He didn’t say anything. It drove her utterly mad. So, she opened her mouth, likely to say something she would certainly regret a moment later, but then she remembered something.
“Wait… you told me,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “never to go into the woods.”
“I did.”
“And yet you’ve just emerged from them. With mud on your boots and secrets in your eyes.”
His mouth twitched, but it was not a smile. “A duke may go where he pleases.”
“Oh, of course.” She folded her arms. “But ifItake three steps off the path, I am reckless and in need of rules.”
“You are in need ofprotection,” he said tightly.
Cordelia frowned. “Is there something in those woods I ought to be protected from, Your Grace?”
His lips thinned then he seemed as if he changed his mind about what he originally intended to say. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m more clever than I look,” she replied quickly then regretted it, for his gaze dropped to her lips.
“That,” he murmured, “is not in dispute.”
She flushed.
“What is in dispute is one’s tendency to keep oneself out of harm’s way,” he said, reaching forward and catching her wrist as well as herself off guard.
His thumb brushed over the pale skin just above her glove. Without meaning to, she flinched.
The scratch was minor. There were children in the streets of London who had survived worse. But his grip tightened almost imperceptibly, and his brows drew together with the sort of thunderous displeasure that made her forget the clever retort she had been planning.
“That,” he said lowly, “is not from the first rosebush.”
Cordelia cleared her throat. “I told you I was working my way down the line.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“A little,” she admitted.
“You are scratched from wrist to elbow.”
“I am fine,” she retorted. “And I’m nearly done with this section; just let me finish this bit?—”
“No.”
The word landed like a judge’s gavel. She opened her mouth, indignant.
“I said?—”
But she got no further because in one swift, decisive motion, he bent, placed a firm hand behind her knees, another across her back, and lifted her clean off the ground and over his shoulder.
“Oh!” she squeaked while the world tilted alarmingly. “You absolute caveman! Put me down this instant!”
“You are injured.”
“I am fine! This is barbaric! You cannot simply haul women about like sacks of flour!”
“Apparently I can,” he replied dryly as he began walking toward the house. “And if you do not stop flailing, I may drop you, and then your scratches will be the least of your concerns.”
“I was doing something kind, you brute!”
