Page 35 of How to Tempt a Duke

Stay focused.

“How?” She spoke quietly, only half hoping he would hear.

“You dress as an Ice Queen to force the ton into acknowledging their own gossip and yet you wonder why you fascinate me?” He chuckled. “But that isn’t all you want to ask me, is it?”

The enormity of her previous anger and hurt crushed the delicate mood of flirtation. She wanted to ask him why he’d offered to court her. If he’d been sincere, or if he’d merely been covering his appearance with a viable excuse. But she realized she was not willing to hear the answer.

“What was your true purpose in calling on my mother?” she asked instead.

They began to twirl once more, and the room whirled by in a spinning array of resplendent gowns and murmured conversation. Eleanor held tight to ensure she did not fall. Their eyes locked, held, and she fell into the moment, tumbling head over heels into the palpable intimacy charging between them.

It was more dizzying than the dance, and the rush of emotion nearly overwhelming.

“I’m looking for a precious stone,” the Duke of Somersville replied. “A ruby as large as a man’s fist. It shines as though a fire were lit at its center.”

The spinning stopped, but Eleanor’s rapid pulse did not slow. Not when she was so close to Charles...not when her body had grown accustomed to his touch on her back. On her skin.

“The Coeur de Feu,” she whispered.

The Duke of Somersville stiffened. “You know it?”

“Of course. A magnificent ruby named the Heart of Fire for the way light flickers at its center. It’s lost, from what I understand, though there was one person my father was certain knew of its location.”

The Duke’s gaze fixed more intently on her. “You know a great deal of it.”

“Young ladies may be made to remain silent before their fathers, but it does not mean they do not listen. My father spoke of little else in the last year of his life. His inability to locate it consumed him. It was the one thing he could not control.” Bitterness seeped into her tone.

“You know about the journals, then?”

The step the Duke of Somersville had been performing fell behind by half a beat, a move subtle and practically imperceptible. Had they not been so close she might not have noticed. There was something bright in his eyes. Excitement? Desperation?

He blinked, and recovered with a smooth smile. But it was too late. She’d seen exactly how important those journals were to him.

And she knew where they were located.

Chapter Eleven

Charles ought to be vexed by Lady Eleanor’s lengthy silence. She glanced up at him with a coy look borrowed from Lottie and his heart missed a beat. While on Lottie he found the expression irritating, on Lady Eleanor it held a considerable amount of appeal. It also meant she knew something and was holding her cards close to her chest.

The snag of crystals against his fingers told him that her gown lay against his hand. The warmth of her seeped through into the tips of his gloves, reminding him of the nakedness of her back where the gown did not cover it, and how badly he wished he could stroke her silky skin.

She gazed up flirtatiously from beneath her mask and her full breasts rose and fell with her exertion. Despite all that had transpired between them she appeared to be at ease with him once more. Perhaps he had not fully ruined his opportunity. If that was indeed the case, he was an absolutely lucky devil.

“You know where the journals are, don’t you?” he asked in a disaffected tone.

Deep down, he was anything but. He wanted those damned journals with such ferocity he could practically feel the smooth worn covers against his palm. He was too close to fail.

“I plan to read them,” Lady Eleanor answered, with the simplicity of one discussing the weather. “To see what is so intriguing it would make a man lie.”

The twirling began again, and he held her by her slender waist to keep them together. Their gazes locked, the way they might if they intended to kiss, and his blood raced with frenzied force through his veins.

He smirked at her confident reply. “You won’t find what you need by simply reading them.”

“Won’t I?” She tilted her head.

“There’s a key to decipher a careful series of coded letters,” he said. “At least to obtain what is needed to locate the Coeur de Feu.”

“I presume you have the key you’re referring to?”