Page 42 of Unraveled By the Duke
“There is a ball at Almack’s tomorrow evening. You could take me there. You may excuse yourself if you become bored.”
“I will not be bored,” Alexander replied.
He held her eyes, and she returned his unabashed stare.
At times like this, I find myself wondering if I have been wrong all along. He seems so genuine.
“I will not be bored, I promise you that,” he added with conviction.
CHAPTER 13
Alexander alighted from the carriage and strode towards the entrance of Finsbury House.
Celia had returned two days ago, what with her clothes and the rest of her affairs being there. The sky to one side of the house was pink and molten gold with the setting sun. It enveloped the house in a cloak of nostalgia, making the windows gleam and casting shadows that hid the worst of the neglect.
“Sorry, Mama, but I could not bear coming back here,” he whispered fervently.
A movement in a window on the third floor drew his eye.
Celia’s rooms were on the south side of the building, facing away from the main door. It was probably Peggy, dusting a room long given over to time. But just for a moment, he thought he had seen a tall, dark-haired, pale-faced woman.
He shook his head, dismissing the fanciful notion. The sunset made odd shadows and shapes on the glass. Alexander didn’t believe in ghosts.
The door opened as he lifted his hand to turn the knob. Celia stepped out into the golden light. Alexander stood there, staring. He could not move, could not speak. His hand was frozen in mid-air.
Her brown curls were pinned atop her head, revealing her swan-like neck. Her eyes seemed large, pools of soft darkness that drew him in, denying him the freedom to look away.
She was clad in a bronze and deep russet gown that perfectly complemented her hair and eyes. No jewelry adorned the pale skin of her chest or her gloved hands. As she moved her head, he caught the delicate gleam of emerald, a teardrop at each lobe of her ears.
“You need no adornment,” he said, unconsciously voicing his thought.
Celia put a hand to one ear, then let it fall to her side. She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye. Her nostrils flared, and her lips parted with the quickening of her breath.
Alexander tried to imagine what it would feel like to press his palm to her chest and feel her racing heart.
I must take care. I must keep up my walls. I am the rake she will not wish to stay married to. Once the scandal is buried and Hyacinth has had the perfect debut, I will have no further need for a wife.
“Thank you. I must say that neither do you,” Celia said with a mischievous smile.
Somehow, that smile was more erotic and alluring than even the sight of her naked.
Not that he had seen her naked. He had stripped her two nights ago, but with his eyes closed. His hands had felt her body, if only in fleeting touches.
The memory of her softness against the back of his hands rose in his mind. The feel of her thighs brushing his fingertips. And the moment of supreme eroticism when, accidentally, he had touched her bare breast.
A matter of a heartbeat, but it had felt like an eternity.
Take care. You stand in jeopardy now.
“It is not my habit to wear tiaras or necklaces.”
“A pity. A sapphire would bring out the color of your eyes,” Celia remarked.
“Perhaps if I were a Persian sultan rather than an English duke,” Alexander said, offering his arm.
“But you are named after a famous Greek who ruled Persia,” Celia pointed out.
“A Macedonian,” Alexander corrected. “To the Greeks, they were barbarians.”
