Page 4 of The Duke
She had skimmed three paragraphs about the Duke of Howard before she realised the duke in question was a woman: a singularly British affectation. Her foot slipped and she nearly burned the full length of her thigh in her surprise. She steadied herself and read the article again, slowly this time.
The Duke of Howard had turned twenty-one and made her long-awaited maiden speech in the English House of Lords.
The Duke of Howard, the newspaper reported, had once razed two villages to the ground, throwing out elderly tenants whose families had lived on Howard land for generations, throwing out war veterans on their odd-numbered limbs, throwing out widows with eleven mouths to feed; and built foundries in their place, monstrosities that grumbled and groaned and spewed filth into the air and water. What had once been a pastoral idyll had now become hell, and God save anyone who stood in the way of the Duke of Howard getting what she wanted.
The paper had trembled lightly. Bent at an angle by the shelves, by the need for light, heart held uncomfortably in the ravenous-tender confines of her mouth, Celine had read the piece a third time.
It was the summer of the Duke of Howard. She had taken Paris by storm. She had taken over the print shops, which couldn’t print her likeness fast enough for the feverish young ladies.
She had taken hold of Celine.
And now, almost nine years later, in the house of her condemned lover, Celine found herself face-to-face with the Duke of Howard in the flesh. No longer the untried youth Celine had first read about, but an adult come into her full authority.
No longer fantasy, but real.
The duke straightened and came around the desk. Slowly, as though she had realised how easily Celine would take fright. “You were promised to me?” Her voice was low and intimate. Impossiblyaffecting. It took a moment for Celine to realise the effect was in part because the duke had switched to the informal.
“Not”—she sucked in a breath—“till next week.” Stupid.
“I came sooner than expected.” The duke had cleared the desk, and finally Celine could take the rest of her in: her tall black boots and her long, muscled thighs in buckskin breeches that made no pouched allowance for a prick. Just legs, all the way up to the junction between them. “News reached me that Bastien wasn’t long for this world, but due to the vagaries of the Channel, I arrived before my message. I leave again at first light.” The duke was taking Celine in as greedily as Celine did her, and the light in her eyes intensified to an almost painful degree. “Christ, Bastien must have wanted to please me.”
Celine couldn’t catch her breath. The duke’s words and voice had evoked a vivid fantasy.Painful-bright eyes looking down at her through a fall of hair, a firm, hot hand round the back of her head—
She took a sharp step back, and the duke immediately stopped, with no more than three swift strides between them.
She felt young in a way she usually didn’t, uncertain of herself and blushing. She couldn’t quite believe this was the Duke of Howard; she couldn’t quite believe what she felt.
The duke considered her, and she could almost see the duke reassessing what the situation needed. Instead of advancing and grasping her, the duke leaned back against Bastien’s desk and looked. Without a hint of shame, or any attempt to hide her interest, the duke looked at Celine’s breasts, her waist, her very fine ankle.
I can make her change her mind, Celine realised, amazed, as the hot eyes returned to her face. Hope surged through her. She wanted to live.I can make her want to take me with her in the morning. If only I have the courage to try.
The duke made a humming sound Celine felt in her stomach and said, “Have you ever slept with a woman?”
“No.”
“Does the idea frighten you?”
She swallowed. “A bit.”
The duke exhaled, an amused puff of breath from her nose, and said, “We don’t have to.”
Would the duke laugh at her again if she confessed that she feared not the act but her own desire for it? That she feared she somehow wouldn’t survive it? Pricked, she said, “I’m well aware I’m not obliged to sleep with you. You, on the other hand, will dream of me on those long nights you spend wondering whether terrorising the English populace was worth how lonely you feel.”
Maybe she’d wanted it to hurt, but the duke laughed, sudden and warm. “So you do know who I am.”
“Tyrant,” Celine said. “Immoral.” Her breath scorched her throat, her mouth, her lips. “Untouchable.”
The amusement left the duke’s face, and her eyes hooded. “Come here,” she said.
Go to this intimidating woman, this English duke of whom she’d been in awe for nearly half her life? And yet the compelling voice commanded her.
She went to within arm’s reach but couldn’t make herself go closer.
Probably, before the duke touched her, she could see how Celine was shivering all over, but certainly, the duke must have felt it when her gloved fingertips landed lightly on Celine’s cheek and skimmed over her jaw, down her neck. Then the duke cupped Celine’s skull in her capable hand.
Of the impatience Celine had sensed from her earlier, there was no sign. Every movement of the duke’s body, every breath spoke sexual intent, but she made no wild lunges at Celine, no impositions on her, nothing but this infinite, patient hold she had on her. In the silence between them, Celine’s breaths tore up the air, painfully loud.
“Not brave enough to force yourself on me?”
