Page 13 of The Duke of Deceit

What on earth had Amanda been thinking by going off alone with that devil in the first place?

The carriage slowed as it reached the end of Paternoster Row, to turn onto the wider avenue running past St Paul’s churchyard.

Without warning, the carriage door flew open. Jess gave a soft gasp as a large body swung inside and landed on the bench opposite hers. A very large, very male body.

“Hello, pet.” Lucien Grenier, Duke of Crewe, offered her a charming grin. “Fancy meeting you again.”

Speak of the devil… Jess’s heart leapt into her throat and lodged itself there. “Leave,” she somehow managed to croak out around it. “Leave this instant!”

“’Fraid I can’t do that.” He settled back against the faded squabs and kicked his long legs out diagonally across the compartment. “You see, while you were inside the print shop, I paid your driver well to slow down so I could climb inside, and I wouldn’t want to let good blunt go to waste.”

“You….paid him to…” She blinked her suddenly wide eyes, then slammed shut her mouth as she glared at him. “That’s despicable!”

He quirked a brow. “Says the woman who’s been spreading lies about me.”

Her heart skipped.He knew.

“At first, I thought it was your sister who was after me,” he said as casually as if discussing nothing more distressing than the weather. “But I heard she’s left London, which means it’s you who’s been working to ruin my perfectly good reputation.”

“Your reputation is as black as pitch,” she corrected.

“Which makes it so perfectly good as far as I’m concerned. The question is…” He leveled a hard gaze on her that belied his teasing banter. “Why?”

Oh, he was infuriating! “You know why.”

“Truly, I don’t.”

She wrapped her hands in her pelisse to keep from leaping across the compartment and scratching his eyes out. “You ruined my sister.”

“I did no such thing. You’re the only one who saw us together that night.” He summarized pointedly, “No witnesses, no scandal…Ergo,no ruination. So why the devil are you annoying me?”

“Youruinedher,” Jess repeated and leaned forward on her seat. “You seduced her and left her…”With child.She couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. Not to this horrible rake.

“I left her in her sister’s loving care and sent her away, perfectly fine and as pure as the driven snow. Well,” he amended with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “at least I thought she was pure. I wouldn’t know.”

“How dare you!” Her fingers clenched the pelisse so hard her knuckles turned white. “My sister is one of the most respectable and proper young ladies who—”

“Which is why I left her in your care instead of convincing her to send you away and remain behind with me.” He clucked his tongue. “Do try to keep up, will you?”

Just one scratch, just one claw at his eyes… It would feel so good!“You ruined her, and now you’re going to do the responsible thing by marrying her.”

“No.”

Jess blinked, unprepared for such a blunt answer. “No?”

He leaned forward to imitate her confrontational posture and repeated with mocking exaggeration, drawing out the single syllable word into twenty, “Nooooooo.”

Chuckling at the way Jess gaped at him, he eased back on the bench, removed his hat, and tossed it onto the cushion beside him, revealing a head of thick, chestnut curls. How many women had run their fingers through his hair? Better yet, how many had wanted to yank it out of his scalp the way she did?

She knew now why Amanda had succumbed to him. The man was certainly one of the most handsome gentlemen she’d ever laid eyes on. And the blasted devil knew it, too.

Butshewould not fall for his charms.

She pulled in a deep breath, praying she could force down the embarrassment—and fury—heating her cheeks, and repeated, “You ruined my sister, and now you will marry her.”

His eyes shined with amusement. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll ruinyou.”