Page 13 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“In fact, I hate them.” She smiled at his look of annoyance. “Yourself included, of course, Your Grace.”

“Charmed, as always, Grace. You hate me, do you?” He had a feeling he knew where these words were coming from. “Well, I find it hard to believe you would kiss me like that if you hate me so much.”

She froze, her only movement her eyes as they narrowed to slits.

“Youkissedme,” she pointed out.

“And you were hardly in a hurry to brush me off, were you?”

“I would have.”

“When exactly?”

When they both fell quiet, just staring at one another, Philip felt a need to prove his point. He unfurled his arms and walked toward her again.

Mirroring their actions from earlier, she backed up, but she didn’t move very fast. He caught her in an instant and slid his arm in one swift movement across her waist.

Those hips…

The way they arched up to her waist and back down again was particularly intoxicating when he had hold of her. Their position meant he could gather the loose gown and show off those curves to their best advantage.

She still didn’t brush him off, but those eyes were wide as she looked up at him. So close, their color was even more obvious than before, a pale brown, almost golden.

“You hate me, eh?” he whispered. His voice had gone even huskier than normal, taking on a deep and gravelly tone.

Her eyes blinked, her lips parted, as if she would object to him being so near, but she said nothing. She just waited. He couldn’t resist — with his arm wrapped around her waist, he pulled Grace a little closer until their hips were flush together.

“Detest everything you know about me, don’t you?” he challenged her further.

“Yes,” she insisted, jerking her chin a little higher, that look of perfect defiance in her features again.

A sudden passion raged in his gut. Philip could see the two of them kissing again. To hell with it, he could imagine dragging Grace back to that bench, lifting her skirt, and showing her exactly which part of him she would not hate. He would lift that defiant look from her features with a scream of pleasure instead.

He could imagine pleasuring Grace would be different to any other woman he’d had. She would surely be wilder, more passionate in her movements, perhaps even occasionally take control… that was if he let her, of course. His plans would be to control everything about what passed between them at first.

He leaned an inch toward her, ready for another kiss, ready to break that line between them again, but another gasp filled the air.

“Dear God,” Grace muttered, pushing hard into his chest and backing away. He stepped away too, turning around to see who had interrupted them again.

It was Violet. She had come back and stood in the nearest gap between the yew bushes nearby, her eyes wider than Philip had ever seen them in his life.

Clearly, she did not wish to leave us alone any longer.

Philip ran a hand through his hair, the thrill that he still felt at having Grace in his arms leaving him extraordinarily slowly. He knew it was a good thing that Violet had interrupted them, otherwise Philip might have been tempted to live out one of those fantasies plaguing his mind.

That would have been a bad idea.

“Well,” Violet said, clearing her throat in some valiant effort to dispel the awkward air between the three of them, “I leave her with one man and come back to find her with another, Your Grace.” She glowered, her eyes squinting.

Ah, Eleanor will hear of this now.

“You’re doing a terrible job as a chaperone, Duchess,” he said simply.

Anger coiled within him. Anger at Violet for disappearing off, anger at Grace for trying to kiss Lord Morton, and most of all, pure fury at himself for losing control in the first place.

He walked away, hastening back to the ballroom.

He marched past the crowd of ladies and gentlemen on the veranda, trying his best not to meet any of their gazes. His mind raced with thoughts of Grace, what they had done, and yet how easy it had been to cross that line as well into the unknown.

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