My Darling Duke

“I am still figuring that out.”

An unusual silence fell between them, and Eugene made his way to the mantel and poured whiskey into two glasses. He handed one to Alexander.

“Do you still wish to speak on estate matters?” Eugene asked. “Or would you like to join Miss Danvers and Penny in the rose parlor? I believe Penny is persuading your fiancée to play cribbage.”

Alexander tipped the glass to his mouth and took a healthy swallow of his drink. “One or two of my doctors will be attending me in a few hours. I’ll decline.”

“And if Miss Danvers should query?”

“You are not at liberty to divulge my business. Simply let her wonder.”

Eugene grunted and made his way from the library, leaving Alexander alone. He wheeled himself behind his desk, fighting the temptations to join them in the smaller parlor. Instead, he took a packet of letters that had been sent by the prime minister.

A knock sounded, and before he could answer, the door cracked open, and Kitty peered in.

“Hullo,” she said softly.

“Most people would wait for an answer before intruding.”

“You already know I am not most people.” She hesitated before entering. Then she closed the door behind her but advanced no farther, standing with her back against it. “Your sister was quite disappointed that you would not join us.”

“And you?”

That elicited a small smile from her. Instead of answering, she said, “Would you like some company?”

“It pains me to disillusion you, but I am disastrous at small talk.” The press of silence was where he found his greatest comfort. And yet, he wanted her to stay, to talk, to touch him again. Alexander wanted more than just to touch her, to introduce her to pleasure.

He wanted to know her.

“You did rather well in the cottage.” She closed the door with a small snick.

Her unique boldness made her intoxicating, enchanting. “Shocking, Miss Danvers, a closed door? I thought you would have wanted some semblance of propriety.”

A smile quivered on her lips. “I feel quite safe with you, Your Grace.” Her gaze dropped to the letters from Earl Liverpool. Curiosity lit in her eyes. “Our prime minister writes to you?”

“Hmm, this one,” he said, plucking up one of the letters, “is to congratulate me on my engagement and my re-emergence within society. He compliments me for securing such a delightful lady.”

She blushed profusely, and he smiled.

“This one is to praise my efforts and his, which led to the recently passed Judgment of Death Act.”

“I read about it in the papers. I was quite appalled to know that the simplest of crimes carried a sentence of death. Even children were not spared when they stole food to survive. It is admirable what your motions in parliament achieved.” She glanced around his office. “And you did all that without visiting town or the House of Lords.”

“Is that censure I hear in your tone?”

She shifted, her dark red muslin evening gown sliding over the thick Persian carpet with a soft swish. “Of course not. Only admiration.”

“My body was here…but my mind has always been with England and its plight.” And over the years he’d fought with the best of them through the power and eloquence of his pen. Only a few months ago, there were more than two hundred offenses in England that carried a mandatory sentence of death. The law had been unforgiving, especially to those of the lower class. A maid within his household lost her nephew to the hangman’s noose because he had stolen a gold fob watch. The boy had been only thirteen, and Alexander had discovered the law’s reaction to his impudence too late.

It had fueled him, dragged him away from the jaws of loneliness, and had given him another purpose to direct the restless emptiness inside. He had written motions upon motions, and Lord Liverpool and several other influential men in the House of Lords had presented his arguments most passionately. The triumph of the passage of the act had been in the newspapers for weeks.

He wheeled his chair from behind the desk around to the crackling fire and very close to her. Alexander realized he had committed an error of judgment. He was driven to distraction by her soft scent of roses. A hunger unlike any he’d ever known clasped him in an unrelenting hold.

She glowed with incandescent sensuality; a woman like her deserved the richest of pleasures. And he wanted to be the one to give them to her, even if he would receive none in return.

He wanted the taste, the scent, and the feel of her to invade him, to shatter the remnants of emptiness that held him in their cruel embrace. He wanted to take his lips on a journey over her lips, to where the pulse fluttered madly at the base of her throat. There he would linger, nibbling on the soft flesh there, and then he would splay her before him and use his tongue to do wicked things between her thighs.

Regret and anger, terrible and raw, exploded in him. He would never have her like that. Never.