Page 65 of The Boxing Baroness

Marianne didn’t like the way her body responded to the sound of her name in his mouth—even when he said the word as unemotionally as he just had. She’d given up on him ever speaking less succinctly and precisely—he was a duke all the way to his bones. Hearing her name spoken in his diamond-hard accent was . . . well, distracting to say the least, dangerously stimulating at worst.

Dominic’s accent had been every bit as crisp, although he had never sounded stern or severe. She doubted Dom had a stern bone in his body. Selfish, reckless, thoughtless, and careless bones? Yes, by the score.

“How are your ribs?” he asked, startling her out of her musing.

“What do you know about my ribs?”

“Elliot told me Nora got under your guard.”

Why did it make her feel so strange to know he was talking about her with his friend? By now she’d realized that the man never did anything by halves. At first she’d thought making numerous demands on his time would drive him to quit. She’d soon begun to suspect that he would have taken the position and his responsibilities seriously, even without her riding him.

“Marianne? Your ribs?” he said.

“Oh, they’re fine—just a bit sore.”

She didn’t tell the duke that the reason for her wandering attention was riding beside her. Actually, it wasn’t the duke himself who’d distracted her but her memory of a dream she’d been having when she woke up that morning. An extremely vivid, colorful, erotic dream.

Her face heated at the mere thought of it.

Marianne was no blushing virgin; she knew what she was feeling was sexual attraction—it wasn’t emotional, it was animal. Her body’s reaction to the Duke of Staunton was beyond mortifying. She wanted to bang her head against something hard and pound some sense into it, but her head wasn’t the problem; it was her body betraying her.

Marianne didn’t know what it was about Staunton that made it so difficult for her to concentrate. It was more than just his handsome face, because his friend Lord Carlisle was far prettier and more pleasant, and yet Marianne felt nothing around him.

Whatever it was that was scrambling her wits, she needed to get herself under control, because she would soon be sitting on the duke’s knee on a weekly basis. He would be wiping sweat from her body, tending her injuries, and generally taking care of her. She could hardly throw herself at him every time as she’d done two Tuesdays ago. Her pride would not survive another rejection.

“Do you have family in France?”

She blinked at the abrupt change in conversation. “None that I know of.” She hesitated and then added, “My mother and uncle were the last of their family.”

“Did they move here together?”

“Barnabas moved to England first. Then my mother married an English sailor and moved here after I was born.”

“So, you are French?”

Why was he asking her these questions and wearing what she thought of as his “raptor” look—not the sort of expression a person wore when trying to make pleasant conversation.

“By birth, but I consider myself an Englishwoman.”

“Do you.” His lips curved in an unpleasant smirk.

Marianne frowned at him. What the devil was he getting at? “What about you, Your Grace?”

“What about me?”

“You want to talk about my family. Well, I want to talk about yours. Since your brother is the reason for your presence in my life, perhaps you might share what happened to him?”

“You don’t know?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “How could I?”

“My brother was an Exploring Officer for Wellington. He and two others were ambushed by a group of men acting on information smuggled out of England. My brother’s body was never found, but the other two were brought home.”

“How do you think Dominic found out about your brother?”

“How do you think he found out about him?” the duke countered.

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