He stepped forward, drawn to her.
Camilla met his gaze, and he thought he saw a faint smile grace her generous mouth. But then she straightened, chin tilted up, shoulders back, and turned to her companion.
Ah yes, the companion. The suitable woman for his match.
Careful to keep his expression schooled into polite interest, Gareth waited as Camilla and the woman approached him.
She was pretty, beautiful even, with her dark hair and clear brown eyes. She didn’t look as if this were her first season, either, not the young, simpering eighteen-year-olds who often tried to gain his attention with their prattling bits of gossip.
It figured Camilla found the one woman who might possibly be a decent match.
With a deep breath to steel himself, one full of the scent of candle wax and bodies in close proximity, and the clash of food and firewood, he waited.
“Your Grace.” Camilla curtseyed, though her gaze remained on his. “Thank you so much for your kind invitation this evening.”
Gareth bowed slightly, his lips twitching at her words. “I quite looked forward to seeing you this evening, Mrs. Primsby. Perhaps you care to indulge in a game of chance?”
“I’m afraid I’m not very good at cards,” she replied smoothly, her whisky eyes sparking with humor. “I prefer to take risks in other areas.”
But she refused to take a risk on him. Gareth wondered why. Every time he saw her, spoke with her, he knew he didn’t want her for one night, for one week or one month. He wanted her with him. In bed, out of bed, in every way.
She stepped back and gestured with a slight grin to the tall woman beside her. “Allow me to introduce Lady Julianna Standish of Leeds.”
Lady Julianna curtseyed and said with a polite, if far from demur, “Your Grace.”
Forcing a smile, he bowed in return. “Welcome.”
“Perhaps His Grace could educate Lady Julianna on the rules of the house?” Camilla looked briefly at Lady Julianna then turned that piercing gaze on him.
Defiant, that was how she watched him, with a defiant, proud look that told him far more than words ever could. Gareth’s lips twitched, but he dutifully offered his arm to Lady Julianna—who did not take it with a simpering smile or gush about ducal townhouses. And he so wanted to cross her off Camilla’s list as quickly as possible.
Planned to still do that, actually.
He guided Lady Julianna into the main room but looked back at Camilla. Gareth couldn’t read her expression from here, the professional, polite, look of a woman far too used to hiding her feelings.
Gareth made sure she watched him and understood his own feelings. He’d much rather have her, and made sure the look in his gaze told her exactly that.
They circled the room while he explained which tables had which games. Lady Julianna listened intently and asked astute questions. It was clear she played before and was quite familiar with how this worked.
Not only the card games, but also how Camilla worked. Gareth wondered where Camilla found this woman, but instantly dismissed that thought. It was her business to know every eligible person in England. And outside it, from what he understood.
“Your Grace,” Lady Julianna said in a hushed tone not meant to carry, “I’m honored to be one of Mrs. Primsby’s choices. She’s very shrewd in her selections, do you not think?”
Startled, Gareth looked down at her and reassessed the woman at his side. “Hence her reputation.”
Julianna smiled, a slow, understanding lift to her mouth that conveyed far more than any laugh or verbal agreement could. She turned more fully to him and watched him solemnly for several long moments. Gareth waited through the scrutiny, his own mask of polite interest firmly in place.
“Are you ready for a match?” she inquired, her eyebrow lifted slightly. “Or do you perhaps already have one?”
Her words shocked him, and he felt his mask falter. Narrowing his gaze, he thought Lady Julianna was the only other woman, besides Camilla, to see through him. He almost laughed, but settled for a wry grimace.
“Is it so completely obvious?” he asked, his voice equally quiet.
“When I meet gentlemen under such circumstances, I have their full attention,” she admitted with her own wry twist to her lips. “But with you, Your Grace, I barely merit a glance.”
He bowed slightly in apology. “Forgive me; it’s not my intention to be ungentlemanly.”
“Mrs. Primsby is the object of your affections?” she stated more than asked.
