The Duke I'm Going to Marry(45)

Dillie handed his jacket to Mrs. Mayhew. “It was all my fault. I knocked over the entire tea service and made a mess of His Grace’s garments.”

“Not to worry, lamb. I have two pies baking in the oven. They’re almost done. I’ll have them sent to the parlor as soon as they’ve cooled.” Mrs. Mayhew ordered one of her girls to put on more water for tea, took Ian’s jacket, and lumbered to the pantry to begin cleaning the stains out of it.

Dillie ordered Ian to sit on a stool beside the kitchen’s window ledge where the pies would have been set to cool if it weren’t raining. The rain was still coming down hard, but the window had been left open a crack to allow in the draft. Fortunately, the wind was blowing the rain away from them so that the droplets fell outside instead of pattering in.

The ledge was one of the few bare spots in the kitchen. Every spare table and countertop was covered with pots, utensils, serving trays, and food to be cooked for this evening’s supper.

“Rest your arm here,” she instructed once he’d settled on the stool. He obediently propped his elbow on the ledge. Though she was distressed by the damage she’d caused to his clothing, he remained amused and took far too much delight in her discomfort. “I’ll have to remove the cuff link so I can get under the sleeve.”

“I never refuse a woman wishing to take off my garments.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s just the cuff link, you clunch.” But his jest brought home all the reasons why she and Ian would never make a good match. She needed a husband who would be faithful. He would be off and cheating before the minister closed the Bible on their wedding vows.

She tried to remember that as she worked on the stain, but it was a struggle. All she could think of was the strength of his body dangerously close to hers and the heat of his skin beneath her fingers. Whenever she breathed, she caught the sandalwood scent of him mingled with the delicious scent of cinnamon and apples wafting from the oven. She tried not to breathe, but that didn’t work.

She made the mistake of glancing at him. He looked at her as though he ached to hold her in his arms and never let her go. It was a devastatingly tender look. It was a forever look. But that’s what made him so dangerous. Experienced rakehells knew how to toss that look even while plotting their next conquest.


***

“There. All done. Give it a moment to dry, then I’ll put the cuff link back on,” Dillie said, the sweet sound of her voice wrapping around Ian’s heart. Damn it. She had no business being anywhere near his heart. She was as hopeless a debutante as he’d ever met.

She’d proved it again today, making a mess of her mother’s salon, upsetting an entire platter of cakes and a large pot of tea, shattering her mother’s favorite cups and saucers, damaging his shirt and jacket (not that he cared—those were easily replaced), and scalding his forearm.

Wild ferrets caused this sort of mayhem.

Wild ferrets and Dillie, apparently.

To make matters worse, she had insisted on tending his forearm, rubbing butter on the burn while she moaned and softly called his name. “Ooh, Ian. Ian. Am I hurting you? Ooh, tell me if I am,” she’d purred.

She couldn’t have made him hotter if she’d stuck her hand between his thighs and... well, no. That delight would have killed him.

She’d take a meat cleaver to him if she realized what he was thinking.

“Ian, where is it?” She was purring again. Driving him insanely hot again.

“Where’s what?”

“The cuff link, you clunch. What else would I be looking for?” She raised the square of linen she’d used to rub the tea stains off his sleeve and dabbed at the beads of perspiration now coating his forehead, no doubt mistaking the overheated kitchen as the cause of his discomfort. In truth, it was his raw, rampant lust to blame.

She met his gaze and let out a gentle laugh. “You’re a hot, buttered mess. I think I like you better this way. You aren’t so dauntingly perfect.” Her tongue darted out to give the butter remaining on one of her fingers a light, curling lick.

Every organ in his body began to throb. His groin had been throbbing all along, but now it felt as though it were stuffed with gunpowder, fuse lit. Detonation in five seconds. Four. Three. Two.

Thuck, thuck, thuck.

Thank the angels! Lady Withnall’s arrival was like a barrel of ice water poured straight down his pants. “What brings you into the dungeons?” he asked, genuinely surprised she’d found her way here. Few women of her stature ever visited their kitchen, and certainly never visited a friend’s kitchen.

“Came to check on the gel.” Her gaze practically bore into Dillie.