Romancing the Duke

There was only one wrinkle in that scheme.

He liked her too much to go through with it.

“You need to retire for the night,” he said darkly. “Now.”

“Yes.” She yawned. “I suppose I should.”

But she didn’t leave straightaway. She rose from her chair and did some moving about. At first, he assumed she was gathering a candle to light her way upstairs. But that couldn’t possibly take her so long.

He listened to a solid minute’s worth of andirons rattling and fabric rustling and furniture inching over slate before the truth sank in.

“Stop.” He pushed to his feet. “Stop at once.”

“Stop what?” Her voice carried an unmistakable note of guilt.

“Stop what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” He rose to his feet and moved in her direction. “You just pushed that chair toward the table. And before that, you hung my coat on the peg.”

“Very well, you caught me. Call the magistrate. Put me in the stocks for excessive tidiness.”

“That’s not tidiness, Goodnight. You know it’s not.”

She couldn’t get away with this. He knew exactly what she was doing. She was putting the room to rights before she left for the evening. Making certain every chair and pillow and fireplace poker was in its place.

For him.

That wasn’t mere tidiness. It was understanding and thoughtfulness. And considering his emotional state, tonight that behavior was dangerous. Any way she cared to spell it.

“I’ll see you to your turret.” He offered his arm before she could accuse him of chivalry or gallantry or anything else equally absurd. His motives were entirely disgusting.

He wanted to be close to her, shoulder to shoulder as they climbed the stairs to the next floor. He wanted to guide her down the corridor, sliding his hand across her waist and letting it settle just at the small of her back. He wanted to feel her unbound curls brushing against his exposed wrist.

He wanted . . .

God, he wanted her. All of her.

“Here we are.” She stopped at the archway that led to her turret room. “Good night, Ransom.”

He lingered, counting her steps as she climbed the stairs. One, two, three, four . . .

“Goodnight.”

She stopped. Then came back down a few steps. One, two . . .

“Was that a dismissal or a summons?” she asked. “ ‘Goodnight, come here’? or ‘Good night to you, now go away’? ”

Hell, Ransom didn’t even know. The word had just ripped from him. He suspected the sentiment behind it was something like, Goodnight, take off all your clothing and wrap your limbs around me and never let go.

“The fifteenth step,” he said. “It’s a bit more narrow than the rest.”

“And you don’t want me to fall and be hurt. How sweet.”

“It’s not sweet.” He gritted his teeth. “I already swept up one pile of bones today. I’d rather not contend with another.”

“Just the same.” Her hand touched his face. “Thank you.”

Her fingertips rested on his cheek, like a constellation of unexpected kindness. He encircled her wrist with his fingers, planning to wrench her touch away.

Instead, he brushed his thumb over the fluttering beat of her pulse. Her skin was so soft there. His mind’s eye bloomed with petals. In every shade of pink. And since it seemed he’d already crossed the border into sentimental madness, and he couldn’t possibly make it much worse—

He brought her wrist to his lips. And he kissed that tender, precious heartbeat, like a damn besotted fool.

Bless you.

He released her, squeezing his eyes shut. He was dangling by a thread already. If his eyesight miraculously returned to him at this moment, she would have no chance at all.

“Have mercy on a broken man. Just go to bed.”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to her light steps spiraling up to the turret. Everything in him ached to follow. He leaned against the archway and gripped the stone, wrestling his desire.

As her last steps faded, he turned to walk away. He’d reached the end of the corridor and counted half the stairs back down to the great hall when he heard it.

“Ransom!”

He froze, one hand on the stone. A chill shot down his spine.

“Ransom, come at once.”

And then, in the space of a second, he understood it. He understood the reason he’d walked this castle every night in the dark. Learning the length and breadth of every room, arch, corridor, and stair. It wasn’t about regaining his strength, or mastering the space that was now his home and prison. He’d done it all for one purpose:

So he could get to her.

Now. As fast as his legs would carry him.

Chapter Eighteen

Izzy stood in the center of the room, frozen in shock. Ransom’s steps came booming up the stairs.

He emerged into the room, breathless and red-faced. A storm of fury had gathered on his brow, and his scar forked from it like lightning. “Izzy, what is it? Speak to me. Are you hurt?”

“No.” She felt horrible for alarming him. “It’s not that.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s this. You did this? You must have done this.”

“Did what?”

“The candles. They’re everywhere.”

She turned a slow circle. At some point since she’d last been in this room, someone had placed a dozen sconces around the perimeter. Each one held a lit beeswax taper. In addition, there were two candelabras on her dressing table, and one on the table beside her bed. The sheer number was extravagant and ridiculous—they filled the space with enough light to rival a star, and their collective heat raised the temperature of the room by several degrees.

Izzy was overwhelmed.

They could only be Ransom’s doing. She hadn’t told anyone else.

She sniffed back a tear. “Downstairs, you berated me for pushing in a chair or hanging a coat. And then . . . this?” She swiped at her eyes. “Ransom, this is just unfair. Why would you go and do something so . . .”

