Page 20 of Stolen By the Rakish Duke

“I would not expect a man of your reputation to appreciate the nuances of romantic sentiment, Your Grace.”

“No?” His lips curled into a smile that held dangerous promise. “You believe rakes incapable of understanding romance, Duchess?”

“I believe them more concerned with conquest than connection,” she said, keeping her voice steady even as awareness of his proximity made her pulse quicken. “More interested in momentary pleasure than enduring attachment.”

His expression shifted, the amusement in his eyes giving way to something darker, more intent. He stepped closer, close enough that Beatrice could detect the scent of sandalwood that seemed to cling to his skin, mingled now with the cooler notes of the night air.

“You speak with remarkable authority on matters in which, I suspect, your experience is somewhat limited,” he murmured. “Tell me, then, how extensive is this experience of yours?”

She hesitated. “Limited,” she said at last, lifting her chin in defiance. “But I have read enough to form an opinion.”

“Ah.” His smile grew. “So your education is theoretical. A pity. I’ve always preferred practical lessons.”

Her pulse leapt, though she refused to look away. “Then I suggest, Your Grace, that you apply your preferences elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?” he echoed softly, taking a step closer. “And deny you the chance to put theory into practice? That would be uncharitable.”

“You presume much.”

“Only that you are curious,” he said, his tone deceptively mild. “Allow me to satiate your curious mind. A rake, as you term it, understands pleasure with a precision that eludes most men. He has made a study of desire, learned to read its language in the subtlest signals—a quickened breath, a heightened flush, the barely perceptible dilation of pupils when interest overcomes propriety.”

Beatrice felt her heart flutter treacherously, her body betraying exactly the reactions he described.

“Knowledge is not the same as understanding,” she countered. “One may catalog the signs of lust without understanding its essence.”

“Oh, but the essence is where true mastery lies,” the Duke replied, his voice a low murmur that seemed to envelop her. “A rake understands that genuine pleasure requires attunement, an awareness of precisely how a touch might be received.”

His fingers brushed against her wrist, a contact so fleeting she might have imagined it, yet so deliberate it sent a current of awareness through her entire body.

“How a glance might kindle anticipation.” His gaze held hers, the blue of his eyes darkened to midnight. “How words, properly employed, might create sensation without any physical contact.”

Beatrice felt caught, almost helpless, in the web of his effortless allure. The library faded around her, leaving only the heat between them, the sharp pull of two minds circling, testing one another in a game whose rules she barely understood.

“Your novels speak of romantic heroes whose passions overshadow reason,” Leo continued, lifting a strand of her hair that had escaped its ribbon, examining it with a scholar’s attention. “But true romance is as much in restraint as it is in surrender. In the way a glance, a touch, a word, can burn all the more when it’s held just out of reach.”

As if to demonstrate, he allowed the curl to slide through his fingers slowly, the gesture somehow more intimate than any embrace.

Heat surged as her body responded with embarrassing readiness.

“You speak as though romance were merely a physical phenomenon,” she managed, her voice steadier than she had anticipated. “Mere sensations rather than an emotional connection.”

“The separation exists only in those who fear it.” His eyes drifted to her lips with deliberate intent. “The body and heart need notquarrel, Duchess. They can conspire… to savor every pleasure together.”

The words themselves, delivered in that gravelly voice, seemed to caress her senses. Beatrice found herself swaying slightly toward him, drawn by a magnetism that defied her rational side.

This man—this stranger to whom she was now bound by law—possessed a power to shatter her composure that no other had ever wielded.

“You promised our union would be one of practicality, not passion,” she reminded him, the words emerging as little more than a whisper. “Not… this.”

“I promised a performance convincing enough to transform scandal into romance,” he corrected, his hand rising to cup her cheek gently. “Still, shouldn’t we take a moment for ourselves, to savor one another?”

Of course, only a rake would come up with such a defense.

“I don’t see how that adheres to the rules you set, Your Grace,” she retorted.

“Ever so proper, dear wife.” His grin was slow, knowing, and far too teasing as he stepped closer. “But I see it, the part of you that wonders what it might be like to step just a little beyond decorum.”

He inched even closer, such that her back met the cool wall.