Page 62 of Dukes All Night Long

D uke relished the widening of Kate’s eyes as she registered his words.

If only she knew how often he’d thought of her these past fifteen years—how many times he’d ached to be in her presence, to hear her voice, to feel her cool, healing hands upon his skin.

She was worth so much more than three thousand pounds.

Duke would gladly have paid with the moon and stars if it meant her safety. Her happiness. Her smile.

They’d been teenagers when last they’d been in one another’s presence, innocent in their blooming friendship, but he, longing for so much more from the girl he knew he could never have.

Duke hadn’t laid eyes on Kate Bell since he and his father had fled from Horvat House under the cover of night following his final, vicious altercation with Lufton.

He’d been pushed one too many times over the years and he could no longer stomach the abuse, especially not since he’d grown head-and-shoulders taller than the future earl.

It had taken two grooms to wrestle Duke off of a bloodied Lufton.

As soon as his father learned of what had happened, they’d packed their belongings and run, both knowing full well the law would not be on their side even if Duke had been acting only in retaliation after a horsewhip had been brought down upon his back while he’d been cleaning tack.

There hadn’t been time for a backward glance, let alone for Duke to leave a note for Kate.

Horvat House had been in an uproar, providing the distraction he and his father had needed to escape.

If only she knew how, all this time, she’d been his beacon of hope.

He’d latched onto his memories of her when the darkness nearly swallowed him, when he’d been too exhausted, too downtrodden to continue.

Freeing her and seeing her brother finally receive the comeuppance he deserved were his greatest motivators in life.

Now, after years of scraping and scrounging, of fighting to survive, of forging the necessary connections and amassing the capital required to build a place like Duke’s from the ground up, to attract the right clientele and build his reputation, his goal was within his grasp.

She’d been unnervingly direct when she’d asked him what he had against her brother; he could not admit that his vendetta ran far deeper than money—not without giving away his true identity, and he wasn’t ready for her to know he was the lad for whom she’d once cared.

He had never dared to hope that his plan would bring Kate beneath his roof, or that he’d once more be close enough to her to catch her light scent of jasmine and warm feminine flesh.

That Lufton had been bold and desperate enough to use his sister as collateral…

it was as enraging as it was exciting. It brought her back to him.

Duke would gladly have strangled the spoiled boil of a whelp for doing this to Kate…

if he hadn’t been half-hard just from sitting as close to her as he was.

She hadn’t recognized him yet, but she was an intelligent woman and he didn’t expect that she would overlook his true identity for much longer.

Until then, he turned his face away from the fire and hoped that time and darkness would play in his favor.

It might have been a trick of the light, but he thought he saw a faint blush sprout upon the apples of her cheeks.

She cast her eyes down to the plate on the desk and, finally, she selected a scone.

She eyed it again and it was all Duke could do to not to smile at her inquisitive expression. He was not a man who smiled.

Finally, Kate took a bite of the pastry; he watched with rapt attention as her lips parted and the tip of her pink tongue darted out to catch a crumb. When she moaned in delight, Duke just about snapped his quill as every muscle in his body tensed.

Bloody hell…

“This is divine,” she sighed in pleasure.

Duke barely managed to swallow past the lump in his throat. “I did tell you.” She cocked a brow at him. “Am I not inherently trustworthy?” The droll look she shot him made him stifle a smile. Again.

“A man who has made his living on others gambling away theirs? Hardly,” she said with a sniff before taking another bite of the scone.

“They come willingly,” he replied with a tilt of his head. “Those who are not sore over their losses will willingly admit that my tables are fairer than most in London.”

“What a relief!” Kate said dramatically, sarcasm dripping from her words. “Tea?”

The change in topic was so abrupt that it nearly snapped Duke’s neck. “Tea?”

“Yes. Tea. I am preparing a cup for myself and offering one to you as well. My manners have not fled me entirely even though I am being held hostage.”

“You are not a hostage.” Duke’s eyes followed every one of her deft, graceful movements as she strained and poured the brew that had been steeping since its delivery.

“So I may stand and walk out that door right this minute?” She cocked a brow at his silence. “I did not think so. Milk or sugar?” He shook his head and she leaned across the desk to place the cup and saucer in front of him. “I should have known you’d take your tea plain.”

“Are you calling me bland?” he snorted.

“Hardly. No fuss, straightforward, perhaps, but not bland.” She sipped from her own cup, eyeing him over its gold-trimmed rim.

She’d always been so bloody good at reading people, so forthright in her assessments of their character—the exception being her brother.

Duke had never blamed her, though. She’d been raised in a household where Lufton was the heir and could do no wrong.

He was ordained by God to be the next earl, and he must be supported in all things, all messes left in his wake were to be tidied, and any mistakes would be erased by money or threat.

She may not have outwardly supported Lufton and his failings, but she had quietly cared for those he wronged—young Duke being one of his frequent targets.

Duke was about to reach for his tea when there was a soft thud against the door. He spared a quick glance at his timepiece and cursed beneath his breath. Right on time.

