Tall, Duke, and Dangerous

by Megan Frampton

  Her breasts felt heavy and full, and she gave in to the urge to press them close to his body. The body she’d thought about when she’d imagined—and then seen—him fighting, but hadn’t realized was so brutally handsome. His chest was broad, with dark hair curling on the upper part, a narrow trail of hair on the lower part leading lower still, down into his trousers.

  Mm. She wanted to follow that trail with her tongue.

  She gripped his biceps with her fingers as their tongues sparred. It was hard and clearly strong, and she wondered what it would be like if he picked her up to kiss her.

  Should she ask him?

  But that would mean stopping kissing, and she didn’t want to do that. She never wanted to do that.

  Her fingers slid up further, up to his strong shoulders and then dipped onto his chest, her palm tickling from the hair there. Her other hand was at his waist, and she ran her hand around his side to the small of his back. His skin was warm, and smooth, covering planes of muscles she seriously doubted she had. Or if she did have those muscles, they were not nearly as well developed as his.

  Just imagining everything he could do with those muscles made her shiver.

  She felt a spark of rebellion curl inside her, a dangerous, wicked flame that made her want to do everything that had been previously forbidden.

  Even though those things were also currently forbidden, what with her being a single lady of great fortune now. Even more forbidden. Because a forgotten servant could do all sorts of things, have all kinds of freedoms, not that Ana Maria had ever taken advantage of that.

  Perhaps she should take advantage. Or more advantage. Perhaps this should be the moment when Ana Maria, suddenly thrust into the spotlight, didn’t shy away from it, but took it. Did what she wanted to, when she wanted to.

  So she did what she wanted to. She moved the hand at the small of his back down onto his arse, which was hard, like the rest of him, curving into the palm of her hand.

  And he groaned into her mouth, holding her arms to steady her as she was still up on her tiptoes, their mouths fused together, their bodies pressed together, her whole self feeling lit up by touch.

  Touching him, his touching her, their bodies touching.

  It was almost too much.

  And then, as she was losing herself in his kiss and her roiling emotions, he pulled away suddenly, harshly, his expression aghast.

  Making her doubt the wisdom of starting all this in the first place.

  She swallowed as he stared at her, his dark eyes seemingly filled with despair and confusion and horror.

  No, please, she wanted to say. Don’t look at me that way. Don’t ruin this moment by regretting what I’ve done.

  “I started it,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound like her voice; it was lower, breathier, and made it sound much more damning than she meant.

  “I started it,” she said again, lifting her chin and meeting his gaze head-on. Her voice sounded more normal now. “I apologize I took advantage of you—”

  At which he snorted, but didn’t say anything.

  “But I thought I should learn some things, and I have always wondered what it would be like.” With you, she didn’t add. She shrugged. “And I wanted someone I could trust to teach me, someone it wouldn’t mean anything with.” She paused, trying to slow her beating heart. “And now I know.”

  She took a deep breath and dragged her gaze away from his, focusing on looking just past his shoulder. Much easier. “I will have a glass of water, and then perhaps we can work on some of my defensive maneuvers? Now that I know what I am in danger of having happen to me.”

  “It’s not—” he began, then shook his head.

  She waited, but he didn’t continue; instead, he looked grim, raking a hand through his hair. He was still bare to the waist, and she allowed herself a quick peek at all that glorious expanse of male chest.

  He really should pose for a statue. But his body wasn’t godlike. It was entirely man-made, formed by his own strength. She could see him as Hercules, or Hephaestus, a powerful brute of a man vaunted for his power and perseverance.

  “Stop looking at me like that.” His voice was ragged.

  She started guiltily. “Like—?” she asked.

  “Like you want to finish what we started.” He shook his head again. “We can’t, Ana Maria. There are so many reasons why we can’t.” He sounded desperate, nearly forlorn, and she felt even worse for luring him into the kiss in the first place.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she said firmly. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, and we won’t tell anybody, and we can make certain it doesn’t happen again.” She spoke in her “well now that’s decided” tone, and she hoped it would convince him, even though she knew full well she wasn’t convinced—it meant something, it meant everything, and it was already breaking her heart that she couldn’t let it happen again.

  Not because she didn’t want it to, of course, but because she cared about him too much to allow him to have that look on his face ever again. To hear that pained tone in his voice.

  He still looked pained. “This was my choice, Nash. Mine. It might be a poor one, but let me own it.” His expression didn’t change.

  So this wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. It wasn’t necessarily the worst—following Lord Brunley into that room might be, or perhaps the time, soon after Sebastian gave her funds for clothing, that she wore a butter-yellow gown that made her look like a wilted sunflower.

  But it was among those unfortunate decisions. Even though it was also now going to feature as one of the best memories of her life. Contradictory oxymoron.

  Drat.

  “I think we’ve had enough instruction,” Nash said at last. He didn’t add anything, didn’t move, just stood and waited.

  Even though that was the last thing he wanted to do. Which meant it was the only thing he could do.

  Kissing her had been—well, he shouldn’t think about it. Not now, not when she was still here, alone in the room with him.

