She opened the door to her room, which was precisely where she remembered it being, and sank into the chair at the vanity. Her reflection glared back, sullen and unimpressed. She began removing the pins from her hair, flinching as each one surrendered. When she reached for her brush, her fingers encountered not the familiar handle, but a dense, bristly object.
She looked down. A shaving brush.
Her stomach dropped.
She glanced around, heart thudding. The room was not hers. The bed was not hers. And neither, she realized in mounting horror, was the man who now occupied the doorway, arms folded, smile lazy and wolfish.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
His voice was velvet and daggers. The last time she had heard it, she’d been sixteen, and he had not known she existed. He was taller than she remembered, broader in the shoulders, and his face—Lord, his face—was both familiar and utterly foreign.
The Duke of Ice. Dominic Blake. The man who had unwittingly ruined her for all others, now looking at her as if she were a puzzle box he fully intended to solve.
“Have I interrupted a burglary?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
June, mortified, scrambled to her feet, nearly tipping the vanity in her haste. “I—no—I beg your pardon, I must have?—”
“Lost your way?” His eyes tracked her with unsettling precision. “Or was it an elaborate plot to ensnare me in a scandal?”
She bristled. “If I wished to entrap a gentleman, I would have aimed considerably higher.”
He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Then you have my condolences, Miss?—?”
She clenched her jaw. “You do not remember me, do you?” The words slipped out, unbidden and far too raw.
He squinted, as if reappraising her. “Should I? You are certainly memorable, but I cannot recall our introduction.”
“We have not been properly introduced,” she snapped. “I am—” She stopped herself. Why reward his arrogance with her name? “—no one of consequence.”
His smile widened, sharklike. “That is a relief. I cannot abide women of consequence. They are always getting me into trouble.”
June glanced at the door, then back at him. “If you will excuse me, Your Grace, I will take my leave. I assure you, this was an honest mistake.”
He moved to block her path, not with force, but with the subtlety of a man accustomed to being obeyed. “Stay a moment. It is not often I find a mysterious lady in my chambers. Especially one who looks so thoroughly unimpressed by me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Perhaps because there is little to impress.”
His eyes flashed with something like delight. “Now I am truly curious. Tell me, have you always been so direct, or is it the influence of the house punch?”
She tried to step around him; he mirrored her perfectly, a waltz without music.
“Let me pass,” she said.
“In a moment,” he replied. “First, tell me: do you often trespass in the rooms of men you claim not to care about?”
June’s face burned. “I do not care about you.”
“A bold lie,” he said, “but I will allow it. You see, I make a study of women, and I have learned to spot the ones who wish to be caught.”
“I have never wished that,” she said, voice trembling with a mixture of anger and something far more dangerous.
He leaned in, close enough that she could see the flecks of silver in his eyes. “Then what do you wish for?”
She said nothing. She did not trust herself to speak.
He reached out, slow and deliberate, and took her hand. She should have pulled away, but instead stood rigid, a statue carved from pride and mortification.
He lifted her hand, studied the ink stains on her fingers. “A scholar,” he said. “And what brings a scholar to a country house party? Surely not the dancing.”
