Penelope didn’t move at first. She refused to give him the satisfaction. But when he stopped just inches from her, she felt herself faltering. A blush crept up her neck, and her throat was suddenly dry.
Cursehim for having this effect on me.But try as she might, she could not get herself to move.
“You will not get any benefit from insulting me,” he reminded her in a low voice that sounding like a warning. She shivered as his hot breath curled against her skin. “So, I suggest you change course and adjust your behavior accordingly.”
“You will find that I am not in the habit of taking orders, Your Grace,” she shot back, mustering up all the defiance that she could .
Which, granted, was not much when he was so close to her. It had a dizzying effect.
She noticed him gaze at her lip for a brief second only, then his eyes snapped back upwards.
“Stubbornness is not the way you earn respect,” he said.
“And submission won’t earn yours,” she snapped. But he did not answer this time.
Instead, he was staring at her again. There was a strange half-dazed look in his eyes that she had not seen before.
Penelope suddenly realized her hands were balled into fists at her sides, and that if she moved even an inch, she could end up in a situation that shedidnot wish to be in.
Abruptly, she took a step back.
“I… I must return to my chambers,” she announced, rattled by what had almost happened.
Alexander only smirked in response, which only bothered her even more.
“Finally,” he turned back to his desk. “I can return to my work now. Next time, please think a bit more before you decide to interrupt me.”
Penelope rolled her eyes and left without uttering a single word.
The nerve of him. It felt like she was trapped in a house where no one really wanted her.
But that did not deter her. If they wouldn’t make space for her, then she’d carve one out for herself.
CHAPTER 6
“Ridiculous,” a muffled groan escaped Penelope’s lips. “Absolutely, ridiculous.”
The clock had turned well past twelve, and still Penelope was not able to catch even a wink of sleep. She flopped onto her back, irked by her inability to sleep.
Penelope rolled onto her side. Then her other side. Then her stomach. Then back again. It was as though she was stuck inside some endless, miserable loop.
“Enough,” she announced, sitting up in her bed. There was no use trying to fight herself like this.
The best she could do was to distract herself in the meantime , and tire herself out. Putting on her robe, she made her way out of her room, stopping only briefly outside the duke’s door.
“I bet he’s sleeping like a stone,” she muttered bitterly. “Unbothered by the havoc he seems to have wreaked on my life.”
It was true. He was impossibly calm about everything, and it seemed that nothing at all bothered him.
For a brief second, she contemplated knocking on his door, so that he could lie awake, too. But she quickly decided against it.
Instead, she made her way over to the end of the hallway, where there was a flicker of light beneath the door to the library.
She stopped immediately.
“Strange,” she said to herself. She was not the only one having trouble sleeping tonight, it seemed.
Penelope could have walked past, leaving whoever it was inside undisturbed. But curiosity got the best of her, and she could not help but peek her head inside.
