Page 19 of To Defy a Highland Duke

Lord, he was tall. So tall she had to tilt her head to meet his warm gaze. His request to address him by his given name was too bold, and much too forward too soon.

She demurred. “I’m not sure—”

“We’re cousins, are we no’?”

Not precisely. In truth, he was a cousin to her brothers-in-law and no relation to her at all. The disturbing feelings he aroused in her most assuredly weren’t cousinly.

Was cousinly even a word?

“Surely cousins might address one another by their given names.” As he spoke, he guided her onto the dance floor.

Several inquisitive gazes swung in their direction.

Perfectly wonderful.

By singling Marjorie out for a dance, Keane had unintentionally drawn unwanted attention to them. To her discomfit, the midnight-haired beauty swept through the entry at that moment and visibly stiffened upon seeing Keane speaking to Marjorie, her hand upon his arm.

“Marjorie?”

Her name in his honeyed brogue was her undoing. Any remaining reticence melted away, much like butter spread on a slice of warm bread.

“I thought you didn’t dance.” He had told her as much last August. Except he did dance with his wards, but that was only rarely. It was some silly rule he had, Camden had explained. “’Tis a stricture you abide by, I’ve been told.”

Keane gave her a devil-may-care wink, and her pulse quickened in a fashion more suitable to a debutante than a widow and mother.

“Aye,” he agreed smoothly with a disarming smile that made her knees unhinged.

Good God, Almighty.

How could she bear a week of those knee-weakening smiles?

“But rules are meant to be broken,” he said, giving her such an intense look that she feared he’d see the attraction thrumming through her, but refused to even acknowledge to herself. She grappled with her overwrought senses, struggling to find a way to diffuse the sexual tension between them.

“I don’t break rules, Your Grace.”

A slow, sensual smile deepened the grooves at the corners of his eyes.

“There’s always a first time, jo.”

Keane’s blood still whooshed loudly in his ears and rage sizzled inside his veins, creating a cacophony of primal male protectiveness, blistery wrath, a debilitating urge for retaliation, and an equal compulsion to sweep Marjorie into his arms and comfort her.

Hell, that was a lie. Comfort wasn’t precisely what he wanted to do to her. With her.

A battle raged within him between his desire for her and his vow to not impose his unwanted attentions on her.

Though she put on a brave front, her face was pale as fresh milk and she trembled like a periwinkle-hued, thimble-shaped harebell in a late spring tempest. He’d meant every menacing syllable he’d directed toward Lorne. He still wanted to pummel the scunner, to forbid him to so much as glance in Marjorie’s direction.

Unbeknownst to her, Keane had covertly observed her since she entered the great hall for dinner, a vision in green and gold. He’d believed her lovely this afternoon, travel-weary and rumpled. The woman—no, the woodland sprite—gliding into the hall had drawn the avid interest of several males.

With a pointed, possessive stare, he’d glowered each man into a silent retreat.

Mine. She’s mine.

What the hell was he thinking?

Naturally, she wasn’t his. Women weren’t possessions.

Well, in truth, the law considered them as such, but he didn’t. How could someone own another? Subjugate them to their will?