Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After #1)(43)
Author: Tessa Dare

He was moved, indeed.

Without a word, Ransom rose from his chair. He loomed at the head of the table, big and dark and ominous as a human thundercloud. His hands were clenched in fists. She expected at any moment he would start launching lightning bolts.

The hairs on the back of Izzy’s neck prickled.

Ever-proper Duncan was waving both arms in a frenzy, gesturing for Izzy’s attention.

“What is it?” she whispered to the valet. “What’s wrong?”

Duncan’s eyes widened as he pointed at the letter in her hand and mouthed, That.

This?

As the duke stormed from the room, she searched the letter again, trying to find the words that would cause such dramatic offense. Nothing, until . . .

Until her eye landed on the sender’s name. Her heart and her stomach switched places.

Oh, no. No.

Emily Riverdale.

Lady Shemily Liverpail.

Chapter Sixteen

Lord, but she was an idiot.

The letter in Izzy’s hand was from Ransom’s own intended. The flibbertigibbet. The same woman who’d run off with a farmer, leading to the duke’s disfigurement and brush with death. And she’d just read this letter aloud to him as proof of everlasting love.

Izzy gave the letter to Duncan in passing. Then she picked up a candlestick in one hand and her silk skirts in the other.

“I must go after him.”

Moving as fast as she could in her sausage casing of a gown and corset, she chased him down the corridor. “Ransom, wait.”

He didn’t break stride, firing a warning over his shoulder. “Not now.”

The words hit her square in the sternum, stopping her in place. His wasn’t a tone one could easily ignore. Eleven generations of ducal authority rang out in that command.

He was angry, hurt, and on a very short fuse to explosion.

Izzy gathered her nerve and followed anyway.

She struggled to keep pace with him. He knew these rooms and corridors so well, having walked them every night in the dark.

At last, he turned into a room, and Izzy knew she would have him cornered.

He’d ducked into the library.

Ironically enough, the library was one room Izzy had avoided thus far. Though the vastness of the space and the floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves were grand, for a true lover of books, the scene was unbearably sad. A cursory glance on the first day had revealed that any books of interest or value had been removed or looted. The only volumes remaining were dry agricultural treatises or outdated almanacs, and even those had been mildewed or chewed to the point of being unreadable.

Someday, Izzy had told herself, she would find the money to clean this out and fill it with lovely books again. Books bound in every available shade of rich, buttery leather: green, blue, red, brown. Someday, she would pass a rainy day sitting by that massive stone hearth, cuddled up in an overstuffed armchair and caught in the grips of a thrilling gothic novel.

Tonight, she would have to settle for living in one.

She stopped in the center of the room and placed the candlestick on a forgotten, dusty table. “Ransom, I—”

He held her off with an outstretched hand. “I’m warning you, Goodnight. Don’t push me right now.”

“Please. I don’t want to argue. Just allow me to apologize. I’m so, so sorry. It was terribly thoughtless of me to read that. I’ve had the letter for ages now, and I never drew the connection. I had no idea she was your Lady Emily.”

Rage flared from him. “So you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

He took two confrontational steps in her direction. The candlelight sent fearsome shadows playing over his scarred face. “You’ve been gossiping about me. Or maybe it was somewhere in my stack of correspondence. Have you been snooping through my letters on your own?”

“No,” she hastened to say. “Nothing like it. I learned about it from Duncan.”

“Duncan. He told you.” He cursed violently as he turned away. “That’s it, then. There’s not a soul remaining on this earth I can trust.”

“No, no. Please don’t take it that way.” As she talked, she drifted closer, erasing the gap between them step by cautious step. “Duncan worries over you so much. He didn’t want to gossip, I promise. And he didn’t, exactly. He told me about a Duke of Mothfairy and a Lady Shemily, and I had to extrapolate the rest.”

“Moth-what?”

Izzy slapped a hand to her brow. “Never mind. Please forget I said anything about that part.”

Before she knew what was happening, he was upon her. He caught her by the waist and pressed her up against the nearest wall—one lined with empty bookshelves.

“I warned you,” he growled. “I warned you not to push me. Now I’m going push back.”

He braced his hands on the shelves, caging her between his arms. One hard ridge caught her along the back of the thighs. Another scored the small of her back. The smell of wine was overpowering.

He had her trapped, and her body responded like any trapped creature’s would. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. Her diaphragm worked like a bellows, pushing air in and out of her lungs. Her pulse accelerated to a mad, frantic thunder in her chest.

“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “So very sorry.”

“Sorry for what? Sorry you read me that letter? Sorry for my pain? Sorry that you had a hand in destroying my life?”

Oh, Lord. So he did blame her.

“I’m sorry,” she said carefully, “that Lady Emily never understood the kind of man you are.”

“Really.” One of his hands moved to her waist. His palm slid up and down over the liquid-smooth silk, idly tracing the curves of her breast and hip. “And what kind of man is that?”

“A good one. One who’s gruff some of the time, and off-puttingly arrogant a great deal of the rest. But loyal and protective when it counts. You went after her, Ransom. You rushed after her, when you could have let her go.”

“Yes, I rushed after her. And if you think that made me the hero in her little story, you have it all wrong. Everything she wrote was the truth. I didn’t love her. I never would have loved her. To her, I was always the villain.”

I didn’t love her.

The words should have made her relieved for his feelings. Instead, Izzy was selfishly relieved for her own.

“You have no idea.” He leaned close. The heat of his breath rushed over her ear. “You have no idea how tempted I am to ruin you. Right here and now. The revenge would be so damned sweet. England’s precious little innocent, spreading her thighs so wide for my cock.”