Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
‘You want more?’
Another swallow. A man who knows my mind. A man who cares for it. A man who would encourage it. ‘It matters not, because I cannot even have one night without being ruined forever.’
‘And you care about being ruined?’
‘Do you care about me being ruined?’
‘Enormously.’
‘Then why are you here?’
He shies away from my question. ‘Come.’ Grabbing my hand, he turns and walks through the entrance to the gardens, pulling me along with him. ‘Keep to the shadows.’
‘What are you doing?’ I hiss, helpless in the face of his strength, my feet working fast to keep up with him.
‘Taking you for some conversation.’
I am halted on the edge of the gardens opposite the Winters’ residence by the Duke’s solid arm being held out.
‘Wait,’ he hisses.
‘What is it?’
‘I have a caller.’
I crane my head to see and let out a long groan, that, when the Duke scowls down at me, is as loud as it was long. ‘Is there a woman on Belmore Square who happens to have escaped your charms?’ I ask as I watch Lady Blythe knock at his door. ‘Perhaps she is seeking some inspiration.’ Or more inspiration. I think he must have charmed every woman he has met into bed, which speaks volumes for the female population. We are braver than men. Tougher than men. I cannot imagine any lord or gentleman around here putting themselves in a room alone with the Duke of Chester for fear of what may happen to them, and yet every woman, it would seem, is willing to open her legs for him. And I wonder, for the first time, what I am doing here with him. Bugger it all, I am here because he thrills me. Excites me. He makes me feel alive in a world where I would otherwise feel dead. But he is a very desirable man. If any one of the women I have seen lusting after him have experienced his softer side, then it is no wonder they persistently call upon him. I positively detest the thought! In fact, I feel quite sick. I am just another conquest, although, I remind myself, I am yet to give myself to him. I do not want to marry Frederick, but perhaps one day, if by some miracle I manage to escape it, I might wish to marry someone else, then what? I would be tainted. No man should wish to consider me. I am all at sixes and sevens, to be sure, for I am having wild thoughts that are so very out of character for me. I do not wish to marry. That is the entire bloody point! Conversation, he said. My problem is, I cannot seem to talk to him or even be in the same space as him without having extreme alarming reactions to him. I look down at my hand in his. How lovely it looks.
‘I’m afraid I am making a grave mistake,’ I murmur, more to myself than to the Duke, who is watching and waiting for Lady Blythe to leave so he can lure me into his cave.
Whatever am I thinking even being here? It matters not that I have been kissed. No one knows. No one saw. I can stop this madness.
I back away and make it precisely one step before I am scooped from my feet and carried onward. ‘Oh no,’ he says, his jaw rolling. ‘Not again, Eliza.’
‘I demand you release me.’
‘Stop thinking,’ he orders, opening his door and carrying me inside, ‘is all I ask, as I believe you may be over thinking.’
I am placed on my feet, and he steps back, not, I expect, to give me space, but to take some respite from the heat of our bodies when they are close, for they surely burn. ‘There appears to be a lot to think about.’
‘I agree,’ he says, motioning to his study with a gentlemanly sweep of his arm. ‘After you.’
I look across the hallway and see Hercules with a tray, eyeing me with worry, as I walk on wobbly legs and enter the warm space where the fire rages and candlelight offers a glow, that, dare I say it, is quite romantic. I lower to one of the chairs when the Duke indicates it and shake my head when he holds up a bottle of wine. He ignores me and pours two glasses anyway.
‘Why did you kiss Frederick Lymington?’ he asks, scowling heavily as he passes me a glass. His fingers brush mine, a tactical move, I’m sure, one to remind me that while Frederick stirs nothing within me, the Duke stirs everything. I jerk, splashing the wine. ‘Careful,’ he murmurs, taking my hand to his mouth, his body bending as he does to bring him closer, and licking it clean. Eyes on mine.
I begin to shake, and it does not go unnoticed. ‘I kissed him because I was mad with you.’ I look away from him and immediately scorn myself for it.