“I think it best. Then you might believe me when I say there will be no more.”
She waited for him to come over to her chair. Instead he just watched her with devilish sparks in his eyes.
“It was your idea,” he said.
Memories from the garden drifted into her mind. Exciting ones. She forced them away. This was not the night for a real seduction if it could be avoided. She stood and marched over to him, leaned down, and pressed her lips to his.
A hand on her face. He held her so the kiss continued. He pulled her down more, and pressed her nape so the kiss could go on and on.
The sweet pleasure almost defeated her. Her resolve and tonight’s risks proved small defenses to how seductive he could be. For all of the physical stimulation she experienced, what truly tempted her was the offer to escape everything she knew, and live within the sensations that he could create in her.
He pressed her nape enough to cause alarm. She glanced down. Soon, his other hand would brush against her shirt.
She pulled away from him. She looked down at eyes almost black, their color had deepened so much. The way he gazed at her weakened her even more than the long kiss had.
He knew. He could read her mind. He leaned toward her, reaching. Offering. She looked at that outstretched hand, so masculine and handsome in its own right.
She walked back to her chair.
He took it surprisingly well. Perhaps gentlemen believed they had to be gracious about such things. Then again, the way he kept yawning may have told him it would hardly be his best effort.
“What do you do when you are not fulfilling the demands of your place, or sneaking off to balls and meetings with me?”
More conversation. More curiosity. But he was fading. The hour and the champagne were working on him. “I read.”
“Harry would have liked you more than he knew.” A deep yawn swallowed his last words.
“I also sing.”
“Do you now? Do you perform?”
“If I cannot go to parties, I can hardly do something so bold as perform.”
“Then to whom do you sing?”
“Myself.”
“That is sad, if you only sing for yourself. Why don’t you sing for me? I will be a most respectful and appreciative audience.”
“I suppose I could do that, if you like. I am not accustomed to an audience, however. It might be best if you do not look at me. That might put me off.”
“I will look at the fire instead.”
He fixed his gaze there. She began an old Scottish folk song heavy with the tones of that country. The duke did not look at her, but she looked at him. She sang and watched his lids falter by the third verse.
At the end of the song, he was sound asleep.
Chapter Five
She stood in front of the window, staring while her shawl and slippers fell into the abyss in front of her. A breeze caught the shawl and it floated like a specter in the moonlight, but the shoes disappeared behind the wall. Dressed now in only pantaloons and shirt, she gathered her courage.
Not so high, she told herself.Not so far.
Her mental reassurances helped to calm her, but only an idiot would ignore the danger.
Once you learn it, you never forget.That was what her father had said when he’d begun training her. She had been eight at the time.
Spring off hard from the back foot, Mandy, and look at your target, never the ground. Know where you will grab when you land.