Gareth frowned at her. Surely he hadn’t been so obvious?
“You’ve not taken your eyes from her but for a moment since we met.” Lady Julianna didn’t look angry but more amused than anything.
Camilla laughed with a small group of women. He watched her profile, and while her laugh echoed over the room, he heard the slight force to it. Those women were not who she wished to spend her evening with.
Gareth saw her watch him from the corner of her eye, even from the opposite side of the room. Good.
“She hesitates.”
“The thought of being a duchess should dismiss all hesitation,” Lady Julianna said, her voice far more understanding than the circumstance warranted.
Gareth wondered where this woman hid and why she still searched for a husband. Camilla certainly knew her business—if he wasn’t already in love with Camilla, Julianna Standish would be ideal.
“And yet it does not,” he said quietly. Then he shook himself and looked back at Lady Julianna.
She placed her hand on his arm and leaned up, her smile wide. Her voice, when she spoke, held an amused lilt. “Look at me, Your Grace. It’ll be a more effective lure than most all else.”
Gareth forced his attention to the woman at his side. The smile was no longer forced, though his laugh echoed oddly around him when he obediently chuckled at something Lady Julianna said.
He waited another moment before looking back at Camilla. She looked hurt, not angry, smug or approving. For that brief heartbeat, she looked truly hurt.
Chapter Eight
“MARGARET,” CAMILLA SNAPPED.
She drew in a breath and tried to speak reasonably. Margaret made it very difficult, with her unwillingness to stop matchmaking. Matchmaking Camilla with Axton, that is.
“Please,” she began again through clenched teeth, “fetch the…stationery from Mr. Lovejoy’s.”
“Stationery?” Margaret looked at her oddly—they didn’t need any stationery—but only offered a knowing smile.
“Go!” Camilla all but shouted and pointed to the door.
Unrepentant, Margaret gave her a cheeky grin and left.
In the silence of her office, Camilla tried to look over her paperwork. She was to meet with Mr. Robertson today, a well-to-do second-generation merchant. A lovely man with a penchant for cutting humor, this second meeting of theirs looked to move along swimmingly.
Except the words swam before Camilla’s eyes, and she had to read over his list of attributes thrice.
She slammed the paper down.
Being alone with her thoughts was worse than Margaret’s constant chattering. The girl alternated between asking Camilla how Axton found Lady Julianna and none-too-slyly asking how Camilla felt about Lady Julianna and Axton.
She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. Instead of relief, all she saw was Gareth—Axton—smiling down at Lady Julianna, laughing at something the other woman said.
Exhaustion tugged her limbs and pounded through her head. Camilla freely admitted—to herself, that is—that she left Axton’s gathering early last eve. She hadn’t needed to stay; that was her official story. Axton and Lady Julianna seemed to have got on perfectly fine, and the woman’s parents were in attendance, after all, if chaperones were needed.
But she slept poorly. The sight of Axton smiling haunted her whenever Camilla closed her eyes, and what little sleep she found was plagued with fractured dreams of Axton and her, Axton and Lady Julianna, or of her i
n the ballroom watching Axton silently.
Camilla sighed and lifted her head. Lord Cablesby’s papers lay scattered across her desk. With perfunctorily movements, she pushed them into a neat pile and shoved them to the side. No, she couldn’t see him today. Her mind was not on her work, and she promised each of her clients her full attention before and during their matches.
Opening a drawer, she pulled out Lady Julianna Standish’s file. Camilla skimmed the pages—the viscount’s standing in society, his family line, his finances; her mother’s family and their finances; and on Julianna herself and a now-deceased fiancé, on her travels and high standing as hostess in Leeds.
But all Camilla saw was Axton with Lady Julianna. They got on quickly, had they not? Developed an instant rapport and soon smiled and laughed with each other as if they knew the other far better than a brief introduction warranted.
“I’m too good at my job,” she muttered.
