How to Dance With a Duke (22 page)

“All right,” she said, trying to maintain an even tone. “If you must know, David had the bad taste to fall in love with someone else. Under the circumstances I released him from our engagement.”

“Just like that?” he asked, his tone suspicious. “You make it sound exceedingly uncomplicated. And falling in love with someone else is hardly reason enough for an honorable man to break his engagement.”

“Well, it was perhaps a bit more … dramatic than I let on,” she admitted carefully. “He asked to be released from our engagement because the other lady … well, to put it bluntly, she was with child, and David had to marry her.”

Lucas said a word that Cecily had never actually heard spoken aloud before.

“So, he broke off his engagement with you so he could marry his lover,” he said bluntly. “Dare I hope that she was penniless and he married her out of true love?”

Cecily lifted her chin. “She was a wealthy heiress whose father is a board member of the British Museum, where David had been angling for a position for years,” she admitted. “But I was hardly crushed to break things off with a man who cared so little for me that he would dangle after another woman while he courted me. In the end, I realized that he’d probably sought me out in an effort to gain favor with my father.”

“I hope your father thrashed the bastard,” Lucas said, sounding more bloodthirsty than Cecily had ever heard him.

“Hardly,” Cecily said with a bitter laugh. “Papa thought, still thinks, the world of David. Though he did promise to expel him from the Egyptian Club, he never really followed through on the threat. And in his defense, David is a good connection to have in the world of Egyptology. The British Museum houses the foremost collection of Egyptian antiquities in England. Papa could hardly cut off so valuable a resource.”

Lucas would have said more, Cecily was certain, but something made him stop. Perhaps her extreme discomfort.

He rose to his feet. “If you are sufficiently recovered, I will attempt once more to retrieve the key.”

Cecily waved him onward. The sooner they were able to leave the tiny locked room the better. Standing, she moved closer to him, not wanting to remain in the darkened center of the chamber since he had taken the candle with him.

“Good,” he said as she crept in next to him. “Hold the light, please, so that I can see if the key is indeed in the lock.”

She maneuvered the candle, supressing a gasp when he took her hand in his firm grasp and moved the light where he needed it to be.

“I think I see the key there. Hold still for a moment while I attempt to dislodge it.”

He took the lock pick that he brought for just such an emergency, and maneuvered it this way and that until Cecily heard the satisfying jingle of metal on metal followed by the heavy thud as the key fell to the carpet on the other side of the heavy mahogany door.

“Got it,” he said with a grin of satisfaction. “Now we need to find a way to retrieve it. What we need is something thin enough to fit beneath the door, but long enough that we will be able to keep hold of it without fear of losing our grip.”

Lucas stood and, taking the candle from her, peered into the darkness, raising the light from shelf to shelf, surface to surface, looking for something that would suit his task. But nothing seemed to fit their purpose.

“Let me look at your hand,” Lucas said, reaching out to grasp her fingers. He took her hand in his, ignoring the little zing of pleasure as he held her thin hand in his strong one.

“Will it fit?” she asked.

“I suppose we won’t know until we try it,” he said, motioning her onto the floor, and following her down.

Carefully Cecily lowered herself to the floor and experimentally tried to insert just her fingers into the narrow gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. Her fingers cleared the opening, so she pulled her hand back out, moved into a sitting position, then carefully lowered herself onto her stomach, stretching her legs out behind her.

“Do not try to force it,” Lucas said, leaning so closely above her that she could feel his warm breath on her neck. It sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing whatsoever to do with fright. “We don’t want you to be injured.”

*   *   *

Lucas tried to keep his distance from her, but the space they occupied was simply too small. As he sat with one knee bent, his arm draped casually over his knee, for all the world like they were having a picnic or playing at spillikins, he fought the urge to caress the delectable rearview of the woman before him. If such medals were awarded, he mused silently, then he certainly deserved one for Most Restraint Under Pressure. For never had a man been so provoked as he had during this midnight escapade.

Biting back a groan as she wiggled her bottom as she tried to work her hand more fully beneath the door, Lucas asked, “Are you able to reach it?”

