Page 16 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
He needed a wall between them. A whole damned sea. Instead, there was only six inches of air and the terrible sweetness of her looking at him as if he might yet become reasonable.
“The moment I saw you in that ballroom,” he said through gritted teeth, “I decided I would have you in my bed.”
There. Brutality. A clean cut through the line. If she had any sense, she would recoil, slap him, retreat toward daylight, and save them both from whatever his body had begun to believe it wanted.
She went very still. Her blue eyes widened, bright in the lantern-light. He watched the pulse beat at the base of her throat, too quick. Saw her fingers tighten in the blanket. Saw the flush climb from her collar to her cheek.
He could not read her, which made this the most dangerous position he had ever been in, and he had boarded ships under cannon fire.
She was breathing too hard. He was not breathing at all.
He deserved the slap. He waited for it. A slap would make him a villain, her the victim, and the matter simple. She would leave his ship, and he would return to being a man who did not drag cold women into his arms because he wanted to taste their lips.
“Do you understand now, Miss D’Ailes? The only position you could assume on this ship is that of my mistress.”
Chapter six
The words rang in the passage long after he had finished saying them.
The only position you could assume on this ship is that of my mistress.
She stood very still. She had learned stillness at Covent Garden, in the dark at the side of the stage, waiting for her cue. You did not fidget. You did not let the waiting show in your body.
The ship moved beneath her feet. The lantern swung, illuminating the furious edge of his jaw. He wanted her. In his bed. A maiden would feel outraged and cry to her father or her brother. But Marguerite had no one to return to. Her reputation was hers alone to keep.
Her breath shortened, and her hands found each other and held on. She was back in the study again, sitting with Karl and his solicitor, as they explained the contract to her. Karl's voice had been reasonable, almost gentle, as he laid out the terms of an arrangement that she had no power to refuse. She had sat across from him, nodded, kept her face pleasant, and felt herselfgrow smaller with every clause. That was what it felt like, to be reduced to a convenience. You shrank. You smiled. You hoped for the best.
But the duke was not smiling pleasantly. He was watching her. Waiting. Not breathing.
Her hands stopped clutching each other so tightly. The blood came back prickling into her fingers.
He wanted her. Not her connections. Not the list of Neapolitan factions she could recite in three languages. Not the access she could provide, the doors she could open, the enemies she could help him avoid. And he was angry at himself for wanting her. He had blurted the proposal and was now waiting for her verdict.
Do not falter now, Marguerite. Not after everything you learned about diplomacy. Not when you are, for the first time in your life, the one who holds the cards.
Her hands released each other. The palms were damp. In the face of an insulting proposition, a seasoned diplomat did not slap, shriek, or flee. She assessed her opponent. Ideally, while breathing normally. Marguerite made a valiant attempt.
She looked at his eyes first. Green. Hard. Flashing in a way that made her heart flutter, which was deeply unhelpful. There was no cruelty there, though. No enjoyment of her discomfort.
"Very well," she said. "If we are to discuss this position, then we will discuss it properly."
He shoved a hand over his hair, making a mess of the queue. "Marguerite, this is—"
“By ‘properly,’ I meant seated and soothed by another glass of brandy.”
They returned to the cabin in silence. Once Marguerite had perched again on the bolted chair, she tried very hard to stop her stomach from fluttering. Her knees pressed together beneath her skirt to contain the ridiculous quiver in them. No progress there. Still, she watched his back as he poured two glasses ofthe dark liquid. Good. Spirits had to be the great solvent of diplomatic stalemates.
Then he turned to her and offered her a glass. She caught it in both hands, thankful for something to hold on to while the rest of her threatened to become vapor.
He leaned back against the table with the contained energy of a man who had not yet decided what to do with his hands, which meant he had not yet decided what to do at all. He was still angry. She could see it in the line of his shoulders, in the set of his jaw, in the way he was looking at her as if she had aggravated him by saying 'very well' when he had clearly expected something simpler.
She did not have time for his anger to find a new direction.
"I would like to start with the duration of our agreement."
"Agreement." His mouth curled, and he looked like a man who had been asked to negotiate the terms of his own weather.
"Indeed." She kept her voice even. "I propose that the agreement terminate on the day we arrive in Naples."
