She could outride anyone, especially on a mare such as Hera. Of that, she had no doubt. And in a particularly difficult circumstance, she knew how to punch, kick, and bite, and where best to land a blow on a man to cause maximum injury.
“No more riding alone in the morning,” he repeated, ignoring her protestation quite as if it had never been spoken. “I’ll have your promise.”
“Ridgely, please listen to reason—”
“Your promise,” he bit out, interrupting her. “Now.”
“No more riding alone in the morning,” she offered, frowning at him before adding, “in London.”
“Anywhere,” he growled. “At least until you are married, because thereafter, you’ll be your husband’s problem, and good luck to his sorry hide.”
“Very well,” she allowed, for she had no intention of either honoring her promise or marrying. “Anywhere.”
He nodded. “Good girl. As for your punishment, I’m afraid it must be the books.”
Books? Not books. Surely Ridgely was not mad enough to go through with the threat he had issued in the library when he had denied herThe Book of Love. Her books were all she had in London. All she had left of herself, now that she’d been torn from Greycote Abbey.
“You’ll not burn them,” she said.
“Not yet, but neither shall you be reading them,” he returned, a note of triumph in his voice. “You are to gather all the books you’ve pilfered from my library, along with any others in your possession, and deliver them to me here in one hour’s time. If you can behave yourself for a fortnight, they’ll be returned to you. You are also barred from entering my library for the next two weeks.”
“Allthe books,” Virtue repeated, aghast. “For a fortnight? But I have some rare and important volumes in my possession.”
The sole benefit of being in London, it was true. Lady Deering had been willing to take her to some fine book shops, the likes of which Virtue had never previously dreamt of, let alone seen. Oh, the knowledge waiting at her fingertips. It had been astounding. She’d spent all her pin money at once. But with the nonsensical balls and suppers and calls, she hadn’t had sufficient time to consume them as she would have preferred. And now the duke meant totakethem?
“Especially the rare and important ones,” Ridgely said, his tone absolutely diabolical.
It was as if he were enjoying himself at her expense. Immensely so.
She released the chair at last and crossed her arms, not caring if the gesture was unladylike or argumentative. “They are mine, and you cannot have them.”
He smiled, so handsome and vexing andhorridthat it almost hurt to look at him. “Youare mine until you turn one-and-twenty or marry some blockheaded fool mad enough to have you as his wife. And it is my duty to keep you safe for said blockhead, a feat which cannot be achieved if you persist in gadding about London unchaperoned in the midst of the night.”
The early-morning hours had hardly been the midst of the night. Also, she resented his intimation that only a blockheaded lunatic would want to marry her. But the books—her books—concerned her chiefly in that moment.
“What does keeping me safe have to do with stealing my books?” she demanded, outraged and aghast and frustrated all at once.
He cocked his head at her, giving her a pitying look. “That’s the punishment, my dear. Unless it hurts, you’ll keep doing stupid things. Now, run along like a good little ward and gather up those books.”
She struggled to maintain her composure at his condescension, gritting her teeth in restraint as she swallowed down her anger. That settled the matter quite firmly, if there had ever been the slightest hint of question in Virtue’s mind. The Duke of Ridgely was utterly, irredeemably, despicable.
She dipped into as mocking a curtsy as she could manage.
“As you wish, Your Grace,” she said, her words brittle.
But she intended to make him pay richly for his chosen punishment.
To make him pay until he surrendered and sent her back home to Greycote Abbey where she belonged.
CHAPTER3
His termagant ward hadn’t given him all the books in her possession.
Trevor knew it like he knew some bastard had hit him with a bludgeon the evening before when he had been leaving The Velvet Slipper. The very notion of falling prey to an aspirant thief,him. A man who had faced the deadliest foes without flinching, and who had never been bested. Former spy and pride of Whitehall.
Yes, him. Robbed and left for dead in a darkened alley.
Thank Christ his coachman had dragged him into the landau and brought him home before he’d been run over by a carriage or some equally terrible fate. The fault for his predicament was, of course, his preoccupation with Lady Virtue.
