Page 43 of Her Wicked Duke
“It certainly sounds that way,” Annette muttered. “Quite indecent, I must say.”
“Perhaps you would enjoy it there more, my dear,” Matthew said sarcastically.
Anne looked at Alexander in horror, her mouth turned down apologetically.
“Perhapsyoushould go, and then you would not have to complain about anything. Heaven forbidsomethingpleases you there—” Annette fired back.
“And the wine!” Elizabeth interrupted her. “Oh, the wineflowslike a babbling brook in the woods. Where is this wine from, Lord Angleton?”
“Germany, I believe,” Matthew answered.
“Pah.” Elizabeth’s lips curled in distaste. Alexander tried to warn her once more, but she was back to holding her crystal glass up to the light and twirling it. “Hmm.”
“Is it not to your taste, Your Grace?” Annette asked.
“Annette, why do you ask about such matters when you would not know taste unless it was chocolate stuffed into your horrible mouth?”
A grossly uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Even Anne couldn’t summon a “Papa!”the way she usually did to chide him for his callous words. And especially before guests!
Annette stared at him in shock, and Anne struggled to meet Alexander’s eyes. The Dowager Duchess continued eating, her lips pinched. Mary looked outright uncomfortable.
“Well,” Annette said, her voice close to breaking, “if my mouth is so horrible, then I shall do you the favor of not looking at it.”
She pushed her back, and the scraping noise was so loud, so awful that Anne felt it vibrate in her chest.
“Mama,” Anne said quietly—a plea.
Please, not today.
Sighing, she wiped her mouth with her serviette, threw it down in annoyance, and pushed back from the table. She did not bother saying where she was going.
Of course,shehad to do this. Mary had never had to intervene, had been sheltered from mediating their arguments thanks to Christian’s presence and then her marriage.
Anne followed her mother, but as soon as she walked out of the dining room, she heard a deep voice coming from within and the sound of another chair scraping the floor. She slowed down, almost to the kitchen, when a hand wrapped around her wrist, halting her.
Anne stayed very still, knowing that it was Alexander who had followed her. Concealed in the shadows in the corridor between the kitchen and the dining room, away from prying eyes, he stepped closer to her.
“I must go to my mother,” Anne said, her throat suddenly dry.
“Leave her be.” It was a soft command, but a command nonetheless. “She will be fine, as she always is.”
“Yes, but?—”
Alexander shushed her by pressing a finger to her lips. Still, she could not see his face, and there was something more intense about how he wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her to his chest.
She did not feel penned in or cornered. Not in a way that felt threatening.
I want him.
Her lips parted, and his fingertip pressed against her lower lip. She kissed it, her eyes fluttering shut. Just being held this waymade her want to make a soft noise of pleasure, as if she had just been waiting to be held close amid her family’s chaos and be reminded of what was truly going on.
“Tell me to stop,” Alexander whispered in her ear, making her shiver.
Anne surprised herself when she murmured, “Don’t.”
Alexander laughed quietly, the smooth sound coursing through her deliciously. Her arousal rose gently, slowly, like waves lapping at the shore, as he kissed down the slope of her neck. His hand splayed over her bodice, his fingertips just shy of touching the curve of her breasts.
It was unthinkable to consider being caught in such a position, but she didn’t want to push him away. Alexander’s kisses were featherlight, his mouth gentle on her skin, his voice murmuring quietly in her ear.
