Romancing the Duke

“No. The peril isn’t from crumbling walls. It’s not from rats or bats or even ghosts.” Skimming his fingers along the wall, he circled the turret perimeter, until his fingers just grazed her arm. “It comes from me.”

He was a large man and a strong one. If he truly wanted to hurt her, there would be little Izzy could do about it.

But in her heart, she just didn’t believe he would.

She couldn’t say he wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he’d declined to hurt a weasel, and that seemed to say volumes more.

“Miss Goodnight, I’m a man who has spent a great deal of time in solitude. You’re a defenseless, tempting woman. Do I have to spell it out for you? You’re in D-A-N . . . ger.”

She bit back a laugh. “Your spelling is a bit scary.”

“I could ravish you.”

He said it so solemnly. Now she couldn’t help but laugh.

His brow furrowed. “You think I’m joking.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not laughing at you. Forgive me. I don’t doubt your skill at ravishing women. I’m sure you’re quite accomplished at . . . at ravishing. Expert, even. I laughed because no one’s ever threatened to ravish me.”

“I won’t believe that. With this hair?” His touch drifted to her neck. “And this softness? You have the voice of a temptress.”

What Izzy had was the beginnings of a cold, and she could have told him so. She could have explained that there was a very logical reason she’d never been in danger of ravishment, and it was because she was plain.

But was she truly plain, here and now? With a blind man, in the dark?

If he was tempted . . .

Didn’t that make her a temptress?

She’d always envied beautiful women. Not solely for the beauty itself but because when attributes were parceled out by whatever deity assigned them, beauty seemed to come tethered to confidence. She craved that more than anything.

He swept a touch up her spine, and his hand brushed aside her plaited hair to settle on her bare neck.

A rush of power went through her, magnificent and intoxicating.

“Who lets a woman like this go untested?” He caressed her nape. “I won’t believe no man’s tried.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” she said lightly. “It must be the stunning degree of my beauty. It puts them off.” Surely, he would catch her joking tone. And if he did take her to be serious . . . Whom could it possibly hurt? “I suppose all the gentlemen are intimidated.”

His thumb rubbed over her lips. “I’m not intimidated.”

Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so bold.

“Goodness, think of the hour,” she said. “If I’m going to set about improving this place tomorrow, I suppose tonight I ought to return to my—”

A drop of molten wax rolled downward, singeing her hand. Izzy dropped the candle. The flame was extinguished before it even hit the floor.

The turret was instantly plunged into darkness.

Her heartbeat began to race. Oh, drat. And just when she’d been holding her own with him. So much for being a woman in his eyes. So much for being his temptress. He’d laugh at her if he knew how she felt. How could this little girl hold a claim to any castle? She was a ninny who swooned in the rain and shrieked at bats and quivered helplessly in the dark.

Perhaps he wouldn’t notice the quivering part.

His hands went to her shoulders. “You’re shaking.”

Drat, drat, drat.

“I’m fine. I just dropped the candle, that’s all. If you’d just be so good as . . .” She swallowed hard. “As to show me back downstairs.”

“I don’t think so.”

Oh, Lord. The bottom dropped out of her stomach. He was going to leave her here. Alone. In this tiny room, up thirty-four steps, in the miserable, moving blackness. And that would teach her, wouldn’t it?

But he didn’t leave her. Instead, he took her in his arms.

And pulled her close.

Izzy didn’t know how to resist. Those strong hands . . . they were her only anchor in the spinning dark. She was reeling with surprise, so very frightened.

Then suddenly . . .

She was so very kissed.

Chapter Six

Ransom kissed her.

Framed her face in his hands, held her still, and claimed her lips with his own. No prelude, no finesse. Just a strong, unyielding press of his lips against hers.

She needed to understand a few things, and he was done trying to explain them with words.

The girl was so damned innocent. She’d grown up on tales of chivalry and romance. She hadn’t a clue what danger a man like Ransom could pose.

Very well. No great pain for him to demonstrate. This one uninvited kiss should send her fleeing to her chamber tonight—and then, in the morning, away.

“There,” he said, breaking the kiss. “You seem to have me confused with some innately decent man. I hope that clears matters up for you.”

He released her, giving her the space to run away.

Instead, she fisted her hands in his shirt and clung tight. “Do it again.”

He couldn’t speak for a moment. Nothing made sense.

“Do it again,” she whispered. “Quickly. And this time do it right.”

“What on earth are you on about?”

“That was my first kiss. Do you know how long I’ve been dreaming of my first kiss?”

Ransom didn’t know. He couldn’t care less.

“All my life.” Her fists pounded his chest for emphasis. “And so help me, Your Grace, I won’t let you ruin it.”

“You don’t seem to understand. Destroying your romantic fancies was rather the point of that little exercise.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She drew closer, still clutching tight. “I’ve always tried to make the best of what life gave me. When I was a girl, I longed for a kitten. Instead, I got a weasel. Not the pet I wanted, but I’ve done my best to love Snowdrop just the same.”

He took a step back.

She moved with him.

