Page 22 of Bride of the Fae Duke

‘New dress,’ Nellie confirmed, shutting the door behind her – because meagre greeting or no, hehadnoticed what she was wearing, and she was too content with the day so far to make a point of his manners.

‘Excellent,’ he said absently as he scribbled his signature on a last document and shoved the whole pile aside. Only then, as he fully turned towards her in his chair, did his strong-jawed face regain some of its old detachment. ‘You’re early.’

‘I figured there was not much reason to wait.’ Only half the truth. Shehadthought of reasons to wait – her pride and some last illusion of chasteness – but had decided over the course of the evening that there was no reason to let those redundancies get in the way of what she actually wanted, which was him, inside her. ‘And as I told you, I need my night’s rest.’

His chuckle did not seem entirely natural. ‘Ah.’

She squinted at him. ‘Is there anything wrong, Your Grace?’

‘Not as such, no,’ he said, but there was too much pause between the words, and he did not rise from his seat. His eyes clung to his hands, slitted pupils too narrow for the dusk of this candlelit room. A small hesitation, and then he repeated, ‘No, not necessarily.’

Nellie waited. Experience had taught her waiting was generally the wisest choice when dealing with dithering aristocrats who were unsure about their own wishes.

It didn’t fail her this time, either.

‘You’re not worried at all?’ he abruptly burst out, his half-hearted mask of ice shattering as his hand rose and landed on his desk with so much force it qualified as slamming. ‘You’re not supposed to be hereearly. You probably ought to have run away already, after … after …’

Last night.

There was no need for him to speak the words, and he seemed to know it as he faltered, finally jutting up his head to meet her gaze.Last night. His broken composure. Her honest pleasure. They both knew it, the memory tangible in the air between them – that small, shameful, joyful secret they couldn’t help but share even if they would never have anything else in common.

‘I’m not worried at all, no,’ Nellie said, respectfully clasping her hands behind her back. ‘Why are you, if I may ask?’

He let out a groan like a wounded animal. ‘Ienjoyedthat, Eleanor.’

‘As was the intention, Your Grace,’ she politely reminded him.

‘Was it? Was it really?’ He rose now, all six-and-something feet of him, his grey eyes glinting with inhuman ferocity in the candlelight. He must have fretted about this all day, Nellie realised, unable to suppress an unexpected sting of contentment – the heartless duke of Locke, spending his day consumed by the thought of her pleasure. His voice was a thinly veiled growl. ‘It’s one thing if I like fucking you …’

Her head caught fire. ‘Yes, but—’

‘… but what if it turns into likingyou?’ he finished, a snapped demand rather than a question.

‘That is really very unlikely,’ Nellie said impatiently. Dratted nobles. ‘You know there’s nothing I could add to your life, Your Grace. I don’t know anything about poetry or literature. I can’t tell a comedy from a tragedy. It’s the whole bloody reason you married a housemaid, if you recall – the guarantee that you wouldn’t find some kindred soul in me.’

He groaned again as he turned away, rubbing a rough hand over his face. ‘Yes, of course.’

Not the most convincing of agreements. ‘But?’

‘But it’s hard for menotto worry about this,’ he muttered. ‘And very easy to see signs of alarm in the slightest bit of intimacy.’

‘Of course.’ She bit the inside of her cheek, mind whirring. ‘In that case, the best way forward is presumably to eliminate as much intimacy as we can, isn’t it? No need for bedrooms, really. And if we can avoid all that pesky eye contact …’

He choked on his breath as he whirled back around. ‘Eleanor, you’re not suggesting I just bend you over my desk, are you?’

Was she?

Scandalous. Outrageous. Then again …

‘Don’t you want to?’ she innocently retorted, fluttering her lashes. As if sparks weren’t erupting in her lower belly at thethought alone. As if she wasn’t already feeling his hands on her hips, his breath on her neck. ‘It might be fun.’

‘Since when do you care aboutfun?’ he sputtered.

‘You made some good points last night.’ This shouldn’t be so enjoyable.Heshouldn’t be so enjoyable. But his fluster was oddly exhilarating, the agitated twitches of his stark jaw and the way his shoulders tensed beneath his sapphire coat, and she couldn’t help savouring the thrill of seeing him like this, no longer the cold, frosty lord of winter himself. ‘And ifI’mable to combine the pleasant and the useful, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed to.’

‘If it’s pleasant to me,’ he bit out, raking an exasperated hand through his blue hair, ‘that means you should be all the more worried, don’t you see? I’mpoison, Eleanor. The last thing you should want is—’

‘Ah, yes,’ Nellie said. ‘About that. I had some thoughts today, Your Grace.’

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