Page 26 of A Duke to Undo her
“Lady Josephine! What are you doing here?” he demanded with his familiar scowl, coming out from behind his desk as though he would usher her from of the room like a disobediently trespassing child or pet. “Where is your sister?”
Josephine closed the door behind her swiftly in order to ward off the possibility of being ejected and then took a deep breath.
“I wanted to thank you for defending me this morning, Your Grace. I know you didn’t have to. No one usually does when I…behave oddly. So, regardless of anything that might have passed between us before, anything I might have said to you before, please accept my thanks.”
The scowl transformed into an expression of incredulity and then a smile as genuine and natural as the one Josephine remembered after their card game. The duke really was a most handsome man, stock askew or not. His dark brow and firm jaw were quite as beautifully drawn as Benedict’s, although he was entirely opposite in coloring to the younger man and lacking the softness of youth.
It was his mouth that particularly drew her eyes, for some reason. She could not easily shift them from the firm, warm lips that had kissed hers with such strange result, the faint shadow of dark stubble above and below despite recent shaving, the straight, white and animal teeth. Cassius Emerton cleared his throat, breaking the silence, if not the spell he seemed to cast on her.
“You are my guest, Lady Josephine. I cannot and will not allow anyone to insult you under this roof. Rest assured of that.”
“But you insulted me,” she couldn’t help pointing out with consternation. “You compared me to all those other proper young ladies as though I was inferior to them.”
The Duke of Ashbourne looked mystified by this accusation, as though Josephine was merely imagining things.
“You did!” Josephine insisted, unwilling to stop until he acknowledged it. “Yesterday morning, in the corridor, almost outside this very door. Then, when I came downstairs for dinner last night, you looked at my dress as though there was something wrong with it, or wrong with me. I saw you.”
The dark-haired duke laughed a little at this, shook his head and then looked back at Josephine with those penetrating eyes.
“Lady Josephine, your impulsive heart is misleading what your eyes and ears tell your mind. I cannot deny ever having compared you to other ladies presently under my roof, but Iassure you that the result was quite otherwise than the one you attribute to me.”
What was that supposed to mean? The words made her heart race madly, as did the duke’s proximity, so near now that she could easily reach out and touch him.
“I have said that I do not approve of your wilder behavior and I do not believe you are the right wife for my brother. I stand by both views, but that does not mean that I would ever allow an unpleasant little fool like Carbury to accuse or abuse you unfairly. As for taking offense at your dress last night…”
This time, his laugh held both amusement and frustration.
“Do you have any idea how beautifully that blue gown suited your figure, Lady Josephine? Just as much as your present garb, I believe. I find it equally hard to control my gaze today, which is why I have avoided looking at you.”
The duke did look at her now, his dark blue gaze intent and hungry.
“I don’t understand,” Josephine whispered, close enough to feel his breath on her skin, and already enjoying the sensation.
“I have tried to warn you,” the duke said in a low voice as his eyes locked on hers. “I have warned you that you should not be alone with me, and yet here you are again, Lady Josephine.”
His breath caught in his throat as though he was trying hard to hold something back. Was he telling her that he wanted her to leave? She felt not, but he was still giving her a chance to do so.
Josephine certainly knew that she should not be in a private room alone with any man, and especially this man. The rules on this were always very clear for an unmarried young woman. Yet she did not seem able to help herself. The Duke of Ashbourne drew her like a magnet.
“But why do you talk to me like this?” she challenged him. “Why do you…Oh!”
A rough sound in his throat his only reply, Cassius Emerton pulled Lady Josephine into his arms and took her mouth with his own, swallowing her words in his kisses and drawing gasps and moans from her lips in their stead.
Her blood was immediately on fire all over again, the flames within her stoked by the sight, strength and scent of the man she was embracing. The duke’s breath was as labored as Josephine’s own and his kisses interspersed with short statements that made it impossible to do anything but respond in kind.
“So beautiful…most passionate woman I have ever known…you tempt me so…”
“You feel so good…oh, how do you…ah!”
The Duke of Ashbourne’s hands were in her hair, about her waist, cupping her chin to better kiss her mouth. Her own hands quested over and under his jacket, the firm lines of his body exciting her beyond all reason.
While he shrugged off his jacket, he did not allow Josephine to roam further under his clothes, bringing her hands to his lips and kissing them when she tried to find a way under his shirt.
“Shhhh, do not… too dangerous…Just let me touch you, Josephine.”
One of his hands moulded around the curve of her breast. Josephine cried out and pushed into this caress that was so forbidden and yet so pleasurable. No one should be touching her so intimately, she knew, and yet it felt so right.
The duke’s heated palm slipping into her dress to cup her naked breast was the most glorious thing Josephine had ever felt in her life, and when he pushed down her neckline to reveal both breasts and cover them with kisses, she could only revel in this ravishment.
