Page 3 of Corrupting his Duchess (A Duke’s Undoing #1)

Now, Anna stepped back down the side stairs, quiet as breath. Her boots barely touched the stone. The corridor beyond the main hall stretched wide and empty, its tall windows catching the last spill of golden daylight.

She didn’t go far—just to the tall west-facing window at the end of the corridor, where the sun painted the walls in amber and slate. A long velvet curtain stirred gently in the breeze from an unseen draught.

She stood still and breathed it in. Lavender and woodsmoke. The faintest trace of dust.

“Tell me, Lady Anna… do you make a habit of insulting your hosts behind their backs, or am I merely fortunate?”

She turned, heart jumping. So he had heard.

The Duke of Yeats stood a few paces behind her, arms crossed over his chest, eyes unreadable.

Anna composed her expression quickly. “I wasn’t aware you were listening.”

“I’m not often afforded the luxury of being unseen,” he said coolly. “But it seems you’re used to speaking as though your audience doesn’t matter.”

She straightened a little. “If I’d meant to offend, Your Grace, I’d have done so directly.”

“No,” he said. “You’d have done it cleverly. With a smile. Just enough bite to pass for charm.”

Anna let out a soft breath. “So the offense isn’t what I said—just that I didn’t say it sweetly enough?”

“You deliver them as if you expect them to be heeded.” He took a step closer, eyes narrowed. “You speak to me as if I were a footman who’s misplaced your gloves.”

Anna gave a short laugh, too sharp to be polite. “And how would Your Grace prefer I speak? With reverent awe? Shall I curtsy more deeply next time I insult the drapes?”

He didn’t smile. “You’ve been here less than a day, and already you’ve evaluated my estate, my household, my temper?—”

“And you’ve confirmed every suspicion I had,” she cut in.

There. The edge. She hadn’t meant to let it show, but his tone—so clipped, so calculating—had gotten under her skin.

The pause stretched out between them. Something taut and brittle.

Henry’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes cooled.

“You enjoy conflict, Lady Anna,” he said, voice quieter now. “You provoke it like a child prodding a caged animal. Careful you don’t get bitten.”

Anna’s pulse flickered. “Are you always this gracious to your guests, or am I just special?”

He stared at her for a beat longer. His gaze didn’t flinch. Then his mouth twisted.

“You’re not special,” he said. “Just obvious.”

The words hit sharper than they should have.

She drew in a breath, chest rising. “And you’re not nearly as unreadable as you pretend to be.”

That stopped him—just a flicker, a hesitation so brief she might have imagined it.

But then his jaw tightened. A muscle moved in his cheek.

“You mistake deflection for depth, Lady Anna.”

And with that, he turned and left, his footsteps silent against the stone.

Anna remained where she was, pulse still quick, her thoughts louder than the silence around her.

Her breath fogged the glass faintly as she stared out, unsure if she was more irritated with him—or herself.

By the time it was dinner and they had reached the third course, Anna’s patience had worn thinner than the soup. Her fingers toyed with the stem of her glass, half-listening to Isaac’s droning voice across the table.

“So much wasted opportunity in northern ports,” he was saying. “Too many investors chasing fashion instead of fundamentals.”

“Perhaps they find silks more palatable than shipping ledgers,” Anna murmured, mostly to herself.

She caught movement across the table.

The Duke was watching her.

“Some would argue,” he said, voice calm but firm, “that fashion is just another kind of currency.”

Their eyes held for a breath longer than was strictly proper. His gaze didn’t flicker.

He frowned as though measuring her, testing the shape of her thoughts.

“You speak like someone with knowledge of trade,” he said slowly. “Unusual.”

Anna tilted her head, just slightly, her voice low enough not to carry. “And you speak like a man unused to being challenged.”

The frown deepened.

She’d pegged him as distant. Exacting. Possibly allergic to laughter. And yet… he kept looking at her like he was waiting for her to do something unexpected.

The voice of Miss Clarissa Lonsdale drifted in from farther down the table.

“I think the Duke is quite right,” she said brightly. “There’s an elegance in commerce, after all. And it’s terribly impressive how well Your Grace understands such things.”

Her lashes fluttered. Her fan snapped open with a crisp flick.

A few of the other ladies nodded at once—some smiling with painted lips, some murmuring agreement with little understanding in their eyes.

One dropped her spoon and blushed furiously when Henry glanced her way.

Another rested her chin on her hand, gaze fixed on him as though he was a poem she didn’t quite understand but very much liked the look of.

Henry barely turned his head. “My understanding of trade is a matter of necessity, not elegance,” he said, voice dry.

Lucinda blinked once, then tittered politely, her smile wavering.

Anna watched the exchange, her expression unreadable. She didn’t flutter or smile or reach for her fan. Her hands remained perfectly still in her lap.

When Henry looked back at her, it wasn’t idle.