“Not quite,” Cecily returned, not looking up from her task. “My middle finger barely brushes the edge of the key, but if I can just manage to fit a little more of my hand here, I think I could work it toward me.”

As she worked, Lucas recited Latin conjugations in his head, trying with all his might to keep himself from falling on her like a starving man at the sight of a beef roast. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this way about any other woman, let alone a headstrong virago with a flair for danger. It was so entirely out of character for him that Lucas briefly wondered if he were suffering from some sort of brain fever.

Deep in his heart, however, he knew that the only explanation had nothing to do with fevers and everything to do with his burgeoning affection for the woman laid out like a Christmas feast on the floor before him. It was at once thrilling and utterly, utterly terrifying.

“Pardon? My lo-ord?” The sound of her voice, singsong and insistent, broke into his thoughts. “I require your assistance, please.”

“Right,” he said casually, as if he’d been paying attention the entire time. “What do you need, Miss Hurston?”

She craned her head as far as she could, looking up at him from the corner of her eye.

“I need you to help me turn my body a bit so that I can reach farther. I’ve almost got it, but if I can gain another smidgeon of reach I think I’ll be able to maneuver the key toward me.”

When he did not answer immediately, she said quickly, “Never mind. I’ll do it myself. I simply didn’t want to remove my hand or I’d lose the little bit of ground I’ve already gained. But I can—”

“Don’t…” he interrupted her, putting a staying hand on the small of her back. “Don’t get up. I’ll do it, I was just … er … trying to determine the most effective manner of … um … moving you.”

He ran a finger under his suddenly too-tight collar and shook his head a little to bring his focus back to the matter at hand.

Moving to his knees, he realized with an inward groan that the most expedient means of moving her would entail him straddling her legs on his knees, then gripping her hips to lift and slide her into a position parallel with the door.

How the bloody, cursed, damned, fucking hell did I manage to get myself into this ridiculous situation?

His jaw clenched, and looking down at his companion, he said, “All right, I’m going to need to lean over you a bit.”

Lean over her.

He rolled his eyes at the euphemism. What he was about to do was quite a bit more than leaning, though he was damned if he’d tell an unmarried lady to prepare to be covered. Which was technically what he would be doing. Minus the actual … covering.

Lifting his left leg, he brought it over to kneel on the floor on the outside of her right knee, and deciding to simply jump in, Lucas leaned forward and grasped her by the hips. Ignoring her gasp at his touch, he lifted her up and simultaneously moved on his knees toward the door on his left, and moved her in the same direction.

“There,” he said, removing himself from his precarious position and leaping to his feet. “That should do it.”

Cecily cleared her throat, not sure she’d be able to speak beyond a croak even if she wanted to. When she had felt his presence, his heat, leaning over her backside, she had found herself fighting the instinct to press her bottom upward to meet his groin. Imagined what it would feel like if he had abandoned all propriety and reached down and caressed her breasts from his position leaning over her.

Finally, willing herself to stop her thoughts and concentrate on the business at hand, she said in what she hoped was a normal tone, “Thank you, I believe that will do it.”

She reached around under the door again, patting the floor in the hall outside, searching for the key. It had been there a moment ago.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said at last. “But would you mind terribly bringing the light down here? I seem to have lost the key.”

“Stop ‘Your Gracing’ me,” he said irritably. “And how on earth am I to shine the light under the door without setting the carpet on fire?”

“All right, then, Lucas,” she snapped. “Will you bring the candle down here? Just hold your hand behind the flame so that it doesn’t touch the carpeting. It’s not that difficult a concept.”

“I understand the concept perfectly, Miss Hurston,” he replied sweetly. “But it will mean having me lie on the floor beside you. Is that something you are comfortable with?”

“Call me Cecily,” she said finally. “And just get down here. The sooner I find this key the sooner we can get out of this horrible room. I will need to wash my hair four times to get the stench of mummy out of it.”

He could have told her that she smelled like roses, as she always did, but thought that would try her patience.