Axton turned her head, no doubt of that, and she’d been flattered by his attentions. By the sheer single-mindedness of them. Yes, she ought to take it as a compliment. Nothing more. But that momentary pang of jealousy when she saw Axton’s face relax into a smile at something Lady Julianna said churned through her. Ate away at her.
And she instantly dismissed that.
Momentary jealousy and naught more. Except it continued to eat away at her. Could she admit that to herself, this gnawing jealousy? Perhaps, yes. And she was allowed it, Camilla conceded.
However, Lady Julianna was a far better fit for a duke—far better than a matchmaker.
She’d arrange several more encounters between the pair. From the looks of things last eve, Camilla knew it wouldn’t be long before Axton arranged those encounters himself.
Closing the file, Camilla opened her scheduling book for this week and the next. Her month was quite busy, but she thought she might arrange at least two meetings this week, tomorrow at the earliest.
In the background she heard Eddards speak. Camilla ignored the low murmur of voices; her head continued to pound even as she added in Axton and Standish to her schedule.
“His Grace, the Duke of Axton,” Eddards announced.
Camilla gripped her quill until it bit into her fingers. Blinking to clear her vision, she slowly looked up at the man, willing her features not to betray her.
Axton looked around her study, at the fire in the corner and the drapes open to the weak winter sunlight. He glanced along her bookshelves and nodded in approval. Not that she needed his approval, she thought sourly and instantly scolded herself. She would not let his mere presence dictate her mood.
Camilla stood and smiled cordially.
“Please.” She gestured to the pair of chairs before her desk and sat once more in her own chair herself.
Axton’s lips twitched as if he suppressed a smile, but he flicked out his coattails and sat in the leather chair.
“You are pleased with Lady Julianna, yes?” She waited but he didn’t respond. “I just now glanced at the week’s invitations in order to ensure your next encounter with her is swift and affords both of you the time to engage each other further.”
Axton still didn’t respond. He watched her with a predatory look that took her breath away. Perfectly still, his hands resting casually on the chair’s armrests and his gaze focused, he simply watched her. And for the first time in recent memory, Camilla found herself nervous.
It raced along her nerves and heated her veins, flushed her skin. No, not nerves. Arousal. Her heart pounded harder at that realization, and though she tried to control her breathing, it came in short, sharp bursts.
Swallowing hard, she pressed her fingers into her desktop and focused on that slight pain. He mustn’t know how he affected her.
“That will not be necessary, Mrs. Primsby.” And the way his tongue caressed her name made her shiver. The sinful cadence of it like a lover’s touch.
Curious, she waited. Her breath caught and she didn’t trust herself to speak, not if her life depended on it.
“While Lady Julianna is lovely and refined,” he said, still softly, in that same caressing tone, though he spoke of another woman, “she is not my choice. Nor”—he leaned in, just a bit, just enough to narrow her already captured attention—“will she ever be.”
“Oh?” She managed and forced an eyebrow up, inquisitively. “You seemed very entertained by her last night. Why this dismissal?”
Axton leaned another bit closer. “I have my eyes on another. A beautiful woman who passes through the room with such grace. One whose eyes I can hardly tear my own from.”
Her mouth dry, Camilla stared at him.
“She left too early,” he continued. “Before she saw through Lady Julianna’s and my ruse.”
She blinked. At first she didn’t understand his words, but even as her mind raced to do so, a band around her heart eased and the pounding behind her eyes lessened.
Her legs pushed back her chair, and she stood before she realized what she did. But she followed through and rounded the desk, stood opposite Axton. He leaned back just enough to watch her. To keep those hungry eyes on her.
“Your ruse?” Was that her voice? That breathless, curious thing that sounded more like a whisper than a question?
Camilla cleared her throat and straightened. She raised her eyebrow again and tilted her chin just enough. She didn’t think she fooled Axton by her ploy, but it made her feel more in control.
He didn’t crowd her but stood tall and proud before her. Camilla waited, though she very much wanted to run. Or lean into him and feel the heat of his body, the scratch of his cheek along hers.
