Page 54 of How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
“I was afraid of that, too.”
Her odd reply drew another smile from him. He tried to remember the last time he’d smiled this much without artifice.
Had he ever?
He was pleased to note that every bit of poise and elegance she’d learned at de Chardonne was evident in theway she glided down the staircase with him. At the landing, her friends each grasped her hand in a show of excitement. Or congratulations.
But there was a desperation in their hold upon each other. A promise passed between glances that he neither liked nor understood.
What had transpired between them upstairs?
What had they been doing in his mother’s rooms? He’d initially guessed they’d been idly exploring the future duchess’s new holdings.
Had they been about something more deceptive? Something more deserving of her guilty behavior above stairs?
In the end, did it matter? Not really. In a month he’d have a bride, and she a fortune, and each of them would be satisfied.
No, he realized. No, he’d not besatisfieduntil he’d taken her to bed. He’d not be contented until he’d unwrapped the layers and uncovered the enigma that was Alexandra Lane. He’d determine if the sweetness he sampled from her mouth was amplified within the other recesses of her body. He’d thoroughly explore each uncharted curve of her, discover every freckle, every sensitive, secret place with his profane mouth.
He’d learn the exotic flavors belonging only to her.
And then, when he’d taught her what it meant to be an endeavor of his, and she was left spent and sweat slicked with the pleasure of it…
Only then would he claim her.
Thenwould he plant his flag, so to speak.
Suddenly a month felt like an eternity.
Piers didn’t miss the way she stiffened as he pulled her toward him, sliding his hand around her ribs to prepare for their dance.
She quickly dispelled his worry that she might have forgotten how as, the moment he’d given her the cue, she followed his lead with practiced elegance.
As he suspected, their synchronization was flawless. Precise. Piers had never been fond of dancing, but he’d taken to it as easily as he’d taken to all things physical. In fact, he’d often picked his lovers directly from his dance card.
He’d noticed early in life that if one found an easy rhythm with a woman whilst dancing, the same was almost always true for fucking.
At the thought of that particular pastime, he looked down at the woman who felt as though she were made to fit within the circle of his arms.
As was appropriate, she kept her head tilted away, her gaze fixed elsewhere.
Actually, her eyes seemed unable to focus on anything as he twirled her about the ballroom in flawless cadence to the orchestra.
He spotted familiar faces in the crowd as they coiled past. A few Cambridge mates. An adventurer or two, most of whom had ceased to brave the wilds with him when he’d insisted on exploring deeper than caravans, comforts, and servants would dare to venture.
Those men, those so-called friends never once called upon him during his year of recovery.
His brother, Lord Ramsay, as always a stone-faced pillar of respectable contempt.
His cousin, Lord Patrick Atherton, Viscount Carlisle, and the raven-haired Rose beside him, narrow-eyed beneath a delicate ebony mask.
How strange that Rose wore the colors of mourning.
Piers lowered his head, his lips grazing the warm shell of his intended’s ear. “Are you enjoying this, my lady?”
Because, to his continual astonishment, he was.
She turned her head sharply toward him at the touch, discovering too late that the motion brought their faces dangerously close. “I—er—which part?” she breathed, her tremulous whisper barely audible over the music.
