by Amelia Grey
“Excuse me,” she said, looking behind her. “I forgot to cover my work.”
Harrison followed her over to a table where her painting supplies were scattered. “What did I interrupt?” he asked, catching a glimpse of a fan with columns painted on it before she covered it with a tin dome.
“Nothing important,” she said, averting her eyes from his and laying her apron on top of the dome. “I don’t like to leave my paints unprotected. Insects have been known to land in them and create quite a mess.”
It surprised him that she hid her work so quickly. Most young ladies were always eager to show him their stitchery or paintings, or read him their poetry. Miss Rule shielded hers as if it wasn’t very good, or she didn’t want him to see it for some reason. That was refreshing.
“What were you painting?” he asked.
“I paint many things,” she said, rubbing some of the paint from her hand with her thumb. “Lids to snuffboxes, mourning boxes, and miniatures. The usual things.” Then, as if realizing the paint wasn’t going to come off, she reached for her hat and he gave it to her.
While Harrison was thinking it was a sin to cover her glorious long curls with that brown straw, he felt something wet and cold on the tips of his fingers and realized that Sam had decided it was time to walk over to sniff him. It took all his willpower but Harrison forced himself to let his arm remain hanging still at his side and let the animal sniff him wherever he wished so the dog would become comfortable with him.
“Your father obviously likes dogs,” he said to Miss Rule.
She laughed lightly as she loosely tied the ribbon under her chin.
“Why does that amuse you?” Harrison asked.
“Sam, leave Lord Thornwick alone and go lie down. Now,” she ordered, giving him a firm stare. The dog obeyed and she continued. “My father doesn’t like dogs or animals of any kind. He indulges me from time to time and allows me to keep a stray that happens by our house, but not often.”
“Sam was a stray?”
“Yes, he was wounded and starving when I found him. I nursed him back to health.”
“No wonder he is so protective of you.”
“I think it’s natural of his breed to be that way. He has some bull terrier in him, I’m sure, though what the other breeds might be I have no idea. He gets along well with the other dogs and that’s what matters.”
“How many do you have?”
“Three.”
“All strays?”
“Yes. Rascal was the first and is the oldest and part hound. The newest addition is Mr. Pete. He’s a puppy and I think he might be part beagle.” She paused. “Well, we really have four dogs as my father often reminds me. My grandmother has a Maltese, but she is so small she hardly counts. And she wasn’t a stray. It’s always important to my grandmother that people know Molly is the only purebred dog in the house.”
His gaze swept easily down her face and then back up to her eyes. So Miss Rule was not only very loyal to a father who would force her to marry a man she didn’t love in order to save his hide, she had a love for wounded animals. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. He didn’t need one more thing to like about her, but how could he not be impressed and drawn to the fact that she took in strays and cared for them?
“The wind is picking up. You should put this back on,” he said, holding out her shawl. She reached for it and he said, “Allow me.”
She hesitated only a moment before turning her back to him. He placed it on her shoulders, and before she had time to turn back around, he lifted her long hair from beneath the shawl. It was warm and soft in his hands and smelled heavenly. He was tempted to lift its weight and bury his face in it.
Everything about her was intoxicating. There was something exciting about her, and something elusive, too. He couldn’t fool himself. He knew what it was. She said her heart belonged to another, and as much as he didn’t want it to be so, the fact was it presented a challenge for him to woo her and to win her.
Damnation, he didn’t want to pick up that gauntlet. There were too many ladies willing to share his bed, and his life for that matter, to worry with fighting for one who had already made it clear her heart belonged to another.
But Miss Rule was different from all the others. That was as clear and simple as night and day. And even though she claimed to love someone else, she wasn’t completely uninterested in him, either. He’d watched her look him over with a discerning eye, and she’d appreciated what she saw. He was sure of that.
So how hard would it be to win her away from a soldier if he decided he wanted to?
He liked that she was passionate about trying to help her father. Loyalty was an admirable quality in anyone. She was obviously passionate about helping others or she wouldn’t take in the wounded strays. Something told him she’d bring that same spirited passion to her bed.
When she faced him, she looked directly into his eyes and said, “So tell me, my lord, have you decided whether you will help me save my father or are you still thinking?”
That was the furthest thing from his mind presently. “I am thinking, Miss Rule, but not about that.”
Her brow wrinkled. “Then what?”
He stepped closer, deliberately towering over her so she would know he was the one in control, and said, “I’m thinking about kissing you.”
