The Undercover Duke

by Michaels, Jess

  She rocked against the pillows as the grief went on and on, and then she was being lifted, turned into a broad chest as warm, strong arms came around her. She leaned into that chest, letting the strength of those arms comfort her before reality came back. She lifted her face toward the very handsome one of Lucas.

  “You shouldn’t—” she began, though it was a weak refusal. In truth, it had been a very long time since someone had offered her physical comfort. Right now she wanted nothing more than to curl into him.

  He shook his head. “Shh now,” he soothed, that rough, hard voice now gentle and even kind. He guided a hand up to the back of her head and tugged her back to his chest. His fingers smoothed through her hair. “Shhhh.”

  She went limp, all her last resistance erased with the safety she felt in this man’s arms. Perhaps it was an illusion, actually, she could almost guarantee that it was. But in this moment, she could not pull away.

  So she sobbed against him, pouring out everything she was normally too strong to share. And he said nothing. No empty platitudes, no request that she tell him what was in her heart. No demand that she erase her feelings to make him more comfortable.

  He just held her until the tears had stopped and she could finally breathe again.

  She shifted slightly and lifted her gaze again. He was looking down at her. They were sitting on the bed together. He had no shirt. She had changed into her night-rail long ago.

  In that moment, she realized how very intimate their position was. Especially when she could feel his clean, warm breath stirring her lips. When his dark eyes bore down into hers and held her captive.

  His fingers tightened against her back, the rough pads stroking over her bare skin with exquisite intimacy. He was going to kiss her. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.

  More than that, she wanted him to do it. In this moment when she was so raw and emotional, when she felt her loneliness with a sharpness that stabbed through her heart, the kiss felt like exactly what she needed more than anything.

  But just as his lips dropped, reason screamed in her head for her to pull away. To remember the last time she had trusted a spy with her body. With her heart.

  She jumped up and he let her go without comment. Her cheeks flamed and she turned her face so she wouldn’t have to look at him as she said, “You ought not to be up, Your Grace.”

  “Lucas,” he corrected once more.

  She looked at him. In the half-dark his expression was impossible to decipher. He was a blank page, with no feeling about her weeping, about their near kiss, about anything at all. God, how that reminded her of her father and how he could put a wall down that separated them.

  “Lucas,” she surrendered, for it seemed pointless to continue belaboring the fact. “You need to rest.”

  He arched a brow. “Do you think me so ungentlemanly that I could hear a lady weeping in an adjoining room, weeping over something I did, something I said, and not come to ensure she was well?”

  She ducked her head once more. She had not the talent he did to shutter her heart. There were times she wished she did. Tonight, for instance.

  “I am well,” she whispered. “And I’m here to help you, so I assure you that I will not trouble you with my emotions again.”

  He shrugged his good shoulder. “It was not any trouble tonight.”

  “Either way, we should get you back to bed,” she insisted, and took a step toward him before she stopped. If she was going to help him, she was going to have to touch him. Touch that hard chest, be close to him like she had been when he almost kissed her. An entirely inappropriate thought to be having about someone she was meant to assist.

  “I can manage,” he said, but as he turned to go, he buckled slightly and she rushed forward to steady him.

  “I should have investigated your wounds more closely this afternoon,” she admonished herself as she slung his arm around her shoulders and began to help him back to his chamber. “Tomorrow I will be more thorough.”

  He laughed deep in his throat, and she jerked her gaze to the side to look at him. There was something almost feral about this man. Wild and dangerous, but infinitely alluring. And it was something she could not feel. Would not feel. Not ever again.

  Lucas jerked awake, gasping in a huge gulp of air. Pain ripped through his shoulder and his leg. Always pain, his constant companion.

  Where was he? He looked around the small chamber, flooded with light from outside and settled back against the pillows with a sigh. Oh yes, he remembered now. He was in George Oakford’s London cottage.

  Diana Oakford’s cottage, he supposed. She must have inherited all her father had when he died. Including his duties. Something Lucas would have to discuss with Stalwood when the earl came to see how things were going. Diana did not deserve to be thrown into such a dangerous world. She ought to have been dancing and courting, not sobbing in her chamber over a man she was being forced to help.

  Of course that had led to him touching her. Lucas shuddered at the memory. He hadn’t come in to hold her, just to ensure her safety. But he couldn’t help himself. And once he had…oh, he’d wanted to do far more than just hold her.

  The door to the chamber opened slowly and he sat up straighter and gathered the covers around his naked body as Diana entered. She jolted as she found him watching her.

  “Good morning,” she said as she set her tray down on the table. He could see it contained food, and his stomach growled. “I didn’t think you were awake. When I passed by earlier, you were still asleep.”

  He set his jaw. The idea of her checking in on him in his sleep felt very intimate. It also showed him how soft he’d become in the months since he was injured. He’d always been a light sleeper and would wake at the tiniest sound, ready to fight. He hated this new reality.

  “I am awake, though, as you can see,” he said.

