Page 21 of The Duke's Counterfeit Wife

Mr. Calderbank hadn’t dropped his eyes from her. Felicity was almost afraid to look at him again, but when she did, it was to find him slowly folding the paper. He held her gaze as he set it aside and pushed himself to his feet. “Well, if she needs me…”

Then he was in front of her, and she was taking a deep breath, trying to hold onto his scent of shaving soap and the wine they’d had at dinner.

“What do ye need?” he asked mildly, and her stomach flipped over.

Her stomach, and lower. She had to squeeze her thighs together.

Need. She needed him.

But here was an opportunity she hadn’t expected, so Felicity leaned forward, pushing herself on her toes to breathe into his ear. “Dance with me, please.”

When she stood back, he was studying her impassively. Then he nodded. No words, just a nod. An agreement? It wasn’t “anything you want” but he hadn’t turned her down either.

One arm went to her waist, the other rose, and she placed her hand in it, and then he was dancing with her.

There was no music. There was no space, and they mostly spun between the cold hearth and the battered tea table, but they were dancing.

Together.

Felicity had apparently forgotten how to breathe.

She stared up at him, his lips so close to hers, his arms so strong around her, and was grateful she didn’t have to remember the steps of the dance. Or the calculation of angle of incidence of a light ray. Or her own name.

Because for a moment, a moment of now, all that existed in the world was the sensation of this man’s arms around her, her hand safe in his strong, scarred one.

And the knowledge that, as their pelvises came into contact with one another, he was as aroused as she was.

Ask him. The tiny voice in the back of her head was becoming a clamor. Ask him to kiss you. Ask him to teach you.

She was curious—oh so curious—and this man could assuage her curiosity. It was for science.

He slowed them to a stop, his gaze never once leaving hers, then stepped back. When his hand fell from her waist, Felicity felt herself swaying forward, trying to hold onto him.

He gave no sign of recognition, nor of wanting the same thing.

From the settee came a low guess. “Ye’re dancing.”

Felicity had to swallow to clear her throat. Still gazing up at Mr. Calderbank, she nodded. “Aye, dancing.”

She wanted more than dancing. She wanted more.

How to ask for such a thing?

Chapter 4

It might’ve surprised Mr. Steele—or hell, anyone who knew Griffin—to know he was currently stretched out on the thread-bare rug in the front parlor of his townhouse, his chin in his hands, listening to his son complain about his latest design.

“It lacks speed, Father!” Rupert sat cross-legged with the miniature boat in his lap. No, it was little more than a body with a mast, hardly a boat. “The hulls are stable enough, but it won’t win any races.”

Griffin managed a one-shoulder shrug from his position, and reached over to tap the starboard hull. “This is the problem, lad, I suspect. Three hulls seem superfluous.”

They sat amid chaos; Rupert’s sketches, glue and wood and small dowels and other detritus of their crafting attempts, three books open to schematic designs of watercraft, and one open to a page about aerodynamics of fish bodies, although of course it’s not aerodynamics when one speaks of underwater creatures. Apparently. Griffin would be damned before he’d admit he didn’t know the real term.

This morning’s jaunt to the pond in the park had proven a disaster, so Rupert had returned home in a tear to rebuild the thing. Griffin, for his part, had merely held on and gone along for the ride.

Sometimes it was galling to know his son was smarter than he was.

He couldn’t be prouder.

---