by Lenora Bell
The hard hillocks of his muscles made it difficult to find a flat resting place.
“Walk, Olofsson, walk!”
She clung to the velvet bed hangings for support as she trod across the enormous expanse of his back toward his shoulder.
“Ah,” he moaned. “Yes, that’s the location. Stay there a moment.”
She bore down on his right shoulder. How could one man possess so much solid, knotted muscle?
“That’s right. With your heels.”
This must be hurting him dreadfully. His profile was carved from granite and stood out in firm relief against the white of the bedclothes. He never glanced at her, never looked up. His eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth compressed. His breath came in short gasps.
She pressed down on his shoulder blade with her stockinged heel.
He moaned and clenched his eyes tighter.
“That’s it,” he said. “Just like that.”
She worked her foot back and forth, shifting her weight from toe to heel.
The grunting noises he made sounded almost as if he were enjoying the pain.
So this was what he paid women to do. Not exactly what she’d been expecting. Although who knew what he did with them after they finished battering his back.
“You feel lighter,” the duke said. “Have you been reducing?”
“I apologize, Your Grace.” Thea shifted all her weight to her right foot and dug her heel into the space below his right shoulder blade.
“Oof.”
“Too much, Your Grace?”
“Not at all,” he grunted. “Do your worst, Olofsson. Do your worst.”
She bounced harder.
He gasped.
She was actually beginning to enjoy herself now.
Waltz with her. Make her popular. Fill her foyer with flowers from lecherous old lords.
She used all her strength to grind her heels into the ridges of his back.
“Christ,” he grunted. “Easy now.”
“Am I hurting you, Your Grace?” she asked sweetly, redoubling her efforts.
“Hold a moment,” he said, low and dangerous. “I know that voice . . .”
With one swift movement he twisted, setting her off balance. He caught her by the waist and forced her knees to either side of him, pressing her down against him.
“What in all the fiery blazes of hell are you doing here? Con,” he bellowed. “I’m going to bloody well murder you.”
Chapter 5
Thea heard the sound of distant laughter.
She squirmed in a useless attempt to break free, grabbing the velvet drapes for leverage, but the duke’s large hands clamped around her waist and held her immobile above him.
“Your Grace,” she gasped. “Didn’t you receive my note? Why are you surprised to see me?”
His eyes narrowed ominously. “Because I told my feckless, good-for-nothing manservant to oust you speedily if you darkened my doorway.”
Her limbs were spread to either side of him, her knees flat against the bed, her body pressed against his solid length.
This was far worse for her sanity than waltzing with him. “Ah . . . apparently he mistook me for this Olofsson person and ushered me inside.”
He snorted. “There’s no chance he mistook you for her. She has shoulders nearly as wide as mine.” His gaze shifted from her face to her torso. “While you are delicate and rounded and soft.” His gaze intensified, lingering over her chest. “Everywhere.”
She had the sense that he was seeing her, truly seeing her for the very first time.
Then his eyes hardened. “Your mother had better not be outside, waiting to burst in upon us. I know she likes to do that.”
At the reference to her mother’s role in attempting to force the Duke of Harland into marriage, Thea’s jaw clenched with fury and she shoved against his chest with her palms. “I’m not trying to trap you, Your Grace. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last male left on God’s green earth.”
His lips twitched. “Is that so?”
“Yes, it is. Now please release me.”
“I don’t think so. Not yet.” One of his hands left her waist and untied her cloak. He slid the garment off her shoulders and threw it to the floor.
There was a subtle shift in the air.
She felt his desire.
Well, literally, she felt it, hard and firm against her inner thigh, but it was also in the atmosphere between them.
Perhaps men lost their faculties of reason when they had ladies on top of their half-nude bodies.
“I repeat. Why are you here, Lady Dorothea?” the duke asked.
Obviously she wasn’t going to extricate herself by force. She must use words. She took a deep, steadying breath.
