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For Love of the Duke(35)

By:Christi Caldwell


“I am a gentleman who honors my word, my lady.”

Katherine glanced up at him, ever-serious, always frowning, and yet, somehow, his stoic reserve inspired a sense of confidence. This was not a man who’d squander his family’s wealth, leaving them destitute at the mercy of the creditors and loathsome lords who’d called in their vowels.

It was also why he would make her an ideal match.

He sketched a bow, and spun on his heel.

Panic bubbled up her throat. “You are leaving?” Her voice emerged as a high squeak.

He turned back to face her, his black cloak gaped open to reveal his long, powerful legs. Her mouth went dry. Ladies were not supposed to notice things such as the breadth of a gentleman’s thighs or the ripple of muscle in his forearms, or…she gulped.

“My lady?”

She swallowed back her improper musings.

“Er…are you leaving already?”

Jasper arched a single, black icy brow. “I didn’t believe there was another reason for me to stay.”

That honest admission chafed, more than she wished. She didn’t want to notice his uncharacteristic handsomeness or his honorable characteristics when he should disdain to notice her.

“Er…” She wet her lips, as the plan she’d concocted that had prompted her to send round the note requesting his presence seemed the height of foolishness. Had she imagined his kiss those two days ago?

Except…her body still burned in remembrance of his touch.

No, that had been no imagining.

“My lady?” he prompted again; a thread of impatience underlined that question.

Katherine jumped. “Katherine.”

His brow wrinkled.

“That is to say, considering our initial meeting, and then our chance encounter in the bookshop, and then the time we met at Hyde Park, and you and I k…” He quirked that icy brow yet again. She waved her hand. “That is to say, talked. We spoke that day,” she amended. If their kiss was wholly unmemorable to him, well, then she’d not do something so foolish as to mention that particular part of their meeting that day—even if it had been the single most passionate moment of her nineteen, nearly twenty years. “Well…”

“My lady?”

She stamped her boot in the snow. “I’m merely suggesting you call me Katherine because of, of…our friendship.” She balled her hands in pained embarrassment.

His green eyes deepened to the shade of jade. He took a step toward her, and she took a hasty step back in retreat. He continued advancing, and Katherine scrambled backwards until the heels of her boots reached the edge of the frozen river.

She glanced over, and her stomach lurched at how precariously close she’d come to the water. Her time at the Frost Fair had proven that even frozen water was not to be trusted.

When she turned back around, he was a mere hands width apart. Katherine gasped, and stumbled.

His arms shot out, and he gripped her by her forearms, steadying her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, hating the breathless note to those two words.

He dipped his head. “Is that what we are, Katherine? Friends?”

Katherine would have to be a lack wit to not hear the mocking sneer to those two words. Suddenly too aware of his body’s proximity to her own, she took a hesitant step around him, and placed several steps between them.

He advanced. A hunter stalking its prey.

Katherine picked her way carefully around the snow-covered trail, and tilted her chin up. “Yes. Why, I rather thought we were. You don’t strike me as a gentleman with very many friends, therefore you should accept friendship where you can.” His eyes narrowed further, to dark impenetrable slits. She wet her lips and backed up another step. She was rather certain he’d never harm her, but the dark look in his eyes would have made the most seasoned infantryman uneasy. “As your—”

“Friend?” he supplied, his voice dryer than a crisp autumn leaf.

She nodded emphatically. “Yes, as your friend, I thought I should provide a solution to your dilemma.”

His firm lips twitched. She narrowed her eyes, and studied him more closely. Or she might have imagined the very slight movement. Or mayhap it was mere coincidence…

“I was unaware I had a dilemma.”

Katherine jerked to the moment. She nodded, this time more slowly. “Oh, absolutely you do.”

He folded his arms across the broad expanse of his chest.

Her eyes dipped lower, and she swallowed as her body recalled his hot, strong hands upon her person. Dukes were supposed to be hopelessly old, impossibly wrinkled, and sporting monocles. Yes, they most certainly possessed monocles. Dukes, most certainly were not supposed to be great big, towering bears of men with their muscles straining the black expanse of their breeches.