“Anhour!” She stared at him. “You mean to say you’ve been outside my door for an hour, bellowing like an angry bull?”
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace.” Jasper drew himself up with a sniff. “I don’tbellow. I’m a duke, for God’s sake.” Though to be fair, this was precisely the sort of situation that might reduce the sanest of gentlemen to undignified bellowing. “And if Ididbellow, it was only because I was certain I heard you shuffling about on the other side of the door.”
“For pity’s sake, Jasper! The shuffling you heard was Sarah. Some new gowns I ordered from the modiste arrived this morning, and I bid her to make room for them in my wardrobe. Dear God, you’ve likely frightened her to death!”
Prue turned and rushed down the corridor to her bedchamber. He went after her—he was getting into that bedchamber, one way or another—but he came to an abrupt halt behind her when she froze in the doorway.
“Oh, Sarah! There, it’s alright now, you poor thing.” Prue cast a furious look at him over her shoulder, hissing, “Look what you’ve done, you awful man.”
“What did I do?” He edged past her into the bedchamber, before someone thought to bolt the door against him again. “Why, not a blessed thing, only . . . oh. Damn it.”
The little dark-haired housemaid Prue had taken for her lady’s maid was cowering in the corner, her face streaked with tears. She let out a little shriek when she saw him and darted around to the far side of the bed. “I—I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but he just kept going on and on, and I didn’t know what t-todooo!” The last word rose to such a high-pitched wail it was all Jasper could do not to slap his hands over his ears.
“There now, don’t cry, Sarah. Why don’t you go downstairs and have a cup of tea and one of Cook’s special apple tarts? No, it’s alright, you may come out this way. His Grace is going to go and stand by the wardrobe, and he won’t stir an inch, I promise you.” Prue shot him a murderous glance and pointed to the wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. “Don’t move aninch, if you please, Your Grace.”
God above, such an almighty fuss, and over nothing. Other dukes weren’t subjected to such indignities when they attempted to bedtheirwives—he was almost certain of it. Still, he did as he was bid, before Prue made up her mind to toss him out of her bedchamber.
Sarah gave him one last fearful glance, then she darted across the bedchamber, taking care to keep a wide berth between them, and vanished down the corridor, still whimpering.
“Well, Jasper?” Prue shut the door behind her and turned to face him, her eyes blazing. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
What, indeed? “Er . . . is that a new frock, Your Grace?” Prue rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’s new. Don’t try and change the subject from your appalling behavior, Jasper.”
“Me? Of course not, Your Grace.” He crept closer. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you in that color before.”
She’d been to the modiste last week, and since then a succession of new gowns had made an appearance, most of them in the jewel tones she favored, a rainbow of rich blues, bronzes, and deep reds, but the predominant color in her new wardrobe was green in every shade imaginable, from emerald to juniper, and jade to a soft, heathery sage.
She favored green, and he favored it on her, but he’d make an exception for this particular shade of peacock blue, which turned her eyes a lovely blue green, like a summer pond dappled with sunlight. Then again, she could be wearing a flour sack, and he’d still want her.
He crept closer still, half expecting her to flee as poor Sarah had done, but she remained where she was until he was close enough to touch her. “It’s quite fetching on you,” he murmured, toying with one end of the ribbon that secured the matching hat under her chin. “May I?”
She huffed out a breath, but a smile was tugging at the corners of her lips. “You’re utterly shameless, Jasper.”
“Mmmm.” He tugged on the ribbon and the bow came undone. “If that’s so, then it’s entirely your fault, Your Grace.”
She arched an eyebrow. “It’smyfault you shouted at my lady’s maid and made her cry?”
“Of course, it is.” He removed her hat, a flimsy straw affair with a white feather and a bit of peacock-blue ribbon. It wasn’t the least bit titillating, as hats went, and thus shouldn’t have reduced him to breathlessness, yet here they were.
“I never used to shout at housemaids.” He tossed the hat onto the bed. “But I’ve quite lost my wits since I made a certain hazel-eyed hellion my duchess.”
“What nonsense. I’m not a—”
“Hush.” He pressed his fingertips to her lips, smothering a groan at how soft they were, how pliant. “I’m sorry I made Sarah cry. I’ll beg her pardon, I promise you.Later.” He took her hand and drew her gloves off, one finger at a time, pressing his lips to each dainty pink fingertip as he bared it. “At the moment, I have another urgent matter to attend to.”
One way or another, this ridiculous wager had to end. Before he left this room, he intended to secure her promise she’d never again return to Angelo’s.
“Is that so?” She moved her hands to his chest and he stiffened, but she didn’t push him away, only rested them there, her palms flat and warm over his shirt, her sweet, plush lower lip caught between her teeth.
God, that pout. Did she have any idea how desirable she was? He tangled his fingers in her hair and dropped a teasing kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Do be careful with that lip, Your Grace.” He gently freed it from her bite, his own lips parting as he rubbed the pad of his thumb over that soft, pink skin. “I may have a use for it.”
“Oh.” She darted a shy look at him from under her lashes with those huge, blue-green eyes, as if she were waiting for him to kiss her.
He opened his mouth against her throat and let his tongue dart out to taste her, and she let out a soft little whimper as his mouth drifted over the silky skin of her neck. When he reached her mouth he teased his tongue over her lower lip, nipping and sucking at it. “Open your mouth for me, Prue.”
She let out a soft sigh as she parted for him, her fingers curling into his shirt, holding on. “Your mouth is . . .”
He drew back a little and smiled down at her, his head suddenly dizzy. “Yes?”
