Page 60 of A Night of Desire with a Duke
"And you gave me a detailed analysis of its narrative structure and symbolic imagery."
"I was trying to impress you."
"With novel criticism?"
"I was desperate. Do you have any idea how limiting proper courtship is? I can't show you my other impressive qualities."
The suggestion in his tone made her blush. "Your other qualities are precisely what got us into this situation."
"My other qualities are what made you say my name like a prayer."
"James!"
"What? We're discussing our courtship. That night is part of our history, whether society knows it or not."
They'd reached a more secluded part of the park, where the trees provided some shelter from prying eyes. James stopped, turning to face her fully.
"I need to know something," he said seriously. "These two weeks—are they genuinely helping you decide, or are they just delaying the inevitable?"
"What do you think is inevitable?"
"Us. Together. Married." He stepped closer, still maintaining proper distance but somehow making it feel intimate. "I knew it that morning at the inn when I had to leave you. I've known it every day since. You're the one for me, Catherine. The question is whether I'm the one for you."
Catherine's heart was racing. "You're very certain."
"I've never been more certain of anything in my life."
"Even though I'm not what a duke should want? No fortune, no grand connections, just the daughter of a dead earl whose estate went to a Scottish cousin?"
"You're everything I want," he said simply. "Your bloodline is impeccable, but that's not why. You're brave and brilliant and you make me laugh. You challenge me, infuriate me, inspire me. You're the only person who's ever seen past the title to the man beneath."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it? Everyone else sees the Duke of Ravensfield. Even Lady Harrington only saw a young man with a future title. But you? You saw James, just James, and you wanted him anyway."
"I did," Catherine admitted. "I do."
They stood there, looking at each other, the space between them charged with possibility and constraint.
“Tonight,” James said at last, his voice low and taut, as though speaking cost him dearly. “My mother’s dinner party. Wear the gold gown.”
Catherine arched a brow. “The one from your father’s memorial ball?”
“Yes.”
“Why that one?”
His eyes darkened, grey storm clouds that seemed to strip her bare. He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of him, though propriety kept him from touching her. “Because that night you looked like something otherworldly, you looked like a goddess. Because I spent every wretched moment imagining what it would be like to undo each fastening, to bare you to my eyes, to my hands… to my mouth. I wanted to peel that gown from your skin and worship every inch of you until you forgot your own name.”
Her breath caught, traitorous warmth spiraling low in her abdomen once again. “You are impossible.”
“I am in torment,” he corrected, voice rough. His hand lifted, hovered at her cheek, then drew back before he could break the fragile veneer of propriety. “These last nights of restraint have been torture. Watching you glide past me at balls, smiling with polite distance, while I am burning—Catherine, it is agony.”
Her parasol slipped in her grip. She swallowed. “And yet you do it. For appearances.”
“For you,” he ground out. “Because you asked it of me. But know this...I am counting the days, the hours, until I may claim you without witnesses. Until I may put an end to this charade of civility and remind you—remind us both—what it is to burn together.”
Her knees weakened, memory of that night in the inn sweeping over her; the way he had possessed her, undone her, left her trembling with a pleasure she had never imagined.
