My Dangerous Duke

by Gaelen Foley

  In turn, Rohan kept looking for reasons not to trust her, any reason to keep on holding her at arm’s length. So far, it had been a losing battle.

  One day about a week into her stay at the castle, he decided to bring her into the high medieval family chapel.

  He wanted to see if Valerian’s enchanting descendant betrayed any flicker of recognition when she viewed the Order’s many ancient symbols on display there. They were in plain sight if one knew what to look for, from the white Maltese cross above the altar to the princely marble statue of St. Michael the Archangel, the Order’s namesake. Perhaps he was trying to test her again, still hoping to expose her for a fraud.

  Perhaps because her innocence was too much of a threat.

  Taking her lightly by the hand, he led her into the chapel, where most of the Warrington dukes had wed their brides, and watched her face intensely as she gazed at the towering archangel statue.

  The warrior angel, Michael, was portrayed clad in his Roman-style breastplate, a fiery sword in his hand and the writhing Lucifer under his sandaled foot. Though Kate stared at it in wonder, she did not appear to realize it held any particular significance.

  She smiled shyly at him, nodding at the statue. “He reminds me of you.”

  He just looked at her.

  She moved on, turning away, soaking in the serene beauty of the chapel. She stared at all the old relics and intricate carvings both in stone and wood, then knelt to say a prayer. Fiercely aware of her, Rohan watched her from the corner of his eye.

  The more he felt the power of her innocence, the more it struck him how much he was asking of her, expecting her simply to trust her life to a man she barely knew, a man she had been given to as a plaything—and a Beast, at that.

  A few nights later, they were in the library, her favorite room, drinking chocolate by the fire, while flurries fell gently beyond the mullioned windows.

  Rohan had propped his feet on the low table across from the leather couch and was perusing the results of the latest prizefights in the sports page of the Times.

  Kate, meanwhile, for reasons beyond his understanding, was tormenting herself with the cruelest book in his family’s entire collection: the Latin volume of time-honored logic puzzles by the ancient scholar, Alcuin.

  “Oh, here’s a good one! The wolf, the goat, and the cabbage. In what order shall we get all three of them across the bridge without any of them eating the other?”

  “You are the strangest girl I’ve ever met,” he remarked idly, turning the page of the paper.

  Seated at the other end of the couch, she shot him an indignant look. “Why? Because I enjoy using my brain?”

  “ ‘Enjoy’ and Alcuin don’t belong in the same sentence, darling.”

  “I see, but bare-knuckle boxing is vastly amusing,” she countered archly, leaning over to flick the back of his newspaper.

  “Winning is.”

  When he cast her a smile, she held his gaze a little too long and began to blush. He did not fail to detect the sparkle of feminine interest in her eyes before she demurely dropped her gaze again to the book.

  She turned the page. “Very well, forget the wolf, the goat, and the cabbage. Perhaps I should wrangle the problem of masters and valets, instead. Or the three jealous husbands?”

  “You have at it, sweeting. I’ll go schedule an appointment for you with the King’s mad doctor.”

  “Ha, ha,” she replied.

  Laughing softly, he set the paper aside, then, leaning his head back on the couch, he studied her. He had an inkling that her Alcuin puzzles were simply her way of keeping her too-clever mind off the dire threats that waited for her just beyond the safety of the castle walls.

  “How are you these days?” he asked.

  “Oh—all right.” She lowered the book onto her lap and briefly held him in a wistful stare. “Rohan?”

  “Yes, Kate?” he murmured in a tone gone slightly husky. He could not explain why this girl made his heart clench.

  Restlessly, she turned away, staring for a long moment into the fire. “What if my father really is alive?” She looked over at him again. “Doesn’t it seem strange that he never tried to contact me to let me know he was all right? What if he just—forgot about me?”

  “No one could ever forget about you, Kate.”

  Her emerald eyes filled up with a soulful longing to believe. But shaking her head, she cast her book aside. “I could never do that. If my child were in danger, I’d stay with her, no matter what.”

