Page 4 of Never a Duchess
And she would have months to grieve the loss.
“Spying isnae work,” he said, moving closer.
She quickly sniffed away her tears. “It is if you’re employed by the Crown. I have information to suggest someone is passing secrets to the French.”
Dounreay came to lean against the wall near the window. He folded his arms across his broad chest and studied her intently. “The fact ye admit to working for the Crown says that’s another lie.”
“What I’m doing here is a private matter, Your Grace.”
He glanced at the locked door. “Have ye planned to meet someone?”
“No!”
“Have ye played me for a fool, Miss Ware? In a desire for adventure, have ye taken a lover? Does that account for yer eagerness to get rid of me?”
A lover!
She should be shocked at the suggestion.
Yet she was intrigued.
A gentleman did not discuss lewd topics with a lady.
She gave an incredulous snort. “You think I’m foolish enough to trust the gentlemen here tonight? They wouldn’t know honesty if it chased them around the garden and bit their behinds.”
“Yet ye find honesty just as challenging.”
She deserved that.
“Around you, I seem to find many things challenging.”
He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “That explains why ye inhale sharply whenever I lay my hand on yer back. Why ye avoid my company and refuse to dance.”
“I imagine most women inhale sharply in your presence.” His potent masculinity oozed from his pores. He could wield it as a weapon to make timid damsels swoon. “You’re an extremely handsome man, Your Grace.”
Dounreay straightened. “Ye admire my countenance?”
Oh, he was so beautiful she could hardly breathe.
“Every lady gawps at your physical attributes. You’re the topic on every woman’s lips tonight.” At twenty-seven, the wealthy duke was the most eligible bachelor in London.
“Yer lips are the only ones that interest me, Miss Ware.”
Lillian laughed lest she melt into a puddle at his feet. “I thought we had agreed not to play these flirtatious games.”
“I agreed nae to ask ye to dance,” he said, quick to correct her. “But I want us to be friends. After lying to me all these years, ye owe me that, at least.”
Guilt rose to the surface.
Shehadled him on a merry dance.
“I see no harm in us being friends, Your Grace.” Until he married. Then she would avoid him like the plague. She would rather stick pins in her pupils than see those dark eyes devour any other woman.
“One should always be honest with a friend,” he said, a slight air of warning in his tone. “Tell me what ye’re doing with that telescope. Show me what ye’ve scribbled in that little notebook.”
“It’s private.”
“Then, as a friend and someone interested in yer welfare, I must take the matter up with yer brother, Lord Roxburgh. I’m sure he would like to know I found ye alone in a locked bedchamber.”
