Absolutely.
His decision had nothing to do with his inappropriate attraction to the woman. Not one single, bloody thing.
“The doors adjoining the chamber are locked.” He frowned at Trent. “Where else am I to put her? In prison?”
The duke raised a brow. “There are half a dozen chambers that would be more suited. Tongues will wag, as you know.”
His irritability, already heightened, exploded. “Which tongues? You and your wife are the only ones who are aware of her presence here. My domestics are accustomed to the depths of my depravity. If they do not blink at opium rooms, orgies, and nude women laid out as makeshift serving platters, they will not wonder why I have placed a strange woman in the duchess’s chamber. If they do, I shall personally disabuse them of their curiosity.”
“She is an unwed woman, and the sister to a duchess,” Trent observed.
“She is a Fenian who masqueraded as a governess in an attempt to abduct my nephew,” he returned heatedly. It was the same argument he made to himself every day, ad nauseam, when he reminded himself there was no reason for him to be attracted to her. No reason for him to want to touch or kiss her. No reason why his cock would get so goddamn rigid at the mere mentioning of her name or the thought of her.
“You said yourself the gun she used in the abduction was not loaded.”
“Perhaps it was an oversight on her part,” Leo said blackly. He had a cockstand. At half past ten in the morning. Whilst he was sitting in his study, facing one of his former agents. A man he considered a friend.
And it was all because he had thought abouther.
“I think not.” Trent frowned. “She went to Harlton Hall with one purpose, and her disguise was impeccable. It fooled even you. Do you truly believe she would have been too careless to load her pistol before taking the young duke?”
No,damn it, he did not.
And he did not like realization one bit, for it meant Bridget O’Malley had spoken the truth to him on at least one occasion, when she had said she refused to hold a loaded weapon to the head of an innocent child. It also meant he could not hold as much anger toward her as he wanted.
The anger kept the desire leashed.
As leashed as it could be, anyway, which—given the debacle of the day he had stroked her pussy until she came—was not terribly under control.
Hell, who was he fooling?
It was not under control at all. He wanted her. He also wanted to hate her. But the former was rendering the latter increasingly impossible, and here he was once more at a stalemate between control and duty, want and need.
“It makes no sense,” he growled, because if he answered Trent’s question truthfully, he would reveal himself and the unacceptable weakness he had for Miss Bridget O’Malley.
“Or it makes perfect sense.”
He scowled. “Whose side are you on, Trent?”
“My wife’s,” he answered without hesitation, grinning like the fool he was. “When I left the League, I pledged my allegiance to her instead.”
“Good God!” Leo was horrified. “Allegiances are to one’s Crown and country, Trent. Not to one’swife.”
If the last word emerged like an epithet, he could not be blamed. The Duke of Trent’s devotion to his duchess was unusual, irritating, and downright perplexing. Leo himself could not imagine being so consumed by a woman she overpowered his every thought, word, and deed.
Thank Christ all he felt for Bridget O’Malley was lust. Pure, unadulterated, sinful lust. Nothing else. Not one single hint of something else.
“You will understand when you have a wife of your own,” Trent said, raising a brow.
“I’ll not have one.” His answer was succinct. Certain. He neither wanted a wife nor imagined ever saddling himself with one. It would be an unnecessary encumbrance. A burden.
Much like Bridget O’Malley.
No. He would not think about her one more time.
Not about her mouth beneath his. Not about her nipples. Not about her cunny, how slick she had been, how perfectly she had tasted.
No, none of it. Blessedly, he was not so afflicted.
