“You were exchanging blows with another man, and you are positively indecent!” she hollered back at him so loudly her words echoed in the cavernous room.
He glanced down at his bare chest. Somehow, he had forgotten he no longer wore his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. No help for it now. She could claim maidenly modesty all she liked, but she had seen far more than his chest before, and she had been a married woman.
The urge to spar with her instead rose up, fierce and undeniable.
He looked back to her. “You did not seem to think me indecent a few hours ago, madam. In your chamber. Remember? You sat upon my lap in your bed, and I unfastened your gown and corset. Then you put your mouth on me. Here.” He slowly trailed a bruised finger over the patch of skin she had kissed first.
Color rose to her cheeks. “How dare you speak of such a thing?”
Oh, he bloody well dared. And he was not yet finished. “Are you ashamed of your actions, Your Grace? Ashamed you touched a savage like me?”
Her lips tightened, but she said nothing.
He stepped closer to her, so near his boots slipped beneath the heavy fall of her skirts. Her scent enveloped him, floral and musk and everything he longed for but could never truly have. He wanted to hate her. Wished he had never loved her. “Or perhaps you are ashamed because before you were the Duchess of Burghly, you were mine.”
“I was never yours,” she denied then, sudden and sharp. “I was a foolish girl, easily led astray by a man I wrongly believed loved me.”
“Is that the fiction you have crafted for yourself, darling?” he asked, touching her at last with the tip of his finger only. Just one callused pad beneath her chin, tilting her head gently back. Taunting her. Taunting him. “Is that what has made sleeping at night easier for you? Poor Ara. Such a victim.”
Her nostrils flared. “You disgust me. Clothe yourself and never again dare to use the ballroom of Burghly House as your sparring chamber.”
How he longed to melt her ice. To take her in his arms and prove to the both of them that she would melt for him. That her body would still respond to his in the same way his did to hers. But he too had his pride, and so he remained rigid, scowling down at her, his finger still upon her chin. “I will not make such a ludicrous promise regarding the use of this or any other chamber within Burghly House, madam. My men need to remain agile and strong. Daily training is an important part of their ability to protect you.”
Albeit not in the extreme he had allowed it to progress today. That had been his own doing, a way to attempt to rid his body of the poison she infected him with.
“You call engaging in bouts of fisticuffs training? I fail to see how pummeling your men and allowing them to pummel you will be beneficial.”
“You may be the Duchess of Burghly, but I am the man who has been entrusted with your protection,” he bit out, her disdain nettling him though he had tried his damnedest not to allow her beneath his skin once more. “Therefore, I will commandeer the use of any chamber as I see fit.”
But she did not relent or wilt beneath his blistering scorn. “This is my home, Mr. Ludlow. You will ask permission before conducting yourtrainingin future. And you will do it decently, wearing the proper attire of a gentleman, which you most assuredly are not.”
No, he was not a gentleman. He never would be one. If he had been born the duke instead of the bastard, would she have loved him? Would she have become his wife instead of betraying him and leaving him with a scarred heart and face to remember her by?
He cast the unwanted questions aside. They were a moot point.
“Do I offend you, madam?” He withdrew his finger from her chin at last, severing the connection that seemed to singe him and throwing his arms wide.
“Everything about you offends me.” And yet, her gaze trailed down his bare chest and arms, and lower still, belying her words.
She had kissed him earlier. For that brief moment, it had been as if no time had ever intervened between them. As if she had never been gone from his arms or his heart at all. For the sake of his sanity, he needed to retreat. To step away and ignore the raging tide of lust for her rising inside him. For that was surely all he felt for her now—the quickening of his breaths, the tightening in his ballocks, the twitching of his cock, the all-consuming ache to be one with her, to drive himself inside her body again—pure, animalistic desire.
“Liar,” he charged softly.
Her gaze shot back to his. “Pardon me?”
She could kill him with her icy duchess hauteur all she liked. He would not bend, not with this driving force guiding him onward. Whatever it was. Foolishness? Stupidity? Pride? Need?
He took one more step forward, crushing her skirts. His perspiration-glazed chest met her silk bodice. When she would have slipped away in retreat, his hands flattened to the gentle curve of her back, splaying to keep her where he wanted her. The cold gold and glass of her mourning brooch was a shock to his chest.
He ignored it.
Ignored her scandalized inhalation. Her raised brows. Ignored her black mourning gown. Their ugly past. Everything and everyone but them and now. This moment. Her in his arms. Nothing between them.
“Look me in the eye, Duchess,” he urged, “and tell me I offend you. Tell me my touch disgusts you. That I am unworthy of you. That you hate me.”
Her eyes widened, her expression stricken. She shook her head. “Please, Mr. Ludlow. This is highly improper.”
“Tell me,” he repeated, the vehemence in his tone shocking even him. He did not know what he sought to gain or why it mattered. Hell, he did not even know what he was trying to prove. All he did know was that this morning, she had kissed him, and his whole bloody world had imploded when he had left her behind on that bed.