“Because I was gravely mistaken. Your preference was sufficient to annihilate years of failure. And I’m so tired of everyone using me for their own purposes. You can’t just run around willy-nilly transforming near-spinsters into successes at whim.”
It seemed Thea had discovered the secret to conversing with gentlemen and it was fury. Outrage made her quite loquacious. “First you deny my sincere petition to catalogue your art collection with no explanation, and then you wreck all my plans on purpose. I know it was on purpose, don’t bother denying it.”
“Oh, I’m not denying anything,” he said with a smug smile, settling her more firmly against him. “I knew if I chose you for the first waltz you would be inundated by suitors and wouldn’t need to chase me. It was all part of my plan to rid myself of you forever.”
“You . . . you,” she sputtered. She beat her fists against his chest. “You manipulative, egotistical, flint-hearted rakehell.”
He captured her fists in his hands. “What about pompous arse?” he suggested helpfully. “Or how about puffed-up bastard?”
Thea had never used such crude language. But there was a first time for everything. “Arrogant arse,” she whispered.
He laughed. “Louder, please.”
Teasing her, was he? “Arrogant arse,” she proclaimed.
Without warning, he lifted her up and reversed their positions, rolling her onto her back and pinning her against the bed with the weight of his thighs.
“Oh,” she cried. “You’ll crush me.”
“I’ll teach you a lesson about why it’s not wise to enter a duke’s chamber, climb into his bed, and hurl insults at him.”
The bulk of his body imprinted her into the bed. He held both of her hands trapped above her head with one of his large hands.
Why, exactly, did that send thrills chasing along every vertebra of her spine?
She wasn’t frightened; he was only teasing her, teaching her a lesson, but her body reacted in uncharacteristic ways.
Lifting and arching kinds of ways.
His lips drew closer. Such sensual lips. Firm on top with a hint of flare to the bottom.
“Lady Dorothea, you’re staring at my lips.” A teasing spark lit his eyes. “That generally means a woman wants kissing.”
“I don’t want kissing,” she said defensively. Which was a complete and utter falsehood. She did want kissing. Quite desperately.
Heat rushed to her cheeks.
Why did it have to be this arrogant, supremely self-confident beast of a duke who made her long to be kissed for the first time?
Of course she didn’t want him to kiss her. That wouldn’t solve anything.
Unless someone saw their lips locking. And then she’d be ruined instead of merely tainted by a jilting. That could work. But there were no witnesses tonight. He released her wrists. Brushing a curl away from her face, he skimmed his knuckles lightly down her cheek and over her neck, the possessive touch thrilling across the surface of her skin, forcing her senses to wake up and acknowledge that she was pinioned beneath an enormous, dangerous beast of a duke.
The vast terrain of his chest stretched above her, candlelight playing over relentless lines and inflexibly muscled ridges.
A thin brown
leather cord hung from his neck, supporting what looked to be a bit of red rock tied at the end . . . wait a moment . . . She ran her finger over familiar sharp, jagged contours. “This is a maërl fossil, isn’t it? From the beaches at Balfry Bay.”
He snatched his hand away from her cheek. “No, it’s not.”
Why would he deny the fact? “I believe it is. I’ve walked those beaches many times and gathered pieces of this same bloodred coralline algae.”
“Why exactly did you come here tonight, Lady Dorothea?” he said testily. “I mean other than to stomp upon my back, insult me, and contradict my every word?”
To be thoroughly kissed by an expert in the subject.
No, no, that wasn’t it at all.
“You’re a rake. You obviously know how to fool people into believing all that charm is sincere. So find a way to make me unpopular again. Make this right.”
“How would I achieve that?”
“Spread rumors about me, say I threw myself at you. Say I begged to be ruined.”
“Hmm.” He nuzzled her neck, which did interesting, fizzy things to her belly. His teeth teased her earlobe, making her heart race.
