Page 14 of Caught By the Ruthless Duke
Only when she closed the door to her room behind her did she put the book over her face, as though it could shield her from the shame spreading through her like vines.
What was she doing, playing this game with the Duke?
No. She had to stop.
Yet his intense brown gaze still burned behind her eyes.
“When will this storm end?” she exhaled.
But she did not know which storm she meant, the one raging beyond the windows or the one now raging within her.
Chapter Five
“Good morning.” Theodore’s greeting emerged more curtly than he’d intended, the syllables clipped and defensive.
He didn’t rise when Lady Cressida entered the breakfast room, though every instinct screamed at him to do so. Instead, he remained rigidly seated, his fingers wrapped around a coffee cup that had long since gone cold.
She paused in the doorway, and he made the mistake of looking up.
The dress—that damned dress—clung to her curves with the same indecent accuracy as yesterday’s gown, the morning light from the windows rendering the fabric nearly translucent in places. The bodice strained across her breasts with each breath, and the way it hugged her hips as she moved toward the table sent heat coursing through him that had nothing to do with the fire crackling in the grate.
He forced his gaze back to his plate.
“Good morning, Your Grace.” Her voice carried a thread of uncertainty that hadn’t been there last night when she’d stood in his study, bold and defiant and utterly maddening.
Theodore gestured toward the chair beside him—not across,neveracross, though he couldn’t have explained why proximity felt necessary even as it tortured him. “Have a seat.”
She settled into the chair with careful grace, and he caught the scent of lavender soap. Mrs. Agnes must have provided it.
The knowledge that Cressida had bathed in his castle, in water heated by his servants, dipping her bare body into?—
He cut the thought off savagely.
A footman appeared with fresh coffee and disappeared like smoke. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the continued assault of rain against the windows and the occasional rumble of thunder that suggested the storm had no intention of abating.
“The weather remains disagreeable,” Cressida ventured, reaching for a piece of toast.
“Indeed.” Theodore kept his responses minimal, a strategy that had served him well in countless social situations.
Brief. Impersonal. Safe.
“I suppose this means I’ll impose upon your hospitality for another day.” She buttered her toast with precise movements, not meeting his eyes.
“It would seem so.” He paused, then added with more gentleness than he’d intended, “I should send word to your family. They’ll be concerned about your absence.”
Cressida’s laugh was sharp enough to cut glass. “More about how my absence will harm them. Not about my safety.”
Theodore looked up sharply, caught off guard by the bitterness in her voice.
She set down her knife, staring at her plate. “I shame them by my speech. My appearance. My unsuitability. So long as I am quietlyelsewhere, they are not concerned.”
The resignation mixed with hurt in her voice, so deeply buried she probably didn’t realize it showed, made Theodore’s chest tighten. He started to ask what she meant, the question forming on his lips, but then he saw the expression on her face. It was the same look she’d worn when she’d spoken of her friend yesterday, before defiance had risen to mask it.
He swallowed the question.
“The storm should pass by tomorrow,” he said instead, retreating to safer ground.
Thunder cracked overhead, so close it rattled the windows.
