My Darling Duke

“Ah…Your Grace. A message arrived earlier from Miss Danvers.”

The earth fell from beneath his feet, and he held the handle of his wheelchair in a white-knuckle grip. They’d had no correspondence in almost two weeks, and he resented the way his heart jerked with uncertainty and desperate hope. “Where is it?”

“I’ve had it delivered to your room.”

Alexander glanced up the winding staircase, which led to the west wing of the castle, before leveling his gaze on his manservant. “Why?”

The man looked bemused for a few minutes, then replied, “Miss Danvers had insisted her message be viewed alone. I assumed you would want to…read it in the privacy of your chamber and not in any of the lower rooms where a servant might barge in at an inopportune moment. Forgive me if I overstepped, Your Grace.”

He made to order Hoyt to retrieve her note but hesitated, glancing abovestairs once more. What could the content be if she wanted him to read it in privacy? “Assist me to my apartments.”

Relief lit in the man’s eyes, and he moved with swift efficiency to obey Alexander’s command. Several moments later, he wheeled himself down the hall and to his room. Hoyt hovered behind him, his air of anxiety baffling.

“Your Grace, I…”

“Yes?”

Instead of replying, his manservant bowed, turned, and walked away. The man was behaving oddly even by Alexander’s standards. He opened the door, wheeled into his room, and closed the door with a snick behind him.

A ripple of awareness danced over his skin as he inhaled the subtle scent of lavender…and then the woman herself. He scanned the room, searching for the impossibility of Katherine being here in his chamber.

She lay prone across his bed, on her stomach, her chin propped up by her hands. Dark, mysterious eyes stared at him. The emotions raging within him were too complex and fierce to be understood and shaped into any semblance of coherence or rationality. She shifted on the bed, the movement so slow and sinuous. Alexander wanted to speak, but his tongue felt stuck, his throat tight, and his heart jerked in a furious beat.

He felt off-balance, as if he were dreaming.

He wheeled toward the chaise longue closest to the bed and gripped the cane resting atop the surface. Her gaze felt like fire on his skin, and he ruthlessly bit back the questions pummeling at him. What was she doing? It seemed obvious yet also hidden.

Alexander gripped the cane and slowly pushed to his feet. The effort was not easy, and he moved with care to lower himself onto the chaise. Finally he dredged up the nerve to ask, “Are you truly here, my Katherine?”

She made no reply but stared at him with large eyes that held remnants of pain and unfathomable emotions. He needed to find the courage to inform her that her efforts would be wasted. This was a seduction; it was as clear as the bright stream of sunlight caressing her hair and body, bathing her in an entrancing glow of warmth. Then he would have to inform her that even though she braved coming to his castle, she might never leave it again, even when her every expectation would soon be at her feet in tattered remnants.

“I was an idiot, Katherine,” he murmured, regret slicing deep in his heart and staying there.

Her lashes swooped down, hiding the beauty of her eyes from him, before she met his regard once more, her expression carefully contained. And they stared at each other for several moments. The memories seeped between them like an invisible thread of connection, tugging from her heart to his.

“I hurt you with my fears and cruel words,” he continued, “and I will regret it always. I beg of you to forgive me.”

A slow blink, and her throat worked on a visible swallow, yet she remained silent.

“Before I knew you, I was captivated by you. Your adventurous and improper spirit bewitched me, and I had…had to know you. Since then, every moment with you has been a dream I despair of waking from.”

He stared at her for several seconds before adding gruffly, “I had been looking at you…me…us through the lens of the impossibility, when I should have looked at what was possible. I see laughter, us lying on the floor in the library having discourses covering the trivialities of the ton to my motions for parliament. I see us climbing trees when I am able, making angels in grass and in snow, traveling together. I see you in my arms in the night when I sleep; I envision kissing you endlessly. I see us sharing dreams and hopes and uncertainties and always finding comfort in each other. Those fall in the possibilities of us. But I am also damn afraid. So afraid, my Katherine, because there are so many things I’ll never be able to offer you, and there is nothing I want more than to always see joy in your eyes and a smile on your mouth. I want you happy…always.”

Her lips parted on a silent sigh, but several beats passed while she made no answer, and for the first time in years, he resented the silence, hated it, even. Her sweet voice and atrocious singing had haunted his dreams, pitching him between loss and despair, love and hope, and more than anything, he wanted to hear her speak.

The ormolu clock on the mantel ticked away several more tense minutes, yet she did not speak. He was desperate to hear her voice, when he did not merit it.

“I am afraid one day I’ll look in your eyes and see despair. See sadness because I cannot give you more. Lovemaking…children. There will always be those missing elements, and I could not bear to see such unhappiness on your face. I am not a man to give in to fear. But my heart trembles with it when I think of losing you forever…when I think there may be a day that I open my arms and you do not walk into them. I have never in my life wanted anything more than I want you for my own—to love, to cherish, and to protect. Forgive me for being a damn fool, my Katherine.”

The corner of her mouth curved upward in an oddly seductive and secretive smile.

With a supple elegance, she slid from the bed and stood. A silk banyan clung to her alluring curves, and he could see the shadowed valley of her breasts and belly, where the front of the silk was slightly parted. Her beautiful hair tumbled over her shoulders in a riot of becoming waves and curls. Sensuality breathed life into every line of her body. Unexpectedly, he also saw shyness—sweet, wonderful shyness. Her pulse visibly pounded in the hollow of her throat and the delicate line of her collarbone.

“I fell in love with you in that cabin, Alexander.”

The words came spearing through his consciousness, breaking the silence, suppressing the hollow emptiness that had started to beat inside his heart. The cane dropped from his hand, and he leaned forward. She sauntered closer until she was only a few feet from him. The nearness of her gave him great comfort. It took some effort, but he stood, ignoring the pain in his lower back.

She placed her open palm flat on his chest and tilted her lovely face up to his. “I fell in love with you, Alexander, and each day away from you was a torture. And then despite everything, I continued falling for you.”