What I Did For a Duke (11 page)

But there was something about him . . . She was tempted to wade in. Just a little. It was the same temptation she’d succumbed to when he’d discussed—just as deliberately—Venus and Mars. Because he wasn’t wrong. Because he was honest, and she liked it. Because he was relentless, and she admired it. Because she half hated him, but he didn’t bore her.

Because he spoke to her the way no one else had ever spoken to her, which meant he saw her in a way no one else saw her.

“Very well. He has kissed my hand, yes. Surely there’s nothing untoward about that.”

“I suppose whether it was
untoward
depends on his intent and the circumstances and how much you enjoyed it.”

“It was an excellent kiss,” she all but whispered.

“Oh, I’m certain it was.” The bloody man was amused. “A real man would have kissed you on the mouth, Miss Eversea. ‘Gentleman’ or no. And it’s a very good mouth you have.” He volunteered this as though offering advice on Harry’s cricket form.

She stared at him, shock dropping open her mouth.

Her
very good
mouth.

Damn him for inciting curiosity about what constituted a
good mouth
.

She nearly raised her hand to touch it. Stopped herself. And then she did, surreptitiously, rest the back of her hand against it.

They were soft, her lips, barely pink. Shaped neatly and elegantly.

But what made it
good
?

She’d no vocabulary at all for this type of conversation. For the types of compliments he produced. They were very adult, and he presented them to her as though she ought to know what to do with them.

She didn’t. But speaking with him reminded her of the first time she’d taken a sip of coffee. A bitter, foreign black brew, that grew more appealing, more rich and complex, the more necessary, the more she sipped.

He casually, deliberately removed his coat, folded it neatly, laid it next to him. The wind took the opportunity to play in his hair, lifting it a bit, tossing it about, letting it drop, satisfied at having mussed a duke.

He leaned back on his hands. And then idly turned to her. He inhaled, and exhaled an almost long-suffering sigh.

And he began in a patient, almost leisurely fashion, in a voice fashioned from dark velvet, a voice that stroked over her senses until they were lulled, to lecture directly to her as if she was a girl in the schoolroom.

“A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn’t know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should . . . hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible . . .” He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. “It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it’s very nearly pain.”

He waited, watching her face, allowing her to accommodate the potent words.

Her mouth was parted. Her breathing short. She couldn’t look away. His eyes and voice held her as fast as if he’d cradled her face with his hands.

And as he said them, an echo of sensation sounded in her, like a remembered dream, an instinct awakened.

She thought about Mars getting ready to give Venus a good pleasuring.

Stop, she should say.

“And . . . ?” she whispered.

“It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you’d never dreamed you’d want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you’ve ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . .” he paused for effect “. . . haunt you for the rest of your life.”

She sat wordlessly when he was done. As though waiting for the last notes of a stormy, discordant symphony to echo into silence.

The most intense physical pleasure.

His words reverberated in her. As if her body contained the ancient wisdom of what that meant, and now, having been reminded, craved it.

She should have gotten up to leave and not looked back.

“So you’ve had this kiss? Or is it something you aspire to?” Her voice was a low rasp.

For a moment he said nothing at all. And then he smiled a faint, slow, satisfied smile.

She had the oddest impression she’d passed a test. And that she’d surprised him yet again.

“I’ll leave you to wonder about that, as well, Miss Eversea. I’m a man who cherishes my mystique.”

She gave a little snort. But she was undoubtedly shaken.

She turned back to watch Harry, who was now making a great show of balancing the cricket bat on his palm. It was jarringly the opposite of the conversation she was in the midst of.

Does
Harry
know about those sorts of kisses? Does he have those kinds of
thoughts
? Does he have any idea what one kiss of my hand would do to me? Of what dreams I would unfurl from it?

Is it only me, or do all women think this way?

Would
a real man have kissed my mouth?

She was tempted to touch her mouth again, and to imagine.

She gripped the grass again, more tightly, needing to feel solid ground. She was dizzy, more confused than she’d been yesterday. As though the land around her was sea and she’d just been cast adrift in an ocean of sensual knowledge she would never now partake of if Harry married Millicent.

Damn the duke. She was devastatingly clever, but he’d just made it very, very clear that
she
knew nothing, nothing at all about . . . anything.

“Did he make you a promise on the heels of this ‘kiss,’ Miss Eversea?”

She was never going to enjoy the mocking way he referred to that
kiss.

She said nothing.

But he seemed to take this as a confirmation.

“Are you spoken for? Did he back away from a promise?” he asked hurriedly. He sounded tense. Oddly as though he intended to deal unkindly with Harry if this was the case.

