Page 51 of Duke of Emeralds (Dukes of Decadence #2)

D orothea stiffened, then whirled. The change was instantaneous.

She’d gone from awed and excited to fearful, immediately tucking her hands behind her and lifting her chin like a soldier standing at attention.

Catriona turned to see a dark-haired man marching towards them with such fury that she could not help but step in front of the small child, instinctively wanting to protect her from whatever was about to happen.

Striking blue eyes were the first thing to catch her attention, stealing her breath.

For a moment, Catriona forgot her mission.

She almost forgot about the frightened little girl standing behind her, whom she’d already decided to protect with her life.

Her only focus was on how devastatingly handsome this man was, the sort of gentleman that would have been written about in the romance novels she liked to read.

Broad shoulders, a full head of dark hair, smoldering eyes that seemed to see right through to her soul.

A sharp jawline and a crooked nose that lent him a slightly boorish air, clouding him in mystery.

The man’s furious scowl grew even harsher when she moved in front of Dorothea.

He drew to a halt in front of them, forcing Catriona to tilt her head up to look at him.

He was impossibly tall, and those hard icy-blue eyes seemed to disassemble Catriona and deem her unworthy in seconds.

Catriona braced herself, ignoring the way her heart stuttered in her chest when their eyes met.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Disbelief overshadowed his anger for a moment, clearly not expecting her to ask such a thing. “I should be the one asking you that.”

“I do not see why, since you are the one interrupting us.”

His scowl deepened. Catriona didn’t know how that was possible.

Nor could she understand how he somehow got more handsome when he did so.

Perhaps it was because it drew attention to his hard, strong mouth, currently set in a harsh line.

Which only made her wonder what it would be like if he smiled.

And were his lips as soft as they looked, despite their disapproving downward tilt?

Goodness, now is not the time for such ludicrous thoughts!

“Do you know who is hiding behind your leg right now?”

“Is she one of the princesses of England?” Catriona asked with a raise of her brow.

He looked less than impressed by her answer. “If you do not know, why do you shield her?”

“You should ask yourself why I think she needs shielding in the first place.”

“I need not concern myself with what you think,” he dismissed. The scowl Catriona had been fighting broke free at those words. “Step aside.”

She crossed her arms. She couldn’t believe she was arguing with a stranger, but Dorothea’s little hands grasped her sodden skirt, and Catriona decided then and there that she was willing to argue with anyone if it meant keeping this little girl safe.

“Who are you?” she asked, not moving.

Clearly this man expected her to move. The fact that she hadn’t sent surprise skittering across his face. “Excuse me?”

“I think you heard me just fine.”

“The audacity of this woman. I sincerely hope you are not bold and mannerless with everyone you meet.”

“Only a select few receive the luxury of my brashness,” she stated with a humorless smile. “And you, good sir, have landed yourself at the top of my list. You’re obviously frightening her, so I do not feel comfortable stepping out the way when I do not know your intentions.”

“Nor do I know yours,” he growled.

A thrill went through her body. Catriona stood her ground though something told her that she was playing with fire. “My only intention is to protect her.”

“You do not know her.”

“You do not know that, nor does that matter.”

He said nothing, only glaring at her, so she glared back. Sensing the tension, Nina trotted to Catriona’s side and let out a low growl.

The man sighed suddenly, rolling his eyes to the heavens. His lips moved, but Catriona didn’t hear what he said, as if he was whispering something to himself.

“Dorothea, come out,” he called.

The tiny hand gripping the back of her skirt disappeared, and Dorothea appeared at her side. Catriona resisted the urge to pull her back behind her.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

Daddy?

Suddenly, Dorothea let it all out. “I knew I shouldn’t have snuck away from my lessons, but Mrs. Hansen was not paying me any mind, and I grew bored, so I thought that I could come down to the river like we used to since it’s been a while, and then before I knew it I went beyond the fence, but then I saw Nina, and she startled me, and I fell in the river and then?—”

“Dorothea, breathe.” To Catriona’s surprise, his voice was gentle. He lowered himself down to meet Dorothea at eye level.

Dorothea took in a large breath, blowing it out her mouth, making a small breeze that stirred the man’s dark hair. “She saved me. She pulled me out of the river.”

“You know that you shouldn’t come down here by yourself, Dory. You cannot swim.”

“I wasn’t planning on swimming!” Dorothea protested immediately. “I was just going to dip my feet in for a while. I didn’t expect there to be anyone else.”

He sighed, looking as if he was struggling to figure out what to say next. As if he was crossed between chastising her and telling her that everything was all right.

He must have settled on neither because he simply rose and faced Catriona. Catriona pulled her shoulders back, bracing herself.

“I take it Nina is your dog?” he asked.

She nodded slowly. “She is.”

“You need to keep her on a leash. Or under control at the very least.”