“Are you asking to be ruined?” he breathed in her ear. “Because I could possibly make an exception . . . to the no-innocent-ladies rule.”
He traced tempting hieroglyphics along her collarbone with one finger. “Just this once, mind you.”
“It would only be theoretical ruining,” she hastened to explain.
“How is this theoretical, exactly? Here I am above you.” His weight shifted, to emphasize his extremely hard and pressing point. “And here you are, soft and yielding, under me.”
“Let me explain the concept, Your Grace,” she said with a chipper, cheery tone, as if they were discussing this over a nice cup of tea in a respectable drawing room.
She had to pretend the situation was ordinary, at least. Had to pretend there were no tremors in her belly and no melting sensation in her belly.
“Theoretical ruin, or make-believe despoiling, as it’s sometimes known, is quite simple really.” She adopted a schoolmarm tone. “You spread rumors of my wanton behavior. I confirm the rumors, thereby exonerating you of any guilt in the matter. I am ruined. And you are free to continue climbing the rose trellises of London’s thrill-seeking widows and wives.”
A small snort emitted from the beast. “Why the hell don’t you want to be a success? Isn’t that every well-bred lady’s goal? Shouldn’t you be thanking me?”
His gaze heated her skin from the inside out like coals filling an iron bed-warmer. “I could think of several ways you might show your . . . gratitude, now that you’re here.”
Thea squeaked as his large, rough hands caressed down her flanks and settled her more firmly against his body.
Gracious! Perhaps this was a crossroads . . . leading straight to actual ruin.
“You don’t understand, Your Grace,” she said desperately. “I planned to endure one more season so my family would finally abandon hope and allow me to fade away to Ireland to live with my aunt in peace.”
She closed her eyes, remembering her aunt Emma’s dear, plump face and the way her clothing always smelled of rich clover honey and wood smoke.
“I was useful in Ireland. I had a purpose other than attracting unprincipled peers. I helped my aunt with her beekeeping. And with putting by her renowned marmalades. I was free from the dictates of society . . . I don’t expect you to understand.”
“You’d rather be stung by bees than marry. I understand completely.”
Thea’s eyes flew open. Forget the fact that she was in intimate contact with a man for the very first time and that the man in question was none other than London’s most notorious rake. Forget that he was known for heartlessness and seduction.
He understood. She gave him a startled smile. “That’s exactly it. I’ll do anything to avoid my family’s marriage machinations.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, regarding her curiously. “You truly don’t wish for a titled husband and a safe, cosseted life and dozens of servants to fulfill every whim? You have no need for French perfumes and clusters of diamonds?”
“Oh, I’ve never wanted diamonds, Your Grace.” She sighed. “My mother has piles of cold, inert diamonds and they certainly don’t improve her marriage . . . or give her happiness.”
He propped his great, square jaw on his chin, on the side without that livid cut.
She wondered again how he’d got that cut. It was the exact red shade of the fossil dangling from the leather cord around his neck.
“A privileged young lady of good breeding who doesn’t long for a perfect match.” He shook his head. “No. It still makes no kind of sense. I’m sorry you didn’t approve of the results, but I truly thought that in my own brutish way, I was doing you a kindness.”
Thea pushed at his chest, attempting to roll him off. “Thanks to your kindness, my grandmother has announced that I must go and live under her strict supervision tomorrow morning, with the goal of betrothing me to the Duke of Foxford or the Earl of Marwood. Both of whom I would rather die than marry.”
The duke went still. “Foxford?” He rolled off her in one lithe, swift motion and jumped off the bed.
Grabbing a poker, he stirred the logs on the fire. “You’ll not be shackled to that lecherous old toad. I won’t allow it.”
The sight of him standing in front of the fireplace, licked by flickering flames and forbidding her to marry Foxford, was nearly more than a girl could stand.
He was only wearing his smallclothes. And they seemed to be too, well, small to contain certain parts of him.