She cleared her throat and waited.
“Yes. Our ruse. Lady Julianna is a very perceptive woman.” His hand reached out to brush along her cheek, though he didn’t touch her. “She very quickly understood my attentions were taken by another.”
Camilla sucked in a disbelieving breath. “You are an impossible man!” She stepped away and put a few paces between them. Whirling back to face him, she glared at him from near her fireplace. “Lady Julianna is a good match.”
“Yes.” He stepped closer. “She’s a fine match.” Another step but Camilla didn’t move. “But she’s not you.”
Axton stood before her again, towering over her but once again not crowding her. He didn’t use his height advantage to intimidate her, but to make her feel wanted. And, oh, she wanted. But Camilla pushed it to the side. It wasn’t easy; that need rushed through her, hot and quick, and she found herself swaying closer, into him.
She cleared her throat. Of course he noticed, impossible man. But he didn’t smirk or grin in triumph. He stood there and watched her. Waited.
Camilla fought for breath and struggled for a witty reply. All she managed was to look up and watch him with disbelief and arousal and wanting.
Axton leaned down. His hands, warm and large and so very gentle, cupped her face, and his mouth pressed to hers. It was a soft kiss, not tentative but a light touch. After a moment, he pulled back.
His blue eyes darkened to nearly black, and his breath ghosted in short pants across her cheek.
Camilla reached up, tangled her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, and kissed him. His mouth opened to hers, and his hands pressed to her back and pulled her closer. Her tongue swept along his, and she moaned into the kiss. She wrapped her arms tighter around him and just felt.
Minutes or hours passed, she didn’t know. And didn’t care.
All that mattered was his mouth on hers and his hands tangled in her hair. The leg he slipped between hers and the fire roaring in her veins.
Eventually she pulled back, or he did, and Camilla stood there and blinked up at him. She scrambled to find her wits, but they lay in a smoldering heap of need at her feet. Licking her lips, she backed away, but no matter what distance she put between them, that kiss, that brilliant kiss, pulled her to him.
“There’s more between us than a match or a position.” His words brushed a
gainst her lips, soft and inviting.
“There is,” she managed and stumbled over her words, trying to say something. Instead she shook her head and swallowed hard. She needed a moment to gather herself, to take the pieces his kiss scattered, and pull herself together.
“There’s a pull, I don’t deny that. But how long will it last? These—” She waved a hand and grasped for words. “These passions, they burn out quick.”
“Some do.” Axton nodded, his dark eyes still hungrily watching her. She swallowed again and wanted to step further back, but the chair blocked her path.
“Yes.” Axton stepped closer, not a full step, but she froze. “Some do, but others never do.”
“What makes you think we’re among the others?” she asked in a rush. She stopped again and cleared her throat. But the kiss burned her lips and pooled low and hot in her belly. “What makes you think we’re among those who never burn out?”
“I know.” His hand brushed her cheek, but once again didn’t touch her. “And I have a feeling you do as well.”
Camilla didn’t lean into his touch, though a part of her very much wanted to do so. Instead, she straightened, dropped her hands to her side, and watched him defiantly.
“Then take what you want.”
His smile was as predatory as his look. Axton leaned in, close to her ear. Camilla shivered but didn’t move. Didn’t back away from the challenge she, herself, issued.
“Oh,” he promised. “I intend to.”
With another kiss, a mere press of his lips to hers, he turned. Camilla barely realized what happened before he left her alone.
Chapter Nine
GARETH WAITED WHILE his carriage moved through London’s streets. Camilla confused him. He honestly didn’t understand what had her so afraid. She wanted him—she made that abundantly clear—so it wasn’t attraction.
Was it fear over his title? Of becoming a duchess? Of the gossip society would hurl at her? Impatient, Gareth brushed that off. He could protect her. His fingers tapped on his thigh, and his leg bounced impatiently as the carriage inched along with the traffic.
Improper Duke: Scandalous Encounters Page 6