Page 25 of The Duchess Games

She broke off when he suddenly drew the tip of her finger into his mouth, sucking it to the first knuckle. His tongue soothed the sting.

And it kindled fire everywhere else.

Everywhere. Else.

Sticking your burned finger in your mouth was instinct. This was something else entirely. His blue eyes met hers and stayed there, even as he sucked gently.

She swallowed, definitely feeling it in her knees. Her thighs. A tingle of warmth moving languidly through her core like honey.

He released her, standing with his perfect posture and his powerful voice suggesting discipline and self-control.

His eyes suggested something else. They burned. Because of her.

“Miss Sparrow.” He bowed.

She did not curtsy back.

She was very much afraid her knees had stopped working.

Chapter Nine

Disaster.

Absolute disaster.

“You can’t be ill,” Cat blurted out. “You never get ill.”

Viola lay in her bed, the yellow coverlet pulled up to her chin. Her nose was pink and rapidly on its way to red. “Well, I’m ill now,” she said, her voice scratchy. “I blame Bartholomew.”

Cat poured her a cup of tea. She had wrangled horehound lozenges from the housekeeper Mrs. Pepper. She opened a window to let in fresh air. “Better?” she asked hopefully.

“No,” Viola sighed.

“I can see about some lemons.” Their mother always managed to find enough coin for a single lemon when they came down with a lung complaint or soreness of the throat. “Maybe you’ll be better by the afternoon.”

“I won’t be coming downstairs with a chapped nose, Cat.” She sounded deeply offended. “Nor am I going to give a dowager duchess the sniffles.”

“But…”

Dread trickled through her. The first official challenge was today. If Viola went home, there was no reason for Cat to stay on as chaperone. No other earthly reason for Cat to ever be here, invitation notwithstanding.

Hard to steal from the duke if she didn’t have access to his personal belongings.

She would lose the cargo. Any hope of income.

Not to mention that she wasn’t even sure how to look him in the eye after last night. He might see that the warmth of it was still coursing through her. The slide of his tongue, the unexpected and very un-dukelike caress.

She very, very much wanted to scream.

“Cat?”

Cat blinked, returning to the room. The way Viola said her name suggested it had not been the first time. Cat sat down heavily on the corner of the bed. “I suppose I shall have to take your place.”

Viola sat up, eyes wide. “You will?”

She tried a bolstering smile. “Certainly. You’ll be better in a day or so and then you will not have lost your place. We will carry on.”

Assuming, of course, that Cat did not come dead last in every challenge. With any luck, swimming would be first up. That at least she could do with a reasonable amount of success.