The nanny sprang out of the chair with a gold knife raised.
Her eyes were wild.
“Nanny LaCroy?”
She trembled. Hair spilling from her mobcap.
“Is that a weapon in the nursery?”
Blinking, she lowered the knife and started pulling a blanket up around her. “You startled me, Duke.”
Why did her tone sound as if he’d done something wrong checking on his ward? He knotted his robe belt into a ball for Lionel and handed it to the boy to chew.
“Is this a new way to raise children? With knives?”
“Yes, sir, it’s something Greek. Or maybe tribal from the African shores. It certainly can’t be English to feel the need to be protected.”
Words were a dangerous thing. There was no way to retract a barb. It cut as much flesh going in as it did going out.
The wide-eyed woman was hurting. A joke wouldn’t do. He put his hand on hers, taking the knife from her, dropping the expensive jeweled thing to the floor.
Thunder crackled, and she shivered.
The woman was frightened by something that wasn’t him and nothing made more sense than to draw her into his arms.
But he wouldn’t.
That would be a dangerous line to cross, to take her in a tight embrace, to press her delightful curves to him. Could he chase away her fears? Would he add new ones?
Busick wasn’t a heavy-handed lord. He was a soldier and a lover and a protector of all things beautiful. LaCroy was beautiful, with a cleft in her chin that should hold kisses, topaz eyes that needed to turn black with passion.
Crossing this battlefield was fraught with too many risks.
Explosions of feelings, cannon fires of desire, made a wonderful way to pass the time until morning.
Nonetheless, Lionel needed a good nanny more than Busick needed to explore the attraction that existed between them.
So he stood there with his hand upon hers, listening to the storm, wishing their circumstances were very different.
* * *
The duke held my hand, and I looked up into eyes that saw me.
Did he know my fears, or was he preparing to terminate Lionel’s jittery nanny?
He didn’t say anything, didn’t talk about the audacity of pulling a weapon on him.
Well, it wasn’t as if I could tell him I’d been imprisoned in here for about a month, so soon after the birth of my boy. That I didn’t know if I would eat or see anything beyond these walls.
I couldn’t even tell him that I was sorry for having to be a party to the deception enacted by the Widow’s Grace.
Yet, I’d deceived myself for years, pretending to be a passive dove. Why should the duke of Repington be any different?
“LaCroy.” His thin lips held my fake name like a kiss. “Tell me what you saw when you awoke. It wasn’t me, at least I hope not, with a knife in your hand. If it was me, we may need to reconsider this employment situation.”
His rough palm clung to mine, not letting go, not that I wanted him to. Was it wrong to want to be held by him, when thunder and lightning danced outside the window? Was it horrible to hope to put my head on his shoulder, to nestle away my fears, hiding in him?
My eyes closed for a moment. I needed a savior, not a duke, not a man I had to lie to to be near my child.
