Page 23 of Desert Island Duke

Caro avoided his eyes as she spouted that disgraceful lie. The one man she’d secretly dreamed of marrying was sitting right beside her on the sand.

Not that he needed to know that mortifying piece of information.

Max rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked thoughtful. “Hmm. It’s true, I’m afraid. Your reputation might already be beyond repair. People love to gossip, and they’ll always think the worst. Whether you’re innocent or not is largely irrelevant. They’ll never believe a man and a woman could spend as long as we have together in such circumstances and not be . . . intimate.”

His blue eyes caught hers and held. “There’s really only one thing you can do.” His expression was perfectly serious.

“What’s that?”

“Seduce me and make the best of it.” The laughter spilled back into his eyes. “You might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.”

Caro gave a choked gasp. “Are you propositioning me?”

“Of course not. That would be highly inappropriate. I’m a lowly stable hand and you’re a lady. I’m suggesting you proposition me.”

He sent her an amused look that also managed to make her heart beat faster in her chest, even though she knew he wasn’t being serious. “I promise to be an easy conquest. You can have your wicked way with me and I won’t put up any resistance at all.”

Caro whacked him on the arm for his teasing and decided it was time to come clean about his true station in life.

“You’re not actually a—”

“—scoundrel?” he interrupted, before she could finish. “I beg to differ. I’m having the most ungentlemanly thoughts about all the ways you can besmirch my reputation.”

She shook her head, both flattered and a little scandalized.

“You’re ridiculous. You’d be saying the same thing to any woman you were stuck here with, whether duchess or dairymaid.”

He clapped his hand over his heart in a mock show of hurt. “You wound me, milady.”

With a laugh to cover her fluttering pulse, she got to her feet and brushed the sand from her skirts. “I’m going to the waterfall for a swim.”

Max accepted her retreat with a knowing look that suggested he knew she was running away. He picked up his pocket watch from where it rested on a piece of driftwood, flicked open the lid, and glanced at the dial.

“If you’re not back in an hour I’ll assume you’ve been eaten by tarantulas and send out a search party.”

“You’d brave such monsters to come looking for me?”

His lips quirked, but his expression was somehow earnest. “If I thought you’d show your appreciation in a suitably enthusiastic manner—” His gaze on her lips left no doubt that he was talking about kissing, “Then yes. I think I’d brave anything at all.”

Flustered yet again, Caro took her leave.

As she stomped through the forest toward the waterfall, she tried to remember all the reasons she shouldn’t be flirting with Maximillian Cavendish, but his teasing words kept swirling around her brain.

He was right. She would be judged when she got back to England. Rumors would fly, and the more she and her family tried to protest her innocence, the more people would suspect the worst.

If this escapade had really rendered her unmarriageable, then why shouldn’t she satisfy her curiosity about lovemaking? Fate had stranded her with the only man she’d ever desired, and he seemed perfectly willing to seduce her‚ or to allow himself to be seduced.

If she was doomed to a life of spinsterhood for the rest of her days, why shouldn’t she seize this chance to experience real passion, just once?

Chapter 14

“Bloody woman.”

Max strode up the hill toward the waterfall, muttering under his breath. She’d been away for far longer than her allotted hour, and his heart pounded as he alternated between frustration and worry.

What if she’d had an accident? What if she’d slipped on the rocks and broken her ankle, or cracked her head?

He increased his pace, his thighs burning as he pushed through the trees and burst into the clearing, braced to either rescue her, or to scold her for needlessly worrying him.

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