“Not . . . not as much. No. But everything was . . . implied. Or so I thought. We’ve been so close for so long, you see, and . . . there was no reason at all not to believe . . . especially not after yesterday . . .”

“And yet he is preparing to launch a proposal at your dear friend Millicent.”

He might as well have shot an arrow straight into her solar plexus. Hearing those words spoken aloud by another human were just that pleasant.

She covered her eyes with her hand, sucked in a jagged breath. “Yes. He told me so. Yes.”

She took her hand away and bravely looked back at him.

The duke took this in with raised eyebrows. And gave his head a little wondering shake, whether at Harry’s or her expense, she could not be certain.

“Has
he
ever sent flowers to you?”

“He once presented me with a bouquet of wildflowers he’d just picked,” she confessed dismally.

The duke thought this was amusing, judging from what his eyebrows did.

“Has he kissed
her
? Any of her parts? Or sent flowers to her?”

Argh. The misery. “I don’t know. She hasn’t told me.
He
hasn’t told me. And usually . . . well, Millicent and I tell each other everything. And I thought Harry told me everything, too.”

“If you haven’t told Millicent how you feel about Lord Harry, then you haven’t told Millicent everything, have you?”

Well, then. She was generally assumed to be clever, but in that moment she felt a fool. He had an excellent point. She hadn’t
dreamed
Harry harbored a tendre for Millicent; she’d floated along in the comfortable certainty of friendship.

“I’m afraid all of this is rather evident. To me. Otherwise, you are exceptionally inscrutable and I’m certain not a soul suspects,” he humored with suppressed laughter in his voice.

She scowled darkly at him. “And isn’t that
just
my good fortune that
you
should notice and choose to torment me with it.”

He laughed. Admittedly, he had a fine laugh, deep and genuine. She sensed he didn’t do it easily. She liked the sense that she’d surprised it from him.

And therein lay his vulnerability. She could make him laugh.

She had another surprise for him. “Lord Moncrieffe, do tell me, since we’re speaking so frankly. What is your game?”

Chapter 10

H
e didn’t precisely . . . blink. But for an almost imperceptible second he went shockingly still.

“Game? I don’t understand. What makes you feel there’s a—”

She heaved a sigh that all but bent a furrow in the grass at their feet.

“Oh,
enough
,” she said irritably. “Very clever people often assume no one else is as clever as they are. Which
isn’t
very clever of them, when you think about it.”

“After knowing you but a few short days, Miss Eversea, I would never make the mistake of assuming you aren’t clever.”

She would not be pacified, particularly in that ironic tone of voice. “I will be exceptionally clever now, then. You’ve made quite a show of courting me, which I can assure you, has been disconcerting for me and has caused mirth and discussion. But you’re
not
interested in me. Not truly. I am naught like Lady Abigail. But Millicent is. Your eyes linger rather appreciatively on her whenever she’s about, and she could not be more different from me and more like Lady Abigail in form and shape. I am quite aware I’m possessed of a few singular charms, as has been pointed out by other young men. But they’re not of the sort
you
typically appreciate. You’ve a game. I want to know what it is. Surely you can’t need my money.”

He was . . .
lividly
. . . amused by this. Wicked, astounded delight was written all over his face.

“Charms, have you? Perhaps I enjoy a diversity of female charm—”

“Stop. Stop, stop,
stop
. And here is the other thing: Every time you look at my brother Ian or hear his name something brief and . . .
murderous
. . . flashes cross your face. It’s there and then gone. Every. Time.
Not
very clever of you. And yes. I believe I’m the only one who notices.”

Oh dear.

The silence was so absolute it was as though a dome had dropped over the two of them.

He wasn’t at all amused now.

She’d never seen a man so still. It in and of itself was almost camouflage, like a wild creature blending into its environment, hoping to ward off attack or planning to mount one. She’d cornered him and he didn’t like it. And all at once she was afraid, because she had no doubt this man was dangerous and resourceful and ruthless as a rule, but never more so than when cornered.

She doubted it happened very often.

He was clearly thinking rapidly.

Her heart battered away in her chest, but she was reckless from disappointment and possessed the courage of her temper and she frankly had stopped caring for perhaps the first time in her life.

She waited implacably for his answer. She didn’t blink.

He drew in a breath. “Surely what you’re noticing
flash cross my face
is merely a twinge of indigestion.”

But he sounded peevish now. The amusement was back, but entwined with a note of warning. He would tolerate only so much prodding.

She lowered her voice to a hush. “What did Ian do? It has to do with Lady Abigail, doesn’t it? I know my brothers, Lord Moncrieffe.”