  “Me, too,” he answered in a low tone.

  Hugging her bent knees, she returned her troubled gaze to the crackling hearth fire. “Did you get along with your parents, Rohan? Were you close to them?”

  He considered, watching the pale flames licking at the darkness. “I admired them greatly,” he replied in guarded tones. “Especially my sire. Hell, I worshipped the man.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She was a fine lady, but, um . . . rather distant. I don’t know. I think she found me somewhat loud and aggravating. I was too rambunctious.”

  Her eyes twinkled when she glanced at him. “You, Your Grace? Rambunctious? Surely not.”

  He arched a brow at her. “As I was saying. They sent me off to school when I was seven. My mother died when I was eight, and my father, well, he was hardly ever home. He had a . . . lot of responsibilities. But you know, my friends at school were my real family.”

  Which made his unwillingness to reveal her existence to his brother warriors all the more meaningful—but Kate didn’t know that.

  She studied him in surprise, resting her chin on her forearm. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss. How did your mother die? ”

  He looked askance at her, saying nothing.

  Her eyes flared at his meaningful silence. She lifted her head and stared at him in astonishment. “The Kilburn Curse? You mean your father—”

  “No, no, he didn’t actually kill her. But he certainly held himself responsible for her death, and . . . not without cause.”

  “What happened?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  Having gone that far, Rohan saw no point in stopping now. “My father was sent on a diplomatic mission to North Africa.” It was always a “diplomatic mission” when speaking to outsiders.

  The Order had charged the previous Duke of Warrington and his team with the task of rescuing an English dignitary who had been captured by Barbary pirates off the coast of Malta. The ambassador’s aide was being held by the fearsome Bey of Tripoli for an exorbitant ransom. Somebody had to get him out without implicating the Crown.

  “My father had no sooner completed his task than he fell ill with some unknown North African fever. He spent a couple of days on Malta being bled by the physicians, but he soon had enough of that. Declared he was over it, and proceeded on to London. Tough as nails, my old man. He was never a very good patient. Unfortunately, he was not as much recovered as he wanted to believe, and he brought the fever back with him. My mother rushed to Town to tend him, caught it, and was dead within a fortnight.”

  “Oh, how dreadful!” she breathed with an unabashed look of compassion that disconcerted him. “Rohan, you poor thing. It must have been terrible for you.”

  He looked away uneasily. “No, it was worse for my father. He never believed in our ‘family curse’ until that happened. But from then on, he made a point of warning me it was real.” He paused for a long moment, staring into the fire. He tried to comprehend how he would feel if he were ever responsible for hurting Kate. “I’m not sure how he lived with it,” he said at length. “He didn’t, actually, for very long. He died about three years later.”

  Killing Prometheans.

  But he did not tell her that, either. He just shrugged.

  “Father said his only comfort was that I was at school at that time and had not caught the fever, too, and also died.” A world-weary sigh escaped him. “But I know it wouldn’t have killed me, anyway. Nothing ever does.”

 
She gave him a quizzical look, but leaned closer, bridging the small distance between them; she cupped his face with tender affection. “Well, I, for one, am glad of that.”

  He stared at her. Her touch was so soft it made him ache. He closed his eyes as his control slipped; tilting his head, he pressed a fervent kiss into her palm.

  He heard her breathe his name, then her delicate hand turned his face forward again; without warning, she moved forward onto her knees and pressed an urgent but virginal kiss to his lips.

  His heart slammed in his chest.

  Wonderstruck by her unexpected move, he sat in trembling stillness, chaining himself back, only returning her kiss gently as his pulse pounded. God knew, he barely dared breathe for fear of scaring her away.

  His restraint emboldened her. She moved closer, kissing him again, and again. Her lips stroking his were supple, satin, sweet.

  He shuddered with the need to unleash his passion, but still, he held himself back, just as she paused with the air of a woman stopping herself with great effort.

