Anna Campbell - What a Duke Dares

Triumph flooded him. He exhaled and cupped her face, feeling her silky cheeks beneath his palms. “I can’t stop thinking about you either. Are you going to marry Desborough?”

She started, but didn’t move away. “My brother wants me to.”

“Do you?”

“It’s a good match,” she said unenthusiastically.

He released her. “So good it makes you hide away and cry.”

“That wasn’t—”

“Don’t lie, Sophie. Not to me.”

“You can’t call me Sophie.”

He laughed softly. “I can’t address the woman who shares my cupboard by her title. It’s a rule of society.”

Her gurgle of amusement made his blood fizz with happiness. “You don’t strike me as a man who follows rules, Mr. Thorne.”

The need to kiss her surged, but despite her unexpected if hesitant cooperation, he didn’t want to frighten her away. “You’ve listened to too much gossip. And my name is Harry.”

The pause that followed vibrated with significance.

“Harry…” she breathed, turning his prosaic name into music.

His heart crashed against his ribs. Dear God, he was in trouble. “Lovely, lovely Sophie,” he whispered and despite the risk of taking everything too far too fast, he curled his arms around her.

“Oh!” She jerked from the brush of his lips.

He set her free and withdrew as far as the cupboard allowed. “Forgive me.”

To his astonishment, she caught his shirt. “You took me by surprise.”

“I had no right—”

“You’re a very chivalrous rake, Harry Thorne,” she said drily.

Her tone piqued his curiosity. Ignoring common sense and self-preservation, not to mention the gentleman’s code, he placed his hand over hers. “Don’t you want me to be chivalrous?”

“Not right now.”

“You deserve better than a furtive courtship,” he said helplessly, even as his other hand snaked around her slender waist to arch her against him. “But since the day we met, I’ve dreamed of you.”

Her sigh conveyed wonder. “Really?”

His voice deepened into urgency. “I’ve dreamed of kissing you.”

And other things, but he couldn’t sully her innocence with his wanton fantasies.

“I’d like to make your dreams come true.” She leaned closer, her breasts grazing his chest. “Will you kiss me, Harry?”

“Sophie—” Her scent filled his head like wine, overwhelmed thought. His hand tightened around her waist.

“Don’t you want to?” she asked in a small voice.

“Of course I bloody want to,” he said roughly, then dragged in a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m not acting the gentleman.”

This time her sigh was disgruntled. “You’re acting too much the gentleman.”

“Sweetheart—”

She interrupted before he pointed out that he cared for her reputation. After all, how convincing could any avowal sound when he embraced her in a cupboard in the middle of a ball?

“I don’t want to hear it.” Her voice softened. “Unless it’s ‘Kiss me, Sophie.’ ”

Oh, hell. How could he resist? “Kiss me, Sophie.”

Harry lashed her to him and pressed his mouth to hers. Her lips trembled beneath his. Her fluttering uncertainty hinted that this was her first kiss. Tenderness stabbed at his heart.

Automatically he gentled, nipping and licking at her, until her breath hitched and she leaned closer. His tongue slid into her mouth, tasting her fully. Her flavor blazed through him like lightning.

The world beyond Sophie’s clumsy but ardent responses vanished. All Harry knew was her warmth and the way her tongue danced around his. Her broken moans. Her soft, quivering body pressed into his.

It took him longer than it should to realize that she’d stopped participating. He raised his head and struggled to see her through the darkness. “What—”

“Shh!” Her hands formed claws in his shirt. Now she trembled not with passion, but with terror.

There were voices outside. Damn. His arms tightened and he drew Sophie against him. Anyone within a mile’s radius must hear his heart. He wasn’t frightened for himself but for her. Only a bloody fool would risk this encounter.

He strained to hear if the people outside mentioned the Marquess of Leath’s sister. They discussed supper arrangements. If Harry hadn’t been thickheaded with delight, he’d have recognized his hostess’s voice immediately. She seemed to be talking to her butler.

Fleetingly, he relaxed. Until he wondered if the butler needed supplies from this tiny storeroom.

In vibrating silence, Harry and Sophie clung together until the voices faded. Eventually he whispered in her ear. “I need to get you out of here.”

With a trust he didn’t deserve, she laid her cheek upon his chest. “I thought I’d die when I heard them.”