  His cock throbbed, and he wished he could just give in to what he and his cock wanted, which was to strip her bare and have her on the floor of his training room.

  But he could not.

  She was the last person in the world he could get involved with. He already knew he liked and cared for her, and now he was realizing he desired her as well. That meant involvement, and involvement meant emotion, and emotion meant passion, which resulted in violence.

  You take after me. In every way.

  He would not and could not care for anyone with whom he was intimate. It was the quickest way to following in his father’s fiststeps, and he would not do that.

  She opened her mouth as if to reply, but didn’t. He ached to hear what she might have said, even as he dreaded it. But she’d already said the most damning thing aloud, hadn’t she? It didn’t mean anything.

  To him, it meant everything. It meant he knew he would never be entirely happy with his life, that his world would continue to be colored in muted shades because he didn’t trust he could handle the full, glorious color of things. Like her, whose skin was soft gold, and whose hair was dark chestnut, and whose eyes were like melted chocolate.

  “I’ll go. Your grandmother requires your presence, after all.” She swung her head up, looking defiant. “Does this mean you no longer wish to instruct me at all?”

  “No. We’ll just—I’ll ask Finan in next time.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Because I am not to be trusted.” It was not a question.

  “No, I—” And then he stopped, because of course he couldn’t think of what to say. Everything else had changed, but at least that hadn’t. He never knew what to say.

  She shrugged. “Fine. You can let me know when you can find time in your very busy schedule to teach me what you insist on teaching me.” Her tone was derisive, and he flinched in response. She was hurting, clearly, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Or nothing he could do about it th
at didn’t involve resuming their previous activity.

  “Oh, and you might want to put a shirt on. It could get cold.”

  She wasn’t just hurting, she was furious.

  And glorious in her anger—he wanted to bathe in it, to have her unleash all of her emotions onto him so he could feel their intensity, allow himself to feel all of it instead of locking it down or channeling it for a fight.

  He couldn’t. He couldn’t even let her know how he felt, not even a minuscule amount of it, because then she would push at him, forcing him to reveal more and more, to talk, for God’s sake, and he could not allow himself to do that.

  He was afraid that if he started talking to her, he would never stop.

  So he had to ensure their relationship was limited to what he would show her, guiding her to live her life without his protection. Because he knew, as much as he knew he could not be with her, that seeing her with some other man would break him.

  So she had to be rendered safe before then.

  “I’ll send Finan with a note.”

  He leaned over to pick up his shredded shirt, then walked to the door, only turning back to her when he had his hand on the doorknob. “I’ll ask Richardson”—his butler and also his half brother who was at least a decade older than he—“to escort you to your carriage.”

  She didn’t say a word in reply, just kept her narrowed gaze on him as he left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

  And then he heard it. A crash, as though something made of glass had been smashed on the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  Ana Maria stared at the broken shards of glass on the floor, unnerved by her own violence.

  Although there was something exhilarating about acting on impulse. Though acting on impulse had gotten her to kiss him, which was both the best and the worst idea ever, so perhaps it was not only exhilarating but also incredibly foolish.

  And she did not want Bertha to have to clean it up.

  That was the problem with impulsive acts: one always had to clean them up after, whether it was broken glass or a spontaneous kiss.

  She stepped carefully over the mess, going to the side of the room where the bellpull was. Before she could ring it, however, the door swung open and Nash’s butler—Richardson?—appeared, glancing between her and the floor, his expression remaining completely neutral.

  “I will send someone to clean that up, my lady,” he said. “If you will follow me, I will take you to your carriage.”

  “I don’t want anyone else to clean—” she began, but stopped as Richardson raised a dark eyebrow. She was skilled in the vernacular of upper servant, so his raised eyebrow was as close to dismissal as she could possibly get.

  “Never mind,” she conceded, reaching into her pocket for a coin. “Please give this to Bertha. I presume she’ll be the one cleaning. It is entirely my fault.”

  He nodded, tucking the coin into his waistcoat. “This way, my lady.”

  Once ensconced in the carriage, Ana Maria leaned back against the seat cushions, blowing out an exasperated breath. Why did he have to be such a horrified lummox about it? It was just a kiss, after all.

  She’d assumed he was like Sebastian, at least before Sebastian had met and married Ivy; cavalierly dashing about being charming to all sorts of ladies, all of whom knew he wasn’t serious about any of them.

  But Nash was as far from a dashing cavalier as she was from being a hardened flirt, so it likely made sense.

  More drat.

  She had been angry with him, but now she was just . . . deflated. Her glorious act of independence had actually hurt someone. Him. The last person she wished to hurt.

  He’d been hurt in his life so much. Not recently, of course; he seemed to be the one hurting others now, others who (in Nash’s view) deserved the hurting.

  But back then, when he’d first started coming to the house, he’d been a thin, awkward boy with too dark eyes and a haunted expression. She’d only seen the late duke once, but he had appeared to be a cruel man, one who reveled in castigating servants and his son alike.

  And from what Sebastian had let slip, the duke had actually and literally hurt Nash. That explained why he was so quick to hit people himself, although she had to wonder if that made him feel worse because that made him similar to his father, or if he was preventing himself from being treated like his father in the first place.

