Page 14 of Corrupting his Duchess

He hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t said or done anything truly scandalous, yet she felt completely undone.

She pushed off the wall and straightened her spine, following the path slowly back toward the house.

By the time they rounded the path’s edge again, voices filtered closer. Julia’s laughter reached them first with the soft murmur of conversation trailing behind.

If any of them noticed the tension crackling between Duke and her, none of them said a word.

Henry walked the garden path alone now, the crunch of his boots absorbed by the light frost beneath them. He kept his pace steady. His hands were behind his back again, gloved fingers loosely laced, though he hadn’t noticed doing it.

The wind bit at his jaw, sharp and bracing. Good. He needed something to temper the way his pulse was still thudding like a war drum in his chest.

What the devil was that?

She had caught him off guard. Not with beauty—though yes, she was beautiful. He had eyes. But hers was not the polished perfection men were trained to admire in ballrooms. No. Hers was something far more dangerous. The kind that didn’t announce itself, but unfolded the longer one looked.

The night before, the firelight had caught the deep plum of her gown, setting it aglow like frost at dawn, drawing the eye to the elegant line of her neck and the way her bodice hugged her figure without begging for notice. Her posture was regal without being rigid. She didn’t preen or present herself, she simplywas, and that made her all the more impossible to ignore.

Her eyes were a dark, discerning brown, rich as aged brandy and twice as sharp. And then there was her mouth.

It was soft in shape, full without affectation, but curved in a way that hinted, always, at some private amusement. A secret she didn’t care to share.

He refused to remember how captivating it had been to watch her lashes lower as she glanced away, how the fire had lit the rose-tinged skin of her cheekbones, how her jaw tightened just before she delivered a remark he hadn’t seen coming.

But no, it wasn’t her appearance, though she was attractive. It was her mind. Her mouth, her wit, and her unbelievable nerve.

Most women flinched around him, either deferential or desperate to charm. Anna Hessey did neither. She had met his sarcasm with steel, his scrutiny with fire. She wasn’t trying to gain his favor. She didn’t care what people said about him or his reputation. She kept challenging him and it was intoxicating.

He should have kept his distance. When she arrived with Stenton, smirking, observant, far too composed, he’d already known she would be a problem. Then she opened her mouth during and after dinner, made perfectly timed remarks at his barb, he felt it. The spark.

It wasn’t just wit. It was the way she saw people. The way she saw him, and refused to be intimidated.

He’d meant to bait her during the walk. Just enough to satisfy the curiosity burning a hole in his restraint. But the moment she looked at him and said, “Tell me, then. What exactly do you think you know?”

He’d lost his footing. Not outwardly, of course. Not even she would’ve seen it. But he had stepped too close, leaned too far, spoken too honestly.

“I don’t play games with such things.”

It had been the truth.

Henry rarely said truths aloud, even to himself. But there it was. And for one heartbeat, he’d nearly kissed her.

He could still see her face. The flush of her cheeks, not from cold. The slight parting of her lips. She hadn’t moved.

She would have let him.

He ran a hand through his hair, breath forming soft clouds before him.

He’d been here once before. Not in this garden. Not with her. But the moment felt the same—like standing on the edge of something sweet and ruinous.

It had been three years after his father died. The estate was in chaos, his mother reclusive. He was nineteen and too eager to believe in second chances.

Her name had been Clara Morton. The daughter of a man who had offered to help him “modernize” the estate accounts. She had a soft laugh and asked questions no one else bothered to. She made him feel seen.

Until the truth broke.

She’d been promised to someone else all along. Her father had used Henry’s trust to access documents, negotiate under his name, and redirect profits through a shell trust. He’dsigned papers thinking they were renovations. They were land transfers.

The last straw had been the letter he wasn’t meant to read—Clara’s handwriting, light and careless, describing Henry as “sincere, and terribly easy to flatter.”