Please leave. Please…
The man, however, did not leave, and worse yet, he was going to see the body. Cordelia could see it all unfold in her mind: his sharp eyes falling on the chaise, the unflattering sprawl of Lord Vernon’s limp form, the peculiar angle of one leg that suggested either unconsciousness or mild death, and then, utter ruination!
There was no time, no thought, no plan.
She did the only sensible thing a woman of her wit, distress, and general lack of foresight might do in such a moment of calamity.
She kissed him.
It was not, in truth, a verygoodkiss. Her lips met his with the panicked precision of someone attempting to smother a fire with her face.
Oh heavens. What am I doing?Her lips were stiff, puckered, and alarmingly dry. She shut her eyes tightly as if that might lessenthe horror of it. She could feel his surprise, his body going very still, his mouth unmoving against hers.
A mortifying heartbeat passed then two.
Then, suddenly, his hands came to rest at her waist, pulling her closer. It was not a startled response to her awkward distraction. It was not panicked or hurried. It was a tidal wave of heat that seemed to flood them both, melting them into each other, and all she could do was comply with the sensation.
He shifted, just slightly, and her lips softened without meaning to. His mouth was warm, and his breath mingled with hers in a way that made her feel less like a murderer and more like a woman in a novel who had chosen this moment. His warm breath spilled over her lips as she drank in his presence all around her. She was enveloped into his arms, nestled in the sweet being of this stranger as he kissed her in a way she had only read in novels before.
There was no sarcasm in him now, only gentleness and a kind of quiet curiosity that pulled at something deep in her chest.
Cordelia’s mind, which had been shrieking since he entered the library, abruptly fell silent.
So, this is what kissing can be like,she thought to herself.
And then, of course, Lord Vernon coughed… loudly. He strained in an attempt to get up, only to blink heavily several times and drop down again.
She leapt back from him as though struck by lightning—or possibly divine judgment—and scrambled halfway across the rug. Her foot caught the edge of the hearth rug, and she nearly tripped, flailing in her escape.
“He’s alive!” she cried, pointing at the chaise with one trembling hand.
“Alive?” he echoed, completely stunned. “Why, of course he would be alive! Why on earth would a dead man be lounging in my library?”
Chapter Two
“I… I thought he was dead!” Cordelia blurted as a tidal wave of relief washed over her.
The man in front of her looked still very much kissed, still very much confused, and still very muchnotexpecting to discover a body in the Duke’s own library. “I beg your pardon?”
She nodded too many times and too fast. “Dead, yes… lifeless, utterly corpse-shaped! You mustn’t look at me like that; I truly believed I had done a murder. Albeit just a little one.”
He arched a brow. “Justa little one?”
“Well, he was running after me!” she cried, gesturing toward Lord Vernon, who was now already upright, groaning into a decorative pillow as though it might end his suffering faster.
Cordelia was still panting slightly when the Duke cleared his throat. “Now… once more with clarity, if that’s at all possible inyour current state:whydid you strike that man unconscious in the library?”
Cordelia blinked. “Oh. Well. That’s… complicated.”
“Do try,” he said, folding his arms like a man preparing for something outrageous. “The guests are all busy in the ballroom.”
She twisted her fingers together. “I’d gone to powder my nose.”
“An innocent beginning,” the Duke murmured.
Suddenly, something became painfully obvious. After all, how on earth could she admit to a complete stranger what her guardian just did or tried to do? If word got out, the scandal would be utterly massive, and God forbid, she would even have to… marry the villain!
Oh, no, no, no…she kept silently repeating to herself.