“They’re just candles.”

She shook her head. He had to know these were not just candles. They were caring. He was caring about her, for her, and it was such an unfamiliar sensation, Izzy didn’t know what to do with it.

In desperation, she fluttered her hands, as if she could shoo the emotion away. It didn’t help.

“For God’s sake.” He moved toward her. “You’re making too much of this. They’re meant to keep you up here. In your room. Away from me. Every night, you’ve been stealing downstairs in the dark, waking me up before dawn. I couldn’t understand what it was you were missing up here, but I tried everything. Blankets, brazier, writing desk.”

She pressed a hand to her throat. “Those were all your doing, too? I thought Abigail . . .”

He shook his head. “No. I know what you’re thinking, and I’m telling you, it’s not that way. This isn’t how it looks.”

“You had better hope not.” She swept another glance around the candlelit room. “Because this looks . . . sweet. It looks . . .” She swallowed hard. “Oh, Ransom, it’s so romantic.”

He pushed both hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “It’s not.”

“It is. This is romantic. You are being romantic.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.” His arms went around her. “I just . . . I just needed to keep you up here.” He walked her backward until her knees met the edge of her bed, and they both tumbled onto the mattress. “In this bed.”

He stroked her hair, fanning it out over the pillows, and framed her face in his hands. “But I couldn’t discern what it was you needed to feel safe. I tried everything. Finally, tonight, you gave me the answer. Light. So now you have as many candles as you please. But now it’s gone all wrong. Because you’re here in this bed. But I’m here, too. And God help me, Izzy.” His brow pressed to hers, and his weight settled over her, crushing and warm. “I don’t know how to leave.”

“I know how.” She pushed on his shoulders. “I will make you.”

He tensed. “You will?”

“I will. We can’t do this. Every time we get close, something awful occurs. The weasel bites you, a rock falls on your head, we get trapped with a dead man in a darkened hole. If we do this . . . ? God knows what could happen. The whole turret might collapse.”

He nodded slowly, as if giving it careful thought. “Izzy?”

“Yes?”

“Let it happen.” His lips lowered to hers. “I don’t damn well care.”

Let it happen, Ransom thought, pushing her back against the bed. Let God and the devil do their worst.

The castle could crumble to the ground. The world could end. The entirety of the Moranglian Army could show up wearing jingling bells. All that mattered was this. Her, and him, and the light of two dozen candles. The both of them, tangled in this bed.

No darkness. No loneliness. No fear.

And he wanted to be sure she would have no regrets.

“Izzy, I want you. I feel the need to say it. Not to be crude or shocking, but just in case there’s any ambiguity in this situation: Me, atop you, in your bed. You must know I want to . . .”

His mind skipped over all the possible words. Bed you, tup you, fuck you, tumble you, make you my mistress . . .

“I want to make love to you, Izzy. Very, very, very badly.”

Ransom had never used those words before. She couldn’t know that, but he did.

“I . . .” Her fingers went to his hair. “I want you, too. So much.”

Her shyly voiced admission redoubled his heart rate.

It was after midnight, and he was tired. Normally, his vision would be shot at this hour. But with all these candles, and the extreme nature of their evening, he had enough sight remaining to him that he could make out the dark aura of her hair against the white linen. And most lovely of all, her wide, red smile.

“You’re so beautiful.”

He turned her onto her side and began tugging at the buttons down the back of her frock. She’d changed out of the soiled, torn red silk and into one of her everyday frocks. Even though the buttons were larger and the fabric easier to manage, his fingers didn’t work too cleverly. It took him ages just to undo the first three or four buttons.

“Undressing you was easier when you were unconscious,” he said.

She laughed. “It was probably easier when you weren’t drunk.”

Right. He supposed he could have blamed his trembling on the whisky. But in reality, Ransom knew better.

He was dashed nervous. Because this would be his first time in a long time, and it would be her first time ever.

And because this was Izzy, and he wanted it to be good.

With a curse, he gave up on buttons for the moment.

“Izzy.” He cupped and kneaded her breasts through the linen of her frock. “I can’t be patient. Not right now. Let me pleasure you.”

He found the slit in her drawers and widened it with a swift, decisive rip of fabric. He pulled her to the edge of the mattress and knelt on the floor at her feet. Then he pushed her skirts and petticoat up, bunching them around her waist, and hooked an arm beneath one of her legs, spreading her wide.

There. Now he could touch all of her. Taste all of her.

“Ransom?” She struggled to sit up. “What are you do—?”

He laid his tongue to her core.

“Oh.” She flopped back against the bed. “Oh.”

God, she was sweet. Sweet and pink and musky and Izzy.

Izzy, Izzy. My own.

His cock throbbed vainly in his breeches. As he licked her, he freed it with one hand and began to stroke. Shameless, lewd. Bringing himself off right there on the floor while he pleasured her? But this was what she did to him. She reduced him to a panting, needing beast with no care for civility or etiquette. And she liked him crude and profane. She’d told him so.