Page 35 of The Feared Duke’s Found Family

A bright, genuine smile broke across Fanny’s face, illuminating her features so suddenly that Lysander felt a strange, tight jolt in the center of his chest.

“Crystal clear, Your Grace,” Fanny said, taking a step back from the desk with a crisp, triumphant dip of her head.

“And you will oversee the enclosure,” Lysander added gruffly, picking up his quill as if desperate to restore order to his desk. “I have three tenant leases to sign before dinner.”

“Of course.” Fanny turned toward the door, her skirts swishing gracefully across the carpet, but she paused with her hand on the brass latch, casting a playful glance over her shoulder. “Peter will be waiting near the terrace.”

Lysander did not answer right away. He had risen from his desk, his broad frame cutting an intimidating silhouette against the shadowy study. His dark coat was unbuttoned, his cravat loosened just enough to expose the hollow of his throat. The raw, unvarnished heat in his gaze held her pinned to the spot.

Fanny’s breath hitched, her fingers tightening around the brass handle. The air in the room suddenly felt thick, almost unbreathable, charged with a heavy, magnetic pull that made her pulse loud against her collarbone.

She watched the slow, heavy rise and fall of his chest, her eyes lingering involuntarily on the sharp line of his mouth. A sudden, wicked wave of heat surged low in her stomach, making her skin prickle beneath the heavy silk of her bodice. She wanted to leave, yet every nerve in her body practically begged him to cross the room and close the distance between them.

Lysander took a single, deliberate step forward, his polished boots heavy on the rug. His eyes followed the frantic beat of her pulse in her neck before drifting up to her parted lips. He looked at her.

“Let’s not leave him waiting,” Lysander murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that sent a sharp, exquisite shiver down her spine. He did not touch her, but the sheer, possessive weight of his gaze felt like a hand gliding up her ribcage. “Yet I must confess, you are in an extraordinary hurry to escape me today, Fanny.”

“I am merely… being mindful of the children, Your Grace,” Fanny whispered, her tone trembling with an unmistakable, breathless charge as she turned her body fully back to face him, her spine pressing against the sturdy wood of the door.

Lysander stopped mere inches away, his broad shoulders blocking the rest of the study and trapping her entirely in his heat. His gaze burned into hers, heavy with an unspoken, simmering desire that made her knees feel dangerously weak.

“Then perhaps,” Lysander rasped, leaning down until the sharp, delicious scent of cedar and warm skin enveloped her completely, “you should stop looking at me like that.”

Fanny’s breath hitched in her throat, her lips parting on a silent gasp. She should have looked away. She should have ducked beneath his arm and retreated into the hallway. Instead, her eyes remained locked onto his, held captive by the dark, fierce hunger burning in his gray gaze.

Lysander didn’t move away. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand. His knuckles didn't touch her skin, hovering a hair’s breadth from her jawline, yet the sheer, radiating heat of him seared her as if he had laid his palm flat against her neck. His thumb brushed the air just above her lower lip, his gaze dropping to watch the tiny, helpless tremor that passed through her.

The air in the narrow space between them grew impossibly thick. Fanny felt the thunderous beat of her own heart echoing in her ears, her palms pressing flat against the cold wood of the door behind her to keep her balance.

For a single, breathless second, Lysander leaned in closer, his dark head tilting down until his lips brushed the shadow of her temple, his deep, ragged exhale fanning across her cheek. The temptation to reach out—to slide her fingers up the crisp linen of his lapel and pull him the final fraction of an inch—nearly tore through her resolve.

Then, down the corridor, the sharp clatter of a wooden toy dropping against the floorboards shattered the silence, followed by Peter’s faint, ringing laughter.

The spell snapped.

Lysander slowly straightened to his full, towering height. He took a single step back, granting her room to breathe, though his heavy gaze never left her face.

“Go to him, Fanny,” Lysander rumbled, his voice scraped raw and low. “Before I forget my own rules.”

Fanny didn't trust her voice to answer. She gave a single, breathless nod, turned the brass latch with trembling fingers, and slipped out the door into the cool, grounding quiet of the hall.

Fourteen

Ten minutes later, the herb garden echoed with the frantic, excited scuffle of small leather boots over cobblestones.

“He likes cabbage!” Peter declared, practically dropping to his knees on the damp flagstones beside the stone bench. He had a battered wooden crate tilted on its side, lined with moss and clover. In the center sat the small, dark green tortoise, its wrinkled head extended cautiously as it nibbled on a shredded leaf. “Look, Lady Fanny! He took it right out of my fingers!”

“I see him,” Fanny said, smiling, kneeling beside the boy, holding the hem of her skirts away from the dirt. “He has an extraordinary appetite for a creature who carries his own house on his back.”

“I have decided on his name,” Peter announced solemnly, wiping his nose on his linen sleeve before Fanny could offer her handkerchief. He looked up at her with large, earnest, dark eyes. “His name is Pickles.”

Fanny blinked, swallowing down a sudden bubble of laughter. “Pickles?”

“Because he is green, like the jars Mrs. Henderson keeps in the dark cellar,” Peter explained with absolute, unwavering logic. “And he is very sour when you poke his shell. He hides his whole face until you leave him alone. Just like a pickle.”

“A most distinguished name,” Fanny agreed, reaching out to gently brush a speck of dried moss from the tortoise’s patterned shell. “Pickles the Tortoise, Master of the Herb Garden.”

Peter beamed, a brilliant, gap-toothed grin stretching across his face. He leaned down, pressing his face inches from the wooden crate, watching the slow, rhythmic movement of the creature’s jaws. Then, the boy’s smile dimmed by a fraction. A thoughtful, longing shadow crossed his brow.