Page 23 of The Scottish Duke
Her voice was curiously educated, her accent one he couldn’t decipher.
“Where are you from?”
“Where am I from?” she asked. “Does that matter?”
“Call it my curiosity. You don’t sound like a maid.”
“What is a maid supposed to sound like, Your Grace?”
“Inverness?” he asked.
“I lived there until I was twelve,” she said. “After that, I traveled with my father. Robert Gordon. He was a well-respected botanist.”
He glanced at the sketches on the wall. “Did he do those?”
“Does it matter?”
He was getting tired of her answering his questions with a question.
“Are they yours?”
This time she didn’t respond.
“If they are, you’re talented.”
“I can sleep well tonight, knowing the Duke of Kinross approves.”
He took a step toward her, noting when she tensed. Did she expect him to strike her? He’d never touched a woman in anger, and the idea that she thought him capable of it was an irritant.
“What made you come to the fancy dress ball?”
“Foolishness,” she said. “A decision I rue now.”
“Did you really enjoy it?” he asked, remembering her parting words to him.
Her eyes widened. “Now, that, I have no intention of discussing.”
Without giving her a hint of what he was going to do, he strode to the chair and jerked the cloak from her grasp, letting it fall to the floor.
One of her hands went to press against the mound of her stomach. The other clenched into a fist at her side.
He couldn’t speak. What words could he possibly say? She was heavily pregnant. He couldn’t lift his eyes, couldn’t focus on anything but the size of her belly, the perfect roundness of it beneath the dark blue of her dress.
As he stared, he had the curious notion of movement, as if the baby were greeting him in his own way. He wanted, in a way that was unlike him, to put his hand there on that exact spot.
He dragged his attention back to her face.
“When is the baby due?” he asked.
“In a month or so.”
“You were a virgin,” he said. “Or was that some type of trick?”
She smiled, startling him again.
“I have no idea how to masquerade as a virgin, Your Grace.”
“Are you trying to tell me that it’s mine?”
