moments in the abandoned corridor and then in the armory, she found that she was even more curious than she’d been in the beginning. If the condition of the castle was any indication, financial strains had plagued Rydstrom for some time.

  So, why had he waited until now to look for a wife with a large dowry?

  Book quickly forgotten, she curled her feet beneath her on the comfortable chair, let her head fall back against the worn leather, and thought of Rydstrom. To her, it seemed strange that he didn’t have a bride waiting at the altar right this instant. There must be scores of women eager to marry him. He was a duke, after all, quite strong and smelled nice, too. And handsome, even when he glowered—not that she would ever admit such a thing to him.

  But, more than those outward characteristics, he possessed a deeply ingrained sense of duty that made him an appealing marital prospect . . . for an heiress, of course.

  A woman without a fortune, or even without a maid of her own, needn’t concern herself with his attributes. Whomever he did marr
y would have to contend with his overbearing demeanor. Or at least stand up to him when he went too far. His bride would need a strength of her own.

  Musing over this, she caught herself absently brushing her fingertips over her lips. Had he kissed her? She wasn’t certain. However, his reaction to her accusation had been rather strong, either from shock at her audacity or guilt because she’d hit the mark.

  But if he had . . . Well, she wished she had that memory most of all.

  Then again, if he had, she should be furious at him. After all, what business did he have kissing a woman he wasn’t intending to marry?

  But, perhaps for a single moment, the temptation of her lips had been too great for him to resist. She smiled at that, letting the notion bloom.

  They might have been at a ball, both of them finding themselves in the paneled room that had flashed through her mind earlier, and . . .

  The sound of laughter interrupted the passionate scenario before it even began. She expelled a disappointed sigh. But it was for the best, she supposed. It was futile to spend the day speculating about the nature of her acquaintance with Rydstrom, when she should be searching for proof instead.

  Closing the untended book on her lap, she looked over her shoulder and spotted a pair of chambermaids, chatting while they moved feather dusters efficiently over every picture, statue, and table in the wide hall outside the library. She recognized them—Martha, her onetime lady’s maid, and Betsy with the rain pails.

  “There’s a new man in Whitcrest. Young and handsome,” Betsy said, her tone full of intrigue. “Word around the village is that he’s looking for a wife.”

  “Aye, a Mr. Alcott,” Martha said with a giggle, stretching to reach the top of the doorframe. “I heard ’bout him from Mrs. Lassater when she came nosing around here for news on His Grace’s special lady guest.”

  “Always looking for gossip, that one.”

  “Along with all the rest of them. And us.”

  “I s’pose,” Betsy admitted. “But she shares her gossip a bit too freely, if you ask me.”