Page 14 of One Night for Seduction
“I don’t enjoy being extorted,” he snarled. Or perhaps meant to snarl.
He didn’t look angry anymore. In fact, he wasn’t looking at her eyes at all. His gaze had dropped a few inches lower, where Diana’s teeth nibbled her lower lip.
She licked her lips in response.
He stepped closer.
“I blackmailed you,” she stammered, the words coming out far breathier than she intended, “intonotmarrying me.”
“Marriage is not what’s on my mind.” His voice was husky, his mouth suddenly nearer, as if he could not prevent his body from inching closer and closer to hers.
Somehow, her feet were doing the same. When the tip of her toe brushed against his, her shiver had nothing to do with the January weather and everything to do with the irresistible scoundrel before her.
“Queen to H5,” she whispered.
“A feint,” he murmured, the full intensity of his gaze meeting hers. “My pawn protects me.”
Her heart beat faster at the realization that he, too, could visualize a chessboard.
She shook her head. “You lost that pawn in your opening gambit.”
“Did I?” he asked softly, lifting his hand toward her face. “Then may the queen defend herself fromthismove.”
His thumb touched her cheek.
Diana held her breath.
A pile of books clattered to the floor.
She and Colehaven jumped apart, color flooding both of their faces.
“Sorry!” squeaked a voice on the other side of the closest credenza. “My elbow… I wasn’t watching. I mean, I was definitely watching, but not the shelves—”
“Felicity,” Colehaven growled, his deep voice rife with warning.
Diana tensed, her runaway pulse still fluttering madly. She’d forgotten all about Lady Felicity. Apparently the duke had, too. There was no disguising the fact that she’d been shamelessly eavesdropping… or that Lady Felicity had flagrantly disregarded every one of her brother’s wishes. Her heart skipped in alarm. How would the duke react to such an obvious transgression?
Lady Felicity slunk out from betwixt the stacks with an angelic expression. “Yes, dear brother?”
Colehaven slashed a stern finger in her direction. “Nolemon tarts. None for the rest of your life. Do you hear me?”
“Worth it,” Lady Felicity whispered to Diana as she sashayed out the library with her head held high.
Diana took an extra step backward. Clearly her body could not be trusted not to melt directly into the arms of the enemy.
“I don’t have time for…this,” she mumbled.
“You don’t have time for…” He flung his arms wide. “Do you think I’ve nothing else to do all day but root up suitors for determined wallflowers? I’ve the Royal Mint to mind—”
“I’m busy, too,” she interrupted hotly.
“—and the Consolidated Fund to consider—”
“Which would work better if monies could be appropriated for public works.”
“—and smoothing vendor discrepancies regarding the weight and size of their products—”
“If the extremely busy, super important featherwits of the House of Lords would spend as much time on logic as on their mistresses, perhaps England could standardize its units instead of juggling twenty-seven definitions of ‘bushel.’ Not to mention the peck, the jigger, the pottle, the firkin—”