She went very still. He watched a flush creep up her pretty neck and onto her lovely face. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted her, and he no longer wanted to ignore what she was making him feel.
“That wouldn’t be wise, my lord,” she said.
True.
“Probably not, but I have done many unwise things in my lifetime. What will it hurt to do one more?”
He lifted his hand and skimmed the backs of his fingers down her soft cheek and brushed aside a wispy strand of hair that hadn’t been caught back by her hat. She didn’t flinch from his touch. He took that as a good sign, but asked, “Will you slap me if I kiss you?”
A flicker of astonishment flooded her eyes, but there was no panic. Another good sign that there was a possibility this conversation would end in a kiss.
“What? No. I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”
“You’ve never thought about being kissed?” he asked, deliberately misunderstanding her.
She hesitated, seeming to study over what to say. “No, of course, I have,” she conceded. “I meant I’ve never thought about the possibility of slapping a gentleman for kissing me.”
“So you’ve been kissed?”
“Definitely not,” she assured him and wrapped her shawl tighter about her arms as if the woolen garment would protect her from his probing words.
It was another good sign that she hadn’t moved away from him. If she hadn’t been considering letting him kiss her, she would have already been backing up, showing him the door, or calling Sam over to intimidate him.
“Not even by the captain?” Harrison asked.
She looked aghast. “He is a gentleman, my lord. I haven’t even seen him in over a year. I wasn’t old enough to be kissed last I saw him.”
Never been kissed.
That pleased Harrison.
He wanted to be the first to kiss her. He would be. Why should the captain have that right just because she’d given her heart to him? She wouldn’t be the first young miss to receive her first kiss from Harrison, but he couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss one more than he wanted to kiss Miss Rule right now.
The sun was warm, the breeze was cool, and the garden was empty of chaperones, save Sam, and he couldn’t talk. The timing was perfect. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to do it. He wanted to feel her in his arms. He wanted to know how those pink-tinted lips would feel beneath his.
“You are of age now,” he said in a low tone as he inched even closer to her.
“Yes, I’ll be nineteen by early summer.”
Oh, yes, plenty old enough for a first kiss.
He noticed the
words in her last sentence were softer, and she sounded breathless. She was already contemplating his kiss. That made his breathing a little ragged, too.
“Kissing is against the rules of Society for young ladies,” she warned him.
He moved closer to her. Again she didn’t flinch. Did she know that was as good as an invitation for him to continue? “But surely you know that some rules are made to be broken.”
She remained quiet. Pensive.
“And this is one of them,” he added. “So don’t blink.”
“Don’t blink,” she questioned him with an uncertain expression on her face. “Why?”
I want you to see me and no one else.
“Because I’m going to kiss you and you’ll want to witness your first kiss.”
“Telling me not to blink makes me want to.”
“Then it will be your fault if you miss this.”
He lowered his head and let his lips graze across hers with the merest amount of pressure. The contact was sweet, enticing, and undemanding. It sent a quick, hard throb of pulsating heat sizzling directly to his manhood, causing an unexpected rush of intense desire to shudder through him.
Harrison only meant to give her a proper, innocent first kiss, but his body was insisting on much more. He hesitated before deepening the kiss further, slanting his lips seductively over hers, seeking more of a response from her until he realized she was too in awe of the kiss to answer the instant passion that had erupted in him.
He hadn’t expected the kiss to be so powerful or to feel such satisfaction that she’d obeyed. To her credit, her wide-eyed blue gaze stayed open for the entire kiss. He wanted to abandon his reserve and show her just how quickly she’d made him want her, but not wanting to frighten her, he refrained.
When he heard a soft sigh from her, he lifted his mouth an inch or two and whispered, “You just witnessed your first kiss.”
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Amelia Grey read her first romance book when she was thirteen and she’s been a devoted reader of love stories ever since. Her awards include the Booksellers’ Best, Aspen Gold, and the Golden Quill. Writing as Gloria Dale Skinner, she won the coveted Romantic Times Award for Love and Laughter and the prestigious Maggie Award. Her books have sold to many countries in Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, and most recently to Japan. Several of her books have also been featured in Doubleday and Rhapsody Book Clubs. Amelia is the author of twenty-five books. She’s been happily married to her high school sweetheart for over thirty-five years and she lives on the beautiful gulf coast of Northwest Florida.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE DUKE IN MY BED
Copyright © 2015 by Amelia Grey.
Excerpt from The Earl Claims a Bride copyright © 2015 by Amelia Grey.
All rights reserved.
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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / January 2015
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