Page 42 of The Duke is Wicked
“Well, thanks to my guard’s timely break, I didn’t have to climb out the window.”
Sebastian halted, trowel frozen where he’d been set to plunge it into a bucket of dirt. “You’re joking.”
She strolled to the third orange tree while he stood at the fifth. A fair fighting distance, two citrus pots between them. She was wicked, because Sebastian’s discomfiture always delighted her, placing her for one moment on a step above him on the staircase of life. Flipping her arm over, she nudged her sleeve high and traced a thin scar on her forearm. “I got this climbing out a second-story window, first to you Brits. Skinnied right down this old pine but got caught on a jagged branch at the bottom. Case thought it never would stop bleeding. Alas, there’s no suitable tree outside my window here.”
“Thank God.” He tossed the tool on the bench, then sighed out the question, “What are you doing here, Temple?”
“I came to revel in your burning wit, your accomplished charm.” Laughing at his fractious expression, she tunneled two fingers in her bodice and snaked the note free. His gaze tracked the movement, his hand clenching into a fist at his side. Her breath skittered, what she believed was need rippling from him in waves strong enough to make her want to take a step back. Studying her from head to toe, a lazy, sensual review, his gaze halted to linger for a long moment on her bare feet.
“I received another communication,” she said in a throaty whisper, and flipped it to him.
He snatched the folded sheet from the air, his bicep bulging beneath his sleeve. Moving to the bench, he smoothed the note flat, squinting as he read. “Why does the parchment look so old?”
“Because the person who wrote it lives in the past.”
He glanced back at her. “How do you know this?”
“Remember what I told you after I tumbled off my horse? The woman who stepped in my path? Antiquated clothing, hairstyle from a different era. I could…I saw through her. It would explain how she knows my secrets. How she’s visited me here and in London.” She shoved her hands in his coat pockets, shifting from foot to foot. “Easy, if one can travel through time.”
Sebastian gave the pruning shears on the bench a thump and glanced away, through the moon-streaked windowpane.
Delaney took a step forward, leaving only two pots between them. “Why do you look so troubled? We’re figuring it out. We’re getting closer to solving the puzzle.”
Shaking his head, he laughed, startling her. “I’m troubled because you remember what we talked about that day. I told you things I’ve never told anyone, Temple. Most people with a head injury remember little after.” He kicked a bucket by his feet and sent it tumbling. “But not you. Not with that incredible brain of yours.”
“Maybe I forgot those parts,” she lied, recalling every word he’d spoken. His voice soft, his eyes bright. His touch tender. She’d absorbed his kindness like parched soil does rain. Making it worse, she’d recalled his confessions a hundred times since he’d uttered them, the knowledge of being the only one he’d told his secrets trapping her in a jail of his making. A jail she didn’t want to escape.
His gaze snagged hers, imploring. “Did you forget?”
She couldn’t look away, and honesty finally won out. “No.”
Wordless, he slipped the note into his trouser pocket.
Unsure what to do, she folded one foot over the other and wiggled her toes. “Your coat,” she murmured and went to slide it from her arms.
He took a fast step forward, a single citrus tree standing as a chaperone between them. “No, for God’s sake, keep it on.”
She flinched at his harsh tone, her temper sparking. “Why are you so angry with me, Your Grace? May I ask?”
“Because, Miss Temple, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman. In mylife. And I’m finding it goddamned inconvenient, the timing.”
“And me,” she whispered, “you’re findingmeinconvenient.”
Her heart splintered when he made no effort, not one breath, not one blink, to deny the statement. If she were an earl’s daughter, a viscount’s sister, a baron’s bleeding cousin, he wouldn’t find her inconvenient. He would take her and not think twice.
Turning away in fury, she was passing the last orange tree when he caught her.
* * *
Sebastian grasped her wrist and pulled her against his chest. His fingertips were starting to sting, his vision to blur. “I could make you mine inseconds. Do you know how tempted I am to do that? To wreck every plan I’m putting in place for another taste of you? To wreck your life, toruinyour life.” He gave her a gentle shake, sending her hair tumbling into her face. “This tension between us isn’t common. It isn’t customary. It’s explosive and destructive. And I’m frightened of it, frankly, when I haven’t been frightened of anything since my father submerged my hands in that damned fountain.”
Instead of fighting, Delaney softened, reaching to sweep his hair from his eyes, her fond touch exposing a hidden nook he’d imagined long gone. “Don’t,” he whispered, her show of affection destroying his resistance. Destroying everything. “You don’t know how desire can trap you.”
“Has it trapped you before?” She took a strand of his hair, wrapped it around her finger and tugged. His scalp tingled, sending a dizzying rush of blood to his cock.
Christ,he thought,was he going to tell her everything?
“I don’t compare what I feel for you to what I’ve felt before. That was child’s play, Temple. Silly conquests, foolish infatuations. It…those women meant nothing. The entrapment I speak of, what I experience withyou, is what it was like to be drugged. When I was lost to opium.” Exhaling softly, he went to take a step back. “I’ll be lost if I allow this to happen. Do you want to become my addiction?”