What a Difference a Duke Makes
Page 31
FOR THE DUKE’S EYES ONLY
Coming October 2018!
For the Duke’s Eyes Only
“Do you even know how to use a blade?” India curved her palm over the smooth hilt of the dagger she always carried by her side.
“This is all the weapon I’ve ever needed.” Gold-brown eyes beneath thick dark brows lit with a wicked promise. His smoldering gaze nearly incinerated the gown from her body.
She drew a shaky breath. “Be serious, Ravenwood. Bedchamber eyes aren’t going to defend you from a cutpurse in a foreign alleyway.”
He shrugged. “You’ll have to save me then. We’re a team now. At least for the next fortnight.”
“We’re not a team.” She shook her head vehemently. “We’re a provisional partnership. A distrustful duo. You’ll have to save yourself.”
“I’ll swagger around and carry a big knife. No one will challenge me.”
“If you carry a knife and don’t know how to use it, you’ll end up facing its blade.”
“Then teach me.”
“What, here? In the middle of St. James’s?”
“No.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a narrow side street between two buildings. “Here.”
His gargantuan shadow loomed against the brick wall, dwarfing hers. He might have the advantage of size but she was quicker.
She’d always been quicker, even when they were children racing through the park that divided their family estates, discovering Roman ruins and making plans to travel the world together in search of adventure.
Plans that he had abandoned.
India gripped the hilt of her knife.
“Very well,” she said. “You sense I’m a threat. You raise your knife.”
He lifted an imaginary blade.
She lunged, letting instinct take control.
He parried, a split second too late. Her fist slashed across his forearm and then slid home against his flat abdomen.
“If this were a knife you’d be dead.” She slid a finger along the taut flesh beneath his ribcage. “Never parry with your unprotected hand. Always stay behind your blade.”
She lifted his giant hand, wrapping his fingers around a pretend dagger, positioning his wrist. “Maintain a firm grip on the hilt. Keep the knife edge up and out, pointed toward the threat.”
His eyes glinted in the dim light. “You’ve always wanted to touch me, haven’t you, Indy?” he said in a husky whisper.
She dropped his hand as if it were a pile of hot coals and stepped away from him. “In your dreams, Ravenwood.”
In her dreams.
Sweat-soaked, sheet-twisting dreams. Forbidden dreams.
Dreams she’d been having since he’d been a reckless boy with a disarming grin, daring her to jump her horse over the highest fence.
Now he was even more reckless, breaking hearts across three continents with his legendary charm. He’d broken her heart, once upon a time.
He was her enemy. Her rival.
And she did want to touch him.
Desperately.
A secret she would take to her grave.
“Shall we call a truce?” he asked. “I can be pleasant.”
She didn’t want him to be pleasant. She relied on him to be infuriatingly arrogant.
Pleasant was dangerous.
Change three letters and pleasant was pleasure.
“We don’t have to be pleasant to one another,” she said. “We follow the plan. Complete our mission. And return to our separate lives.”
She sheathed her dagger and headed back to the crowded street.
He followed.
Why was she so aware of him, even when she couldn’t see him?
She must hide her desires more carefully.
Build her walls higher.
She could never let him see how he disarmed her.
She would find the strength to ignore him. That’s what she’d do. She’d completely ignore six feet of overly confident, sinfully good-looking duke. On board a ship. In close quarters. Overnight.
India groaned.
This was going to be her most dangerous adventure yet.
About the Author
LENORA BELL is a USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of historical romances. She grew up in a small Alaskan town that still has no traffic lights, and she blames those long, dark winters for turning her into a lifelong bookworm. She has lived and worked on five continents but can currently be found in an old farmhouse in the Pacific Northwest with her carpenter husband and two tiger-striped rescue kitties.
www.lenorabell.com
www.avonromance.com
www.facebook.com/avonromance
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By Lenora Bell
What a Difference a Duke Makes
Blame it on the Duke
If I Only Had a Duke
How the Duke Was Won
Coming Soon
For the Duke’s Eyes Only
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from For the Duke’s Eyes Only copyright © 2018 by Lenora Bell.
what a difference a duke makes. Copyright © 2018 by Lenora Bell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
first edition
Digital Edition APRIL 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-269242-9
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-269248-1
Cover illustration by Paul Stinson
Cover lettering by David Gatti
Cover photograph by Shirley Green Photography
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HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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