Ambrose cursed again as he folded away Colin’s letter and locked up other private papers from his desk.
“What is she playing at?” he muttered to himself, closing the safe.
The duke would have then closed and locked the study itself, if he had not found the doorway unexpectedly blocked by a shapely figure in a burgundy walking suit of form-fitting construction, dark tresses arranged in Grecian-style ringlets around her face. Satin slippers on Miss Sinclair’s feet made little sound and Barrington was likely unaware that she had evaded him.
“Your butler would have had me wait in the drawing room, Your Grace, but I’ve come to seek you out,” purred Annabelle Sinclair in a low voice, her violet-blue eyes fixed intently on Ambrose. “I have always wanted to see Westall Park, and now here I am.”
The pose she struck against the doorframe was likely intended to be seductive but only reminded Ambrose of a poised snake, a dangerous creature not to be left wandering freely in the home. Something broke in him then, sweeping away all his learned manners and practiced politeness.
“Get out of my house and never come back,” the Duke of Westall told Miss Sinclair without any attempt to soften or qualify his words. “You should not be here and you know it.”
“Why should I not be here?” she challenged him, raising one of her dark eyebrows and advancing a step into the room. “Does my presence make you uncomfortable Ambrose? There is no need to fight against it, you know.”
Instinctively, he dodged the hand that she reached out towards him, although his retreat gave her more space to move forward. The sound of his Christian name on her lips was distasteful to him.
“We’ve always had a connection, haven’t we?” Miss Sinclair continued. “You should accept what you feel. It is only natural that you should want me as you do.”
Want her?! There could not be a woman he wanted less.
“I remind you that I am a married man, Miss Sinclair,” Ambrose addressed her severely. “As an unmarried young woman, your present conversation would be highly inappropriate even if I were not married. You have no business being here, especially without a chaperone, and I will be writing to your father.”
“I had planned to send my maid here discretely, to arrange a private meeting,” the young woman sighed, unbuttoning her jacket. “Unfortunately, she vanished in the night, taking all my best silk stockings with her. So, I’ve had to take matters into myown hands. I’m here to throw myself on your mercy, to appeal to your generosity, to offer you whatever you want in return…”
Minus her jacket, it could be seen that Annabelle Sinclair’s dress was of very low cut for daywear. The substantial breasts that rose from its neckline would have been hard not to notice, even if she hadn’t been apparently thrusting them out in Ambrose’s direction. Her display had no effect, however, and he kept his eyes firmly on her face.
“Miss Sinclair, I shall tell you one more time to remove yourself from my house and then I shall ask my staff to remove you,” said Ambrose, his voice low, steady and implacable.
“Why not remove me yourself?” she suggested playfully, with a sensuous arching of her body, as if inviting him to take hold of her. “Why hold back from what youreallywant? You are the Duke of Westall and have status and fortune enough to do as you please with a young woman like me, of good family and limited means. I don’t even care if you are married.”
“Well, I damned well care!” he protested, again dodging an attempt to lay hands on him, and beginning to think Miss Sinclair had taken leave of her senses.
Had she really come alone to his house in order to proposition him? A young lady of the ton offering her body to a married man in return for some kind of financial support?! He had never imagined such a thing possible although Colin had tried to warn him.
“When I heard of your marriage, I thought I had misunderstood you and wasted my time,” Miss Sinclair told him. “I thought I might have imagined the spark between us. Then I learned of the terms of your father’s will and I understood. I understood even better when I learned that you had not even bothered to deflower your new wife, the ever-virginal Lady Frances…”
“My marriage is none of your business,” Ambrose snapped, hating to hear Frances’ name on Annabelle Sinclair’s lips even more than his own.
The Duke of Westall found himself wishing that his unwanted visitor was a man and therefore someone he could haul out of the house and throw into the driveway with his own hands. Putting an end to this unpleasant interview was complicated by his reluctance to mishandle any lady, combined with his revulsion over making any physical contact with Annabelle Sinclair.
She had him cornered now, almost with his back against his desk. He would have to touch her, or at least push past her, in order to make his escape. Where the hell was Barrington when you wanted him? Probably searching for the missing guest from the drawing room. Ambrose would have to pull the bell and deal with whichever maid or footman arrived first.
“I see everything, Ambrose,” Miss Sinclair continued. “You married Lady Frances only to keep your mother’s fortune, and you avoid her bed because it is me that you really want. You’re struggling to send me away so as not to besmirch my honor, butthere is no need. I would willingly give up my honor to be your mistress, Ambrose, since I cannot be your wife. Take me now!”
“Good God!” he exclaimed disgustedly, finding that even the bell-pull to summon the servants was just slightly out of his reach.
In that moment of distraction, Annabelle Sinclair flung herself upon the Duke of Westall, seized his head and pressed her lips to his, a gesture that sent ice into his veins, nausea into his stomach and horror into his heart.
“Ambrose!” exclaimed another female voice as he flung Miss Sinclair away from him bodily, causing her to stumble and almost fall.
There by the door stood Frances, returned early from London, her face ashen and her expression deeply, deeply wounded in a manner that pained his own heart.
“Frances, I can explain,” Ambrose began, while Annabelle Sinclair started to laugh.
“You traitor!” his wife shouted at him, tears and fury both filling her eyes as she screwed up some sheet of paper and threw it at him before turning on her heel and running from the room.
“Frances!” he called after her, and was briefly dragged back by Annabelle Sinclair clinging to his arm.
“Let her go, Ambrose. You are master of this house and if you will it, your milksop wife will have to accept me as your mistress.”
