Page 14 of The Duke of Deceit

Her soft words landed like cannon fire in the suddenly very small compartment, and for a long moment, he said nothing, only moving a critical gaze over her from bonnet to slippers, as if sizing up an opponent.Good.Because she planned on giving him the fight of his life if he didn’t do the gentlemanly thing.

“I don’t know why your terrible reputation is so precious to you, Your Grace.” She did her best to ignore the hard thumping of her heart against her ribs and the tingles stirring at the backs of her knees. “But you covet it. You take pride in being the blackest peer in Westminster. A gambler’s gambler and frequentguest at London’s most notorious brothels. Seducer of innocent ladies. Scapegrace. Blackguard. Rakehell.”

“My! Such compliments! You’re going to make me blush.”

“Nothing makes you blush because you have no shame.” She couldn’t stop herself now that her true feelings for him rushed out. “Even worse, you have no one and nothing in this world who truly cares about you or what happens to you. I would say that makes you pathetic, except that you enjoy leading such an empty, cold life that you’d probably take pride in it.” She shook her head. “The truth is that if you fell into the Thames and drowned, no one would care except the men at White’s, to check the book to see who won the bet over how you died.”

He didn’t move when she leveled those charges against him, but she would have sworn she saw his smile turn hard, his dark eyes gleam cold. Had he been any other man, she might have said her barbs pricked him. But not him. This man had no honor to damage.

“You have no idea of the kind of man I truly am,” he murmured, his eyes not leaving hers.

“And I don’t want to know except for how to use it against you to keep my sister from ruin,” she returned in the same low, cold voice. “I would do anything for Amanda. Even take on an irredeemable devil like you.” She tilted her head as she studied him. “Do you know they call you the Duke of Disgrace behind your back?”

“They call me a lot of things, Jessamyn.”

The sound of her given name twirled up her spine. “I’m Miss St Claire to you.” She flashed him a crocodile smile. “Until we become family when you wed my sister.”

“And you want to shackle your sister to—what was it?—a scapegrace, blackguard, rakehell, gambler’s gambler, and seducer of innocent ladies? That’s an odd way to show sisterly love.”

“I’d marry her to Lucifer himself to save her reputation.” She cast a glance over him, then sniffed dismissingly. “But I suppose that wedding you is the same thing.”

He laughed, but something about the sound struck her as stilted.

“So let me be clear, Your Grace. I have every intention of taking away what you hold most dear—your black reputation—one piece at a time.” She forced herself to lean casually back against the squabs when she was anything at that moment but calm. “But Iwilloffer a truce. I’ll stop my attacks against you if you marry my sister. Refuse, and I’ll turn you into the most respectable English aristocrat since Alfred the Great.”

“You can’t.”

“I’ve done a bang-up job of it so far. In fact, the lateston ditclaims you just funded a new Bible school in Cheapside. You even donated twenty Bibles to the cause because you believe every child should be instilled with solid Church of England values. The Bishop of London plans on commending you personally himself.” Well, that last was a bit of a fib. But shehadspent the last of her advance for Sir Percival’s book to buy the Bibles as a gift from the Duke of Crewe, and the local parish was exceedingly grateful. She shrugged. “Go ahead and deny it. Shout it out into the wind! After all, the more you protest, the more everyone will believe it.”

He answered with a shrug of his own. “Maybe I don’t care what people think of me. Maybe I’m perfectly fine with letting my reputation be cleansed. After all, ladies love a reformed rake.”

“Ah, but youdocare, and that’s all that matters to me. I won’t stop attacking you until you marry Amanda.”

“If I married every gel who claimed I compromised her, I’d have more wives than an Arabian sultan.”

Jess didn’t find his comment amusing in the least. But Crewe gave a low chuckle, whether at his own joke or her consternation she couldn’t have said.

He curiously moved his gaze over her. “You can imagine my surprise when I discovered who must have been behind my sudden explosion of charitable generosity,” he commented thoughtfully. “Except that I expected my enemy to be your sister, not you.” He added in a low murmur, “Not some beautiful bluestocking.”

Her heart skittered at the compliment, and immediately, she hated herself for it. “If you think—”

“But a pretty face won’t sway me into jumping into marriage.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, to drive home his point. “Let me be very clear. I have no intention of marrying anyone, especially not your sister. So you can do yourself a favor and stop all this charitable nonsense right now, or you’ll force me to do something you’ll regret.”

A threat. Jess had never taken kindly to those, and she wouldn’t start now with this man. “I’m not one of your courtesans or merry widows, Your Grace. You cannot cow me.”

“Believe me, Jessamyn.” This time, the sound of her name was a purring murmur that shot straight down to her core and began to gently pulse there like a flickering flame. “The last thing I want from you is to be cowed.”

“Then our war continues.” Jess raised her chin. “Because I won’t stop until you surrender.”

“Good, because I do so love surrendering to a beautiful woman. In every way.”

Heat spiked in her cheeks. “That isn’t at all what I meant, and you know it!” Her voice emerged far huskier than she’d intended, due to her fury, she was certain. “I wouldnever—”

He lunged forward and captured her mouth beneath his.

Jess was too stunned to move, too startled to react. Her mind went blank, and the only awareness she had was of his large body hovering over hers, not touching her except for his mouth. But what surprised her most was how soft his sensuous lips were as they moved cajolingly against hers, how the masculine scent of him filled up her senses.

Slap him,a voice inside her screamed.Slap him!