Page 46 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

“She…” Grace tried to speak in a level tone. “She is hardly happy. My friends and I took scissors to my wedding gown this morning to make it into something I wished to wear.”

“Good.” The gravelly tone made her insides quake with excitement. The Duke’s eyes traveled down to her rather obvious cleavage. “You’ve been hiding those curves of yours for too damn long, Grace.”

“Curves?” She giggled at the idea. “You mean the fact that I am fa —”

“You are not.” He cut in before she could even finish the word. His hand slid further across her back, pulling her so near now that she was breathless. He bent a little nearer to her, pressing his lips near her ear. “Hide those curves from me again, and there will be punishment for it.”

Punishment?

An excited shiver shot through her. For some reason, the way Philip spoke to her, she was certain that punishment would be a pleasurable thing indeed. Then he stood straight and increased the distance between them. Within the blink of an eye, he was back to the reserved and strict older figure he had always been.

Damn you for tormenting me so.

“You look incensed,” she whispered, marking a change in his stiff countenance she had not seen before. There was a twitch in his jaw.

He glanced away, toward where her mother stood at the side of the floor, clutching rather desperately to Tabitha’s hand.

“Does she always control you like this?” the Duke asked, somehow managing to escort her around the floor with ease despite the fact his eyes were glowering at her mother.

“Not anymore,” Grace replied with a delighted laugh. “From this day forward, I am free of her. That means no more ridiculous dresses with frilly necklines. No more oversized gowns.” She continued to laugh, feeling heady and dizzy with excitement. “It also means no insistent rampages from her that my embroidery is poor or that my piano skills are more like that of a stray cat’s than a young lady’s.”

“Is that what she says?” The Duke laughed.

Grace was startled by the sound as she jerked her gaze up from the center of his waistcoat to his eyes. The Duke had laughed with heat around her before, even scoffed in the past, but this sort of warm and companionable laugh? No, that was new.

“Well, my piano skills are just as bad,” he said with a smile. “So, I’ll hardly care if you want to throw out the piano from this house.” Then his eyes slid down to her lips as he turned them around again. “On second thoughts, don’t throw it away. Maybe neither of us will play the instrument, but there’s a certain fantasy I want to live out with it first.”

Other dancers crowded around them. They were so lost in the middle of the floor, hidden from view, that when his hand took hold of her hip and squeezed, Grace was confident that none but them knew it.

“What sort of fantasy?” she said defiantly, keeping her chin raised toward his own.

“You put it there last week when we danced around that piano in your house.” He bent down, whispering in her ear again. “I rather like the idea of reminding you who you belong to know as I bend you across it.” He brushed the edge of her ear with his lips.

She gasped, shocked at what he had done. Surely now, they would be seen, but just as before, as they moved around the room, he shifted to be distant. His hand was formally on the curve of her waist, and he stood straight.

“You’re torturing me,” she muttered, the confession falling fast from her lips.

“Torture, eh?” He chuckled. “Torture is having to wait all the way for tonight until I can have you.” Then his eyes darkened. “In fact, why wait?”

Her hand trembled within his own as the dance came to a close. Slowly, they parted from one another. He bowed as she curtsied, neither one of them breaking the connection of their gaze.

“Excuse yourself for the privy,” he ordered then marched away from the floor.

Shaking, uncertain whether to obey the command he had just given or not, she made her way back to the edge of the floor. Eleanor stood there, trying to return the slice of cake into her grasp though Althea intercepted her first. Quite expertly, Althea pretended it was just an accident that she had knocked the cake to the floor.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she gushed and placed a hand against her chest.

She’s never clumsy. She hates my clumsy ways.

With this thought clear in her mind, Grace glanced over her shoulder. The Duke hadn’t yet left the room.

She chewed her lip, trying to remember when he had admonished her for being clumsy, but she could not recall him doing so recently. In fact, he’d only caught her when she fell off the carriage bench.

“I need the privy,” Grace said hurriedly under her breath to Eleanor. “Excuse me.” With these words, she parted from the room.

Grace meandered down the corridor. She had been to this house so many times, she knew exactly where she was going. She hovered outside of the privy door, not knowing where to go or what to do now, when sudden footsteps sounded behind her.

The Duke had also escaped the ballroom. He was striding down the corridor toward her with such intention in every step that she actually took a small step back. He moved with purpose, shrugging off his tailcoat as he approached her.

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