He found the curve of her breast above her modest décolletage. He sucked her skin. Open-mouthed, hot, and wet. It was unlike anything she had ever known. It was also the weight that tipped her internal scale. If she allowed herself to remain beneath him, if she encouraged one more liberty, her foray into his study to extract information would instead end in her thorough debauchment.
She could not afford such a risk. Could not tarnish the memory of James and the love they had shared by engaging in a loveless romp with a man she dared not trust. Could not risk costing Father everything he had worked all his life to build.
She sucked in a breath, forced the ardor crashing through her veins to cool, and made her body go stiff. “Do you intend to force yourself upon me for the crime of entering the wrong chamber in the dark, Your Grace?”
With a bitter curse, he rolled away from her, the weight of his body leaving hers as swiftly as it had descended. Cool night air rushed over her heated body and she felt oddly bereft at his disappearance. She lay on the carpet, eyes straining into the inky night, attempting to gauge where he had gone.
“Do not enter my study again,” he bit out curtly, his voice ringing out from somewhere to her left and above her. “Consider this your warning, Turnbellows.”
An icy prick of shame speared through her. What had she been thinking to enjoy the attentions of the Duke of Whitley? He was everything her father had warned a hundredfold over. He would have taken her on the floor of his study, a man who could not even be bothered to recall her name.
And she would have let him.
Worse, she would have enjoyed it.
Swallowing down the bile that rose in her throat, she scrambled to her feet, smoothing out her skirts. Her hands shook as she reached into the concealed pocket of her gown. The tips of her fingers grazed the small packet of papers she had liberated before his arrival. Her foolishness knew no bounds, but at least her prize remained intact.
She turned to flee, but halted in the act. He was somewhere in the room. She could feel his presence more than she could see or hear him. He lurked in the shadows like any predator, watching her. Waiting.
“Governess,” she announced to the chamber at large, gathering what remained of her dignity and honor both.
“Pardon, Tornpill?”
She glared into the night, wishing she could see him. “If you cannot recall my name due to your advanced age, you may refer to me as Governess.”
“Mmm. And why would I do that, depriving myself of the enjoyment of goading you, Turnblossom?”
Denying him her response, she stalked from the room, followed by the mocking dissonance of his disembodied chuckles.
*
“Lady Honora andLady Constance,” Jacinda addressed the empty chamber where she was meant to be teaching her pupils French. They had breakfasted early, all the better to begin the day and their studies. And yet when she had arrived at their schoolroom following their morning meal, her pupils were nowhere to be found.
The drapes at the floor-to-ceiling, eastward-facing windows of the chamber twitched, first on the right side and then the left.
“You are in the window dressings,” she announced. “I see them moving. There is no point in further subterfuge, my ladies.”
A low, thunderous sound reached her ears then, emerging from somewhere within the cavernous elegance of Whitley’s townhouse. It sounded like a roar at first. She stilled, listening. How odd.
The din took shape.
“Miss Governess!”
Dear heavens.Surely it could not be… no, it would not be… dissolute as he was, surely the Duke of Whitley was not hollering from somewhere within his stately edifice as if he were a farm laborer calling across a pasture.
“Miss Go-ver-ness!”
She pressed her lips together, staring at the drapes that had begun to twitch wildly, accompanied by the sound of stifled girlish giggles. Jacinda glared in the direction of her concealed charges. “What have you done to distress His Grace, my ladies?”
No answer was forthcoming from the drapes.
The only response she did receive was yet another bellow, this time even louder than before. “Miss Go-verness!”
Jacinda heaved a sigh. “I will address this with the two of you directly,” she warned before spinning on her heel and exiting the chamber.
There was really no other word to aptly describe it. The Duke of Whitley was hollering for her like a madman. And perhaps he was. Mayhap she had allowed her body’s traitorous reaction to a handsome man to blind her to the truth. Pray God she would never again need to conduct a covert operation involving lunatic dukes with more looks than wits and a brace of naughty minxes as her charges.
By the time she reached the breakfast room, she was breathless and irate, prepared to deliver His Grace a dressing down of the first order. She stopped still at the sight of him, elegant in a blue coat and snowy white cravat, his dark hair carefully combed. By the bright light of day, with some rest and sobriety in his favor, the Duke of Whitley was a sight to behold.