A silence. The wind took another frisky pass at his hair. His face was a strong one. He glanced at her, then glanced away, and his eyes settled on the man in question, and everything about him seemed made of implacable granite.

Genevieve was very glad she wasn’t Ian at the moment.

“You presume too much,” he said coldly.

“Presume!
I
presume?
I
presume? I believe you’ve set a precedent in presumption. What did Ian do? You may as well tell me. I shan’t tell a soul.”

He gave her his profile. A strong chin, not at all soft. Squared off. A downright elegant nose, straight as a blade. Every line of him precisely drawn.

“What Ian did isn’t for the ears of ladies, Miss Eversea. Let’s just say it was a killable offense. I might have been hanged for killing him, but few men would have blamed me for it.”

Oh.
The breath went out of her again.

His coldness
ought
to have deterred her. But now she understood he’d meant it to.

“Killable? I am not as innocent as you seem to believe. I know Colin nearly died tumbling from the trellis of a married countess. I am not naïve when it comes to the wildness of my brothers. But I assure you they do have good hearts—”

“Miss Eversea. Understand that I can tolerate no kind words about any of your brothers now.”

His voice was dark and threatening as a newly dug grave. She ignored him and finished.

“—and unfortunately they occasionally make more than their share of mistakes. When the world seems to be your oyster one has a tendency to partake greedily and sometimes recklessly. But they have
good hearts
and are the most loyal of friends and Chase is even a war hero . . .”

She trailed off at the look he turned on her.

Almost . . .
hunted
. Furious. And resigned. She sensed he was about to tell her what Ian did, and he didn’t want her to hear it, and now she wanted to stop him, and it was too late.

“I found him in bed with my fiancée. They were both nude. I found him there because I suspected I would. I in fact watched him make a daring climb up a tree and enter through a window three nights in a row before I stopped him.”

Each vivid, potent word slapped at her.
Nude. Bed. Fiancée.

She could envision the scene with shocking, sordid clarity. Her brother, disrobing, climbing into bed. The duke lying in wait to catch them, consumed by . . . anger? Grief? Had he felt numb? Was it pain or pride he felt or . . .

How in God’s name had Ian gotten out
alive
?

She didn’t like imagining this proud man watching this. It was in fact nearly unbearable to imagine.

“Did you love her?” She almost whispered it. And she regretted how lightly she’d asked him before.

The duke slowly shook his head to and fro, ruefully and wearily at the question, at some private amusement. Fortunately, he no longer looked murderous.

“I might have done,” he said softly.

She was left to wonder what he meant.

She didn’t press him. Because if he loved as strongly as he hated, he might have ultimately incinerated the girl.

Suddenly she was grateful only her hand had been kissed, and for her love for Harry, and for all she didn’t know about love and sex.

They were both looking toward Ian now.

Ian, like Harry and Millicent, was entirely new. She realized he was doing his best to appear nonchalant, but she knew her brother very well. He laughed a bit too loud; his gestures were too emphatic. He was playacting devil-may-care for the duke.
That
would explain his twitchiness and the pallor he’d been sporting. It was almost funny.

Somehow she hadn’t considered the cruelty behind such reckless, playful indulgence of whim and desire, of a man climbing through a window or up a trellis. That something or someone other than pride might be savaged, a heart broken, a life destroyed, hopes shattered. It seemed staggeringly selfish.

But then men, in all their charm, generally were, and the duke was hardly excluded.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, quietly. “It
was
shameful, what he did.”

He lifted his hands on his knees, dropped them again. A sort of shrug. “Yes.”

“Whereas you’ve never done anything shameful in your life.”

He turned his head very, very slowly toward her. Then narrowed his eyes dangerously.

She met his gaze bravely. She tried and failed to get just one eyebrow up. Both went up. She really wished she had a signature sardonic gesture. She envied the duke his.

“It was done to
me
,” he explained.

“Ah.”

Something that may have been a smile came to haunt his mouth.

A firm, long, masculine, flexible mouth. She supposed it was good, too.

“And has he apologized to you? Ian?”

“I wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t have believed him, regardless. I believe he was sorry he was
caught
. I believe he was sorry I interrupted the two of them before it could proceed farther. But sorry for irrevocably altering the course of my life? For depriving me of my future happiness? I doubt he thought of it in those terms. I should
like
to make him sorry, however.”

Dear God. Had his heart really been
broken
? Or his pride simply singed? All she knew was that legends had been made about the consequences of crossing this man.

She began tentatively. “Perhaps if you expressed it to him in those terms—”

He sighed exasperatedly. “Oh, for God’s sake, Miss Eversea. I’m a
man
. I do not whinge on about my happiness. I shoot on the spot, or I take revenge later. I do both very well.”

