Page 20 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“I’m stuck far from home,” Morington said, “and I’ve lost my purse, but I’m willing to give you a show for a bit of a price. So I can get home without wearing my feet out entirely, you understand.” He caught the maids’ attention and winked.
Persephone crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.
He saw her and grinned, and—oh hell. Her attraction to him was not gone. It sizzled to life with ease, as if it were a spark in her gut, and one look from him was a breeze surging it into hot, leaping life.
Morington prowled toward her, and a flash of purple was the only thing that ripped her attention away from the dark intent boiling in his eyes. Her gown had once been a sad color between blue and gray. Now it was deepest purple, pressed and neat and new. He’d glamoured her gown.
And he’d reminded her that the attraction she felt for him was all too real. The rings had only made her act on an emotion that had already existed. An emotion, attraction, that coursed through her now.
“What the hell, Morington?” She tried not to appear shocked, though, because he was linking their arms and tugging her toward the middle of the crowd.
“My wife,” he said, voice raised, “the lovely Lady Givesly.”
“I’ll give you something?—”
He kissed her, a thorough taming that kicked her knees in. Her fingers gladly clawed into the hair at his nape, and her arms gladly clung to his strong frame. She was a ninny. A lust-addled ninny.
But damn the man knew how to kiss.
“Good morning,” he drawled, ending the kiss. He dragged his lips across her cheek and whispered in her ear, “Play along, dear.” Where he held her hands pressed between his, he slipped a ring onto her finger.
Oh God, had he gotten into her bag? “No. Not again. I wo?—”
“Don’t worry. I fixed it.” He turned to the crowd. “I would travel all the way home without any comfort whatsoever, but I refuse to ask my wife to suffer.” He laid a hand against his heart, and with the other, he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I bend my pride for you only, darling.”
Heaven and hell and all the demons between them. This man was a menace. And she couldn’t control the raging fire burning across her face. She tried to take back her hand, but he held fast and the chorus of delighted aws rippling across the room locked her into a charade he would pay dearly for later.
“Turn your vision to the heavens above!” he cried.
Everyone did.
She inspected the ring instead. What in the world did he mean he’d fixed it? It was indeed the same gold band she’d worn last night. But she no longer felt the hypnotic heat coursing through her.
All she felt was irritation as he whipped off his hat and set it on the ground at their feet.
“Give what you can for the spectacle, friends, and I will give it back times three. When you do make it to London, you must simply knock on my door—fourteen St. James Square, West London—and I’ll give you three times the amount you give me today to help me return my beloved to London safely.”
“Please tell me that is not a real address?” she whispered, knocking her elbow into his ribs.
“Givesly can afford it. Besides, he’s an arse.”
“Says the arse.”
As people began tossing coins into his hat, he hugged her more closely and bussed her temple, and her heart seemed to leap up to greet the kiss, to embrace it, to keep it.
She shook the nonsense away and looked at the ring again. He wore the matching one. They bothered her. They appeared duller than before.
“What’s that?” a newcomer standing in the doorway asked. He stretched out an arm and pointed toward a?—
“A flying horse? Really, duke?” Persephone finally ripped her hand away from his. “Have you no shame?”
He shrugged. “Used to, but it didn’t do me much good.”
The stranger strode into the room. “What is this supposed to be? A story?”
“It’s London,” one of the maids from earlier said.
The stranger began shaking his head.
