Page 60 of Dukes All Night Long
K ate strolled around the room, examining the shelves and orderly desk.
The space was like hallowed grounds of masculinity done up in dark wood, burgundy, and blue so rich and deep it appeared nearly black.
Bookcases lined one entire wall and were brimming with books bound in shades of earthen shades of leather.
The shelves’ contents were interspersed with intriguing odds and ends: a three-masted ship in a bottle, one of the most beautiful and intricate globes she’d ever seen, a carved wooden mask wearing a terrifying grimace.
The lower two-thirds of the other walls were paneled in mahogany that gleamed in the firelight cast by the marble hearth.
Everything above that was papered in bold vertical stripes.
Even the curtains framing the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far wall were heavy and unforgiving.
There was not a single hint of softness in the room; everything had been designed with the express purpose of preventing visitors from becoming too comfortable or feeling too welcome.
While the chair on the correct side of the desk was cushioned and upholstered in the finest fabric, the one in which she’d been sitting was hard, unforgiving, and, she suspected, slanted just a little bit to make it so the sitter could not help but fidget or slide to the floor.
No man would linger in that chair even on the very unlikely chance that he wished to.
A deep wave of hopelessness washed over Kate and she screwed her eyes closed.
How had her life come to this…locked away in a room in London’s most notorious gambling hell…
standing in as collateral for her brother’s wounded pride and depleted pockets?
She felt her knees grow weak all over again and she locked them.
Falling to pieces would not serve her any good—not when she did not know if she would be stuck there for another hour or twelve. Walter’s gambling could sometimes last days. She certainly did not relish the thought of being in this place for that long.
Despite the room’s warmth, she wrapped her arms around herself, desperate for at least a little bit of comfort.
Though a fire burned in the hearth, she was chilled to the very marrow of her bones.
Never had she felt so unmoored in her life.
Every last shred of security she’d had now lay smoldering and dying like the ash.
Her brother’s betrayal had torn off the veil she’d maintained for so long, desperate to believe he was, at his core, a decent man.
In the span of only a few hours, her world had effectively ended.
Her brother’s true nature had been revealed; she saw now how little he truly thought of her.
She was a commodity to be bartered. Terror choked her at the thought of him losing, effectively handing her over to the owner of this gaming hell, the possibility too disconcerting to contemplate seriously.
And, even if Walter’s luck turned and she made it out of Duke’s lair, her life would never be the same.
Society would never view her as a respectable lady; entire circles would cut her out like an infection.
It mattered not that she hadn’t spoken two words to anyone since her arrival, she was as good as publicly ruined.
And Walter had done it all.
Eight-and-twenty years of avoiding scandal and living a quiet, uneventful life, and her peaceful spinsterhood was in tatters.
With no mother to help launch her into Society, an indifferent father, and a disinterested elder brother, Kate had been largely left to her own devices.
It suited her to maintain a small, closed circle of friends with whom she might discuss literature and art.
It did not bother her overmuch that she was viewed as the reclusive bluestocking daughter and sister of an earl, and she did not feel the need to correct those who assumed she had a disinterest in maintaining a busy social calendar.
She’d never been a girl who desired a marriage and the obligations that came with it; the men in her life had shown her only how women might be ignored and disregarded.
Whyever would she hope to marry a man who might do that and so much worse?
No. She’d determined long ago that she would continue on as she was for as long as she could.
She knew how to exist beneath Walter’s thumb and it was better to remain where she was than to seek out the unknown.
Besides, having Walter as her brother had taught her how the stain of temptation and unaccountability might influence one’s life and she had no desire to succumb to such things.
Before that night, her world had been small and safe; now, only uncertainty laid ahead.
Kate’s fury rose like hot bile in the back of her throat. A squeak of emotion escaped before she could stifle it. For so long, Kate had supported Walter, explained away his mercurial moods, smoothed over injured feelings and slights left in his wake, but this…
The word “betrayal” did not encompass the breadth of what she felt.
Without warning, the hairs on the back of her neck stood and she whirled around with a gasp, but there were only thick shadows in the far corner of the room.
“Don’t be silly, Kate,” she chided herself with a sniff. Still, no matter how she told herself to stop, she couldn’t help it. She felt like a hare in the sights of a fox, knowing something was wrong but unable to pinpoint what.
The tension rose as the patter of rain began against the window.
The clouds had threatened to split open all day, but it seemed fitting that they chose now to release their burden.
Night had fallen in full so she could see nothing outside of the window until a watery flash of far-off lightning illuminated the rooftop and chimneys of the building across the street.
Even if she hadn’t been locked in this room like a princess in a tower, the rain and the building’s Covent Garden location would have prevented her from making her escape.
She desired her freedom, not death or injury.
She actually jumped when there was a light knock at the door.
She pressed her hands to her throat, dreading to see if the devil himself had come for her, but it was only a pair of maids bearing trays of tea and food.
They wordlessly delivered their burdens to the large desk and slipped from the room as quickly as they came.
The lock clicked once more, sealing her in.
It was a battle not to cry all over again.
She forced herself to walk over to the desk and survey the offerings.
She had to admit that the scones smelled fresh and the tea was hot.
She hadn’t eaten since the luncheon at her friend’s home earlier that day.
Though her predicament made her feel ill, she knew she needed to keep up her strength.
She selected a scone from the tray and gave it a delicate little sniff—citrus? How unique.
“I assure you, it is not poisoned.”
Kate screamed and chucked the scone in the direction from which the voice had sounded.
It collided and exploded in a waterfall of crumbly perfection against a hard surface.
Her heartbeat was still deafening in her ears when she registered that she hadn’t struck a wall at all, but the broad expanse of a masculine chest dressed entirely in black.
The man emerged from the shadows as he brushed crumbs from his coat and black silk waistcoat. Her lungs forgot their function when he looked up and met her eyes.
He was utterly imposing even across the room, his presence so powerful that he seemed to pull all the air from the space.
The elegance of his high cheekbones and perfectly formed jaw, the intense set of his dark brows and beautiful curve of his lips reminded her of an angel hewn from marble by Renaissance hands.
His eyes as black as sin, brought to mind more an angel of the fallen persuasion.
Kate opened her mouth to speak, but only a squeak emerged in spite of her best efforts. She wanted to chide the man for lurking, admonish him for spying, but she had the sinking feeling that he belonged in this room far more than she did.
The devil had, indeed, come to call.
Her heart began to pound as he approached her with the slow, deliberate movements of a feline stalking its prey.
She could not blink—could not tear her eyes away from him—as he finally towered over her.
The man cocked his head slightly to one side, plucked a scone from the tray, and bit into it with relish.
One of his brows rose as if to underscore the safety of the food she’d been offered.
One more bite and he polished off the treat; he used his blunt thumb to swipe a wayward crumb from his absurdly full bottom lip and it was all Kate could do not to tremble.
“I did not believe it was poisoned,” she finally said, fisting her hands in her skirts as if they might bolster her courage.
“No?” Was there a hint of amusement edging his tone?
He adjusted the cuffs of his black velvet coat and dropped silently into the seat on the other side of the table.
His eyes never left her. “You certainly stared at it with enough indecision to make me think otherwise.” His voice was as smooth and fathomless as the fabric he wore; she could feel it curling and caressing her skin.
“If you must know, I was debating whether or not eating anything would make me more or less ill than I already feel.”
His lips snapped into a fine, harsh line. “I would likely feel the same way were Lufton my brother.”
She reared back as if his words had been stones she was attempting to dodge. “I beg your pardon?” Her immediate instinct was—had always been—to leap to Walter’s defense. “That is supremely insulting.”