  “Let me look at your wounds, at last,” she said, moving toward him.

  He shifted. At present, he had a hell of a cockstand and he didn’t want her seeing that. “No,” he said.

  She stopped and stared at him. “No?” she repeated. “What do you mean, no?”

  “Just what I said.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t need you poking around at me like half a dozen surgeons have done before. None of them could help me. I must simply learn to live as I am now.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “That is ridiculous. I’m certain I could make your life more comfortable, if you will only let me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Said like a true physician. And then you’ll slather donkey shit on me and leave me to sit in my own stink for a week.”

  She drew back. “That I would not do, I assure you. What you describe is practically medieval, Lucas.”

  He smiled a little at her surrender at calling him by his given name. At least that battle had been won. On to the next he went. “When can I leave?”

  She blinked at him, like she didn’t understand the question. “Leave? You’re hurt.”

  He shrugged his uninjured shoulder. “And I have no doubt that I will find a way to compensate for those injuries. So what is the point of staying here?”

  “And what would you do if I gave you the clearance to go?” she asked, and now her own arms folded. Of course, that only drew his attention to her breasts, but he tried to maintain focus. This was a negotiation, after all—he could not let himself be distracted.

  “You give me clearance.” He chuckled. “I do not think you have the rank to hand out such a thing.”

  Her bright green eyes snapped and narrowed. “Stalwood asked me to help you. Until I say you are ready to go, I assume he will not give you whatever it is you want.”

  He frowned. She might be right about that. So it was time to try a different tactic. “And what if I said that I wanted to pursue whoever killed your father?” he asked, hating how pain flared across her face before she reined in the reaction. Hating he’d caused her such pain.
“I am far more qualified than anyone else on that case.”

  “No,” she repeated, softly but firmly.

  His eyes went wide at the dismissive finality of that rejection. “Am I wrong to assume you want whoever did this to be brought to justice?”

  “Indeed, I do,” she said, her voice getting louder. “But not if it comes at the cost of your life. Which is probably what would happen based on the fact that you can hardly walk from one chamber to the next without assistance.”

  He sat up straighter and was rewarded by blinding pain that ripped through his damaged body. Pain that proved her point and made him even angrier. So he directed it at her because there was nowhere else to put it. Not unless he wanted to face truths that would change his world forever. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, my dear,” he growled. “And if you cared about your father, you would let me do my duty.”

  She flinched at those words, cruelly said and immediately regretted. He waited for her to cry again or to demand that he leave, as he deserved. But instead of doing those things, she merely speared him with a long stare. “You may be accustomed to everyone doing what you say when you say it, Your Grace, but I will not. My duty is to Stalwood, to my father’s memory and to my oaths as a healer. Your wants and needs and tantrums do not come into the equation.”

  He pushed to his feet out of the bed. As the covers fell around him, he remembered he was naked beneath. And yet Diana didn’t shy away at that fact. To the contrary, he watched, fascinated, as her gaze flitted up and down, settling for far too long at his cock. The one that slowly eased to attention once again under her gaze.

  Desire pulsed between them, just as it had the night before. It was sudden and powerful, and in that moment Lucas wondered if he might be able to use it against her to get what he wanted. To get out into the field again before he ran mad with waiting and being useless.

  She swallowed hard, and to his shock she stepped closer to him. She focused on his face as she said, “Do you want to get well? To go back into the field?”

  He nodded slowly. “More than anything.”

  She gritted her jaw before she said, “Then let me help you. Give me a month.”

  He caught his breath. A month? That was impossible. He’d already been useless for over half a year. Another month was a waste of time, especially since he had enormous doubt that the end of it would be any different than the start. He would still be in pain. He would still be useless. His destiny would remain the same.

  “To do what?”

  She sighed. “To try to undo what surgeons far less skilled than my father have done to you. I won’t lie to you, Lucas—it will hurt like hell. You will curse my name a hundred times. But let me.”

  Her voice was so calm and comforting and confident. She truly believed she could help him. And in that moment, he found a wild faith in the same. One he tamped down immediately for it was ridiculous.

  “And if I refuse?” he asked.

  She threw up her hands. “Then you fail my father. You fail yourself.”

  She pivoted and left the room. He stared as she did so, taken aback not only by her parting barb and how much it stung, but by her. She was beautiful, of course. No man wouldn’t look at her and want. Need. But beneath that exterior was a strength of iron. A determination so powerful that it made him believe what he hadn’t believed in a long time.

  And that made her far more dangerous than any enemy he’d ever face in the field. Because her weapon was hope.

  Chapter Four

  Diana tossed her basket on the ground and dove into the plants with angry gusto. She popped leaves off, tearing them far more violently than she would normally do. But she couldn’t help it. That man was a stubborn ass. Pompous and brazen and…and rude.

  Despite all that, she was drawn to him. Intensely. Last night she’d wanted to kiss him. This morning she hadn’t been able to look away when he stood up, all male power and naked desire. This was a weakness in her, one she had succumbed to once before with dire consequences.

