Page 34 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
And at the center of it all, sprawled with complete and utter disregard for propriety, lay Poppet.
Arabella blinked once, then again, as her gaze settled on the cat stretched across the very middle of the desk, her small body draped over a stack of papers as though she had claimed them for her own. One paw hung lazily over the edge, her tail flicking with slow, deliberate contentment.
“Well,” Arabella said softly, a note of disbelief threading through her voice as she stepped further into the room, “I see you have made yourself quite at home.”
Poppet did not so much as stir.
“Your cat,” Maxwell said without looking up from the paper in his hand, “appears to have made it her singular purpose to torment me.”
Arabella did not immediately answer. She had taken a few careful steps into the room, her attention caught between the man seated behind the desk and the small, unbothered creature sprawled across his work as though she had always belongedthere. Poppet stretched languidly, as if in agreement with the accusation, and Arabella could not help the soft sound of amusement that slipped from her.
“If that is her purpose,” she replied, moving closer, “then I fear she has chosen her target well.”
Maxwell’s gaze lifted then, steady and assessing, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if she had overstepped. Yet there was no true irritation in his expression, only a quiet resignation that did not quite align with his words.
“You find this amusing,” he observed.
“I do,” she said simply. “Particularly as you have not removed her.”
He said nothing to that, though his hand shifted slightly on the desk, as if resisting the impulse to do exactly what she had pointed out. The silence stretched for a moment, not uncomfortable, but charged in a way that made Arabella aware of herself in a manner she had not been the day before.
She cleared her throat lightly. “I have asked for my breakfast to be brought here,” she said, her tone turning more measured. “If you do not object, I would like to join you.”
There it was again, that brief flicker in his gaze. Surprise, perhaps, though it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared.
“You may,” he said.
Arabella inclined her head, though she could not help but feel as though she had secured something more than a simple permission. She set her hands lightly against the back of a nearby chair, then glanced toward the windows, the dimness of the room pressing in on her more now that she stood within it.
“It is rather dark in here,” she murmured, half to herself, before moving toward the curtains.
She did not wait for him to stop her.
Drawing them back, she allowed the morning light to spill into the room in widening bands, illuminating the shelves, the desk, and finally him. For a moment, she hesitated, aware of the way the light traced the line of his shoulders, the way it caught on the edge of his mask. She expected a word of protest, some quiet command to leave the room as it had been.
None came.
When she glanced back at him, he was watching her, his expression unreadable, but he did not speak.
Arabella returned to her chair, smoothing her skirts as she sat. “That is better,” she said, as though it required no further comment.
The tray arrived shortly after, carried in with the same careful precision she had come to expect. Once they were alone again, the quiet settled between them once more, though it felt different now, thinner somehow, as though it might be broken with less effort.
Arabella reached for her teacup, her movements deliberate, though her thoughts were anything but steady. The memory of the previous night lingered with an insistence that refused to be ignored. She could still feel the warmth of his hands, the unfamiliar awareness that had taken hold of her, the way her body had responded before she had quite understood what was happening.
She kept her gaze lowered.
“You are avoiding me.”
The words were spoken without force, yet they cut cleanly through her careful composure. Arabella’s fingers tightened slightly around the handle of her cup before she set it down.
“I am not,” she said, though the answer came a touch too quickly.
Maxwell did not look away. “You have not met my eyes since you entered the room.”
Arabella drew in a slow breath, willing the heat from her cheeks. “If I have,” she said, lifting her chin just enough to meet his gaze, “it is because I find myself… shy.”
The word felt strange on her tongue, and yet it was the closest she could come to naming the unsettled awareness that had taken hold of her.
