The Lost Duke of Wyndham

She smiled. “Cleaned every day.”

“Of course.” He looked about him, and it occurred to her that he did not seem cowed by the grandeur of his surroundings, just…amused.

No, not amused. It was more of a wry disbelief, as if he were still wondering if he could trade this all in and get himself kidnapped by a different dowager duchess. Perhaps one with a smaller castle.

“Penny for your thoughts, Miss Eversleigh,” he said. “Although I’m sure they are worth a pound.”

“More than that,” she said over her shoulder. His mood was infectious, and she felt like a coquette. It was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar and lovely.

He held up his hands in surrender. “Too steep a price, I’m afraid. I am but an impoverished highwayman.”

She cocked her head. “Wouldn’t that make you an unsuccessful highwayman?”

“Touche,” he acknowledged, “but alas, untrue. I have had a most lucrative career. The life of a thief suits my talents perfectly.”

“Your talents are for pointing guns and removing necklaces off ladies’ necks?”

“I charm the necklaces off their necks.” He shook his head in a perfect imitation of offense. “Kindly make the distinction.”

“Oh, please.”

“I charmed you.”

She was all indignation. “You did not.”

He reached out, and before she could step away, he’d grasped her hand and raised it to his lips. “Recall the night in question, Miss Eversleigh. The moonlight, the soft wind.”

“There was no wind.”

“You’re spoiling my memory,” he growled.

“There was no wind,” she stated. “You are romanticizing the encounter.”

“Can you blame me?” he returned, smiling at her wickedly. “I never know who is going to step through the carriage door. Most of the time I get a wheezy old badger.”

Grace’s initial inclination was to ask him if badger referred to a man or a woman, but she decided this would only encourage him. Plus, he was still holding her hand, his thumb idly stroking her palm, and she was finding that such intimacies severely restricted her talents for witty repartee.

“Where are you taking me, Miss Eversleigh?” His voice was a murmur, brushing softly against her skin. He was kissing her again, and her entire arm shivered with the excitement of it.

“It is just around the corner,” she whispered. Because her voice seemed to have abandoned her. It was all she could do to breathe.

He straightened then, but did not release her hand. “Lead on, Miss Eversleigh.”

She did, tugging him gently as she moved toward her destination. To everyone else, it was just a drawing room, decorated in shades of cream and gold, with the occasional accent of the palest, mintiest of greens. But Grace’s dowager-inflicted schedule had given her cause to enter in the morning, when the eastern sun still hung low on the horizon.

The air shimmered in the early morning, somehow golden with the light, and when it streamed through the windows in this far-flung, unnamed drawing room, the world somehow sparkled. By midmorning it would be just an expensively decorated room, but now, while the larks were still chirping softly outside, it was magic.

If he didn’t see that…

Well, she did not know what it would mean if he did not see that. But it would be disappointing. It was a small thing, meaningless to anyone but her, and yet…

She wanted him to see it. The simple magic of the morning light. The beauty and grace in the one room at Belgrave that she could almost imagine was hers.

“Here we are,” she said, a little breathless with the anticipation. The door was open, and as they approached, she could see the light slanting out, landing gently on the smooth surface of the floor. There was such a golden hue to it, she could see every speck of dust that hung floating in the air.

“Is there a private choir?” he teased. “A fantastical menagerie?”

“Nothing so ordinary,” she replied. “But close your eyes. You should see it all at once.”

He took her hands and, still facing her, placed them over his eyes. It brought her achingly close to him, her arms stretched up, the bodice of her dress just a whisper away from his finely tailored coat. It would be so easy to lean forward, to sigh into him. She could let her hands drop and close her own eyes, tilting her face toward his. He would kiss her, and she would lose her breath, her will, her very desire to, in that moment, be only herself.

She wanted to melt into him. She wanted to be a part of him. And the strangest part was-right there, right then, with the golden light rippling down upon them-it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

But his eyes were closed, and for him, one little piece of the magic was missing. It had to have been, because if he had felt everything that was floating around her-through her-he never would have said, his voice utterly charming-

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost,” she said. She should have been grateful that the moment was broken. She should have been relieved that she did not do something she was sure to regret.

But she wasn’t. She wanted her regrets. She wanted them desperately. She wanted to do something she knew she should not, and she wanted to lie in bed at night letting the memory keep her warm.

But she was not brave enough to initiate her own downfall. Instead, she led him to the open doorway and said softly, “Here we are.”

Chapter Eleven

What Jack saw took his breath away.

“No one comes here but me,” Grace said softly. “I don’t know why.”

The light, the ripple through the air as the sun slid through the uneven glass of the ancient windows…

“In the winter especially,” she continued, her voice just a little hesitant, “it’s magic. I can’t explain it. I think the sun dips lower. And with the snow…”

It was the light. It had to be. It was the way the light trembled, and fell on her.

His heart clenched. Like a fist it hit him-this need, this overwhelming urge…He could not speak. He could not even begin to articulate it, but-

“Jack?” she whispered, and it was just enough to break his trance.

“Grace.” It was just one word, but it was a benediction. This went beyond desire, it was need. It was an indefinable, inexplicable, living, pulsing thing within him that could only be tamed by her. If he didn’t hold her, didn’t touch her in that very moment, something within him would die.

To a man who tried to treat life as an endless series of ironies and witticisms, nothing could have been more terrifying.

He reached out and roughly pulled her to him. He was not delicate, nor was he gentle. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t manage it, not now, not when he needed her so desperately.

“Grace,” he said again, because that’s what she was to him. It was impossible that he’d known her but a day. She was his grace, his Grace, and it was like she had always been there within him, waiting for him to finally open his eyes and find her.

His hands cupped her face. She was a priceless treasure, and yet he could not force himself to touch her with the reverence she deserved. Instead, his fingers were clumsy, his body rough and pounding. Her eyes-so clear, so blue-he thought he might drown in them. He wanted to drown in them, to lose himself within her and never leave.

His lips touched hers, and then-of this he was certain-he was lost. There was nothing more for him but this woman, in this moment, maybe even for all his moments thereafter.

“Jack,” she sighed. It was the first time all morning she’d used his name, and it sent waves of desire pulsing through his already taut body.

“Grace,” he said in return, because he was afraid to say anything else, afraid that for the first time in his life his