Page 96 of Duke of Iron
He grinned. “Only when the truth would embarrass me.”
A silence grew between them, and May wrapped her arms around her waist, unsure whether it was the fire or his presence that left her so flushed. She should say something clever, or at least practical, but the only words in her mind were,Why did you kiss me? And why do I wish you’d do it again?
Logan moved toward her. It was a deliberate, measured approach, and the kind that left May nowhere to look but at his feet or her own. She counted his steps—three, then four—and then he stopped directly before her, close enough to cast her face in shadow.
He held out his hand. May stared at it before she set her hand in his, because it seemed the only polite thing to do.
He drew her to her feet and then, without warning, into his arms. She stiffened, then blushed furiously and leaned into him. “What are you doing?” she managed.
“Testing a hypothesis,” he said, his lips against her hair. “I suspected you would blush.”
“I am not blushing,” she lied, attempting to muster dignity.
Logan cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheek. “You are.”
May willed herself to look up, but his proximity made it impossible to focus on anything but the shape of his mouth, the line of his jaw, the faint scent of shaving soap and ink. She opened her mouth, prepared to scold him for such unseemly conduct, but before she could, he kissed her.
It was not like the afternoon’s kiss, light and daring. This was deeper and more insistent, like a question and a demand all at once. She let her hands rest on his chest, and her fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt, drawing him closer.
For a moment, May was suspended outside herself, as if watching from above—the Duchess of Irondale, properly undone by the man she had once sworn to avoid.
When he broke the kiss, he did not release her at once. Instead, he rested his forehead against hers, their breaths uneven.
May’s knees threatened to buckle. She gripped his arms to steady herself. “Logan?”
He looked down at her, and the mask of composure returned, but not quite complete. “Goodnight, May,” he said, his voice so soft it barely reached her.
He let her go and stepped back, his hand trailing down her arm until it caught her fingers once more. He gave them a squeeze, then turned and left, closing the door behind him.
May stood there with her heart hammering and her lips tingling.
She wondered what this second kiss meant, and what it would do to her by morning.
“Repetit, ut felix… Repetit, ut felix…” Logan’s voice shook on the final syllable, the sound swallowed by the ancient shadows of the Irondale library. He was twelve, and his eyes moved over the Latin primer even as his ears strained to hear past the hush for the telltale snap of leather or slosh of decanter from the study next door.
He forced his gaze back to the page. “Repetit, ut felix colonia…”
A crash sounded from beyond the hall, louder than before, of a toppled glass, maybe, or the shattering of a paperweight against wood. Logan stiffened, every muscle remembering the script. He counted three, then two, then one?—
Another crash came, louder and closer.
He shrank into his chair. Not today, he pleaded silently, but his hand betrayed him, tightening around the primer until the edge bit his palm.
Footsteps tracked the hallway until they stopped directly outside the door. There was a pause before the latch turned and the door swung wide.
His father, Michael Blackmore, stood there, filling the doorway with his presence; his eyes were bloodshot and his hair wild. His cravat was untied, and the bottle in his fist sloshed dangerously.
“Logan,” he said, “what, precisely, is the use of a son who cannot remember a single line of poetry?”
Logan scrambled up from the desk, the primer nearly slipping from his hand. “I—I can, Father. I just?—”
Michael Blackmore advanced with the lazy menace of a beast that had already decided how the chase would end. “You just what, boy? You just played in the orchard all morning instead of reciting your Virgil?”
Logan’s throat closed up. “I finished the Virgil last week. Miss Hewitt said?—”
“Miss Hewitt is a fool,” his father snapped, “and so is her pupil.” The Duke stopped a handsbreadth away, so that Logan could see the cracks in his father’s lips, the flecks of dust in his irises.
Michael leaned in. “Did you know I was the best scholar in all of Cambridge?” his breath was sour and hot. “Did you know they compared me to Caesar?”
