Page 14 of The Duke Decides

“If I dally with you, sir, my blackmailer will have even more with which to reproach me. By day, I am a respectable woman.”

“That,” he replied, letting his gaze roam with keen interest over her face, then down to her breasts, “is a waste.”

For the first time, it did feel like a loss that she had given up love and passion.

She had found refuge, safety, and comfort at the Benevolence Hospital, a sense of purpose and fulfillment, and her first real friends. But she had forfeited any hope of romance. This man was the first to make her feel she might be missing out on something.

What harm would it do to take a lover, just once?

Great harm, Louisa reminded herself, catching herself leaning closer to him. She tried pulling away and couldn’t quite manage the feat. “You, sir, are a roué.”

“As often as the opportunity allows,” he admitted.

All the more reason to steer clear of him. He wouldn’t only damage her standing at the Hospital if she were discovered in an affair. A man like this might destroy her.

And yet here she was, nestling closer, irresistibly drawn. He was taller than she was; her nose came to the level of his chin. He smelled of expensive brandy and fresh cream and ever so faintly of cedar. She liked his boldness, truth be told. That self-assurance was attractive in a man. He knew his attributes and he wore them well, and he made no apologies for who he was.

Even if apologies were owed. In that respect, he might be like her husband.

She pushed memories of that dark time from her mind.

“I hope your silence means you are considering my offer,” he said.

The musicians switched to a new tune, another waltz, and he kept on without missing a step. The man was a marvelous dancer, graceful and light on his feet. For all his size, he was not a bulky man. Not an enormous, clumsy broadsword or a chopping cutlass but a rapier, slim, lethal, and made of unbreakable steel.

“Would you consent to help me if I declined your proposal?”

He took time to consider, and Louisa’s sense of euphoria, stimulated by dancing in the arms of a handsome, virile man, diminished. Her heart was sinking in her chest when he spoke, his dark eyes resting on her face.

“Let me say that a deeper intimacy between us would go a long way toward ensuring my commitment,” he answered. “Having a personal interest in your welfare would make me all the more inclined to be your protector.”

Protector. As if she’d ever had one of those.

As if she’d ever been more than on her own, reliant on her own two feet to support her, employing her own bare wits to find her shelter from the cold winds of the world.

She lifted her hand from his arm and tried to step back. “I see.”

He held her other hand, still clasped in his, and kept his arm firm at her back. His black silk domino mask couldn’t conceal his eyes, which were keen as a hawk’s. “Stay.”

“I won’t. If these are your conditions, sir, I cannot meet them. You are no better than my blackmailer.”

He scowled. “I’m a damn sight better than a blackmailer. I gave you the option to decline. And I am on your side, Reinette.”

“I am the only one on my side. Let me go.”

She pulled away from him and plunged through the crowd standing on the edge of the room, nibbling on refreshments, displaying themselves, talking, flirting. For the people around her, this night was one more entertainment in a life filled with pleasures. Only she stood in a storm that did not seem to still, but grew stronger with every breath.

She had never felt so entirely alone as she did now, when she fled the glittering room and its music and the artful and empty promise of something better, something more, when her own life stood on a precipice.

She pushed through another drawing room, another crowd, hearing the exclamations and reproofs as she trod on trains and knocked loose decorative feathers in her mad, blinded flight. No one knew who she was. No one among these people would care about her plight in the light of day. By the time she burst through the tall French doors onto the porch, her chest was heaving and she thought she might faint.

She had not one single person to help her. The one ally she was meant to meet was as much a cad as the others. From here it was almost as if she could see the broad, tall outlines of the Hospital shimmering in the darkness, dissolving into shadows, disappearing from the city. From the Earth. Because of her. Because she had failed.

“Hell’s ankles.”

He’d followed her. His scent hit her first, and then the knowledge that he was on the porch with her, the light of the torches lining the balcony casting shadows on his jaw. Outside, alone, he was larger than he’d seemed in the crowded ballroom. He moved with a feral grace, a man of action, a predator.

“I’ve never had a woman run quite so far from me simply because I requested a kiss.” His voice was a low rumble, dangerous, and it sent that awakening shiver across her shoulders and down her back, curling into her belly.