“How did I get into my bed?”
“I carried you,” he said as if it were the most ridiculous question he’d ever been asked. “Mrs. Turner found a fresh suit for me in the attic—”
“You carried me to bed?”
He gave me that wicked grin of his.
“Can’t fathom why you’re so surprised. It wasn’t the first time I’ve carried you off to bed. Won’t be the last either, I hope. Right now if you’d like?” He finished his cake with one final bite.
“No, no, we’re not doing this,” I said. “You can’t be here.”
“I am here, so clearly I can be here. You might think I shouldn’t be here, but that’s another matter entirely, love.”
“No love. No darling. None of that. No sugar, sweetness, angel, poppet, pet.”
“I have never once called you ‘poppet.’ I will, however, upon request.”
“Duke,” I said, putting my hands on his shoulders.
“Ah, this is more like it.” He wrapped his large hands around my waist and leaned down for another kiss.
“Halt.” I put my hand over his mouth. “You have to go home immediately.”
He took my right wrist into his hand—very gently, I might add, maddeningly gently—and then kissed the center of my palm, making intimate and downright knee-buckling eye contact the entire time.
He lifted his head and sighed. “I have missed you ordering me around like a lapdog,” he said, “almost as much as I’ve missed ignoring those orders.”
“You can’t—”
Mrs. Turner entered then, wheeling the tea trolley. She bobbed a curtsy to Duke. This was the dark side of having a very English, very Victorian housekeeper. Duke’s merest wish was her command.
“More tea and cake, Your Grace,” she said.
“I do love these black-and-white cakes.” Duke took one off the trolley and devoured it in two bites. “My compliments to the chef.”
“Those are Little Debbie Zebra Cakes from the grocery store,” Rainy said.
“I don’t know this Little Debbie,” Duke said. “But she is a giant in my eyes. Thank you, Mrs. Turner. That will be all.”
She curtsied again and left us alone in the library.
Duke poured another cuppa for himself. “Tea?” he offered.
“How can you drink tea at a time like this?”
“Darling, I drank tea during the zeppelin raids of 1915. A proper English gentleman can drink tea under any circumstances.”
“Your author was American.”
His dark eyes widened. “No need to be insulting.” He pulled out a chair at the reading table and faced me. “Come, sit on our lap and tell us what’s troubling you.”
“For starters, you are here, and you shouldn’t be. That’s troubling me. Second, I am not sitting on your lap. We broke up.”
“Did we? I thought all that was only for show? Keeping the bosseshappy when really you were biding your time, waiting for a chance to be with me again. And voilà.” He gestured to himself before stretching out his long legs, crossing them at the ankle, and then clasping his hands behind his head, the very picture of arrogant entitlement.
“Stop being gorgeous,” I ordered him, pointing at his face.
“You first.”
