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When the music came to a lilting crescendo and couples separated with enthusiastic clapping as a heart-thumping reel began, she rose to her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, so close to the corner of his mouth that the heat of her breath mingled with his. A miniscule shift and his lips would be on hers. Valentine froze, the brand of her mouth imprinting on his skin like a trail of fire before she broke the connection.
“Why did you do that?”
“Why not? I wanted to.”
The husky reply had him looking at her mouth and then dipping to the pulse that fluttered at the base of her throat. He wanted to taste it beneath his tongue, suck on the cinnamon-apple salt of her skin, follow that tempting, glistening trace that led to the deep valley between her breasts. Valentine’s eyes snagged on the edge of what looked like a piece of parchment tucked into the corner of her bodice, the hint of a waxed seal almost visible, and he frowned.
“What’s that?”
Her eyes followed his, and she let out a laugh—not the kind from just before—but that tinkling sound he’d heard so many times over the past week.Odd.The shift from the full, gut-clenching laughter from earlier made him frown. “Your Grace! That is a lady’s private treasure.” Something about the sudden coyness in her voice gave him pause and set off a few alarm bells. “But if you must know, it’s a love letter. To you, actually. I meant to find the courage to give it to you in the dining room, but then I could not.”
He stepped back, cool sea air rushing between them, cooling both his ardor and his fogged brain. “A love letter?” he repeated carefully.
“Surely you must know of my feelings, my dear sweet duke.” Her sigh of longing seemed forced, at odds with the sudden stiffness of her carriage. A mask had crept back into place, though he did not know what had caused it or what its purpose was, only that it unsettled him. “Valentine, wherefore art thou, sweet Valentine. You have given me leave to address you thusly, haven’t you?”
His skin itched. Something definitely wasn’t right.
But then she’d ducked under his arm and was gone before he could collect himself, slipping past him in a blur of filmy satin skirts toward the staircase that had brought him here. He turned to follow, but was blocked by none other than Rawley.
“Thornbury.”
His jaw clenched. “Get out of my way.”
“No.” Rawley had the audacity to smile.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
“I also know whosheis.”
Valentine fought the urge to put the bigger man on his arse. It would be hard, but he could do it. His muscles rolled beneath his skin in readiness, driven by a wild impulse he didn’t care to investigate too deeply. He wasthisclose to breaking his own hard and fast rule of never making a scene in public when Rawley’s eyebrows rose as he crossed his arms across his massive chest and laughed at him. Valentine blinked.
“Where has this infamous control of yours gone, Thornbury? One dance and you’ll let your cock make your choices for you?”
“Like you weren’t doing anything different a minute ago,” he replied in a testy tone, though reason—along with a healthy amount of embarrassment—was starting to seep in through the red smog of lust that blanketed his brain.
“I love Cora and plan to marry her,” Rawley said mildly. “Do you love Lady Bronwyn and plan to do the same?”
Valentine opened his mouth. “I…”
Want to debauch every part of her. Lift those damp skirts, discover those long, silken legs, and lay waste to the treasure between her thighs.
He closed his mouth, the hunger dissipating from his veins like ice melting on a summer day. Ashvale would kill him if he debauched his younger sister. And Rawley wouldn’t hesitate to put Valentine’s head through a wall if he suspected an inkling of his corrupted private thoughts. His temper ebbed as quickly as it had risen.
Clearly, his intentions weren’t in the least bit honorable. A lady like Bronwyn deserved to be wooed and wedded, and the truth was that marriage—outside of the contrived kind for clandestine Home Office purposes—wasn’t for him. At least until he was forced to find a duchess for the sake of the dukedom…which would be in the very distant future.
Hell, he’d been besotted by a brilliant smile and nearly fallen into a snare as old as time because, in the heat of the moment, he’d forgotten who she was and what she represented.
A lady of theton…and a surefire marriage trap.
It wasn’t her fault. She’d been clear about what she wanted all along. Thank God he hadn’t read that love letter, though perhaps that would have been the precise incentive he needed to stay far away.
Five
Twenty-four hours later, Bronwyn’s heart was still racing. She couldn’t believe that the Duke of Thornbury had nearly discovered the letter that she’d tucked into her corset and completely forgotten was there. She had been lost to the music, lost to the dance, and when he had taken her in his arms, she’d been lost to a delicious desire that had nearly derailed her.
Nearly derailed hermission.
Because God forbid that he discover what she was hiding.
