Page 32 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

“You were meant to return him to Lord Hillsborough. Directly. Without a lecture attached.”

“I could have done that,” he said. “He would have learned nothing.”

“That is not your decision.” The evenness in her voice slipped. She felt the heat of her own anger rising to meet his stillness. “He is my son. What he learns, and from whom, is mine to decide. Not yours. I don’t want him in your company.”

The shift in his face was small and exact.

“Someone like me,” he drawled. The words were low, precise, and carried a sudden, dangerous weight.

Penelope’s stomach dropped. “I did not mean it that way.”

“You didn’t have to.” He took a step toward her. Then another. “Someone like me. And what, pray, do you know of me, Lady Romwich? Of what I am?”

She knew what he meant. She could hear the shape of the gossip in the air between them: the stories of violence, of a temperament shattered by war, of a man who was no longer safe for society.

“I know enough,” she whispered.

“Do you?” He took another step.

She did not move, though every instinct told her to flee.

“Enough to make a decision about my son’s wellbeing,” she murmured. “He will not be in your company again. I will see to it.”

“See to it.” He repeated the words as if testing their weight and finding them lacking.

He took a final step, and now the distance between them was gone. The scent of him clouded her senses. She had to tilt her chin back to maintain his gaze.

“What exactly do you think you can do, my lady? You think you can stop me?”

Her heart was striking against her ribs with such force she was certain he could see it through her bodice.

“I will do whatever it takes to protect my son.”

He looked at her for a long, heavy moment. His chest rose and fell beneath the wet shirt, the damp fabric sticking to his skin. His eyes moved over her face, tracing her features with an unhurried, predatory attention.

Then his hand came up.

She went still; she wasn’t afraid. It was something far more complicated— a frantic, electric tension that made her skin prickle.

His fingers caught her chin. His grip was firm, not rough, but entirely certain of itself. He tilted her face up to his. She met his eyes because she refused to look down, refused to let him see her tremble.

“So fierce. So protective… I wonder, if anyone has protected you, taken care of you, for a change,” he muttered.

The question caught her off guard, a sudden, sharp needle pricking through the balloon of her indignation.

“I do not require being taken care of,” she snapped, though her voice lacked its previous iron.

“You do not?”

He didn’t let go. His thumb brushed the line of her jaw, a slow, deliberate movement that trailed fire in its wake. The calluses on his skin spoke of more than just a soldier’s life; they felt like a map of everything she had been taught to fear and everything she was currently, helplessly, drawn toward.

“You came here to warn me away,” he murmured, his head dipping lower until his forehead nearly touched hers. “You tell me I am dangerous. Well, perhaps I am. But only when you are around. I… I do not know myself around you, my lady.”

“You… you should not say such things,” she whispered, her breath hitching.

“I should not want to see you with your hair down, either,” he rasped, his voice dropping. “I should not want to know if your skin is as soft as it looks under all that silk. I should not want to taste the words right off your mouth every time you find a new reason to challenge me.”

His gaze dropped to her lips and stayed there, heavy and demanding. Penelope felt a traitorous ache bloom in her chest, and she found herself leaning into the heat of him.