Parts she wouldn’t mind seeing in the flesh.
Thea sat up so fast her head spun. What was wrong with her? She’d never had thoughts like this before.
She straightened her bodice, smoothed her skirts, and swung her legs over the high edge of the bed, managing to hop down without falling flat on her face.
A small triumph.
She found her boots. “Precisely my goal in coming here. Not to marry Foxford. Now will you agree to theoretically ruin me so Foxford drops me like a hot coal?”
The duke jabbed savagely at a half-burned log and orange sparks flew into the air. “I’m not going to ruin you, theoretically or otherwise.” He set down the poker and grabbed a green silk dressing gown from a chair back.
Thea barely suppressed a forlorn sigh of disappointment when he tied the dressing gown around his waist, covering all that smooth, muscled chest.
“If you won’t theoretically ruin me, you’ll just have to arrange safe passage for me back to Ireland. Tonight preferably. I won’t go and live with my grandmother tomorrow.” She placed her hands on her hips. “And I refuse to marry Foxford.”
Lady Dorothea met his gaze with unwavering, steel-flecked blue eyes.
Dalton had the distinct impression he’d just been challenged to a duel.
The Duke of Osborne’s bedchamber. Half past eleven. Choose your weapon.
Had he thought her delicate and fragile?
He’d been wrong. She may appear to be fashioned from silk and soft curves, but she had the same steel backbone as her mother.
“Lady Dorothea, you appear to be suffering from a delusion of potential success.”
He stalked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of brandy. “There’s no chance I’ll ruin you, theoretically or otherwise, or help you run away to Ireland. I couldn’t have known you didn’t wish for success. I thought I was doing you a great service.”
“Oh yes, deigning to dance with me. The handsome duke granting a wallflower a charity dance to lift her from the mire of obscurity. And keep her from pestering you.” She tossed her head. “Well, I don’t want your charity. All I want is to live my life in peace, far from domineering grandmothers and lecherous old peers. And you’re going to help me achieve that dream.”
Satisfaction or death. Walk ten paces and level your pistol.
Dalto
n jammed a hand through his hair.
Lady Dorothea had managed to surprise him.
And that wasn’t easy.
There was a part of him that enjoyed battling with her far more than going through the tiresome motions of courting the vapid Mrs. Renwick.
But he had far bigger problems on his mind than finding ways to help wallflowers become spinsters.
Not that Lady Dorothea would ever make a proper spinster.
Damn, she was a vision by firelight.
All those butter-and-marmalade curls spilling around her shoulders. It made him hungry.
Had he even eaten dinner?
He shouldn’t have drunk so much, but it eased the ache of his shoulder.
She’d be a good way to ease your pain.
Hellfire. That was the brandy talking.
“You dull your pain with spirits, Your Grace,” she observed. “Perhaps you should try confronting it head-on for a change.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” he growled.
Was he truly standing in his smalls, arguing with an infuriating lady?
Dalton tugged the sash of his dressing gown tighter. “This conversation is over.” He turned on his heel and walked three paces.
Tap. Tap.
Seriously?
He whirled around. “What now?”
“Three little words, Your Grace.”
Three words. Bed me now. No, that wouldn’t be it. I’m dangerously addled. That was more like it.
She rose onto her tiptoes and steadied herself with a small hand against his chest.
Silken curls tickled his chin and the scent of roses swirled into his mind.
Soft. Flowery.
Deranged.
Her wide, blue-gray eyes flashed with determination. “I demand satisfaction.”
Certain suggestible parts of his anatomy south of the sash greeted this with unbridled enthusiasm. She wants satisfying!
He jabbed a finger at the door. “Out.”
She raised her small chin and looked him in the eyes. “Not until you agree.”
There was a knock and Con entered the room. When Dalton saw the urgency in his expression he quickly crossed the room. “What is it?” he asked in a low voice, so the lady wouldn’t hear.
