Page 27 of His Enemy Duchess

Thomas strode deeper into the room, an air of worry about him and… a pistol in his hand.

Sophia couldn’t help but burst into nervous laughter. “I thought it would be at least a few months before you created an ‘accident’ to get rid of me. Will you tell the constables that you thought I was an intruder?”

His stance relaxed when he saw her, the barrel of his pistol lowering. “It would not be a complete lie,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Clearly, I am cooking a whole goose for my supper,” she said, shooting him a withering look. “What else does one do in a library?”

“It’s the middle of the night!” he responded, bringing his own lantern closer to his body, revealing what she had previously missed—too distracted by the pistol to notice.

He wore nothing but his open housecoat and a loose pair of trousers that she knew to be called ‘mogul’s breeches.’ Made of light and airy muslin, hailing from India, Samuel was also partial to them, though their mother insisted that they were obscene.

Sophia swallowed thickly, wondering if her mother had been right. They left so little to the imagination, especially paired with the bare skin, glimpsed in the gap between the sides of Thomas’s unfastened housecoat. Sculpted muscles gleamed like bronze as the lanternlight caught the contours of his chest and ridged abdomen, and two diagonal lines at his hips that drew her eyes to places they should not wander.

“So?” she blurted out, snapping her eyes back up to his face. “I’m the lady of the house—you said so yourself—I can do whatever I want.”

“That, I did say…” he sighed.

“If you are not here to duel me, why do you have that pistol? Do you always patrol your manor at night, though there can’t be a single soul for miles around?”

“If you saw a light coming from the library in the middle of the night and heard strange sounds coming from within, what would you think?” he replied coldly.

Her cheeks flushed. “I wasnotmaking strange sounds.” She shrugged off her embarrassment. “And what, exactly, did you think proclaiming ‘who’s there’ would achieve? Did you plan to scare the intruders into jumping out of the window with the sheer might of your voice? Do you think yourself that intimidating?”

He looked more intimidating than she cared to admit at that moment, half swathed in dancing shadows, as if the darkness longed to caress that bare skin too. Not that she did,of course.

“Such bold words from a lady who was shrieking to herself. If therehadbeen an intruder, they would have found you instantly.”

He walked over and sat on another chair, leaving the pistol on the side table next to it. Sophia could see now that his feet were bare and was about to point it out when he leaned back in the chair.

The candlelight dripped down his body, taking his athletic physique from impressive to breathtaking. Every muscle and sinew flexed and relaxed, tightened and loosened, and she was unable to tear her gaze away.

“What had you screaming with such delight?” he asked, turning his lupine eyes on her. “If we were an ordinary couple on our wedding night, I might be jealous.”

She pinched the back of her arm to distract herself, refusing to be pulled in by a handsome face, a tempting physique, and sultrywords. “I was not screaming or shrieking. I was enjoying a book. I doubtyouhave ever experienced enthusiasm for anything, so you would not understand.”

She bent down to pick up the fallen book, retreating into its pages.

They shared the silence for around half a minute before Thomas broke it. His eyes were fixed on her, the usual grumpy frown adorning his face, but it didn’t feel judgmental. It almost looked like he had been taught to look straight and serious for so long that his face had forgotten how to show any emotion other than judgment or disgust.

To her, he felt like a house buried under a pile of snow and equally as cold. Maybe there was something there, under all that snow. Something human, something that once lived and breathed, that she couldn’t see.

“You couldn’t sleep, could you?” he asked.

Sophia was genuinely shocked by his question. There was a hint of… sincerity in it. A softness, a vulnerability, a hole in the snow. It was the last thing she had expected him to say.

This is new.

She pondered her answer long enough that he followed up. “Be honest.”

“No. No, I couldn’t. I did not expect to.” She had an intuition that he could tell if she lied to him and so chose not to.

Surprisingly, Thomas remained completely quiet for a while. Then, he started talking. Softly and slowly, the flickering candlelight danced on his face.

“I can’t blame you. You probably grew up thinking you would have a romantic wedding, a union of true love—one where you’d look up to your husband and dream such grand dreams with him. A childish fantasy, born of being sheltered and spoiled.” He paused. “No endless education for you, no practicing etiquette at six in the morning, no crop at your back for not walking straight, no chance for you to embarrass the family. My brother was granted the same charmed life. And now, because of him, because of his stupid idiotic mistake, I’m stuck with you… and you are stuck?—”

He turned towards her to gauge her reaction. She squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, partly because she did not want to listen to any more insults, partly because she wanted to see if he would continue, saying things he would not say if he thought she was awake.

“Sophia…” he said softly.

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