“Since my father died, I’ve been desperate for a place to call home. The humblest cottage would do. Instead, I’ve inherited a haunted, infested castle in Nowhere, Northumberland. Not the house I wanted, but I’m determined to make it a home.”

She tilted her face to his. He could feel her breath against his neck. Soft wisps of heat.

“And ever since I was a girl,” she whispered, “I’ve dreamed of my first kiss. I just knew in my heart that it would be romantic and tender and knee-meltingly sweet.”

“Well, now you know you were wrong. By this age, you should be accustomed to disappointment.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken.” Her grip tightened on his shirtfront. “I’ve started fighting against it. You’re not going to ruin my first kiss. I won’t let you. You’re going to kiss me again, right now. And make it better.”

He shook his head, incredulous. “It’s over. It’s already done. Even if I did kiss you again, it wouldn’t be your first kiss anymore.”

“It counts,” she said. “So long as it’s part of the same embrace, it all counts as one.”

Bloody hell. Where did women come up with these rules? Did they keep them in a book somewhere? Sometimes he wondered if women were all lawyers, with an extensive code of Romantic Law that they kept stubbornly hidden from men.

“Stop dithering,” she urged. “Surely, that kiss wasn’t the best you could do.”

He bristled. “Of course it wasn’t.”

“I mean, you’ve made love on horseback enough times to draw generalizations about it. You must know how to kiss better than that. I’m not leaving this turret until—”

He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her again. Harder this time. Mainly just to quiet her prattling, but also to underscore the original meaning. If she wanted tender starlight interludes, Ransom was not her man. When it came to physical pleasure, he was aggressive, bold, and unashamed of it. If he had to make the point twice, so be it.

But as he kissed her, something went horribly, horribly wrong.

This time, she kissed him back. Not with mere curiosity or artless enthusiasm but with a sweet, unfettered passion that made his ribs ache.

His eyes flew open in shock—not that it made a damn bit of difference. He still couldn’t see, only feel.

Sweet God above, did he feel.

This was . . . This was not supposed to happen.

Her lips were even more tempting than he’d dared suppose. Plump, wide, sensual. He savored each in turn, then swept his tongue between. She matched him kiss for kiss, taste for teasing taste.

He tugged her close with one arm. As he thrust his tongue deep, her mouth shifted and softened under his. Generous. Giving.

This was everything he’d been craving for so damn long. Closeness, warmth, sweetness, surrender.

He might have confined himself to this castle in the months since his injury, but he hadn’t stopped moving. He’d walked this place every night, traversing the galleries, climbing the stairs, measuring the rooms in paces and learning the way his steps echoed off the stone. Hour after hour and day after day turned into month after month.

First, he’d walked to rebuild the strength sapped from his limbs. Then he’d walked to master the lay of this castle without his sight. He might be a wreck, he told himself, but he’d be damned if he’d be an invalid.

But there was something else that kept him walking, prowling the corridors and towers of Gostley Castle. Even if he wished to rest, he couldn’t. Not without indecent amounts of whisky, anyhow. He just never felt easy. He never knew true peace. He was beginning to think he never would.

And now . . . now, this woman grabbed that tormented, wandering part of him and kissed it. Like a long-lost lover welcoming him home.

Good God. Good God.

She kissed him with everything. As if she wanted to. As if she’d always wanted to. As if her small, slender body were nothing more than a cunningly crafted decanter of some bewitching potion. An essence of desire, aged and corked and waiting for years. As if in one single kiss, she’d sensed her chance to foist it all on him because she was weary of the burden.

Take this sweetness, her kiss said. Take this passion. Take all of me.

He explored her mouth thoroughly, desperate for more.

He should have refused those reckless gifts. But he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. His desires had been caged a long time, too. He couldn’t evade the longing she kindled. Couldn’t deny the hard, hot response of his body—not with his cock throbbing vainly against his buckskin falls.

God, he felt alive. Fully alive, for the first time since . . .

Since dying.

Ransom didn’t know if this Beware-My-Dangerous-Kisses ploy was having any effect whatsoever on Izzy Goodnight, but he knew this much.

This kiss had him rattled to his boots.

Well, Izzy thought, her first kiss wasn’t everything she’d hoped and dreamed it might be.

It was a thousand times more.

Now this was a proper kiss.

Not just a harsh press of bruising lips, but a real, true kiss, by a man who knew what he was doing. He was kissing her with not only skill but with passion. And ardor.

And tongue.

Best of all, she was somehow managing to acquit herself in a manner that had him growling against her lips. Pure luck there, she had to imagine. Or maybe he was the kissing equivalent of those London dancing masters—the ones who made a girl look graceful and competent when she was just following his lead.

It didn’t matter. She was being kissed, and she was kissing in return, and thus far, it wasn’t a humiliating disaster.

This . . . was . . . glorious.

For the second time in a single day, he made her knees go weak.

She threw her arms around his neck for balance. And then she kept them there for the sheer pleasure of lacing her fingers at the nape of his neck and sifting through the heavy locks of his hair.