Page 15 of Her Wolf of a Duke (Dukes & Beasts #1)
CHAPTER 15
L evi could tell from the look Miss Kendall had given him that he had wanted her to follow him, but he gave himself a moment before doing so. He knew that she would be alone, and that was dangerous, but all eyes were on the dancefloor and he felt that he could slip away without being seen.
When he did step outside, however, Miss Kendall seemed unusual. She had always held herself well, but she was leaning onto the balcony, breathing shallowly. As he approached, a small groan reached his ears.
“Miss Kendall?” he asked, and she turned sharply to him before wincing.
“My apologies,” she said in a slightly pained tone. “The evening air has made me– well, in all honesty I believe it was the brandy.”
“Brandy?”
“Cecilia gave me a few drinks that she had mixed,” she explained. “It was unwise to take them, but then I have hardly done anything intelligent of late.”
“That isn’t true.”
“But it is. You may not believe me, but there was a time when I knew everything about everyone, and did all of this with ease. Now, I can hardly form a sentence without stumbling over my words. I do not recognize myself, and I do not know what to do about that.”
“If you ask me, I would say that you need not do anything. You are wonderful the way you are.”
“Do not say that.”
“But it is the truth.”
“Please,” she begged. “Do not say anything nice to me. I do not like it. I do not like how it makes me feel.”
“And how does it make you feel?”
“It makes me feel as though I am doing something very wrong. I wish to be alone. I must think.”
“Well, if you cannot think regardless, you might as well enjoy my company.”
“I do not enjoy it!”
“Why not? What is it about me that you take such issue with?”
“You are a rake,” she snapped, stumbling slightly. “You are a rake, and a ruiner, and I have never wanted you near my sister. I have spent far too long protecting her for you to ruin her!.”
“I have never been near your sister.”
He had made what he thought was a fair point, but it seemed to enrage her. He was aware that she wanted him to leave, or at least that was what she was telling her to do, but he was quite concerned that, if he left her to her own devices, she might stumble over the balcony.
“You have been near me,” she replied. “That has done more than enough damage.”
“You say that, but you cannot act as though you did not enjoy our time together. I could see it in your face that you found everything we did together fun, and so you cannot lie and tell me that you did not.”
She was standing close to him, which he liked as a general principle. More importantly tonight, it meant that he could take hold of her if necessary. She was beautiful, which had been precisely why he had been unable to take his eyes off of her all evening.And yet, there was more to it than that. She was intelligent, and she was the first lady to see him for who he was, rather than his title. She had been the first lady to make him see the man he had led society to see him as, and he had not liked what he had seen.
Then again, he was most like himself when Miss Kendall was around, and that man was the sort of man he could truly respect.
He had asked her to dance with him because he wanted to, but also because he could see that she wanted the same thing. She was looking up at him with curiosity, possibly even desire, and he knew that she wanted him in equal measure. He would not have asked, otherwise.
“It does not matter what I do and do not enjoy. It is my duty to be a good example to my sister, and to help her find a match. Because of you, I have done neither of those things.”
“And yet she has a match, and if you ask me you are a wonderful example of what a lady should be. You have poise, you are kind, and you can navigate society with ease, even when there are attempts to cause you embarrassment. My question is whether or not you liked my attention, not whether or not you thought it was proper at each and every moment.”
She laughed, her face in her hands for a moment.
“We both know that I did,” she whispered. “You know, you truly are the worst sort of gentleman. You may be charming— seductive, even—but such traits are not good ones to have, even if you do have an effect on ladies.”
“Ladies including yourself, yes?”
He stepped towards her, and as she stepped back she was pressed against the banister, looking up at him with wide hazel eyes. She was not looking at him with fear, but with a need that he knew she could not have described even if she wanted to.
He smirked at that, and though he expected her to look at him with frustration she did not. She remained frozen, looking at him as though he had ruined her plans entirely, which he supposed he had. Even so, they had been the perfect plans to ruin.
She never would have done enough to please her father. Such gentlemen as him were never content with what others did for them. She was fighting a losing battle, and he wondered if she knew that. He was always going to do exactly what he wanted with her sister, no matter what Emma did for her, because he never would have allowed himself to admit that a lady had done better than him. He pitied her that she had never realized that herself, as she saw other things so clearly.
“Well?” he asked, she had not yet said anything in response. “Are you included in that list of ladies?”
“You know that I am,” she whispered. “But that does not signify. I am certain that such charms work on every lady. Miss Winston, for example.”
“Do not think about her right now.”
“Do not tell me what I can and cannot think about. If you had your way, I would only ever think of you.”
“And is that such a crime?”
She scowled at him, and couldn’t help but smirk in response. She was fun to fluster, which was why he did it as often as he did. She was always so proper that when he broke her out of that it was exhilarating.
“This isn’t about you, besides the fact that you are here and I wish that you were not. I wish to return to the ball, even if I face a particular scowl in there.”
“Stop thinking about her!”
“How can I when you have used her to anger me all this time?”
Levi sighed, taking a step back so that she could pull away from the banister. She straightened herself, taking a breath.
“I admit, I did find it entertaining at first, but you must know that I did not do anything untoward with her.”
“You did! You used the same charms that you are using right now, but you were not interested because they worked on her. You only like me because I do not care for them.”