  Just thinking about that sad, lonely boy made her heart hurt.

  And she had kissed the adult version of that sad, lonely boy. Was he still sad? She couldn’t tell. He seemed relatively pleased with his life, although it was clear he didn’t precisely enjoy being an aristocrat, what with his dislike of social events and conventional neckwear.

  Was he lonely?

  He had Sebastian and Thaddeus as friends, but the former was busy with his new life as a nobody, while the latter was busy with his new life as a duke.

  He had Finan, of course. And all of his servants who were also his half siblings. But did he confide in any of those people?

  It had felt, that night on the terrace, as though he were confiding in her. She could be his friend. And not a friend whom he also kissed, since clearly that concerned him.

  She’d have to ensure she kept her distance while also being close enough to him to invite confidences.

  Walking that oxymoronic line, as usual, she thought to herself with a wry chuckle.

  He’d stalked up to his bedroom, intent on finding a shirt, and startled one of his younger half sisters who was also a maid into a shriek, causing another one to laugh uncontrollably.

  He wasn’t certain which reaction he preferred.

  Finan was waiting for him, his expression far from the smug one Nash expected. Instead, his friend’s face looked pained. He handed a note to Nash, who opened it and immediately scowled.

  I am waiting.

  It wasn’t signed, but of course it could only be from his grandmother. Apparently he was already late. For what, he didn’t know. Except that it would be unpleasant. He groaned and got himself not only shirted, but jacketed and cravated as well.

  “Damn proper lady,” he muttered as he ran his fingers through his hair. He took one last look at himself, grimacing as he saw the nearly proper gentleman looking back at him.

  He went downstairs to the salon she’d been taking tea in, flinging the door open and stepping inside.

  “Good afternoon.” His grandmother sounded pleased, and he had a trickle of trepidation slide down his spine. His hellcloth felt even tighter.

  It became a flood of trepidation when he saw who was in the salon with his grandmother: no fewer than three young ladies. The blonde from the other evening, and two more, all perched on his sofa, three in a row, as if for his inspection.

  “I have invited these ladies to take tea with us,” his grandmother said. Definitely for his inspection. She narrowed her gaze at him. “Please, Duke, do sit down.” It wasn’t a request.

  He took the chair on the side of the tea table, which meant that his grandmother was on the other side, and the three young ladies were facing him.

  All of them looking at him. Just . . . looking.

  “This is Lady Felicity Townshend, I believe you two have met before.” Lady Felicity’s expression was smug. Preening because they had met already?

  “It is a pleasure to see you again, Your Grace. I did so enjoy our dance together.” She accompanied her words with a shift of her shoulders, a little wriggle that looked rehearsed.

  “And this is Miss Victoria Statham, she is the daughter of Mr. James Statham of the Derbyshire Stathams.” As though that meant anything to him.

  Miss Victoria was a slight brunette with enormous green eyes, making her look a bit like a sprite. He couldn’t marry a sprite, for God’s sake.

  “Lady Beatrice Colm. Lady Beatrice is the granddaughter of a lady I met while making my own debut.”

  Lady Beatrice looked anxious, her brown eyes darting around the room like she was tracking
a housefly’s progress. She barely made eye contact with him during the introduction, immediately glancing around, her hands twisting into fists in her lap. Her lips were a thin line, her throat visibly moving as she swallowed.

  Was he that terrifying?

  Or was she that nervous?

  He took a deep breath. He owed it to Lady Beatrice, at least, to try to be gentle during this unexpected visit. “I am pleased you could all come to tea.”

  His voice was a flat monotone. If he were listening to himself, he would assume that he was most definitely not pleased.

  Which would be true, but it also would not be kind.

  He needed to make certain he was kind.

  He glanced again at Lady Beatrice, who appeared entranced by the drapes.

  “I find tea to be a most refreshing beverage.”

  His grandmother made some sort of inarticulate noise. Proof, then, that they were actually related?

  “Can I pour?” she asked.

  Lady Felicity bounced in her seat, keeping her gaze fixed on Nash’s face. “I would very much like that. I believe, Your Grace, you are also fond of whiskey?”

  Was this proper teatime conversation? Was he now supposed to reveal his opinions on all the beverages ranging from milk—nasty, thick beverage that he loathed—to whiskey—his daily reward for not punching anyone who didn’t deserve it?

  He shrugged. He could do that. Perhaps this polite Society thing wouldn’t be too difficult, after all.

  “My mother says that any alcohol is the devil’s poison,” Miss Statham announced.

  Nash frowned as he considered her words. “So does that mean it will poison the devil, and is therefore a good thing? Or that the devil makes the poison and people drink it?”

  He directed his question at Miss Statham, but the responses he got were from everyone. His grandmother inhaled sharply, Miss Felicity’s eyes went wide, and Lady Beatrice uttered an unexpected giggle.

  At least she wasn’t terrified or nervous any longer.

  Miss Statham didn’t say a word, but she stood up suddenly, stains of color high on her cheeks. She marched out of the room and slammed the door behind her.