Page 33 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

“ Y our Grace.”

This was the most fun Adrian had ever had at a ball. When Isobel had first approached him about returning to society, he had almost sighed to himself at the thought. He associated ballrooms with tedium, with duties he would rather not perform.

The experience was elevated with the feeling of Isobel beside him. Every time she moved, it moved them both; he was so finely attuned to her.

He kept his hand on the small of her back, that delectable curve, and she sometimes glanced at him as though she knew every direction his thoughts took. Every filthy imagining.

She was a good girl. And he would make good on his promise to ravish her slowly later.

This dress—the one that showed altogether too much of herself for his liking, and yet which he delighted in—would be removed slowly from her body. He would follow it with kisses. With his fingers and tongue and lips. Maybe even his teeth.

She liked it when he did that, and he liked it when she hungered for him.

“Your Grace,” a voice cut through the haze of his thoughts.

Under his palm, Isobel’s body stiffened slightly. He looked up.

Miss Wentworth.

“Your Grace,” she said to him and then turned her gaze to Isobel, who waited with a slightly cocked brow.

He loved the fire in his wife. Her constant challenge. Perhaps she feared Moreton, and for good reason, but she always rose to any challenge.

“Miss Wentworth,” Isobel said, her lips curving into a smile that said far more than her words did. Oh, she was enjoying this.

And he was enjoying the way she enjoyed it, too. His little firework, liable to explode at any given minute. And here, demanding the respect she was due.

He liked that a lot.

“Your Grace.” Miss Wentworth’s smile could have chilled ice. “A pleasure to see you back in society.”

“Isn’t it?” Isobel’s smile was wide and guileless. “Don’t ye agree, Adrian, darling?” She rested a hand on his arm, and he could have drunk in the sight of his wife being so possessive and proud all evening.

He could have soaked it in for the rest of his life and not tired of it.

“I do,” he said smoothly, bringing a hand to her waist and bringing her closer to him.

Even if he had not been on such good terms with her, he would have done the same in front of Miss Wentworth, if only to see the ire rise in her face. When he’d been a bachelor, she had thought herself entitled to his attention and good opinion because of her wealth and beauty.

That alone had irked him. But she had also been cruel to Isobel, and he would not settle for that. This humiliation, the understanding that her cattiness and figure had not been enough to entice him, was the least she deserved.

“I’m enjoying attending with my wife,” he said, putting the emphasis on wife . “I hope you’re also enjoying the evening, Miss Wentworth.”

Her smile looked as though it had been pasted to her face. “Yes indeed, Your Grace.”

“Excellent.” Adrian nodded to the side. “We haven’t yet spoken to Lord Rowton. Excuse us.”

With his arm still on the small of Isobel’s back, he led her away toward Joseph, who stood with his hand around a glass of wine.

“Ye dismissed her so coldly,” Isobel said with half a giggle.

“If I had my way, I’d never speak to her again. I’ll never forget the way she treated you when you first arrived here.”

Isobel’s eyes danced. “Ye weren’t much better.”

“I have paid my reparations by marrying you,” he said smartly, and she giggled again. “And what has she done?”

“I don’t think I’d accept if she asked me.”

“Brat,” he muttered, but he couldn’t quite hide his smile.

Truly, the evening had been far more enjoyable with her by his side than he ever could have predicted.

That was, until they came to a large figure, his shoulders back and his eyes narrowed. Lord Moreton bowed and extended a hand to Isobel.

“Your Grace, I must congratulate you on your marriage. You are a fortunate lady indeed.”

One glance at Isobel told Adrian his wife had gone pale.

“Thank you,” he said, diverting Moreton’s attention. “You’re too kind.” His tone said anything but.

“I thought I might steal her away for a dance, if you can spare her. I know you are a man who rarely dances, and it would be an honor to dance with the new duchess.” Moreton gave a shallow bow, his gaze still fixed on Isobel. “What do you say, Your Grace?”

Adrian almost intervened, the words ready to fall from his tongue, that he would not be prepared to relinquish his wife so easily, and so early in the night?—

Her fingers pinched him lightly, asking him to keep quiet. And so, despite every instinct telling him to remove her from Moreton’s view, he kept silent.

“Ye do me a great honor,” she said, the thick accent in her voice more pronounced than ever. “I cannae deny ye.” She removed her hand from Adrian’s arm, and he wanted to bellow at the loss. “I will return for ye, husband,” she said in a promise that made his blood boil.

Returning meant leaving, and even though he knew she had said such a thing to assure Moreton that her absence would be noticed, he despised it anyway.

But eyes were on them, and he could not afford to give into his feelings. And so, with nothing else to be done, he bowed over her fingers with as much grace as he could muster.

“Hurry back, wife,” he said and turned his gaze to Moreton, offering the other man a smile he didn’t deserve. “Bring her back in one piece.”

“Of course.” Moreton bowed. “You’ll barely notice she’s gone.”

“I very much doubt that.” Adrian dropped his smile, and he watched his wife disappear with the man who wanted her dead, his muscles trembling and dark thoughts clouding his mind.

As she left, he knew one thing for certain: she had done more than get under his skin.

And he didn’t know how he would ever be able to live with himself if something happened to her.

Isobel tried to quell the frantic beating of her heart as Lord Moreton led her straight through the crowd to where another set was forming in the middle of the floor.

“So,” he said, standing opposite her. “We finally have a chance to speak, Lady Isobel. Sorry.” A slow, cruel smile spread across his mouth. “Your Grace. An excellent move, I should say. Protecting yourself with one of the most powerful men in the country. I applaud your ingenuity.”