Take revenge later.

That’s when it occurred to her. Her jaw dropped. Then she clapped it shut.

“And
I
was to be
revenge
?”

Another of those cornered silences from the duke. He reassessed her. Deciding upon his strategy, no doubt.

“What did you plan to do, seduce and abandon me? ‘Ha-ha, I showed you, Ian Eversea, I despoiled your sister because you despoiled my
fiancée
’?”

And then, bloody man, she would have sworn, she could have
sworn
, he was stifling a smile.

“ ‘Despoiled’?”

She glared silent fury at him.

“Well, when you put it like that . . .” he said somberly.

Very
risky to tease her now.

There were innumerable things she ought to be feeling. Shock and indignation and fury, among them. She ought to glower and storm away. She ought to lecture him.

She wavered instead on the brink of doing something tremendously subversive like . . . smiling.

He noticed her indecisiveness and took advantage.

“Would it have worked?”

She sighed. “Perhaps if I were in a more amenable frame of mind,” she reassured him. “And less in love with Harry. You
are
a duke, after all.”

“And that’s
impressive
,” he completed whimsically. “Of course, you were hardly cooperating. Flinging other young ladies into my path. Though I must say I was tempted by Olivia. You certainly paint a compelling picture and I was very nearly persuaded.”

“You were nothing of the sort.”

He laughed again, that rich masculine sound.

Across from them she noticed Harry’s head turn. He shaded his eyes and watched them, then dropped the bat, and the girls laughed at him.

“Well, we’ve established that revenge of the sort you were planning is now out of the question,” she said firmly to her strange new friend. “Do you now plan to shoot Ian? Because I won’t allow
that
.”

“You won’t allow it? You’ll fling yourself bodily in front of him? Ah, now, that’s a pity. And you’re certain you shouldn’t like me to compromise, ruin and abandon you?”

She could think of no other context and no other conversation in which such a statement would make her smile. Certainly her mother had raised her to be horrified by every one of those words, and every one of those words was potent with story and meaning.

But smile she did.

Thereby adding
herself
to the number of people who were new.

And the duke smiled, too, looking suspiciously very much like a man enjoying himself.

What
a peculiar exchange. Then again, the two of them had both had their worlds upended recently. Whether
his
heart was broken or just his pride was another story. Nevertheless.

Something occurred to her.

“But would you really have done . . . all of that?” She didn’t want to repeat words like “compromise,” “seduce,” and “abandon.” “Not that it would have been at all possible. I simply ask.”

His smile faded, and he turned away from her and plucked idly at the tiny daisies that had the ill fortune to be growing near where his restless hands were.

“You shouldn’t ask questions when you know at heart you’d prefer not to hear the answers.”

But then he looked at her directly. No smile in his face or eyes. Just a rueful admission about his mouth. A warning of sorts to not forget about the sort of man he really was.

“But you like me,” she accused slowly.

“Nonsense. For one thing, you are far too clever. Which is not at all restful. I could never relax a single moment knowing you’ll see right through me at all times.”

She laughed, delighted, the sound musical and lilting.

Harry’s head swiveled toward the sound at once. It was a sound he knew, of course, and he’d always been able to make her do it more than anyone else could. He shielded his eyes and straightened his spine.

And then stared very pointedly at Genevieve and the duke.

The duke spoke quickly, his voice quick and low and casual. “Don’t flinch. Don’t stare at him. Do what I say and watch what happens now.”

“What—”

“Hush.”

He had such natural command she did exactly that.

And he reached over and lightly rested two fingers against her hand again. Gently pinned it to the grass, like a small pale butterfly.

As though his head were attached to the duke’s fingers by a string, Harry’s gaze followed it to the spot where they rested upon Genevieve’s hand.

He froze.

He stared.

If he’d been a wild creature, his fur would have stood on end in objection.

And then, faintly but unmistakably . . . Harry frowned. Darkly.

Genevieve’s breath caught sharply. She obediently stopped herself from staring at him. She looked down instead. Long enough to notice that the duke wore a gold signet ring, and that his hand was long and elegant and scrupulously groomed but sported emphatic veins, as though he’d used his hands to do difficult masculine things his entire life. Dark, crisp hair curled on his wrist, and that hair seemed almost embarrassingly intimate, because if she wanted to right now she could touch it. His finger looked very brown against her own white hand, which she normally took such care to keep from the sun. His hand could cover hers completely if he wanted, shelter it, vanquish it, comfort her or render her terrifyingly defenseless.