Page 85 of Never Dare a Duke
“Even if you have to uphold your image, I can’t believe you think you have to deny yourself something you love, something that gives you joy. It’sgood,Chris,” she said softly, touching his arm. “I didn’t have time to really read it all, and I noticed you haven’t finished it, but Ilikeit. The characters seem so real to me and their conflicts important.”
He hesitated, torn between keeping his secrets as he always had—and at last having someone to confide in. He looked down at Abigail, whose face shone with excitement and admiration.
And suddenly the words wouldn’t remain unspoken. “There is a company willing to produce it if the ending is suitable.” Words he’d written—characters he’d created—would at last become reality. When he’d first heard the news, he had felt the same pride as anything else he’d done that others might consider more worthy.
She gasped, then grabbed his arms. “Your play will be on the stage! Your family will be so proud!”
“No, no one knows, no one but you. And it has to stay that way.” Writing had been the release he’d needed, and he didn’t care that no one else knew. He had been a disappointment to his father, had given Society another reason to disparage his mother, and had seemed likely to be the most scandalous of all the Cabots—and that was saying something.
Her expression clouded over with confusion, then came a calm look of serenity. And he realized how it sounded, that she would be the only one to know. She would think he trusted her, after everything. And that trust shocked him. But he couldn’t take it back.
Perhaps he didn’t even want to take it back, he thought, looking down into her brown eyes, so alive with a light of their own.
“It is the scandal, isn’t it?” she asked softly, putting a hand on his chest. “You are worried that a city that could praise your good deeds could taint them just as easily.”
“Everything I’ve worked so hard for would matter little if they could use me in their cartoons as the duke compelled to write tawdry plays.”
“It wasn’t tawdry!” she insisted.
He felt a smile twist one corner of his mouth. “It wasn’t tawdry?”
“No! It was well-done. Perhaps you inherited your writing ability from an ancestor.” She looked down at the old manuscript they’d left sitting on the floor. “The ghost was known to carry a quill and look anxious. And he appeared here, near this manuscript! Perhaps he was never able to finish it.”
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” he said matter-of-factly. But he bent and lifted the manuscript, studying it with reluctant interest. “But I pity the poor chap if he couldn’t find an ending.”
“He was a frustrated playwright. Perhaps you can help him rest in peace when your play is performed. But of course that means someone will have to know…”
He shook his head. “I’m using a pseudonym, and I have a trusted man to deal with anything in my place.”
“So it will not concern you that no one will know you created this masterpiece?”
“It’s not a masterpiece,” he said quickly, then he studied her more carefully. “We have opposite goals for the success of our writing. You want your father to know you are capable.”
“I also want the world to know that awomanis capable,” she said firmly, chin lifted with determination.
He smiled. “You’re more than capable of doing anything you set your mind to.”
Her eyes brightened as they met his, and he was rewarded by the way she seemed to be breathing too quickly.
He took her hand. “Does anyone know you’re with me?” he whispered.
Solemnly, she shook her head. “They think I’m hunting alone.”
“Are you supposed to return?”
She leaned against him, and he fumbled to set the old manuscript on the nearby washstand.
“Gwen won’t miss me. She’s with Mr. Wesley.”
He slid his arms around her, then lowered until he cupped her perfectly rounded ass. “So you’re hunting alone?”
“I think I found my prey.”
She came up on tiptoes, and he groaned as he bent his head to kiss her. Their tongues performed an intricate dance; Abigail had learned so quickly. She entranced him, seduced him, and he wanted to think of nothing but pleasing her.
He lifted his head to stare into her dazed eyes. “Last night, I didn’t take the time to—I wasn’t fair to you.”
She cupped his face in her hands. “And I enjoyed every minute of it. So does that mean that tonight I will faint with ecstasy?”