  “I’m sorry.” Her breathless whisper inflamed his senses as she drew back a small space. “You looked like you—needed that.”

  “I did. I do.” He nodded and drew her back to him.

  But before she would let him claim her mouth, she looked into his eyes, then moved higher, pressing a soft kiss to his latest scar. He closed his eyes as her lips lingered above his left eyebrow.

  Then he felt her lips glide slowly down the side of his face until they reached his waiting mouth. Passion raced through their hands and lips as they kissed with an intensity that told him she had dreamed of this as much as he had. She clutched at his waistcoat; his hands clasped her waist, in turn, as though with a will of their own. He couldn’t fight it anymore.

  When he pulled her astride his lap, she did not protest. His heartbeat slammed as she lifted her arms around his neck and went on kissing him endlessly.

  He felt the softness of her lush breasts against his chest and reveled in the intoxicating glide of her sweet tongue caressing his. He could not believe she was doing it, but could not bear for her to stop.

  Want raged in his blood, swelling his member to full arousal as she knelt across his lap. He knew the moment she discovered it there, waiting for her, throbbing between her legs; he felt the fiery thrill of her excitement in response. Her fingers dug into his shoulders.

  He absorbed in delight her sharp intake of breath when the gentle pressure of his hands on her hips guided her needy core against the hardened ridge of flesh straining the placket of his trousers.

  She moaned against his mouth as she began rocking slowly against him. Instinctually, her body knew what to do with him. Rohan began unfastening the back of her dress before he even noticed what he was doing. He didn’t care anymore. He could not contain himself. Every atom of his being had to feel her bare, silken back beneath his hands.

  A moment later, her loosened bodice crumpled down about her elbows. He ran his hands hungrily up and down her naked back, then he took her now-exposed breasts in both of his hands. She did not protest but welcomed his touch with a dreamy smile. At the back of his mind, he wondered what the hell he thought he was doing.

  She kissed him again, and tugged away the length of black cord binding his hair as she did so. She drove him slightly mad raking her fingers through his hair. Breathing heavily, he dragged his mouth away from hers and lowered his head to taste the milky throat that had tormented him for so long.

  She sighed with pleasure as he sucked and kissed her neck. She hugged his head and, beneath her skirts, spread her legs wider to sit more firmly on his lap. He understood better than she did that she wanted fucking, but he was not going to do it.

  No, no, he was not. No, indeed. He was not that lost to all decency, surely. That bereft of judgment.

  That much of a Beast.

  She dragged her fingertips down his chest and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. With the damp heat of her core penetrating through their clothes, warming his deprived cock, his control was hanging by a thread with the sheer, wild unreason of his lust for her.

  The next thing he knew, her exquisite hands were on his bare skin. She had bared his chest, exploring him, and when she slipped her fingers down into his shirt, eagerly caressing his stomach, he trembled as her dainty hand inched down toward his waist.

  It took all his will, but he found a shred of strength to stop her from going any lower. He knew he would lose his mind if she touched his cock, as she seemed very curious to do. He ended the kiss, pulling back from her in a ragged haze of lust. “Kate—you know this isn’t wise,” he panted.

  “No—I know—yes—you’re right.” Her chest heaving, she did not remove her hand from inside his clothes.

  “You should go to bed. Go on, now, sweet.”

  Her fingers curled into the light furring of hair on his chest. “Don’t you—”

  “Please. Go, Kate. Run,” he growled at her, removing her hand from inside his shirt as his body throbbed. “Now. Before I change my mind.”

  She went motionless, holding his gaze, startled confusion warring with feverish arousal in her eyes. Innocent temptation incarnate, she still sat on his lap, her hair mussed by his fingers, her unfastened gown falling around her bared shoulders in an alluring state of tousled sensuality.

  Craving her, Rohan closed his eyes. Could she not see he was trying as hard as he could do the right thing for her sake? “Go to bed, Kate.”

