Page 9 of Rules for Heiresses
Courtland didn’t question her skill with the weapon—he knew it firsthand. And the truth was though he’d known the girl, he didn’t know this brazen woman who’d lived the life of a man for the past six months or who held the pistol with such unwavering confidence. By age eleven, she’d already been a crack shot. “Are you going to shoot me, Ravenna?”
At the sound of her given name, her fingers flexed on the handle but her eyes hardened. “I will if I have to.” A loud knock banged on the outer door to the office. “Or whoever comes through that door. Get rid of them.”
“Your Grace?” Rawley called out, making Courtland wince. He was sure his cousin was delighted to take the piss with the title. “Bingham won’t leave without seeing you.”
“Not a good time, Rawls.”
There was silence. Perhaps, he’d get the message. Perhaps not. Courtland wasn’t a man given to nicknames. “Very well, I’ll try again later,” Rawley said.
Rounding the desk to where he stood, Ravenna waved the pistol and set her eyes on the safe resting behind it. “Open that up and put the contents in that satchel.”
“Stealing is as bad as cheating, you know.” Squatting down, he obeyed her demands. She was close enough that he could probably tackle her and wrestle the gun away, but if the weapon discharged, she could get shot. He wasn’t willing to take that chance, no matter how much fury filled his blood.
“I’ve never cheated, and at this point, it’s survival.” Her voice sounded resigned. “It’s my mess, and I have to clean it up. I always knew it would come to this. I’ll pay you back someday, I promise.”
Huffing a breath, he stared up at her, the sack full of banknotes in hand. “It’s not a crime to ask for help, you know.”
Her smile was small. “How can you help me? You pretended to be dead to your own family for eleven years, hiding out here in Antigua of all places. And now that you’re a duke, you don’t even seem to want the title.” She blew out a sigh and reached for the bag. “It doesn’t matter. Honestly, I don’t think even an army of dukes could help me right now.” A dark laugh slipped from her lips. “I can see the headlines now: Lady Ravenna Huntley, plowed by a shipload of sailors, all hail the Hussy Heiress.”
“It has a certain ring to it.”
“Not funny,Ashvale.” She backed away toward the door, the pistol trained on him. “Grant me this one answer then for old times’ sake. Why don’t you want to go back to England? You’re a duke now. You’ll be celebrated.”
For the first time in his life, he didn’t shy away from the question though his gut churned with the usual ugly combination of shame and rage. He rose slowly and inched round the desk, propping his hips on it. “Who’d celebrate me as duke? Not my brother.” He lifted a hand. “I am of mixed blood. One single drop corrupts the whole, or so the dogmatists say.”
Confusion crossed her face. “I don’t understand.”
“My mother was a mixed-race woman. Granddaughter of a French silk merchant and hisplacée. She was a free Creole.”
“So?”
Surely she couldn’t be this obtuse. “SoI’mnot a blue blood.”
“I realize that you are of mixed origins,” she said slowly. “But you still bleed scarlet like the rest of us.”
“I’m gladyouthink so,” he said, not disguising his sarcasm.
Flushing, she paused as if considering her reply. “Clearly, I’m not one to judge or offer sage advice. I can’t claim to know what you’ve been through, but I saw my sister-in-law stand up to a ballroom full of bigots, and I witnessed my brother fall madly, hopelessly, irreversibly in love. And she’s of mixed heritage.” She exhaled a breath. “Eventually, you’ll have to go back to England and be the duke. I hope you do it on your terms, Courtland, not because someone with a dried-up excuse for a brain told you that you weren’t good enough or you didn’t deserve it.”
In an ideal world, perhaps such a thing would be possible, but this was reality, and his reality included a stepmother who wished him gone and a younger brother who would prefer he had never been born. Courtland didn’t want to ponder the soft earnestness behind Ravenna’s words, not right then as she moved away from him toward the door. At best, she might make it through the hotel, but would be stopped by his men. At worst, Rawley would be waiting to eliminate the threat. “Lady Ravenna, please stop before you get hurt.”
She’d nearly reached the door. “Have a nice life. Don’t look for me.” She smiled at him. “And for posterity, I’ve always loved the color of your skin, even when we were children. Me, the color of paste, and you, so beautifully golden-brown as if you were lit from the inside with pure sunlight.”
The sweetness of the sentiment moved him, but Courtland couldn’t savor it. He would later, if they got through the next few seconds. She twisted to turn the doorknob, her attention slipping from him for one heartbeat, and he dove, launching himself across the room. His attention was on the pistol in her hand and making sure neither of them accidentally got shot if Rawley did come through that door as Courtland suspected he would.
Sure enough, the door shoved open at the same time that she unlocked it, the force propelling her body in his direction as his cousin attempted to barrel his way inside. By pure luck, Courtland managed to shield her with his frame and knock the gun upward in the moments it took for the two of them to tumble onto the plush Persian carpet.
The pistol discharged into the wall with a boom, making his ears ring. The scent of spent gunpowder singed his nostrils as he wrestled the weapon out of her grip when they collided with the floor. He absorbed most of the impact, the breath whooshing from his body, and he grunted, but he didn’t release his hold on her even as they rolled to an ungainly halt in a lewd tangle of limbs.
Chest to chest, hip to hip, her heart galloping wildly against his, they’d landed in an obscene heap, his thighs wedged indecently between her trouser-clad legs, his body sprawled over hers in mimicry of an act he was beginning to crave with every rapid beat of his pulse. All of Courtland’s hard edges cradled into her softer curves…perfectly as if they’d been crafted for each other. In that moment as he collected his absent breath, even though she’d very nearly put a bullet in him, all he wanted to do was kiss her.
The fall had damaged his brain, clearly.
A breathless moan breached those tempting, parted lips, the sultry sound daggering through him. It wasn’t a sound of pain, but one of unguarded pleasure, and all of his marauding senses distilled to one thing—her.
Courtland was already at half-mast; now his lower body leaped to painful, rock-hard attention. She felt him. He could see it in her widened pupils and hear it in the tiny hitch in her breathing. Heated copper eyes peered up into his, and a pink tongue darted out to swipe at her plump lower lip. That hot gaze slid to his mouth. Did shewanthim to kiss her? Her hips shifted infinitesimally as if in silent answer. He narrowed the distance, hovering over her mouth and leaving the last millimeter up to her.
Hell, he’d die if she didn’t want it as much as he did.