“I don’t need yer praise.”

“Then what would you have from me?”

“Nothing.”

His smile was gently taunting. “Oh, that seems a pity when we know each other so well. Tell me, does your newfound husband know about our prior acquaintance?”

Isobel hesitated, not knowing how much of the truth to give. How much could she give? Her heart constricted. Fear tugged at her senses. But she kept her composure and looked up at him with as much daring as she could.

“Yes,” she said. “He knows everything.”

“Everything? Is that so?”

“Yes. And he’s going to help me. He’ll help bring ye to justice.” She tilted her chin up. “Together, we’ll make sure ye face justice.”

“Is that so?” He smiled, the expression cruel. “It seems as though you have no idea of what I am capable. A surprise, given everything you have seen. Unless, of course, I was mistaken.”

She knew what he was implying. He wanted confirmation of exactly what she had heard. But if she gave him that, she would give him ammunition with which to harm her.

“I know what ye did to that girl,” she hissed.

“Oh? Then surely you know that I can do the same thing to you, too.”

“Ye cannot. I’m not so likely to fall for your plots, and you will find it harder to infiltrate my husband’s house.”

His expression turned contemplative. “You care for this duke, then? I’d thought him a mere means of defense, but it seems as though he means more to you than that.”

Immediately, Isobel realized her mistake. “He is nothing to me,” she said, but her words were breathy and unconvincing. “It helps us both to present a united front.”

“Certainly, it helps you. But if he dies, you will still remain a duchess.”

Her blood ran cold. “He will not die.”

“No? My, my, Your Grace, again you underestimate me. Do you think me so incapable of harming him?”

His eyes glittered, impossibly dark and cold, like the endless depths of a bottomless lake. Frozen. Unyielding. Deadly.

“You know what happened to my brother. A terrible accident. Most tragic. It would be a shame if something similar were to happen to the duke, especially when it would remove you from his protection.”

“Ye would not.”

“You mistake me. I have no compunctions about such things.”

She thought wildly, trying to find something she could say that would convince him to take a different course of action. But of course, he wouldn’t. He’d come to silence her, and he’d seen her genuine affection for Adrian—he’d known the best way of getting to her would be to get to the duke.

And if Adrian was focusing on her survival, he probably wouldn’t be giving too much thought to his own safety.

“Ye won’t get away with this,” she said. “Targeting one of the most powerful people in the country. Do ye know how foolish that is? And ye’re telling me.”

“What are you going to do?” Lord Moreton raised a single brow.

“Are you going to tell him? Think for a moment.” He chided her as though she was a child.

“If you tell your husband, do you think he’ll sit back?

Or will he strike out against me first? Do you think it will do anything other than make him a target? ”

“I—”

“You know how to run, little thistle. Perhaps now you should run again. If you leave your husband, I won’t be forced to target him.

We’ll return to our game of cat and mouse.

” He leaned in even closer and she couldn’t breathe.

“How long can you evade me? Will the mouse outwit the cat? Or will the cat prevail?”

Isobel refused to look at him. Her heart thudded in her chest.

If she told Adrian, would that still make him a target?

The only reason he had ever intruded on Lord Moreton’s attention was because she had married him. If they had remained separate entities, he might never have been thrown in danger’s way.

Adrian had promised to protect her, but now that she was faced with Lord Moreton, she understood how difficult that would be.

Moreton had killed before; he could do so again with very little weight on his conscience—if he even had a conscience.

She knew all too well how easy it was to manufacture an accident.

Run away .

Before Adrian had found her on the patio, she had been on the brink of running away from London. If she had, would all this have been evaded? Yes, her life would still have been in danger, but at least Adrian’s would have been safe.

Her heart felt as though it had split in her chest. One half wanted to trust in Adrian’s promise that he would protect her.

He was a duke, a man with more power than anyone else in England.

He had promised to keep her safe, and she believed he would do everything in his power to ensure that happened.

Yet the other half of her heart balked at the idea of Adrian being hurt. She loved him, and the thought of him dying—because of her—was unbearable.

If she could do something to prevent it, shouldn’t she?

“A shame you had to marry a man you felt so strongly about,” Lord Moreton said when the dance brought them together once more.

“Then all of this could have been avoided. Or perhaps, you should not have married at all. Did you think I would let you escape? You slipped through my fingers once; I won’t let you escape so easily again. ”

“Ye don’t deserve the title ye stole,” she spat.

“Ah yes, my title. I believe, upon my brother’s death, it was awarded quite legally to me. There was no deception.”

“Except the manner by which your brother died!”

“Well,” he allowed with a small smile, “aside from that.”

Almost a confession. He had almost confessed to her so many times. For the length of the dance, he had allowed his true nature to show, and it rotted under his skin.

She had no doubt that he would do all the terrible things he had assured her he would. And to Adrian, too, if she couldn’t find a way of preventing it.

But even if he had told her everything, she could have done nothing about it. That was not in her power. There was nothing she could do about any of it, and that impotence hit her harder than ever before.

To protect her parents and herself, she had fled. And now it felt as though her only other option was to run away again. To lead Lord Moreton away so he would not harm the one person she loved more than any other.

Eventually, the dance came to an end, and Isobel ripped her hand away from Lord Moreton’s.

“Stay away from me and me family,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “Or ye will regret it.”

He merely watched her with a small smile playing on his lips.

“Be careful, little thistle,” he said. “Our game has only just begun.”