Wanting her.
“Your Grace, is something amiss?” she elaborated, striding forward with an expression of pure concern. “I noticed you leaving while the game is still carrying on, and you did an excellent job of guessing when it was my turn…”
That was because he could not take his eyes from her. Because she was all he saw, like it or not. Because he longed for her. Desperately. And he damned well knew he ought not. Longed for her so bloody much that his voice had emerged from him earlier.
Rusty, it was true. More of a croak than a bark. But he hadspoken, in the midst of a silly drawing room game, surrounded by others. And he had not felt the choking burn of bile. Perhaps that was because she had met and held his gaze, seemingly cheering him on with her bright eyes and grin of unadulterated delight. He had fallen headlong into her, forgetting the others. A mistake, of course.
Just thinking about the crush of revelers within Abingdon House’s tremendous drawing room was enough to make his chest tight. He cleared his throat. But no words would emerge now.Damnation, this was a fine time for his affliction to strike. Strangely, although his throat had seized, his cock was not similarly afflicted. It was raging and hard. Instantly. Pressed to the fall of his breeches.
“Coventry?” She moved nearer to him in the hall.
There was not much chance of them being caught, with the door to the drawing room closed once more and no one else having yet emerged. But at any moment, a servant could come upon them. They were risking a great deal by lingering here, unchaperoned.
He could smell her sweet scent. Summer blossoms and divine, seductive woman. Wicked, altogether wrong, Christabella Winter.
He found his voice at last.
“Why are you following me?” he demanded. Not precisely what he had meant to say.
She stopped, then pinned him with a ferocious frown. “I was concerned about you, Your Grace. You appeared pale when you left the chamber. Almost as if you were about to retch, in fact…”
“You have gall, madam,” he bit out. Defensively, yes. Because it was bad enough he could not conduct himself in the company of others. When anyone had the temerity to remind him of his weakness, it made him livid.
“I have honesty,” she dared to correct him. “And a wayward tongue, it is true. One of my weaknesses, I suppose. I have never known when to keep quiet and when I ought to speak. As a result, I simply speak whenever I wish.”
Of course she did, the vexing creature.
She also had to cease saying the wordtonguein his presence.
Every instinct within him screamed to close the distance between them and haul her into his arms. What he would do with her after that, he had no notion. Because he was a virgin. A stupid, terrified virgin.
His brother had bedded half the ladies of London, and he, the duke, had not even managed to press his lips to the mouth of one. Not for lack of Ash’s attempts on his behalf.
“Your Grace.” Suddenly, there was a hand on his arm, gentle and yet strong. He was being led to a door as the scent of summer blooms filled his senses.
He allowed it. His legs were moving. His heart was pounding. The affliction threatened to overwhelm him, but he forced himself to combat it as he had learned. Long, slow breaths. Closing his mind as if it were a door.
When his mind opened, he was closeted within a chamber, alone with Miss Christabella Winter. With her hands upon him. Her head was tilted back, her countenance concerned, her lips parted. She stroked his biceps, the place where he had built muscle through rigid labor at his country estate. He had worked alongside his tenants for the last summer, attempting to find his way.
Laboring suited him. He was not meant to be a duke, he had always feared, and yet, the title, the vast lands and all its inhabitants, and his father’s colossal debts remained his burdens to bear.
“No one will intrude upon us here,” Miss Winter reassured him as her hands caressed. “What is the matter, Your Grace?”
Hewas what was the matter. Or rather, his mind was. His blasted affliction. He had suffered it for as long as he could recall, beginning back to the days when his father had kept him locked within that damned chamber.
But he could not say that. Not to this brazen female continuing to make herself far too familiar with his person.
“You are the matter, Miss Winter,” he snapped, irritated with himself for his weakness.
Irritated withherfor his unwanted reaction to her.
She stiffened as if he had slapped her, taking a step back and removing her touch. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I often forget myself. I meant no insult.”
Yet, she had insulted him by trundling him into this bloody salon as if he needed to hide himself away like a shameful secret. Because hewasa shameful secret, and that was what smarted most.
The Duke of Coventry could not even remain in a drawing room for a meaningless game of charades without turning into a Bedlamite.
“You should not be alone with me, unchaperoned,” he said, all he could manage.
