Miss Ninepence glanced at his pantaloons and then slowly brought her gaze up. Her eyes were wide when they finally met his, and her mouth parted slightly.
“Your Grace?”
Peter hoped the gel didn’t see that his cock twitched in his smalls. He also hoped that this farce would conclude quickly, because maintaining a dominant facade was most trying indeed.
When Miss Ninepence didn’t scream, Peter felt a confusing mixture of frustration and... something else. Relief? Surely not. He needed her to flee, to end this travesty. But a small, traitorous part of him was oddly pleased that she hadn’t looked at him with disgust. That she seemed curious. No, he had to stay focused on the goal and see his plan through, for his happiness and the well-being of his mother. An embarrassing and ill-matched engagement — and God forbid, marriage! — might do her in.
“Miss Ninepence,” he rasped, attempting to growl but sounding mostly as if he were recovering from a bout of influenza. “I have need of you.”
He placed one gloved hand on the side of her surprisingly lovely face. Her skin was warm. Her eyes widened — not with fear, but with something that looked like surprise. Or interest. Peter forgot entirely what he was doing. Then he remembered: frighten her. Yes. He needed to frighten her.
He whipped the glove from his hand and cradled her cheek with his bare palm.
For a moment, Peter thought his plan had worked. She’d flee, cry off, and he’d be free. But then her expression shifted to something he couldn’t quite read. Curiosity? Challenge? She leaned back in her chair, regarding him coolly.
“Do you, Your Grace?” she said, her voice steady. “And what exactly do you need?”
That wasn’t fear. That was...Peter’s throat went dry. He’d have to push harder.
Slowly, heart hammering, he slid his thumb across her cheek to her lips, then pressed gently until she opened them. He’d seen a seasoned rake do this very thing to a courtesan on his one disastrous visit to a bawdy house and wondered what it might feel like. The warm wetness of her mouth around his digit sent a bolt of sensation straight to his cock. Oh dear.
“I have need of your person,” he said. He tried to lower his voice to a rasp, but instead set off a bout of coughing. His words came out rough and strained, more wheeze than growl.
“Oh dear, a catarrh, Your Grace?” she asked, fumbling about for a handkerchief. As if he didn’t have his own!
“It is no matter,” he said, resuming his normal voice. “We must attend to the issue at hand.”
Peter stepped closer until his legs nearly touched her knees. Miss Ninepence didn’t bolt for the door, so Peter cocked his hips forward as if to signal that she should do something about hispantaloons. That would no doubt produce the required effect of sending the chit running and screaming from their rapidly approaching marriage.
“Oh!” cried the girl, finally catching on. “Oh, I thought you…” She huffed, clearly amused. “I thought you were having some sort of fit. This makes much more sense. You’re propositioning me?”
For the first time since entering the room, Peter’s confidence wavered.
And then she set a hand to the front of his falls. Peter felt every point of contact — her fingertips just above where his cock was rapidly hardening, her touch tentative yet deliberate.
“Miss Ninepence,” he yelped, his dominant persona shattering like cheap pottery. “Whatever are you doing?”
This was not part of the plan. The plan had been to scare her. Her hand was warm. Why was her hand so warm? Why was his body responding like this? It was a disaster.
She looked up with a questioning expression on her face.
“Oh, did you not want me to…?” She lowered her hand from where it had been, and Peter felt the barest brush against his cock. Even with layers of fabric between them, he had to clench his arse to avoid spilling his sac immediately. What a devious minx!
Peter had to think. Perhaps Miss Ninepence wasn’t the brightest of young ladies and needed a more direct push. He certainly couldn’t leave the room tied to her.
But how to convince her to flee?
Peter was running out of ideas. And then, as if gifted to him by divine intervention, he recalled a gothic novel making the rounds.The Duke of Dampstone Hallor some such nonsense. In its pages was a duke, a domineering — nay, dominant — aristocrat who terrorized the new maid merely hoping to sweep the floors, polish the silver plate, and learn the truth of what had happened to her mother in his mouldering castle some years before. That dastardly duke would never endure an unwanted engagement, not when the terrifying force of his personality could send a young lady fleeing in terror.
As if playing a role on the stage, Peter drew himself taller and delivered the line that had reportedly sent two matrons into a swoon just last week.
“Polish my silver!”
Chapter 3
At first, Lucy wasn’tsure that she’d heard the duke correctly. This standoffish man seemed to have been possessed by a spirit that had rendered him something of a rake.
A gentleman didn’t stand this way — towering, intimidating. For a moment, genuine fear flickered through her. She was alone with a man who could overpower her if he chose. But then she looked at his face and saw the uncertainty in his eyes, the tightness around his mouth that suggested he was far more uncomfortable than she was. This wasn’t a rake’s confidence. This was a desperate man playing a role.
