Page 24 of A Duke in Disguise
“Does she even know you’re here?”
“No. The coachman is pretending not to notice that I’m at a bookshop instead of the milliner, and my maid is quite charmingly bribable. I only meant to duck in.” Her brow furrowed. “But if Nate isn’t here, I’m faced with a problem,” she murmured.
“Are you? Are you quite certain this wasn’t mean to be a, ah, rendezvous, Amelia?”
“Oh, never mind!” Amelia assured her with patently false brightness. “Here,” she said, dropping sixpence on the counter. “I’ll take a copy of theLadies’ Register. We laughed so hard when we read the last issue that Lizzie was nearly sick and Mama had tears coming down her face.”
Verity had been partly responsible for hundreds ofissues of theRegister, but theLadies’ Registerwas the first publication she had managed entirely on her own and she felt proud beyond all measure.“It’s only the proofs, not a proper copy,” Verity protested, but Amelia insisted it did not matter, and shoved the stack of papers into her muff, which seemed to already contain quite a collection of other papers.
“Send Mr. Ashby my regards!” Amelia called, already whisking out the door before Verity could ask why she had really come.
The weather obliged in providing amelancholy backdrop that perfectly suited Verity’s mood. The sky was a dirty shade of gray and there was a layer of fog seeping into the cracks between buildings and leeching the city of all its color. As she looked out the shop window, her view was a study in gray and brown. Verity adjusted her shawl around her shoulders.
She heard the door to the back room open and out of the corner of her eye saw a person approach. Without turning her head she knew that it was Ash. It wasn’t any particular scent of his or a way he moved, just the way his body seemed to fit beside hers even without touching.
“Brought you some tea,” he said, putting a cup down on the counter.
“Thank you,” she said. “I suppose you don’t despise me enough to make me go without tea.”
“Despise you?”
“Despise, detest, resent, revile. Take your pick.”
“Plum,” he said in a voice that somehow managed to make itself heard over the noise, “are you suffering from some kind of affliction?” He was facing her now, but she didn’t return his gaze, instead keeping her attention on the fog outside the shop window.
“Maybe that’s the explanation for my wickedness,” she said. “An affliction. Let’s go with that.”
“Your—What maggots have got into your brain to make you think I despise you?”
“You’ve been avoiding me all week, ever since Nate left. You plainly disapprove.”
“I don’t disapprove of a single thing you’ve ever done in your life, Plum.” He shook his head, as if perplexed. “I don’t think I could.” There was something dark and needy in his voice that made her look directly at him. The strong planes of his face were even starker in the flickering candlelight, and his dark eyes gleamed with intent. “If you hadn’t persuaded Nate to go in the way you did, I don’t think I would have known a moment’s peace. Damn it, Plum, I miss your brother. I think England is a better place with him on its shores. But there was no way I was going to stand idly by while he threw his life away and yours into the bargain.”
“Then why haven’t you talked to me?” Her voice sounded small and weak and she hated it. “I’ve been all alone for days now.” This was so close to asking—begging, even—for help, for reassurance, that she felt small and weak even speaking the words. She needed to hear it, though, needed proof that she was not the only one in over her head. She couldn’t make herself speak the words aloud, so she squeezed his arm, willing him to answer the question she could not ask.
She heard his breath catch. “You know perfectly well,” he said, as if he had heard her thoughts. But he must have seen the uncertainty in her expression. In a voice that was nearly a growl, he said, “I see you do not.” The next thing she knew he had bolted the shop door and slipped his arm into hers, not a gentlemanly offer of support so much as a means of more or less dragging her from the room. “This way. We’re not having this conversation for an audience.” He led her out of the shop and up to her study. Ash kicked the door shut behind them and they were alone in the dark, his mouth on hers, his body caging her against the wall. The room was cold and the wall was damp against her back, but he was a wall of heat in front of her, around her, everywhere she needed him to be. And his mouth—he was kissing her as if he were running out of time, as if there were a very serious kiss shortage and reasonable people had to set about stockpiling. She contemplated rucking up her skirts and seeing what they could do against the closed door, fully dressed.
He paused only enough to speak. “You matter more to me than anything in the world and you fucking know it. And it won’t do us a penny’s worth of good. It simply won’t do.” But he spoke the words against her mouth, his lips moving against her own.
She kissed him again, then pulled away just enough to speak. “You’re wrong. I’ve known you for ages and you’ve never been as wrong as you are now.” Another kiss, and this time she nipped at his lower lip. He groaned.
All that mattered was the taste of tea on his lips, the pressure of his hands on her waist, the way their bodies and their lives fit together and made her forget everything else. She wrapped a leg around his waist at the same time he got his hands under her bottom and lifted her, pressing the hard length of his arousal against her, kissing her with a rhythm that suggested something more than kisses.
“Please,” she said, not sure what she was asking for. “Ash.”
He groaned and pulled away, the cold air rushing in between them. “We can’t. I can’t.” He let out a bitter laugh that she didn’t understand. “I certainly can’t.”
“If you’re worried about my virtue I assure that’s not of the least concern. I don’t expect—”
“I don’t give a damn about your virtue. I can’t explain, Verity,” he said with a mix of frustration and sorrow, and left her alone in the cold dark room.
Chapter Eight
The door to Ash’s studio was closed, so Verity took a deep breath and straightened her back before knocking. For the two days since their last encounter, they had been behaving towards one another with exaggerated cordiality, carefully preserving a respectable distance between their bodies and hewing to only the most harmless conversational topics. If this was what a couple of kisses did to a friendship, then Verity was staunchly opposed to kissing. Or she would at least act like she was. Because however delightful those moments in Ash’s arms had been, nothing was worth having her friendship with Ash reduced to mere civility.
Only when she heard footsteps approaching the door did she think to adjust her skirts or check her hair, and a quick glance at the former and pat of the latter confirmed that she was all askew, but there was nothing to do about it now. And besides, she was not here to seduce Ash with her elegance. The thought of it made her smile—if Ash required elegance, he would not have kissed her in the first place.
The door opened, and Ash stood there in shirtsleeves. Before he could open his mouth to say something blandly polite, Verity blurted out, “I thought you might like to go to the chophouse. I finished the last of the bread at breakfast and forgot to buy more so it’s the chophouse or a slow starvation, your choice.” She paused to take a breath. “My treat.”
