Was it her overactive and overeager imagination, or had he dipped his head lower?
She swallowed. “No.”
He toyed with the lace. “How about now?”
“Still no.”
He removed his hand, and she felt the loss of his touch in her core. He stepped back, putting some distance between them. Distance she did not want, regardless of how much she ought to recognize the need to maintain it.
“Now?” he asked, watching her with that predatory glint in his eye, as if he would swallow her whole.
Two things occurred to her then. One, she may have gravely misjudged her ability to keep the Duke of Strathmore behaving himself. Two, shewantedhim to swallow her whole, and do whatever he wished to her.
Still, a third, she did not want him to act with decorum. She wanted his hand upon her breast, cupping it as he had that day in the salon when she had tripped him.
“Yes,” she forced herself to say, knowing it was in her best interest to maintain her wits.
It simply would not do to allow herself to become swept away by the Duke of Strathmore. She was not entirely certain she could trust him after all. She believed in his innocence, but she did not truly know him. Not yet. Furthermore, there was something about him—that mysterious, enigmatic quality—that suggested he was a man who did not allow anyone to know him.
Could she break his walls? Would she ever get to know the real Duke of Strathmore?
“Have I told you I find you irresistible?” He took another step in retreat, putting more distance between them. “What about this, Lady Violet? Am I acting with decorum? I am not even touching you.”
No, but he may as well have. His first question hit her with full force, directly in her middle, blossoming outward, radiating waves of heat everywhere. Especially between her thighs.
The Duke of Strathmore found her, Violet West, irresistible?
“I do not know which question to answer,” she muttered, half to herself.
His smile deepened once more. “I believe you already have given me the answer I need, my lady. But for now, the hour grows late, and I am certain you must be famished. Would you care to dine?”
Her stomach chose that moment to growl, and she pressed a palm over it, willing it to stop. “Who will be cooking?”
“I will.” His countenance hardened, becoming even more impossible to read than it ordinarily was.
“You?” she repeated, hearing the disbelief in her own voice.
He surprised her once more, a brilliant grin breaking through his taut expression. “Yes,me. Who else? Come, my lady. I will prepare dinner for you, and while I do, you may regale me with your singular notions of decorum.”
He extended his arm to her then, as if he were a gallant suitor leading her onto a ballroom dance floor for a waltz beneath a hundred glittering lights. Decorum was the last thing she wanted to discuss with the Duke of Strathmore, unless it was a dialogue involving the means by which they could eschew it altogether.
Wicked Violet was fast becoming the only Violet there was.
But Strathmore cooking? It was a potent lure. Almost as potent a lure as his fine face and form, and sullen mouth were. She suppressed a sigh. How would she ever survive this night alone with him without being tempted to abandon all her good intentions and every tenet Aunt Hortense had ever taught her?
With a sigh of defeat, she hastened forward, accepting the duke’s arm.
After all, she was starving, and he alone could provide the sustenance she required.
Chapter Ten
“That smells heavenly,”Lady Violet commented from her perch on a chair in the small kitchen of the Berkshire home he had purchased several years ago.
The edifice itself was plain and simple, fashioned of stone, situated upon an awkward parcel of land. He had not bought it for its monetary value, a relative pittance in comparison to the vast holdings of the Strathmore duchy. He had bought it, and paid handsomely for a caretaker to keep it clean and well-stocked with essentials at all times, for two reasons. First, it had special meaning to him, the sort which could not be derived from financial worth. Second, Griffin was a man who enjoyed hiding. Not only did he enjoy it, but he often found himself in a position in which heneededto hide.
Like today, for instance.
“Thank you.” Though the foodstuffs left behind by Pearson, the man he paid to maintain the property, were nothing impressive, he was certain he would be able to pull together a decent three-course meal.
