Page 16 of A Rescue by the Rakish Duke
His restless feet came to an abrupt halt as a soft glow from an approaching candle illuminated the woman a few feet away from him.
Gwendoline.
She froze as her gaze met his, her grip tightening on her candlestick’s brass holder. She wore a pale blue nightgown under a thick robe, but her robe had opened to reveal the thinner fabric of her nightgown. It was enough to hint at her silhouette, which caused his breeches to tighten.
Damian cursed inwardly. One, he was mad at himself. He shouldn’t think about his wife in that way. Two, he was mad at anyone who could have seen her in that nightgown and thought the same.
Though they were married, he had relinquished all rights to her mind and body. All he had was a legal document and a smoldering resentment.
Neither spoke for a long moment, at least not with words. The hallway seemed to shrink, the space between them filled with a tension that neither had sought but neither could escape.
“Your Grace.” She finally broke the silence.
Her voice was quieter than usual. It was a murmur, barely above a whisper, and it sent more heat through his body.
That voice. It was the kind of voice that one would like to hear in bed, after a night of passion.
His hands clenched into fists, the one holding his candle only faintly feeling a twinge of pain.
“Duchess,” he replied, his voice steady despite his inner turmoil.
Control. He was all about control. He thrived on it. And yet there was something about her lips parting in surprise and the loose tendrils framing her face that threatened to unravel him. All of him.
“Do you need to talk to me about something?” she asked, her tone polite. But he couldn’t help but hear the suspicion. “At this hour?”
Somehow, the high walls she still had around her, and that blatant suspicion, made his chest tighten. It shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did. He hesitated before answering—something that rarely happened with him.
To admit to Gwendoline that he had been wandering, too lost in thought to realize that he had lingered outside her chamber door, felt too revealing. It didn’t matter that her chambers were next to his. It was understood that he would immediately fling himself into his own without delay. He shouldn’t be standing in his nightclothes, a simple linen shirt undone at the collar over his loose trousers, which still felt tight with need just with one look at her.
He felt exposed, physically and emotionally.
“I might ask you the same,” he said, choosing safer words than the ones bubbling up his throat.
To his surprise, Gwendoline’s lips quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but it was so close. He stifled a groan.
“You might, though I highly doubt you’d find my answer interesting. I was checking on the servants, especially Hannah, who has not been well.”
Damian already knew this, but he didn’t want to reveal too much of what he had been up to the past few weeks. He nodded, although he doubted that she was still paying attention. Her gaze was fixed on her lit candle, as if it held the secrets of the universe.
“And you?” she asked, her lashes revealing expressive eyes that were boring into him.
How could she, with just a single glance, convey so much emotion?
She had made herself vulnerable to him.
“I… was walking,” he admitted finally. “Thinking.”
“About what?”
The question was innocent enough, but there was something else there. Vulnerability, perhaps?
“Many things,” he said.
She tilted her head slightly, her candle casting flickering light on her features. “You always overthink, Your Grace. I’m not surprised you cannot sleep.”
Damian’s lips twitched despite himself. “And you don’t think enough?”
“Perhaps not,” she admitted, a hint of playfulness in her tone. “But here we are. Here I am, in the corridors, in the middle of the night, with my husband.”