She said, almost idly, “It’s not so hard to understand trade. You only have to ask who profits—and who pays.”

Before he could reply, Isaac gave a short, breathy laugh.

“Ah, don’t mind her, Your Grace. Anna collects strange notions the way some ladies collect ribbons. Always has something in her head—ideas, questions. Quite impossible to predict what she’ll say next.”

He chuckled again, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Makes for interesting company. At times.”

Anna felt the heat rise to her cheeks before she could stop it. She kept her gaze on her soup, lifting her spoon with careful precision, biting back the retort that had surged to the tip of her tongue.

Across the table, the Duke’s gaze lingered. And this time, when he looked at her, the frown remained—but it had shifted. Less irritation. More like… consideration.

She dipped her spoon into her consommé, but the taste barely registered.

Amber candlelight pooled over polished mahogany and the lingering scent of the earlier meal and brandy hung in the air.

Shadows flickered along the walls, cast by a dozen low-burning sconces and the lively hearth at the far end.

The ladies had returned after a brief respite, gowns now subtly adjusted, cheeks flushed from wine or laughter, or, in Anna’s case, from biting back opinions all through the meal.

The gentlemen joined them shortly after. Henry entered last, as if summoned reluctantly, and made no effort to hide his disinterest in idle chatter.

He took a spot by the fire, glass in hand, one shoulder resting against the mantle. His coat remained perfectly tailored, and his expression perfectly unreadable.

Anna sat across the room in a small cluster of chairs arranged near a tea table, her gown of deep plum catching the firelight each time she shifted.

Julia lounged beside her, one slipper peeking beneath her hem as she swirled wine in her glass and Gretchen sat with perfect posture on her other side.

Both were engaged in light conversation with Nathaniel, who recounted some half-true tale involving a rainstorm, a collapsing bridge, and an outraged nobleman’s goat.

Anna wasn’t listening.

Her attention, traitorously, kept sliding toward the fire.

More specifically, toward the Duke leaning beside it.

He hadn’t said more than two sentences to her during dinner, and yet every word he had spoken had managed to land squarely on her nerves. Dismissive. Sardonic. Utterly self-assured. The kind of man she made every effort to avoid.

He caught her gaze just then, of course, and raised a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly, as though he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

She narrowed her eyes, just slightly.

“Does he ever blink?” she muttered.

“Would you, if you had that jawline?” Julia replied, glancing dreamily at him.

“I find it fascinating,” Henry said aloud, turning his attention toward the group, “how a dinner table can reveal so much with so little.”

“Oh?” Nathaniel replied, pouring himself another drink. “Do share, Your Grace. You know how little of your insights we get.”

Henry ignored the jab. “For instance, Lady Anna has already formed no less than five opinions of me this evening, and I’m quite certain none of them are favorable.”

All heads turned.

Anna raised her glass slowly, schooling her expression into polite interest. “You’re mistaken, Your Grace. I formed six.”

Laughter rippled through the group.

Henry’s brows lifted. “Six? My, you’re efficient.”

“Well, you made it terribly easy,” she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hard to resist forming opinions when you volunteer so much material, Your Grace.”

Nathaniel let out a low whistle. Julia covered her grin with her fan.

Henry stepped away from the hearth, taking a slow sip of his drink. “And here I thought I was being admirably restrained.”

“You certainly restrained yourself from manners,” she replied. “Though I suppose that takes talent.”

His smile turned sharp, but not unpleasant. “You wound me, Lady Anna.”

“I do hope not, Your Grace,” she said, voice calm. “I have not even begun.”

The air shifted.

Anna could feel it in the way Henry looked at her. Not with irritation.

With interest. Genuine, focused interest.

And she hated–deeply hated–that a small part of her thrilled under the weight of it.

“I can see,” he said after a pause, “that Lord Stenton’s cousin has claws.”

“Only when cornered,” she replied evenly. “Or bored.”

Nathaniel raised his glass to Gretchen, a smile tugging at his lips. “And this is precisely why I came.”

Anna shifted in her seat, her fingers curled around the stem of her glass. She ought to stop. She should have stopped three sentences ago. But something about Henry–his quiet confidence, his maddening calm, made her reckless.

He didn’t smirk or tease. He simply watched her, head tilted slightly, as if trying to decide whether she was a puzzle worth solving.

“Would anyone care for a card game?” Sophia’s voice rose lightly from across the room, her smile a gracious deflection from the tension.

“I would,” Natalie said quickly, ever eager to keep the peace.

The sound of chairs and murmurs resumed, and the heat of the moment dispersed.

Anna rose from her seat, smoothing her skirts. As she passed by Henry on the way to the card table, she didn’t look at him.

But he leaned slightly, just enough that she could hear his voice.

“I would rather like to hear opinion number six.”

“A lady, I am told, keeps her opinions to herself.”