Page 56 of From Duke Till Dawn
“So commanding,” she murmured with a little smile.
“Can’t fight my nature.” He brought up his gloved hand and lightly cradled the side of her face. Heat and awareness stole through her at his touch. “Hush.”
Warmth stole through her body at his touch, gentle and masculine at the same time. Soon, her lids lowered. She felt her breathing grow slow and even.
Then...
Her eyes flicked open. The carriage had stopped.
She lay curled up, partially in Alex’s lap. His arms circled her, holding her gently but firmly, keeping her from rolling onto the floor. He looked down at her, unsmiling, but with warmth in his eyes.
No one had ever held her this way.
She shot upright. “What happened? Where are we?”
“We’re home.” He kept one arm around her shoulders. “We’ve been home for half an hour.”
“And you let me just lie there?” she cried.
“It would be rude to wake you.”
“I—” Her heart thudded painfully. That night in Cheltenham, she’d kept from falling asleep beside him. Instead, she’d waited until he’d dozed off before sliding out of bed and throwing on her clothes. She’d known what it would do to her to fall asleep next to him, how it would tie them closer together, creating an intimacy stronger and more potent than sex.
But she hadn’t been so wise this time. Closeness wove thickly through the interior of the carriage. Shards of emotion buried deep in her chest, wounding her. She couldn’t allow herself to give in to the feelings she had for him. A swindler couldnotlove a duke. It was awful to even entertain such an idea. It was a certain formula for heartbreak.
Yet she was falling, falling—even deeper than she had in Cheltenham. And the longer she stayed close to Alex, the greater the danger became.
Without saying another word, she lunged for the door. She almost fell to the pavement, but managed to right herself before bolting past the butler, who held open the front door, and raced up the stairs to seek the safety of her room.
Curse her for a fool and an idiot. She’d tried to stop it from happening again, but it didn’t matter. She was losing her heart to the duke.
Chapter 11
Alex strode into White’s. Men gathered in groups, or sat with the newspapers near the fireplace, or took their supper in solitude. The air was heavy with the scents of brandy and tobacco and beefsteak. Male voices murmured or laughed, free to do exactly as they pleased without the burden of female company.
It was a peculiarity of his class, he realized, that it looked for excuses to separate men and women. After dinner, the ladies had to retreat to the drawing room while men were given the liberty to smoke and swear. As far as Alex knew, there were no clubs that only permitted women. But genteel men thought it necessary to hide themselves away, as if they sheltered delicate feminine sensibilities from men’s brutish, coarse nature.
He’d once thought Cassandra one of those women who couldn’t bear to hear of raw, earthy topics. Society widows needed protecting. But he’d been very wrong. She knew every aspect of the world, from the high to the low. Nothing disturbed or shocked her.
Buthewas still shocked. He’d believed that she’d slept with all of her marks. That she’d used her body to line her pockets. Yet that hadn’t been the case at all. He had been the exception.
And, now that he thought of it, she’d only gone to his bedafterhe’d given her money. Nothing but her own desires had motivated her.
His axis had shifted, realigning entire hemispheres. The apology he’d given had been entirely sincere. He saw now that she wasn’t the cold mercenary he’d believed. He had meant something to her besides another source of money. Guilt and relief filled him now, a strange alloy of emotions he wasn’t certain how to address. He winced when he thought about how he’d made her suffer, and said such cruel things to her.
Neither of us are innocent in this,he told himself as he moved farther into the club. They’d both hurt each other, and acted from self-interest and self-protection. Now, they had to move forward—wiser, wary, but clear-eyed.
He’d always been so sure of himself, smugly discharging his responsibilities as the Duke of Greyland, confident that he acted precisely in the way he was supposed to. Yet ever since Cassandra had returned, he’d been forced to face the realization that he was not the infallible creature everyone believed him to be. He’d ventured off his narrow route into realms unknown to him. And he liked it.
He didn’t want to be the staid, stolid duke any longer. She’d shown him there was much more to life than going through the motions by rote. In Cheltenham she’d reached the man buried beneath the title. Now she showed him a world much wider, more dangerous, more thrilling, than anything he’d known.
A footman approached him. “May I get you something, Your Grace?”
“Whiskey, and the location of Lord Langdon and Mr. Christopher Ellingsworth.”
“Of course, Your Grace. And the gentlemen are in the billiards room.” The footman bowed before heading off to fetch Alex a drink.
Alex meandered back toward the room set aside for billiards. He needed to speak with his friends—yet his body urged him to return home. To Cassandra.