“Does she not look under control to you?” Catriona challenged without a moment’s hesitation. Nina, to her credit, simply sat back on her haunches. “She is far more well-mannered than any dog you may own yourself, I assure you.”

The man looked less than impressed which irked Catriona more than anything else. But to her surprise, he said, “Forgive me. I should not have been so aggressive earlier. I was simply worried sick as I’d been searching for my daughter all over.”

Catriona nodded, reining in the irritation. He was simply a concerned father. She couldn’t truly blame him for his actions because of it.

“Apology accepted,” she told him.

He raised a brow. “Don’t you have something to say to me? An apology as well, perhaps?”

“For what reason would I need to apologize to you?”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I am. I may have been wrong in assuming that you might have meant Dorothea any harm. It is obvious now that you know each other well. But I didn’t regret being overly cautious. It was always better to be safe than sorry.”

The scowl was back with a vengeance. “Is that the logic you Scots tend to hold?”

Catriona’s spine stiffened at the assumption. She’d spent years trying to rid of her Scottish accent to no avail, knowing that it would only set her apart from everyone else. Having it thrown in her face felt like a betrayal of some sort.

“It is my logic,” she argued.

“Your logic is flawed,” he countered with ease. “But I thank you for saving my daughter when you did. Come, Dory.”

He took Dorothea’s hand and immediately began leading her away before Catriona could muster up her response.

She watched them walk away, slowly at first before the stranger picked Dorothea up with ease, quickening their pace.

She didn’t move until he’d disappeared behind a copse of trees, and her racing heart did not slow until she finally decided to turn and head back home.

A curious range of emotions washed over her in their departure.

As Catriona trekked back home, Nina trotting at her side, she didn’t know what to think.

Perhaps she had been a little too forward in her responses.

The English place courtesy above all else after all.

Perhaps she should not have been so willing to argue with a man she did not know.

Perhaps she truly was not ready for the London Season if that was how she interacted with gentlemen.

She may not care to marry herself, knowing good and well that she was on the shelf, but she had to maintain propriety if her sisters ever stood a chance.

“Oh heavens, Nina, I do hope I did not make a mess of things,” she murmured as she trekked back into the house. Nina simply ambled in behind her in silence.

Catriona made her way back to the drawing room to find her uncle still there, this time his nose buried in a book about botany. Her sisters and their dogs were nowhere to be found.

Frederic didn’t look up at her until she sat across from him. Then he snorted before returning his attention back to his book. “If you wished to go swimming, you could have told me so, and I would have planned a trip to Bath.”

“I did not intend for this to happen,” she explained with an exasperated sigh. “I had to jump into the river to save a little girl from drowning.”

“Is that so?” He slowly turned a page. “How gallant of you. Historians will sing of your good deeds.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you happen to know who the little girl was?”

At last, he looked back up at her. Then he closed the book and made a show of looking around the room.

Catriona sighed heavily. “She is not here. But I assume there aren’t many little children that live nearby, so perhaps you would know of her.”

“That, my dear serious niece, is where you are wrong.”

“Then perhaps you know her father. I did not get his name, but he is a tall fellow with dark hair and broody blue eyes. He has a sharp jawline with a strong chin. His nose has a slight crook in it as if he?—”

“Got a good look at the gentleman, did you?” Frederic observed with a chuckle.

Catriona scowled at him, ignoring the way her cheeks heated at the underlying suggestion in his words. It wasn’t that she had been studying him. It was simply hard to forget a man with such strikingly handsome features, especially one who you had been arguing with just minutes before.

“It sounds like you had a run in with the Duke of Irvin,” her uncle went on. “I cannot imagine that was very pleasant.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he is notoriously reclusive and ill-tempered.” Frederic’s white brows, which had gotten quite overgrown in the past two years, knitted together.

“Come to think of it, I had never gotten the fence between our houses repaired. Perhaps that is how his daughter made it to our side of the river. Usually, you would not see hide nor hair of either one of them. I was even beginning to wonder if the daughter was a myth.”

“What else do you know about the Duke?” she heard herself ask before she could stop herself.

Frederic raised his brows at her, and Catriona immediately regretted it. Her uncle never gave up the chance to poke fun at her, more so than he would her sisters. She believed it had something to do with how serious her countenance was, and his mischievous behavior only made it that much stronger.

“Never mind,” she said immediately before he could respond. “It does not matter.”

“Seems as if it matters quite a lot to you,” he observed, humor steeped in his tone.

Catriona ignored it. “What matters is that I get out of these wet clothes before I catch a cold. I cannot afford to be ill tonight.”

“It is only a ball. It would not be the end of the world if you missed it.”

Catriona turned away, heading to the door with her shadow, Nina, on her tail. “That’s where you’re wrong, Uncle. It means everything.”