Page 27 of A Christmas Temptation for the Duke
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
If Alison had been thinking clearly, she might not have been so quick to leave. She still believed that there had been two men outside her home, and she had no desire to find out the truth of the matter. But the Earl was beyond frustrating; she found her anger growing by the second, and it was better to remove herself from the situation entirely than risk seeing it spill over.
Or rather, that was her intent.
She stood, smoothed down the folds in her borrowed dress, and made for the exit.
“I must insist that you stay.” Behind her, she heard footsteps pounding across the room. “Lady Alison!”
“Do not worry about me.” She was through the door, storming down the hallway. “You said it yourself, there is nothing to fear. Pickle!” she cried over her shoulder. “Pickle, we are leaving!”
“Lady Alison!” He moved quickly, coming at her like a storm. She felt it in her bones, upon her, the hallway growing small and suffocating until his hand grabbed her by the arm. “Wait!”
She stiffened to feel his hand around her arm. His fingers, clutching her, the strength of them was such that she felt frail by comparison. Alison gasped, a pulse shot through her body, andshe clenched down her jaw as her heart began to hammer in her chest. He had touched her in the same way just a few days ago, and her reaction had been the same then, too.
“Let me go…” She looked over her shoulder at the hand around her arm. “Now.” Her breathing was ragged, her body trembling.
He held on, standing up to her so that his body towered over her like a mountain. “Not until you calm down.”
“I am perfectly calm.”
“See reason then,” he repeated. “Despite having found nothing, I cannot possibly allow you to simply return home. Not alone, as you are.”
“Allow me?” She looked up from the hand and found the Earl’s face. He was frustratingly calm, immune to the hostility that rippled up her body. “Who are you to allow me anything?”
“Had I not known you were on your own, I might not have bothered. But now that I do, I must insist you spend the night. As I said, I will have word sent tomorrow morning and I am certain that your family will come back and collect you. Until then, you are in my care.”
“I do not need your care.”
“Be that as it may, you are not going anywhere.”
Alison knew deep down that Lord Grayhill was right to insist. Just as she knew deep down that she should have been grateful. And was this anyone else, she would not have dreamed of denying him – truly, she did not want to. The thought of going home by herself, of staying in that manor all on her own, was terrifying.
But she was stubborn. She was angry. And she could not separate good advice from her feelings for the Earl. Silly, she knew, but this felt like an extension of their previous arguments. It felt as if she allowed him to win this little spat was proof that he had been right all along.
That darn music box! How things might be different if I had never seen it.
“Let go of my arm,” she said.
“No,” he responded coolly. “You are not returning home. I simply cannot allow it.”
“As I already said, who are you to allow anything?”
“As far as I am concerned, you are in my care until your parents –”
“I am not a child in need of your care,” she hissed. “Now, release me.”
The side of his lip twitched. His grip tightened. “You might not be a child, but you insist on acting like one.”
“And you insist on acting like –”
“I would be careful what you say next.” His tone firmed, and his glare burned with a sense of fury. “I have been nothing but kind to you thus far, and I cannot comprehend why you are so insistent on spurning me every chance that you get.”
“I am not spurning you.”
“Nor are you making things easy,” he said. “Tell me, please, seeing as you are so opinionated. What would you have me do? With all that has happened, am I to simply give in and see you off? Hope that nothing happens to you? Is that what you wish for?”
