Page 30 of A Deal with her Forbidden Duke
“Do not,” she protested. “Please. I—I cannot handle one more hour alone in that house, especially now. It was hard enough when I questioned what he was doing, and where he was. It is even worse now. Not because I feel anything for him but because I feel so ashamed, like everybody is watching me, as though they already know what I am only now finding out.”
She bit her lip, dismay written over her face.
Alexander hesitated. “I do not wish you to overburden yourself.”
“Ihaveto do this. Please.”
That second plea—it was what undid Alexander, and he could not deny that he respected her stubborn fight.
“Fine,” he conceded eventually. “You know, you are as stubborn as your brother.”
He leaned out of the window, calling the location to the driver, somewhere near the dock.
A loading bay of sorts for imports and merchant transactions. The driver called an agreement, and began taking them there.
“You win again, Madeleine.”
He could not help his brief smirk.
“This is a game for me to win, Alexander?”
The way she dared to say his name because he had said hers, because he had invited her to, had his stomach rolling with warmth. He was struggling more and more to keep his attraction to her at bay.
“I do not know,” he told her. “Is it?”
It was a challenge, and a flirtation, in one.
“It’s best we did not,” she said and he clenched his jaw.
She was right. She was a married woman. No matter how much of a vile wretch her husband was, she was still bound to him.
There was no room for games between them.
Yet it was so tempting.
Among the chase for her husband, to give in to the push-and-pull between the two of them, to flirt with her, to dare her…
To see how close they might get before they pulled back.
The docking area that they found themselves in was shadowed by the towering structures of boxes, piles of sand, and empty import containers.
Alexander pushed at the broken lock of a warehouse that was cloaked in darkness, abandoned.
The entire docking area was eerily silent, not a hint of anybody around.
He swallowed, making sure Madeleine was at his side as he entered. He was not afraid of being there, only of what he might find with Madeleine present.
Inside, the warehouse offered little to see by, so Alexander squinted through the darkness, eyeing boxes and dust motes swirling through the air.
A railing-lined level ran near the ceiling, and a small window offered a small bit of light.
It was enough to catch sight of bloodstains on the floor, right near the door. They splattered behind some boxes, as though somebody had hidden and been pulled out.
And there—a piece of torn fabric. It was edged with blood, but it was undeniable fine material.
Something an earl would wear.
A curse slipped free from Alexander as he snatched it up, hoping Madeleine didn’t see it, and he could tell her in a far less garish way. But her gasp in the silent warehouse told him enough.