  Consequences that had sent her to the country. Ones that had kept her alone. She had rejected all the advances of bumbling country fools who came sniffing around her.

  But the Duke of Willowby was no bumbling country fool.

  “Idiot,” she admonished herself as she returned her attention to tearing leaves from plants.

  “Me, you, or that poor plant you’re destroying?”

  She froze at the drawled question. Damn the man—could he not leave her in peace? It seemed not. Slowly she turned and caught her breath. There he stood, leaning heavily on the back of a bench in the middle of her garden. He had dressed himself. Poorly, of course. Perhaps because he was accustomed to the help of his valet. Perhaps because his injuries made it difficult.

  The result of his being a bit undone was anything but to make him less attractive. He was roguish with his shirt half-untucked, his hair tangled around his face and his cheeks peppered with the dark beginnings of a beard. He looked like a pirate, not a duke. A pirate prince out for whatever treasure he could steal.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her tone sharper than she wished it to be. God’s teeth, but this man brought out the worst in her.

  He met her gaze and gave a half grin. “I’m doing whatever I please. Isn’t that what you accused me of earlier?”

  She dropped a tangle of herbs into the basket and folded her arms. “No, it was not. I said you are accustomed to everyone doing as you say. Though I assume it follows that you also do whatever you please without a thought to others.”

  “Oof,” he said with a shake of his head. “I am truly a bastard, it seems. And you want to help me?”

  He was smiling. Teasing her. And she caught her breath. When he smiled he was even more handsome than when he brooded, damn him. And his words, playful or not, hit her in the gut. Although she had been dragged into this by Stalwood, the fact was that she did want to help this man.

  She drew in a long breath to calm her racing heart. “I was…sharp with you,” she said. “Perhaps that was unfair.”

  He laughed once again. “On the contrary, I think it was entirely fair. I deserved it.”

  She wrinkled her brow, for now she was uncertain of him again. Was he playing so that she would lower her guard? He was a spy, after all, trained to manipulate. “You are entirely frustrating.”

  His grin broadened and the expression took years off his face. It brightened everything about him and made her wonder what kind of man he’d been before his injuries. Before the War Department. Just…before.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “It wasn’t meant as a compliment,” she said, but she found herself laughing despite it.

  He let out his breath and leaned heavier on the bench. “In truth, I do owe you an apology,” he said, now serious. “I have not been easy since my arrival, I know that. I just don’t like to be…weak.”

  She could see how hard that confession was for him. She understood it. Even after being inactive for months, no one could deny that the man standing before her had enormous strength. She could only imagine how easy everything physical had always been for him. Men were taught that was their greatest asset. Losing it had to crush some important part of him.

  She moved forward and held out her hands. “Sit, won’t you?” she asked, motioning to the bench where he was leaning.

  He nodded and let her help him into place. She bent, grabbed her basket and set it in his lap with a smile. “Hold this. At least you will be useful.”

  He laughed, but she heard the strain in his voice as he said, “Useful was never something I had to work for in the past.”

  She turned away, knowing that these admissions could not be easy. It was best to receive them with quiet, not to make too big a fuss.

  “You are not weak, you know,” she said as she crouched and examined a few flower buds on the plant before her. “You are injured. I swear, you men.”

  “M
en?” he repeated as she set a few buds into the basket beside the other herbs she had selected before he came out. “Is this a problem with my entire sex, then?”

  “Indeed, it is,” she retorted. “You tend, as a whole, to equate not being able to do something with weakness. It does you no good.”

  “You’re so certain?”

  She glared at him. “Setting aside their ability, think of those other men who tried to help you since your injuries. I would assume you argued and demanded and forced even before you came to be under my care.”

  His sheepish expression told her everything before he said, “Well, er, yes, I suppose I did.”

  She shrugged. “And that is part of why you’re not further along in your recovery. You cannot accept help because help is weakness. But you keep yourself injured and ‘weak’, as you put it, by not allowing someone else in to come to your aid.”

  “I thought the problem was untalented surgeons,” he drawled.

  “Stubborn patients are also an issue,” she retorted with a smile.

  He held her gaze and her heart fluttered a bit. This connection she felt whenever he looked at her like that was disconcerting to say the least. As a result, she forced herself to look away, but the burning of her cheeks had to be as obvious to him as it was to her.

  “I traveled the world, you know,” he said. “In service to my king, I learned new languages, saw things I couldn’t even imagine. I pretended to be what I was not. It was all a grand adventure. A pleasure as much as a duty.”

  “It must be hard to lose that,” she whispered.

  He was quiet a moment, and then he said, “You told me there would be pain if I do as you say.”

  She swallowed hard and forced herself to meet his eyes. “Yes.”

  His lips pressed harder together. “But will I heal? Will I ever be anything like the man I was before?”

  She caught her breath, moved once more by the hint of pleading in his voice. The desperation that drove his worse behaviors was clearer to her now. Everything he was had been tied up in what he could do. How he could protect. Where he could go without difficulty.