Page 43 of His Duchess' Wicked List

She couldn’t resist twisting in his arms, her hand snaking through his hair, staring at his face. Oh, how handsome he was. The most handsome man she had ever seen.

“What did you just do to me?” she breathed, her face flushing with color. “Is it decent?”

He laughed, looking delighted. “If it were, would you enjoy it half as much?”

She flushed harder. It was just like him to answer her in such a cryptic fashion. She knew she should probably feel ashamed, but she didn’t. For how could something that gave such strong pleasure be shameful?

I want to do this all the time with him.

The thought came like a lightning bolt to her mind. For some reason, it disturbed her even more than the shocking act he had just performed on her. She started wriggling out of his arms, getting to her feet.

“I need to dress,” she whispered. “I need to go back to my chambers.”

He sighed heavily but didn’t protest, getting to his feet as well.

She slipped on her gown, before scrambling around, gathering her undergarments. She wouldn’t bother trying to get back into them—she could carry them to her room, and she was just going to slip on her nightgown once she was there, anyway. There was no point getting fully dressed again. She would just have to be very careful that she wasn’t seen…

She gasped as he abruptly snatched the garments out of her hands, hiding them behind his back.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “Give them back!”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, I will not,” he said, his eyes still smoldering with desire, as well as mirth. “I expect that you will appearexactlyas you are now tomorrow morning at the breakfast table.”

“What?” she stammered.

A wicked smile appeared on his face. “So that we can cross two things off that list of yours,” he whispered. “Learn How To Play Chesswas the first we accomplished tonight. And tomorrow morning, we can cross offWalk Around Without Undergarmentsas well.”

Maddie blushed fiercely. She had forgotten that she had put that on the list.

“It is in your best interest to do so,” he continued in a mock thoughtful tone. “After all, the more that we cross off that list of yours, the closer you are to getting it back.”

She sighed crossly. “Very well! But you must agree to give them back to me as soon as breakfast is over. Otherwise, my lady’s maid will be sure to notice they are missing.”

“Agreed,” he said, his smile widening. He reached out, taking her hand, raising it slowly to his mouth as his eyes pinned her to the spot. “Until tomorrow, My Lady.”

Maddie felt a shudder of pure delight. As she slipped out of the study, closing the door softly behind her, her heart was racing again. He was keeping her on her toes, even if it felt like she was about to fall off a ledge, most of the time.

She made it to her chambers without incident, slipping off her gown and into her nightgown. She was so tired that she didn’t even bother hanging the gown in her wardrobe, just leaving it in a heap on the floor, before crawling into bed. It had been averylong night.

But even though she was exhausted, sleep eluded her. She tossed and turned, pondering the events of the night. It seemed like days ago that she had danced with him, but it was only a few short hours.

So much had happened since then. The scandalous game of chess. The shocking thing he had done to her afterwards, lying in front of the fire, and the earth-shattering release that had swept through her, raging like a wildfire…

Slowly, she sat up in her bed, staring into the darkness, barely able to breathe. There was no doubt of it in her mind any longer.

She was falling in love with the rake who was probably destined to become her sister’s husband.

She gasped. She knew it was ludicrous to feel this way about him. He didn’t even care about her. He had never expressed that he cared about her—not once. And even if he had, there was no future in it, anyway. There couldn’t be. Their mothers were hell-bent on a match between the Duke and Augusta.

It was intolerable. It was impossible. And yet… itwastrue.

It wasn’t just that he evoked that wild tempest within her that she hadn’t even known existed. It was that she felt she was trulyalivewith him, in a way that she hadn’t been before. As if she had been walking through her life like a somnambulist before meeting him.

As if she had been waiting for him.

Maddie felt a single tear trickle down her cheek. Her feelings were pointless. Even if he were available to marry her, and actually cared about her enough to commit to her, he was a rake. Could he remain faithful to one woman for the rest of his life? She doubted it.

But it was all useless speculation. He didn’t care about her, and he was going to be maneuvered into marrying her sister, whether he liked it or not. And whether Augusta liked it or not.

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