The Last Duke (Thornton 1)

“Why? Because it troubles me that my wife keeps an ever growing testimonial to another man?”

“Another man? My only link to the bandit is through these articles, Pierce. I would hardly describe that as a scandalous relationship. Why, I’ve scarcely even spoken to—” She broke off, blushing furiously.

“You’ve scarcely even spoken to him?” Pierce jumped on her words. “So you’ve met this incomparable bandit.”

“Only once.” Daphne averted her head. “The night he robbed Tragmore. I awakened during the theft. We exchanged a few words, nothing more.”

“And where did you come upon him? The library? The sitting room?”

“No.” Her voice was barely audible. “My bedchamber.”

“Your bedchamber,” Pierce repeated.

“Yes. He came to take my jewelry. I arose and assisted him.” With a deep breath, Daphne raised her head, her chin set proudly. “I asked that he give the night’s booty to the House of Perpetual Hope. He agreed. I then placed his jewel and tin cup on my father’s pillow, thus allowing him to make his escape.”

A muscle worked in Pierce’s jaw. “Have you any idea what your father would have done to you if he’d discovered your actions?”

“Of course. It didn’t dissuade me then. It wouldn’t now. I’d do the same thing all over again, given the chance. And so would you.”

Pierce couldn’t dispute that logic. Neither, however, could he dispel his aching sense of betrayal, ludicrous or not. “Tell me about him.”

“The bandit? There’s nothing to tell. As I said, we scarcely spoke. If it’s his appearance you’re curious about, I could make out very little. He was swathed in black, from boots to hood. Completely concealed. As was his voice, which he kept to a rasp.” Daphne shrugged. “That’s the entirety of it.”

“Did he touch you?” Pierce was appalled to hear himself blurt.

“Touch me?” The color was back on her cheeks. “I believe he touched my hair.”

“You believe?”

“All right, yes, he touched my hair. It was clearly an expression of appreciation. He made no improper advances, if that’s what you’re attempting to discern.”

“Would you recognize it if he had?”

Her eyes widened. “Pardon me?”

“You were so bloody innocent. How would you know if a man were making an advance?”

Daphne’s lips twitched. “I recall identifying your advances, despite my lack of experience.” She wrapped her arms about Pierce’s waist. “You’re behaving irrationally, you know.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” he bit out, enfolding her against him, tangling his fingers in her hair. “I’ve been wild ever since I discovered that journal, smoldering while I waited for you to awaken and explain it away. And, yes, I hear every senseless word I’m raving. I sound like a crazed lunatic, and yet I can’t seem to stop myself. I, the consummate gambler, the unruffleable, level-headed essence of reason. I’m jealous of a bloody phantom? A marauder of the night who exists more in people’s minds than in fact? Damn it!” He shook his head in self-deprecating amazement, struck by the full irony of the situation. What would his wife say if she knew that the man he resented was none other than himself? “I must be losing my mind.”

“No,” Daphne whispered, rubbing her cheek against Pierce’s shirt, “Your heart, perhaps, but not your mind. As for sounding like a crazed lunatic, I disagree. What you sound is possessive and perhaps a bit vulnerable. Given the circumstances, both are understandable.” She lay her hand over his heart. “The vulnerability will subside once you accept the truth: that the risk you fear is unfounded and nonexistent.”

“Daphne.” Pierce’s gaze bore into hers, her name an agonized rumble from deep within his chest.

“I love you,” she breathed back, a healing balm to his tortured senses. “Only you. Always you.”

The inescapable prison he carried inside him shattered, capitulating at last beneath his wife’s gentle attempts to breach its unyielding walls. The senseless envy that had dominated his heart until moments ago receded beneath the intensity of something far more powerful, and the knowledge that, once he gave voice to the words, the circle would be complete and no one, bandit or otherwise, could sever the bond that forged between them.

Pierce brought Daphne’s palms to his lips, determined, now more than ever, to say aloud what he knew to be true, thus relinquishing the emotional isolation that had defined his past. “I want to give you the words,” he began.

Daphne silenced him with a gentle forefinger to his lips. “You already have. It isn’t necessary for you to speak them.”

“Yes, it is. Moreover, I want to speak them.” Pierce kissed the delicate veins at her wrists, the scented skin of her forearms, her shoulders. Slowly, his fingers traced the lacy edge of her chemise where it dipped down at her breasts. “But I want to speak them my way.”

Daphne’s gaze was fixed on his roving hand, her breath already unsteady. “Your way?”

“Um hum.” Pierce watched as soft color suffused her skin, his own body quickening in response. “I’ve waited thirty years to say these words, precious words I never expected to feel, much less say. So forgive me for being a bit selfish about the circumstances under which they are said.”