  Hurt, reproach, and confusion at his perceived rejection flickered in her green eyes.

  “As you wish,” she forced out in a raw whisper, and finally obeyed. Getting up from his lap, still holding her loosened gown to her chest, she fled the room in a rustle of skirts and a chastened patter of running, slippered footfalls.

  He stared after her in wicked yearning, the taste of her still lingering on his tongue. He sat for a moment longer, brooding as he gazed into the fire.

  Maybe he should send down to the village for a proper whore, he thought as sanity gradually returned.

  That was when he realized he was worse off than he thought. For the only one he wanted now was Kate.

  The kiss had been a mistake.

  Kate was mortified that she had let her desire for him run away with her like that. To think that, of the two of them, it was the Beast who should prove the better behaved!

  Unable to face him the next day, she avoided him, more or less hiding in the library, while Rohan was elsewhere in the castle, doing Lord-knew-what.

  Chastened for having made his job of protecting her all the harder, the least she could do, she thought, was to try to make herself useful. All morning, she worked at putting the haphazard, vast collection of books in the Warrington library in some kind of logical order.

  Apparently, this was a task no one had bothered with in about a hundred years.

  Trying to keep Rohan out of her thoughts, wondering endlessly if she should apologize for throwing herself at him when she saw him, she traveled from shelf to shelf, rearranging the books by language, by historical period, by size, as was practical, and above all, alphabetically, by the writer’s last name.

  She had found multiple titles by individual authors scattered willy-nilly through the collection. It made her want to pull her hair out. Obviously!—an individual author’s body of work all belonged on one shelf, the works arranged, in turn, by whatever system was most suitable: by volume number, alphabetically by title, or by the year of publication, or, in the case of the playwrights, works grouped by genre—tragedies with tragedies, comedies with comedies, histories with histories, and so on.

  All the while, he lurked at the back of her mind, a large, looming shadow of temptation, haunting her, even though she knew her preoccupation with this man was nothing but foolish.

  Soon all this would be over. O’Banyon’s letter would arrive, bringing an end to her sojourn at the castle. In due time, Rohan and she would surely get to the bottom of why she had been kidnapped and
who was out to get her; once these people had been dealt with, the two of them would go their separate ways. And then what?

  She would probably never see him again, so why set herself up for unnecessary heartbreak? Logic sounded the alarm that she must quash her budding infatuation with him now. She had to fight it. The intelligent thing to do was to keep her thoughts fixed on her eventual, yearned-for goal of finally going home.

  No matter how much she might want him, how secretly giddy she might feel around him these days, it was important to keep it front and center in her mind that she could never truly have him.

  Rohan was a duke, too highborn for her. She could never be more to him than a favored mistress . . . though, lately, truth be told, that didn’t sound so bad.

  She was a grown woman. She could do as she pleased, and who was going to scold her? She had never been much of an active participant in the outer world in the first place to care if anybody out there disapproved.

  Instead, after all those lonely years cooped up in her cottage, she finally felt connected to someone.

  Someone wonderful. How was she supposed to ignore the kind heart she had discovered beneath the Beast’s intimidating exterior?

  How was she not to be swayed by a man who had saved her life, who had pledged himself to her protection, talked to her like a true friend, and charmed her daily—a big, beautiful man who had already given her an unforgettable taste of pleasure that first night in his bed?

  Did he think her made of stone? God help her, but she wanted more. Last night, she had so needed to taste his mouth again, to caress his splendid chest and arms, desperate to get as close to him as she could.

  And when he had opened up to her about losing his mother as a child, she had been overwhelmed with tenderness. Her caring for him had to spill out somehow—she had only kissed him because she thought her heart would burst if she didn’t do something to show him how much she felt for him.

  Well aware of how intensely he watched her every day, she thought he would have liked it. But instead, he had pushed her away. Kate was so confused, unsure if he had been rejecting her or protecting her.