As he stood, a plaintive mewl rose from the other side of the barrier.

“What was that?” Kate asked, setting down her cup with a small click.

Duke did not answer. Instead, he strode over to the door, unlocked and opened it. He glared down into the intruder’s yellow eyes. They held not a hint of remorse.

“You are unbearably prompt,” he grumbled as the calico cat sauntered into the room, followed closely by four more—two orange, one black with white socks, and one with a mottled mess of black and brown stripes.

“You have cats?”

“They reside in the building and keep it clear of vermin. I do not believe that qualifies them as ‘my’ cats,” he groused, setting about preparing the ransom so he would be left in peace for the rest of the evening.

He removed his cup from its saucer, filled the small plate with a handful of the small biscuits his cook had made for them, and placed it on the floor.

The cats instantly formed a perfect circle around the saucer and crouched down to eat, their tails flicking contentedly from side to side.

He should have known this was going to happen; it did every evening at half-nine.

He could have set his clocks by the felines’ punctuality.

There was no one to blame but himself. He’d made the mistake of feeding the calico the first night she’d appeared in the empty building he’d recently purchased.

It wasn’t long until she brought her friends and he’d amassed a little pack of roving rat-killers who were, by far, his most efficient employees…

as long as they received their nightly dish of treats.

“It seems to me that they are your cats.” He could feel Kate’s eyes on him and he wondered what she saw.

Was he the notorious owner of a gaming hell who was confusingly solicitous to cats…

or was she experiencing an echo from the past, when he’d been a lad who held a soft spot for anything residing in the stables?

When he turned back to her, he wondered if it wasn’t a little of both.

She held her head cocked slightly to the side as she examined him.

Would she see past his carefully crafted persona?

More importantly, did he want her to?

A clap of thunder echoed through the streets of Covent Garden and was quickly followed by a blue-white flash of lightning. The interruption was enough to break the spell that held Kate so rapt and she turned back to her tea and scones.

One by one, the cats finished their treat and slipped from the room to go about their business.

Stiffly, Duke shooed out the last orange cat and locked the door behind it, pocketing his key once more.

He retrieved the saucer from the floor and set it on the small table beside the door to be collected later by his staff.

His mind spun dizzyingly, setting his entire perception off-kilter.

Below stairs, Lufton was likely striding further into Duke’s trap.

He was a reckless gambler with an over-inflated sense of self; he could not handle being viewed as someone who routinely came up in the red.

Duke would have him right where he’d wanted him soon enough and he could finally teach the man that no amount of money could erase his sins.

Duke had watched him over the years, tallied all his misdeeds and followed the trail of physical and psychological damage he’d left in his wake.

A title did not give a man the right to shirk his duties.

Wealth did not allow a man to cause injury and walk away unscathed.

A powerful family did not entitle a man to step upon heads of others for sport with nary a backward glance.

Lufton had always been a rotten apple, and that was all he’d ever be.

Kate, however, presented a complication.

Duke should have had her safely shut away in this room and not shown her his face.

It would have been far safer if he’d prowled the other floors and oversaw his business like he normally did…

but he knew damn well he would not have been able to focus knowing Kate was so close.

He felt his soul writhe beneath his skin.

He’d loved her with silent, reckless abandon when they were younger.

Time had not dulled the feeling; it had set Kate upon a pedestal and limned her in a halo of perfection.

She was all the softness and kindness and beauty he’d lived without for so very long.

He ached for her. She turned him inside-out.

And he, a man who’d built a life from nothing, did not quite know how to handle her.

It wasn’t often that Duke was at a loss for words or a plan, but Kate did that to him.

He cleared his throat. “Lady Bell, I—”

A decisive rap sounded at the office door and he cursed.

“More cats?” Kate asked, a mischievous smile tilting one side of her lips.

“If only,” Duke muttered and strode over to the door to unlock and wrench it open. Baxter stood on the other side. “What?” he snapped a bit more loudly than he’d intended.

His assistant’s eyes flitted to where Kate sat at his desk and then back to Duke’s face. “Lord Penfolle,” Baxter whispered. “There was a bit of an altercation after a few too many glasses of whiskey.”

“Was Penfolle the aggressor?” The young baron was hot-headed when he was stone sober, so Duke wasn’t the least bit surprised when Baxter nodded in the affirmative.

“Let me guess…he went after Blackwood again?” Baxter’s cringe was all the answer he needed.

Duke released an annoyed sigh. Blackwood was good-natured and jovial, well-liked and generally considered attractive—everything Penfolle was not.

Blackwood had only to step into a room and Penfolle turned into a glowering gargoyle of jealousy.

“A moment.” He closed the door and turned back to Kate.

She was still terrible at pretending she wasn’t eavesdropping.

“I have business to attend to,” he said.

“I should return in a quarter of an hour.” She inclined her head in understanding before picking up her tea once more.

Duke stormed from the room, locking the door behind him. Straightening his shoulders, it took very little effort for him to adopt his thunderous persona as he strode past Baxter toward the stairs and his latest inconvenience.