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He was out of his chair before he realized what he was doing. Plucking her out of her chair. He turned around and set her on the library table and then stepped in, close.
New strategy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Your Grace!” Bea gasped. He’d picked her up so smoothly, as if she were—well, as if she were a willow-thin girl.
Not her, with her hips and thighs and all the rest of her ungainly self.
His eyes were fixed on hers. “Call me Jonah.”
“I will never call you Jonah!”
“Why not? I will happily call you Beatrice. I think of you as Beatrice.”
He must have seen something in her eyes, because he said, “That’s not quite right, is it? Beatrice is too formal, too Shakespearean. Beatrix?”
She shook her head.
“Bea,” he exclaimed. “Bea, like a bumble bee.”
Her laughter had a sardonic edge. “Small and round.”
“Adorable, but with a sting,” he countered.
His smile prickled the back of her neck. Adorable? “If I’m a bee, what animal are you?” Bea countered. “An eagle would be the obvious choice. Or a lion.”
“I’ll take a lion,” the duke replied, unsurprisingly.
“Didn’t you say that your name was Jonah?” She threw him a mischievous look. “We’re not talking about a lion, are we?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“A whale,” she said, enjoying herself. “Huge—because you are monstrously large, you know.”
“I’m not huge.”
“Enormous. Tall as a mountain, that’s what I thought at first.”
“Don’t you like tall men?” he asked. No, he growled that question.
“Not much. I like people my size.”
He bent his head, so close to her that she could smell the starched linen of his neckcloth. “Change your mind,” he ordered.
She gave a stunned little laugh. “Aren’t dukes supposed to be models of comportment?”
“I am,” he said, adding, “Normally.”
“It’s not polite to ask a lady’s preferences, or to order her to change them,” she pointed out.
Something was sparking in the air between them like fireworks, silent but potent.
Jonah cleared his throat. “May I kiss you?”
The words hung between them. Bea’s head was spinning. He couldn’t really … He was Regina’s brother! And he was a duke. An integral part of polite society. But he would never kiss her unless—
“I’m leaving London, returning home,” Bea said quickly, before she lost her resolve. She was no duchess. He must be inebriated. The toddy had gone to his head.
