Page 37 of Wedded to the Scottish Duke

“You just said that you weren’t ill, that you just felt a little dizzy. Besides…” He took her pawn. “I never said I’d play fair.”

She narrowed her eyes at the chessboard. “Fine.”

Her reply shocked him. A startled sound escaped his lips, then he chuckled deeply as he sat back in his chair, watching as she reached beneath the bed covers.

“Do not get too excited. It’s just a stocking.”

As she pulled the stocking out from beneath the covers, he shook his head. He hadn’t noticed she was wearing stockings earlier.

After a couple of moves, she removed one of his pawns from the board.

“My turn,” she said, smiling broadly. “Did you want to be a duke?”

“Straight for the jugular.” He shook his head, leaning back so far that his chair creaked. He lifted his feet and crossed them on the bottom of her bed.

“I never said I’d play fair either.” Her challenge made him smile again.

Ah, she gets under my skin.

He released a slow breath, his eyes roaming over that challenging expression. He longed to kiss her as he had done last night when they were outside on the terrace, but he held back.

He glanced down at her leg, hidden beneath the covers. There was some sort of weakness suddenly in his chest. He debated losing a piece to her, just so she would smile again.

“Come on, answer the question,” she urged with a click of her fingers, distracting him from his thoughts.

“As ye wish.” He folded his arms, staring down at the chessboard. “It was never my ambition. I was a laird, I had expected that. But I never expected to be a duke. Yet, my mother was overjoyed when I inherited the dukedom from her brother, as the next male heir. It meant returning to the England she loves. I could not deny her that.”

The challenging light in Celia’s eyes dimmed, her lips curling into a tender smile, but then the moment was gone. Once more, the challenge and fire were back in her eyes.

“There. My turn.” He moved a piece on the board. They adjusted a few more pieces before he took another of her pawns. “Now, another piece of clothing.”

When all she removed was the other stocking, he cast his eyes to the heavens pleadingly.

“You never stipulated I had to remove something bigger,” she said with a giggle.

“It was implicit.”

“Next time, make the rules of your game explicit.” She reached forward and took his bishop.

He blinked at the board. In his distraction, he hadn’t even noticed that his bishop was vulnerable.

“What was it like, being Laird?”

He stiffened again. “I didn’t know ye were going to ask something so personal.”

“We made no rules to our game, did we?” She tilted her head to the side. Her hair fell past her shoulders in the most delectable of ways.

He savored a sudden image of wrapping the red locks around his hand and running his fingers through them. Perhaps he’d tug on them playfully, not to hurt her, but just enough to increase the tension.

“So? What was it like?”

“Hard.” He shifted his gaze away from her hair to meet her eyes. “As a laird, ye are a warrior. As a duke, ye’re a fussy gentleman who has to worry about the temperature of his port. For both, ye have to take care of yer clan or yer tenants. That is the business I understand much more.”

“And you are a warrior? A trained fighter?”

“One question at a time, lass,” he reminded her.

“Damn,” she murmured, chewing on her lip. “You do keep your cards close to your chest.”