Page 24 of Misadventures with a Duke

His hands are fisted. His golden eyes are wide. He’s really turned into my Desperado. He’s frantic. Lost. Terrified. I can’t say that I blame him.

“Oh, hey!” I surge to my feet. “Good morning.” Within two seconds, I whip around to turn us into a pseudo see-saw, plunking him down to the cushion. “Okay, whoa. You’re about to hyperventilate. Whoa. Bastien, you need to breathe deeper.”

Thankfully, he listens. I still don’t feel confident about letting go of his shoulders yet—having nothing to do with his huge delts beneath my sprawled hands—but it also feels good to have him near again. As if the world has been on a massive tilt and has leveled again.

“You.” He lifts a hand that trembles harder than his voice. But when he presses his fingers to the scoop of my tank top, where my scar is peeking out, he touches down like my skin is chiffon. “You are still here.”

“Yes.” I run my own fingers along the back of his. “Exactly where I belong.”

The pledge wasn’t what my brain intended but what my heart means. It feels so right to say it. More than right to realize it. Almost as if I traversed centuries to get here too. As if I should be called Desperado as well.

“Magique.”

Damn it. I liked Desperado Junior better. I even close my eyes and pray for it as he braces his other hand to my hip and tugs me down next to him. And then against him.

So close.

So warm.

So right.

“How is this possible?” He rumbles it with low ferocity, sending wonderful rumbles through his chest and along my cheek. “Last night, I nearly thought it but a vivid dream.”

“I get it.” I pull in a breath, sneaking an extra hit of his scent. There’s a lot of my stuff, cherry body lotion and vanilla shampoo, mixed with the earthy notes along his skin. The effect is dizzying in all the right ways. “I almost threw down for the same theory a few times.”

“Threw what down?” He busses the top of my head. “Perhaps your precious garlic wings and the cold slaw with chips a-laying?”

My giggle nearly becomes a spit take. It’s tempered by a glaring realization. Even animated corpses know the almighty goodness of garlic wings.

So, I really have to accept the base truth now. And the conclusion to where it leads.

I have to convince Bastien of what’s happened too. And, very possibly, why.

And something—a pounding, dreading something—tells me he’s not going to hop on the time travel parade float as easily as his brother.

Chapter Six

Bastien

“Alll riiighty then.”

Magique’s evasive expression is not just words from her lips. She looks away quickly, as if having a debate with herself before deliberately raising those pretty greens back to me.

Eyes that have become too bright. Above a smile that is too forced.

“You know, now that we’ve danced toward the subject, you hungry at all? I haven’t had a chance to check kitchen inventory yet, but if Allie’s only got old stale saltines and diet soda, we can order in…”

Words that are too hurried. And truly make no sense at all now.

I clasp both of her hands. It is the only way to halt her progress from nervous to petrified. If I know nothing else about her, it is assuredly this. “Magique.” I squeeze to emphasize the mandate. “To me, you are already my duchess. If you desire some food, I can send a servant to—”

“Oh, holy shit.” She chuckles despite my puzzled gape. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like— I mean, it’s just that servants aren’t going to be—” She stops again, though with significant purpose. “Maybe we’d just better sit for a second.”

I knew I was premature, thinking her tension was gone. Still, I give an inviting tug to her stiffened fingers. “Why sit when we can lie?”

She adamantly ignores my suggestive glance back toward the bedroom. It gives me no choice about looking elsewhere too. And wondering, yet again…

Where am I? What is this place, with its grand architecture, gleaming surfaces, and bustling sounds?