“I shouldn’t have brought you in here. But I’ve been desperate to see you, and your brother’s like a collie with a ewe lamb.”

“He’s terrified of fortune hunters spoiling his plans.”

“To be fair, that’s his duty.”

“But you’re not a fortune hunter.”

“I’m not.” He paused. “I’m not?”

“A fortune hunter wouldn’t hesitate to ruin me to force a marriage.”

Marriage? The word clanged through him like a great bell.

The malaise dogging his heels disappeared in Sophie’s company. The sight of her turned his day to brilliance. That left the choice of taking himself off and leaving her to the man her brother chose. Or ruining her. An idea which made every cell in his body revolt.

Or marriage.

“Harry?” she asked on a thread of sound. “What’s wrong?”

It was too early to mention lifelong commitment. Already she’d surrendered more than he’d hoped. His heart kicked as he remembered those wondrous kisses.

He eased his grip. “We’ve been here too long.”

“Yes.” Regret weighted her voice. “Will I… will I see you again?”

Despite the last fraught moments, he couldn’t contain a laugh. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m not experienced with flirtation.”

Another pang of painful tenderness. He wasn’t experienced with love. In this glorious new world, they were both innocents. “When can I meet you?”

“The park.” She sounded relieved. “I ride tomorrow morning.”

“With your brother?”

“He’s away this week.”

“I’ll find you.”

“I hope so.” He caught a quiver of uncertainty.

“I swear it,” he said.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

How he basked in hearing that, however difficult it made this parting. “I don’t want to let you go. But I must.”

He kissed her quickly. He meant the contact to be sweet and brief, but he found himself drowning again.

Luckily for failing willpower, she broke away and opened the door a crack. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, slipping outside.

“Tomorrow,” he confirmed, then waited in the dark while she shut the door with a soft snick. Right now he wasn’t fit for civilized company. He hoped Sophie was. He had a horrible feeling that she’d look mussed and thoroughly kissed.

Fontana dei Monte, Italian Alps, February 1828

It was snowing again. As this purgatorial week proceeded, Pen began to think that the world contained only snow and ice and wind. And flea-ridden inns. And rude servants.

And men who tried to push her around.

Or more accurately, one man who pushed her around. His overbearing Grace, the Duke of Sedgemoor.

Pen and Cam traveled as Lord and Lady Pembridge, using the Sedgemoor heir’s courtesy title. She supposed that now they left the mountains behind, the inns would become busier. She and Cam would need to be more discreet than ever in case they met someone who knew them.

Their coach bumped its way into the tiny hillside village where they would spend the night—or rather where the man who had assigned himself lord and master had decreed they’d stay. Idly Pen wondered when she’d finally break. Would this be the day when she pushed Cam headfirst into one of the towering snow drifts lining what was optimistically termed a road?

Cam sat beside her now, staring out the window as if the acres of white formed a glorious vista considerably more appealing than his companion. They’d had a long day. Not that they’d covered much ground. It was discouraging how much time they took to traverse every mile. Cam had been right, much as she hated admitting it. Crossing the Alps in February had been an asinine plan.

Over the last days, the temperature inside the carriage had been colder than outside. In public, Cam might treat Pen with deference that set her teeth on edge, but their infrequent private conversations had been stilted and tinged with hostility.

The coach shuddered to a stop, jerking Maria awake on the seat opposite. Pen had developed enormous envy for her maid’s ability to sleep through anything. Strangely Maria had immediately accepted the news that her mistress and the duke traveled as a married couple.

Desperate to stretch her cramped legs, more desperate to escape the oppressive atmosphere, Pen opened the door and jumped out before Paolo, their new coachman, could help her. Despite herself, she glanced back at Cam, expecting the usual disapproval.

But the expression in his watchful green eyes troubled her. In another man, she’d interpret the gleam as reluctant interest. But Cam treated her as a troublesome obligation, not a woman he wanted. Still, that level gaze made her shiver like someone brushed an icy hand across bare skin.

After weeks of rough travel, Cam was no longer a polished specimen of British manhood. His linen was grubby, his clothes crumpled, his boots cloudy with dirt. And he looked tired. He pretended that he rose above human weakness, but the man in the carriage looked exhausted to the bone. She’d always thought his impossible pursuit of perfection made for a lonely life. Right now, he looked heartbreakingly alone.