Page 39 of My Dearest Duke

“Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but there really is no delicate way to say it.”

“I did ask you to.” Vanessa hadn’t expected that intimate revelation, however. Brushing a strand of hair off her forehead, she wandered to the room’s other window.

“Vanessa, there is another reason I’m against us sharing a bedchamber.”

“Oh?” She cocked her head, trying to discern what that might be.

Kingston’s clear, penetrating blue, blue gaze revealed nothing.

He’d moved to stand directly before her, and Vanessa couldn’t break eye contact with him. A current hummed between them, scintillating and mesmerizing, much like it had that first night.

“You see, wife,” he said, drawing her slowly into the iron circle of his embrace, “I feared I’d do exactly what I’m doing now. You are a temptation I cannot resist.”

He lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

Vanessa wasn’t sure what to expect, never having been kissed before. But it wasn’t the spiral of heat and want swirling through her.

She clutched at his bulging arms and kissed him back. She wasn’t sure if she was doing it correctly, but from his throaty groan and the way he gathered her closer to his chest, pressing his palms between her shoulder blades and at the small of her back, she must’ve done something right.

He teased the seam of her mouth with his tongue, seeking entrance. She parted her lips to his exploration, and every bone in her body turned to pudding. Or custard. Or jelly. Or some other pliable substance.

Loud, youthful male laughter boomed farther down the corridor, and Vanessa sprang away from him, holding her fingers across her swollen mouth.

Good God, what was she doing?

Kissing Kingston?

This wasn’t part of the arrangement.

He tucked another wayward curl behind her ear.

She caught a whiff of his masculine scent, as tempting as any aphrodisiac, damn his eyes.

“You see why we cannot reside under the same roof, Nessa?”

Had he kissed her to make a point?

That she was so easily seduced or such a malleable ninny that all he had to do was look at her with that roguish grin tipping his mouth and his blue eyes smoldering, and she’d fall into his arms?

His bed?

Disappointment with herself at her weakness, and also with him for playing rakish tricks, wrapped around her heart. Anger licked her bruised pride no small amount too.

Kingston had deliberately used their mutual desire to prove their shared attraction.

It made Vanessa feel naive and stupid. And hurt.

She’d played right into his scheme, drat him.

Spinning away, she presented her back, afraid she’d say or do something imprudent.

Such as kiss him again?

No. No!

She’d not lose her head again. She would not.

“Tomorrow, I’ll arrange rooms at the Woolpack Inn for you,” he said quietly, a trace of defeat and regret in his rasping tone. “You can send your staff back to London.”

Hugging her arms about herself, she stared out the window. “No.”

“What?”

Vanessa faced him once more and shook her head.

“I said, no, Kingston. I’m not staying at the inn.”

She wasn’t some biddable servant or hireling to be shuffled off and sequestered away.

“I beg your pardon?” Thunder flashed in his blue eyes.

Vanessa filled her lungs and plunged onward, putting forth the suggestion that would solve all their problems. “Instead, I propose we move the entire household to Helmstead Gate.”