Never Desire a Duke

Taking one bowl of eggs—the one he intended to be Sophia’s—he proceeded to the servants’ door, where, with the help of a wooden spoon, he disposed of one, two, three, four into the snow. With the toe of his boot, he covered the evidence of his misdeed. Returned inside, he located a whisk and set about beating the hell out of his perfectly portioned bowl of eggs.

Some quarter hour later, he heard her footsteps. Fireside, he slid the much-cooled tray of flour again toward the stove. He returned his bowl of eggs to the table.

As soon as she entered, he smiled. “Good. You are here. Let’s get started.” He picked up the same bowl and circled his whisk round the inside of the bowl. “I’ve set out a whisk for you as well.”

“A whisk? What is that?”

He lifted his. “It looks like—”

She waggled hers at him. “I know what a whisk is. It’s just very telling that you do as well. That’s all. Ages ago, indeed.”

He winked at her, and she looked away.

“Too bad for you, though,” she continued. “I do believe women have an innate talent for baking and sweets, regardless of experience. It’s all about following instructions precisely.”

“Instructions, yes.” Claxton took up the recipe book. “This recipe says to take care not to overbeat the eggs.” He read the words aloud. Or pretended to.

She halted, examining the contents of her bowl. “Well, then, I think they are beaten well enough.”

“Mine as well,” he said.

Any good cook knew eggs needed to be beaten relentlessly so the batter would rise properly. It was right there in the recipe, if she cared to look. Really, it was astounding the mischief one could do right in front of another person when that person was not in possession of a suspicious nature. He almost felt guilty. Almost.

“Baking is a messy business,” she muttered, dabbing a cloth at the front of her dress.

In the cabinet he found a length of linen, the sort Mrs. Kettle had always used as an apron, and came behind her to drape the fabric about her waist. She stiffened in the circle of his arms, and for a moment, he considered pressing a kiss to the side of her neck…

But instead he quickly tied the ends into a knot and proceeded to cover his own clothing in a like fashion.

Sophia exhaled, as if relieved, and lifted her arms to adjust one of the pins in her hair, the movement stretching her bodice over her breasts, revealing all their glorious rounded splendor.

She caught him staring and froze. Yet she said nothing as the blush suffused her cheeks. She only turned back to her bowl, which in his mind gave him permission to stare some more.

Claxton suffered both a love and a hatred of women’s fashion. While the simple dresses displayed a woman’s breasts most attractively—his lovely wife’s a perfect example—they concealed the remainder of her shape within the classical column of her high-waisted skirt. One could only guess as to the true slenderness of a woman’s waist or the lushness of her bottom. However, the makeshift apron, tightly cinched, confirmed what he already knew. Sophia was a goddess.

Two hours later, his goddess stared woefully into her bowl. White powder mottled her cheeks, and her hair had half fallen from its pins.

“I have a renewed appreciation for Cook and her staff,” she said wearily. “Really, Claxton, this is a ridiculous amount of effort for twelve little cakes. I have had quite enough of creaming, beating, combining, and pounding. Not to mention all that miserable mincing. Will this task ever end?” Her shoulders slumped.

Even exhausted, she had watched him like a hawk, and he’d not been able to sabotage her cakes further. But he thought his luck might be about to change.

He leaned forward. “You’ve a piece of citron in your hair.” He plucked the sliver free. She looked more delicious than any cake and he wanted very badly to eat her up.

“How many more ingredients are there?” She groaned.

“Just one.” He smiled, having waited patiently for this very moment. He lifted a bottle from the table and pried the cork free. Pop. “The brandy.”

Chapter Eleven

I found four in the basement from which to choose,” the duke announced, lining the bottles up beside one another. “Each very old, but I think this one may best suit our purposes. May I have your opinion?”

Sophia approached, standing on the other side of the table. She felt safer doing that, placing some piece of furniture or fixture between them. Not that he would reach out and grab her, but she had started against all good sense to wish that he would. They were having altogether too much fun together.

Accepting the bottle he offered, she held the opening below her nose and sniffed. The strong scent of spirits momentarily dizzied her.

“Oh, come now,” he chided with a grin that made her heart jump in her chest. “You’ve got to taste it.”

She stole another glance at him. The light from the stove painted his features in contrasting strokes of gold and shadow, defining his imperfect warrior’s nose and broad cheeks framed by three days’ worth of unshaved whiskers. For the hundredth time in the past hour, she noted how handsome he was.

“You know that I don’t make a habit of drinking brandy,” she answered playfully.

Yes, of course, he would know from before. They’d known each other so well. But then in the end—they hadn’t. She tried to remind herself of that.

“But is it because you don’t like spirits?” He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth. She’d become quite obsessed with his lips, the one on the top being rather thin, but the bottom one, full and sensual in contrast, a rather perfect pair. She’d always found him attractive, but somehow now that they were estranged, he had become even more so.

The more fascinated she felt by him, the more irritated she became.

“As a mannered lady, I’ve little exposure to spirits,” she retorted. “No doubt the ladies with whom you are familiar make a regular practice of—”

“Shush, goose.” He reached to press a fingertip to her mouth.

She blushed and pulled away, embarrassed by the unexpected touch and his use of an endearment. He’d never had a special name for her before. Just Sophia and darling and dearest. Why now?

He splashed a bit into the first of four little beveled liquor glasses. “Neither of us will feel any effect from this inconsequential bit, if that is your concern.”

“Of course not,” she scoffed, staring at his lips. Heavens. To think she’d kissed them just yesterday, and with such passion. “I wasn’t saying so.”

She sipped carefully from the first cup. Though she did her best to do so without any reaction, her throat tightened against the liquor’s fiery path. She cleared her throat and softly wheezed her next breath. He did the same with the next three brandies, pouring a sample from each and setting the bottles down behind their representative glass. Soon, they had sampled all four. Or so he believed. She had dumped the last two samples into the refuse bucket beside her feet.

“Which one do you believe is the best quality?” he asked.

“Clearly I am no connoisseur,” she said, smiling widely. “It’s my opinion that one tastes just as fine as the next.” At imbibing just that spare amount, everything inside her went warm and relaxed. Licking her bottom lip, she impatiently shrugged off her spencer. “As long as we are baking, I don’t think it matters which one we use.”

“I disagree,” he said rather earnestly, picking up the second bottle in the row. “Sample this one again.”

Sophia stared at Claxton, keeping all evidence of emotion from her face.

How stupid did her husband think she was? Now he was trying to get her drunk, all to win a child’s game? Did he truly believe she was so unobservant as to not realize he’d removed four eggs from her bowl?

But she was more observant than he, apparently, because the moment he’d turned his back she had dumped a cupful of salt into his bowl. Unaware, when he’d turned back to the task he kept right on stirring. She