Page 11 of A Gamble on the Duke (The Gambling Dukes #4)

SEVEN

Catherine

Do not think about that kiss. Do not think about that kiss. Do not think about?—

“What are you thinking about?” the Duke of Kineallen said sternly.

I did not exactly fall over—not exactly. But my knees were weak and there was a knot in my throat and my stomach was doing the most unusual leaps.

I tried to smile. “Nothing much.”

The Duke of Kineallen did not exactly glare. But it was not far off. “I am attempting to teach you, Miss Shenton, and I have no wish to repeat myself.”

A shiver of delight rushed up my spine. How was it possible that whenever he spoke to me like that, all domineering and irritated, the handsome duke actually made me want to be more disobedient, not less?

It was most disconcerting for the poor man. And myself.

“I do apologize,” I said, dropping into a curtsey. “I will attend.”

The man’s glare could have warmed a small nation. As it was, it only warmed me. “Good. So, we are about to meet a marquess.”

My sigh was not exactly audible, but clearly the man saw the way my shoulders moved up and down, for his glare only deepened.

“Right, a marquess,” I said hastily.

We had been at it for—well, as the chiming of the longcase clock in the hall was now reminding me, near an hour. Just the two of us in the hallway of his townhouse, practicing and practicing for this dinner we would be attending.

Apparently it was a rather important one. Not only would the entirety of the Gambling Dukes be in attendance, but so would their spouses, along with the Earl of Tuxford and the Viscount Kirekwall and their wives.

A large dinner indeed. What I did not understand is why I would need to know how to address a marquess.

“As far as I am aware, Your Grace,” I said lightly, as I gently lowered myself into a curtsey worthy of a marquess, “there is no such rank attending.”

“That does not matter. One should be adequately schooled in all manner of titles, just in case,” said the Duke of Kineallen quietly.

Well, I suppose that made sense, though it was a little galling to be practicing to welcome a person into our home—his home, I corrected hastily, when there was absolutely no chance of needing to do so.

“Besides,” the Duke of Kineallen added, looking at me with fire in his eyes. “I thought you called me Kineallen now. Not Your Grace.”

My knee jerked and I forced myself upright. “I—I beg your pardon?”

For some reason I had expected the man to look away—I have no idea why, for the Duke of Kineallen was not the sort of man to look away when making a statement. He was a duke, a wealthy one at that, and had never before given me any indication that he would flee from a conflict.

His eyes blazed. “You called me Kineallen. At the meal with the Earl of Tuxford. And I liked it.”

I liked it…

Heat blossomed up my body and I had to hope that it would not be too obvious upon my face. He liked it? What did that mean—presuming, of course, that it meant something beyond his actual words.

I could never tell. The Duke of Kineallen was a gentleman of few words but each that he uttered had been carefully weighed and measured. This was not a gentleman to speak without thought.

He was still looking at me. I swallowed hard, wishing I had a better hold of myself, and inclined my head.

“Oh,” I said eloquently.

The Duke of Kineallen lifted an imperious eyebrow. “Oh, Miss Shenton?”

“Well what is it you want me to say?” I said, attempting to laugh, but highly conscious that this was no laughing matter.

This was…intimate.

“I would like you to call me Kineallen,” said the Duke of Kineallen, making tingles of delight roar through my body until he added, “all my friends do.”

Oh. Friends.

The term should not shock me, nor should it disappoint me. There was no reason why I should not be honored to be on friendly terms with a duke, something that my mother would have been delighted by and my father would not have believed.

A daughter of a potter, friends with a duke ?

But it was only when he uttered the term that I realized with a jolt that it was not sufficient.

I wanted more.

More than friendship with a duke. More than friendship with this particular duke, at least.

“You make no remark.”

I cleared my throat. “No, I…right. Well. Yes. Well then.”

“You are going to have to be much more eloquent than that when we dine with the Earl of Tuxford,” the Duke of Kineallen said sternly. “If you are unsure of what to say, then I suggest you say, ‘how very interesting’, and leave it at that.”

When I swallowed, my throat was dry. “How very interesting, and leave it at that.”

There was a moment, heady and heavy with meaning, when our eyes met and heat flared upon the invisible path between us.

Did he feel it? Did he know how I desired him, how I longed not just for kisses on the lips but touches, and caresses, and more—of the Duke of Kineallen taking all my clothes off and?—

“Was that a jest?”