“Ready or not, here I come,” he said, once more dropping to his knees, then stretching forward to brace himself on one arm and thrusting out his legs behind him to lie flat on his stomach. Turning his head toward Cecily, he found himself facing her hair.

“Here,” he said, purposely speaking into her neck, sending the stray curls at her nape into a flutter. Holding the candle, he stretched his arm out over her back, and turned the candle sideways, careful not to touch the flame to the carpeted floor.

“Just a little to the right,” she instructed, resuming her sweeping hand motions under the door. “There, I see it!”

Propping his head up on his right arm, Lucas watched as she stretched as far as she could to reach under the door.

“Almost there,” she said, biting her lip. “Almost there…”

Lucas smiled in spite of the almost physical pain of being so close to her without being able to touch her. The look of concentration on her face was so intent. He thought she was more beautiful than he’d ever seen her.

“Got it!” she cried, removing her hand from under the door.

Scrambling to remove himself from his hovering position, Lucas was too late, and instead of being the one to step back, he found himself in the novel position of having a woman thrust herself into his arms as Cecily flipped over onto her back and moved into a sitting position within the circle of an awkward embrace.

“Oh,” she said, the soft whisper of her exhalation touching his face like a caress.

The key forgotten in the surge of desire that coursed through him, Lucas saw her eyes darken as her gaze dropped to his mouth. He snuffed the candle, leaned forward, and took her mouth in a searing and possessive kiss.

*   *   *

When Lucas kissed her, the lights went out.

Or so it seemed to Cecily, who was overwhelmed by both. Though they had kissed before, there was an intensity to Lucas’s embrace now—due, perhaps, to the darkness—that both excited and frightened her. For all of her vaunted independence and defiance of her father, Cecily was ultimately rather sheltered. In the past fortnight she had experienced her first waltz and her first kiss with any sort of passion in it. And now she was to experience her first seduction. She did not intend to miss a moment of it.

His mouth traveled from her lips to her ear, to an incredibly sensitive point just at the crook of her neck. The hot caress of his tongue there had her reflexively arching into him, her breath escaping in a moan of pleasure. On her knees, Cecily lifted herself higher, exposing the bare patch of skin just above her breastbone to his lips, her fingers impatiently working to unknot the cravat at her throat.

“Easy,” Lucas murmured against her, the rumble of his deep voice reverberating through her. His busy hands worked to untuck her overlarge shirt, and caressed up her sides as he lifted it above her head, baring her upper body to his plundering mouth.

Shielded from view by the darkness, Cecily reveled in the freedom it afforded her. No longer required to play the role of scholar or wallflower or debutante, she was here, in this room, with this man, simply a woman, with a woman’s need for a man’s caress.

His strong hands grasped her by the hips even as his mouth sought and found the peak of her breast, sucking it to hardness as he settled her legs to straddle his lap. She felt the press of his erection against her most sensitive place, and instinctively rocked once, twice against him.

Lucas muttered an oath against her as he lifted his mouth to hers again, his hands working the placket of her breeches even as hers fumbled with his. In one swift movement, he lifted her slightly and whisked them down to her knees and coaxed her knees upward to take them off entirely. While he was undoing her breeches, she had been undoing his. He bit back a tortured groan as he felt her tentative hand on him. What was it about this woman that drove him to lose control? He had escaped his legendary sense of duty exactly two times in his life, and both had been with this woman. But even as he moved to the precipice of dishonor again, he could not help himself.

“This will be over far too quickly if you go on like that,” he said, his voice rough. “Let’s try this instead,” he continued, taking her mouth again as he caressed her hip and thigh. Then, gently but firmly, he stroked his index finger over the moist heat at her center.

The shudder that jolted through her brought her breasts up against his chest, and her pelvis thrust her sweet spot against his hard length.
So much for alternative plans,
he thought wryly, even as he touched her core again, this time slipping his finger inside her. Her sharp intake of breath spurred him on, and on the second stroke he thrust two fingers, then three, as she rode his hand in desperation.