“I never tried to charm her. When will you listen to me about that?”
“When it is the truth.”
“Then you ought to listen to me now,” he sighed, exasperated. “I have already told you that it has never been as it seemed.”
“Then how was it, Your Grace?”
“She was trying to trap me. She is an ambitious young lady, I shall not take that away from her, and it has led to her doing everything in her power to make the most advantageous match that she can, even if it risks her ruin.”
She was quiet for a moment, and he hoped that an apology would follow her silence.
“You never refuted my other claim,” she said firmly.
“Which one? You claim that I do quite a lot.”
“That you are only interested in me because I lack any interest in you in return.”
“It is partly that,” he confessed. “I have never met a lady so determined not to like me as you are, but it is more than that.”
“In any case, I cannot be seen with you. I cannot be another notch on your belt, no matter how much you might like me to be.”
“If it is any consolation, that was never my intention.”
“Then what was it?”
“Conversation and friendship, if you dare to believe that. You are interesting, and I like the sort of person you are. I admire how hard you have tried to make your sister happy, and the lengths to which you would go to please your father. You are a pleasure to be around, when you are not accusing me of the most outlandish things. That is why I enjoy being around you, and there is nothing to do with my belt there.”
Silence fell between them, and he looked into her eyes as she thought about what he had said to her.
With the way she had looked up at him, he could have inferred many things about her wants, but he would never act upon them unless she explicitly asked, and he knew she was too proud to do that.
“There was never anything between Miss Winston and me,” he repeated, and she came to a stop.
“Please stop,” she said softly, looking into his eyes.
“Or what?” he asked, “Until you believe me, I shall tell you over and over. Should you want me to stop, you should simply listen to me.”
“It is nothing to do with her,” she explained. “I simply cannot stand to hear you say the right things over and over, m-making me feel things that I do not want to feel, and tearing down my defenses. They have been there for far too long for you to destroy them.”
She came close to him, in spite of her words. Levi wondered just how many drinks Miss Penton had given her in the ballroom.
“Perhaps,” he said softly, his hands hovering mere inches above her shoulder in case he had to push her back for her own sake, “it is time for these defenses of yours to come down. You should trust yourself to make the right decisions without holding people at arm’s length.”
“You only say that because you want me closer.”
“Then come closer.”
“I cannot.”
“Then step away. I am not forcing you to be this close to me, after all.”
She seemed to realize where she was at that point, no longer being held in place at the banister but free to move, to leave if she wished.
At that, her shoulders slumped. She had lost all of the fight that had been in her, her anger dissipated, and for the first time since he met Miss Kendall he did not know what she would do. He half expected her to walk away from him and return to the safety of the ball, or to make another cutting comment about how he was a good for nothing rake that she could never care for. He did not want either to happen, but it was what he had expected.
What he did not think would ever happen, however, was that she would grab his collar with both hands, pulling him down towards her and closing the distance between them altogether.
Her soft lips pressed into his, and he lost all of his own defenses. It was wrong, he told himself, and she couldn’t think properly and would only ever regret it, but he couldn’t make himself believe it. There was so much desperation in it, so much desire, that he had to give her exactly what he had thought about since the first moment she admonished him.
They pulled apart, breathless, and her face registered only shock.
“My apologies, Your Grace,” she said quickly. “I did not mean– Oh, God.”
“It is alright, Miss Kendall. What is it?”
“I simply– I have been so good all of my life. I have spent years trying to be the perfect lady, hoping that it might one day mean something, but it doesn’t. I am unmarried and unwanted, and my sister that has done much the same thing, will never know love either. If this is what doing what is expected of us leads us to, then I no longer want any of it. I want to do the wrong thing, just for one evening.”
She said it so quickly that it took Levi a moment to understand. He took her shoulders to steady her, as she had begun stumbling again. She looked up at him again with a desperation in her eyes, and he could no longer do the gentlemanly thing.
The truth was, he wanted to do the wrong thing every bit as much as she did.
And so, he pulled her close again, holding her tightly to him as he kissed her in return, with a passion he did not think he had in him. He had kissed before, but it hadn’t been anything like this. He had never felt anything like it, something so intense, so wonderful, until her. She was unlike any other lady he had ever known, and that was precisely what made her so important to him, and what made him so desperate to please her.
Given the way she was holding onto him, he could only believe that he was doing so.
But they knew the risks, and of course the danger presented itself. Suddenly, there was a gasp nearby. Miss Kendall’s touch disappeared from his neck, and he opened his eyes to see she had darted several feet away from him, trembling and terrified.
“What is it?” he asked, but he already knew what had happened.
Reluctantly, he turned to see a gentleman standing by the open veranda door. Beyond his figure many more of the ton stared at them, eyes wide and mouths wider. They had been seen, and Levi cursed himself for it in an instant. The one time he had truly done something ruinous, and it was before the most reputable members of the ton . There was nothing that he could do; Miss Kendall was ruined and the fault was his own. He should not have followed her, he should not have teased her, he should have left her alone when she asked.
She was still trembling, and the worst part was that he could not comfort her. In fact, he could not move at all, and neither could she. It was only when her father came and harshly took her wrist that he truly realized what all of it meant. Her reputation was destroyed once and for all, as was her sister’s, and the blame was his entirely.
He remained there even after she had been dragged away from him.