Oh, heaven save me from dukes with no sense of humor. “Yes,” I said frankly, “but it will not happen again. If I am to call you Kineallen, what are you to call me?”

Now I’d surprised him. The widening of the eyes, there was even a slight step backward.

So, I had managed to surprise him. I could hardly tell if that was a good thing or not.

“I—you are Miss Shenton,” the Duke of Kineallen—Kineallen said, his voice a little hoarse. “It would be inappropriate to?—”

“You’ve asked me to call you Kineallen,” I said with a shrug, delighting a little too much in just how unsettled the devilishly handsome man appeared. “And you are supposed to be courting me, after all.”

Now the Duke of Kineallen looked hunted, trapped. “I am.”

“And one would expect, would one not, for the lady friend of a duke to be on slightly more intimate terms with him…would you not?” I persisted, stepping closer to him and most definitely not thinking about that kiss.

The kiss that I had taken advantage of. The Earl of Tuxford had at no point been looking our way but it had been too perfect an opportunity, too great a chance to steal another kiss from the mysterious duke.

Oh, there was so much about this man I did not know. What happened to his first wife? Did he miss her? Had he loved her?

What did he think of me—really think of me? Oh, I knew I was a convenience, a gamble he had taken in the hope of impressing an earl.

But did he like me? Did he find me pretty?

It certainly looked as though he did. As I approached the Duke of Kineallen the man stood his ground, he clearly was not going to retreat…but there was a look in his eyes that suggested he would very much like to depart from my presence.

I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, or not.

“I think you should call me Catherine,” I said brightly, drawing to a halt mere feet from him. “I think that would suggest an…an intimacy that the Earl of Tuxford will believe. Don’t you?”

It took everything within me not to look at the way the Duke of Kineallen wetted his lips. And I failed utterly.

“Catherine,” he said quietly.

The word thrummed through me like a caress, and I bit down a whimper that would have told the man far more about my desires for him than I wanted him to know.

“Yes?” I said lightly, allowing my lips to lift into a smile.

The Duke of Kineallen stepped closer and my body hummed, leaning closer to him, eager for the kiss that would surely follow?—

“A marquess,” he said quietly, “will require a deeper curtsey. Try again.”

He stepped past me and all the air rushed from my lungs at the disappointment of a kiss unfelt.

Dear God, but the man was driving me crazy. Did he know that? Could he feel it, sense it, see it in my eyes?

How on earth was I supposed to stay living in this man’s townhouse without his touch?

Only then did the parting words from my landlord ring in my ears.

“Your rent is due in six days.”

“And that is when I will give it to you. Only on the seventh day will you know whether I’ve paid rent or not ? —”

“All of it. All the stuff you owe me.”

Gritting my teeth, telling myself that this would all be worth it for the several hundred pounds I would receive at the end of it, I lowered myself slowly, slowly, slowly into a curtsey.

“Much better,” said the Duke of Kineallen.

His approval warmed me in a way that it absolutely should not. “Thank you.”

“And now a duke.”

I straightened up. “You expect me to start curtseying to you, now?”

“No,” he said lightly, his cool eyes considering me carefully. “But Markham will be there. He and his wife hold a higher rank than a marquess. ”

It took everything within me not to roll my eyes. I knew that. How many times had my Great Aunt Ormkirk lectured me on the correct way to address the differing ranks of her social circles, when I had visited as a child?

“I know that, I just thought?—”

“What?”

“Well.” I shrugged. “That I would not be curtseying like a peasant to your friends.”

“I am trying to teach you the appropriate manners of a lady,” said the Duke of Kineallen smartly, stepping toward me and halting before me, right in the middle of the hallway. “You are supposed to be worthy of being courted by a duke, and that means you would have impeccable manners?—”

“My manners are impeccable!” I shot back at him.

Speaking over him.

Interrupting him.

The smug little smile on the duke’s face was intensely irritating. “So I see.”

Cursing under my breath probably wasn’t ladylike either, so I didn’t bother—but I was sorely tempted. “Right. A curtsey for a duke.”

I guess I’d just have to hope that Prinny didn’t decide to join the Gambling Dukes, or I’d have to prostrate myself on the floor.

Slowly, inch by inch, trying to make sure that I didn’t present too much of my breasts to the man who I dearly wanted to caress them, I lowered myself into a curtsey. “There, is that—argh!”

“Careful!”