“Was what? Something was different, Lady Lavinia.”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. You’re fidgeting again.” He took her hand in his and her head spun with the power of everything he was making her feel.
“You have to stop doing that. You might as well be writing your emotions on your face for the whole world to see. Something is making you extremely nervous right now, and I think it has to do with your feelings for Lord Hennington. You were going to tell me what he was like. Say it.”
“Dull.” She felt her cheeks grow hot. “He was dull.”
The duke nodded slowly. “I had a feeling you were going to say something like that.”
“That’s—it sounds unkind,” she said, ashamed of having said such a thing about a gentleman who had been nothing but warm and friendly to her. “Itisunkind. I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t mean to be cruel to him. I only mean…”
“You mean that it didn’t excite you to be near him.”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
“You didn’t feel anything for him.”
“No.”
His eyes blazed, and Lavinia felt a shiver pass all the way through her. She was aware, suddenly, that her back was almost up against a wall. To leave, she would have to go around him.
She didn’t want to leave.
And then he bent to kiss her.
It would have been a lie to say that the kiss caught Lavinia by surprise. She had anticipated it from the moment she’d backed herself into the wall. She had invited it. She knew that, and she wasn’t sorry about it.
Now, rather than pull away, she reached up and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss. The heat of it seemed to spread through her whole body, until she was no longer concerned with herself as a distinct being from him. All that mattered was the fact that they were together.
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, it ended.
He pulled away from her and stepped back, putting a space between the two of them. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, looking away. “Forgive me. That was a mistake.”
“There’s nothing to forgive…”
He wouldn’t look at her. “This was supposed to be practice, nothing more. I took it too far, and that’s my error. You should go. You’ve learned all that I can teach you.”
“Your Grace, you mustn’t blame yourself like this. I returned the kiss.”
“Then you made a mistake as well,” he said sharply. “We both got carried away—it’s that simple.”
Lavinia shook her head, but she couldn’t bring herself to go on arguing. She felt deeply embarrassed. Did he regret kissing her? It seemed as if he did.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’ll just go.”
“I think that would be best,” he agreed. He hesitated, then added, “You did nothing wrong, Lady Lavinia. But as of now, my debt to you is paid. You’re ready to face what lies ahead for you, and I think any further involvement on my part will only harm both of us. From now on, I will keep my distance and allow you to find a match, as you have indicated you desire.”
Lavinia felt as if she should say something. She should tell him that, regardless of what she had said, this was not what she wanted. She didn’t want him to end things between them. She didn’t even want that kiss to have ended. She had never experienced anything quite like that, and she longed to step back into his arms and see what more there was.
But he was turning away from her. He was walking toward the door—and then, before she knew it, before she could summon her wits enough to call him back—he was gone.
She was alone in the library.
Her skin felt cold. She shivered, remembering the heat she’d felt when he had pulled her close. She rested her fingertips on her cheek where his hand had just been. Already, it was beginning to feel like something out of a dream.
She wondered if she would ever be able to bring herself to tell anyone what had happened. This might be too much to confess even to Edwina. Her sister might not know what to do with this information.
