Chapter Twelve
They didn’t speak of the kiss at all the following day between three o’clock and four o’clock.
Out loud, at least.
She arrived at the usual time to find him seated at the desk, attending to what appeared to be a stack of correspondence, also as usual.
“Buonasera, Your Grace.”
“Buonasera, Miss Wylde.”
“At least the day is clement.”
“It is indeed, calm,” he agreed.
This, absurdly, was more or less how the hour proceeded.
They exchanged these polite sentences as though they were passing back and forth something that could scald them if it spilled.
They were absorbed in separate thoughts that were wholly about each other. The air was dense and buzzy with portent. It was as if yesterday they’d stumbled upon an underground cavern, in the depths of which they’d detected a seductive glitter.
Which could either be a treasure, or the eyes of a dangerous man- and woman-eating beast.
Or could be the whites of the judging eyes of theton, who might strip the duke of his reputation like so many termites stripped wood should they ever learn he was consorting with her. Or run Mariana out of town on a rail.
It wasn’t comfortable. But it was thrilling.
There were any number of times in her life when she had asked, “Why me?”
But she knew the answer to that was, “Why not you?” Fate had such an insouciant shrug it must be French.
He would be an animal in bed, she thought. It was what she wanted. She suspected this said less about their natures than the alchemy of the two of them together.
She was furious—it seemed grotesquely unfair, yet another in a series of events that seemed grotesquely unfair—that her lust was adulterated by emotions she had no business entertaining. Ones that all but guaranteed pain.
And there he sat, a man of absolute composure. She thought of how many people had relied on him for safety. How in large part the reason everyone in England still spoke mainly English instead of French was because the man sitting in front of her somehow had risen to the occasion.
She imagined her arms wrapped around his waist.
She imagined screaming into a pillow while she came with him inside her.
“Is there anything new you’d like to learn in Italian today?”
Do not bother flirting with me, as I have been kissed by the Duke of Valkirk, and he has ruined me for all other men. Thatwould be a useful sentence.
“Oh! I forgot to tell you that I received a letter—a rather plump one—written entirely in Italian. It’s from an opera director called Signor Roselli in Paris.” She did not add,where word that I am a pariah has not yet reached the populace, but it rather went without saying. “Mr. Giancarlo Giannini brought it to me when he, er, visited the other day.”
The name “Giancarlo” narrowed the duke’s eyes.
“I am able to read many of the words thanks to you—and I think he may be offering me a job, and I think he’s sent along a libretto. But his handwriting is quite shockingly bad.” She paused. “And he failed to include any illuminating illustrations in the margins.”
His mouth curved, but he didn’t lift his head, and his quill didn’t pause. “Did you happen to bring the letter with you today?”
She watched, transfixed, as the hand that had so lately squeezed her arse in order to press her up against his cock made what looked like a question mark, based on the swoop and dart of the quill.
She took a surreptitious breath.
“I fear it slipped my mind. I left it in my room.”
