Page 46 of The Duke is Wicked

Delaney lifted her arm to hide her smile and ended up inhaling the treacherous scent wafting from the duke’s sleeve. What he’d done to her in his orangery, his hand angling her head for a liquid kiss while his finger twisted and thrust inside her…

She’d been unprepared for the assault, those feverish, forbidden moments wagedafterthe fact. An attack occurring a hundred times a day. The memories—how Sebastian had made her feel, how she’dreacted, how she’d been blind withneed—were a deluge.

“Am I in your attic?”he’d asked in a forsaken tone, the only element of this situation, theonlyone that kept her from storming up to him and demanding toknow. What he felt for her—and what he was going to do about it. The fact that he was flustered, her formidable, imposing duke, had inspired a maternal impulse she was abashed to feel, but helpless to ignore.

The glimpse in his eyes of the boy by the fountain destroyed her. She didn’t have it in her to intimidate him. Consequently, here she was, caring more about his reaction to this tangled affair than where it lefther.

Protective mode, like the Duke of Ashcroft was her puppy. Or her brother.

While she explored this unsavory actuality, Sebastian swept his muscular leg out and sent Humphrey, a man twice his size, tumbling to his bottom. Then he rocked back on the balls of his feet and stretched his broad shoulders in a masculine show of bravado that made Delaney’s knees tremble hard enough to have her grasping the veranda’s ledge to steady herself.

Definitely not the fascination she’d feel for herbrother.

“He’s an honorable man,” Piper said, getting to the subject she’d obviously come to discuss. The outspoken viscountess wasn’t known for being subtle. She had her own rather scandalous reputation within theton. “Sullen and conceited, not the easiest man to befriend, but kind once you do. More than kind. Loyal, fiercely so. When there aren’t many loyal people in our mystical world. He and Julian are family now, brothers when neither has one of those. Or at least not anymore.”

Delaney had found Piper to be curious, meddlesome, and friendly. Funny and approachable. The American half. The English half probably insisted on ironed drawers, or aromatic sachets jammed between the towels. Fresh flowers in every room or off with the servant’s heads.

Truthfully, Delaney liked her—and she wanted a friend. Desperatelyneededa friend. Also, everyone suspected their five-year-old son had inherited a supernatural ability, so maybe the viscountess needed a friend, too.

Fixing her gaze on the men, who’d now moved to backslapping and shoulder-bumping and other forms of juvenile admiration, Delaney picked at a pill on Sebastian’s coat, pretending her words didn’t matter as much as they did. “You should list his attributes for Lady Hazelton.”

Piper lifted the spoon to her lips and licked at the icing. “Kitty, as she now wishes to be called, isn’t wearing the duke’s coat. She doesn’t, from merely being in his vicinity, compel him to glance over every minute to see if a certain someone is witnessing his foolish attempts to impress.”

Delaney slipped her hands in his coat pockets and hugged the worsted wool close. A partial lie would do. “Oh, I only wore this to rile him. He left it in the breakfast room, and I thought about giving it back, but then”—she shrugged and glanced at her boots—“I didn’t. Immature on my part. I don’t know why I enjoy irritating him so much.”

Piper laughed and gave the spoon another lick. “You would be so good for him.”

Delaney opened her mouth to refute the statement, then realized she agreed. Deep down, in a basement much bleaker than her attic, a place where she hid herfeelings. A man burdened by expectation and responsibility, a gift that oft controlled him. What would it be like to share his life with a woman who didn’t care about the first two and could only help him live with the last?

“They’re ridiculous,” Piper said after Finn took Julian down, then frowned upon recognizing he’d ripped his trousers. “I hope Victoria is close by, or Finn will take advantage and read their minds, and heaven knows what rubbish is in them. Or Sebastian will scorch the lawn like he’s done a hundred times already.” She pointed to an area west of the men. “See that charred spot. It burned for two hours.”

Overgrown boys, Delaney decided with a weak smile, hoping Finn couldn’t readherthoughts about the man standing tallest among them. Hair shot through with auburn and curling about his face, white teeth a flash of brilliance in the sunlight, deep voice rising above the others. The most overgrown boy of all.

“You don’t care about it, do you?”

Delaney glanced at the viscountess, tilting her head in question.

“The duke thing?” Piper tapped the spoon against her palm. “The title?”

She looked back to find Sebastian’s gaze fixed on her. Like he’d attached a rope to her wrist and was drawing her to him in slow, suggestive increments. The desire in his eyes was easily identifiable, at least to her, and her body answered the call. A swift, liquid rush of awareness that created an ache between her thighs and sent her heartbeat soaring.

He couldn’t have aroused her more if he’d touched her.

Noticing his distraction, Julian came up behind Sebastian and knocked him to his knees. Delaney made herself look away before he got killed while they stood there mooning at each other. “The title? No, it’s silly.”

“You see, that’s not possible for anyone English to admit. Or feel, if we’re honest about it. An imbalance of power creates so many unhappy society marriages. We’re raised on the aristocracy's importance, even me, the child of an American actress. But my father was a viscount, my grandfather an earl. You begin to see the picture.” She tapped the spoon against the veranda’s stone ledge. “You don’t care, you really don’t, so it wipes the slate clean for a man like the Duke of Ashcroft. Honoria Hazelton would care too much, not about him butit, and he far too little about both. They’d end up hating each other. Or being indifferent, which is worse.”

Unable to halt the compulsion, Delaney stepped into her attic to look up Piper’s family history inDebrett’s. Her mother, an actress? How scandalous, how intriguing. She had old theatre reviews tucked away somewhere. But, as frequently happened of late, the headache was swift and piercing. Slamming the attic door, she stepped out, palming her temple with a faint groan.

She blinked to find Piper’s dark green eyes centered on her, worrying grooves radiating from them, her fingers wrapped around Delaney’s wrist. “Sebastian told me this happened. The headaches, your attic. Just breathe.”

Delaney dropped her head and sighed. “How long was I in there? And how did he know about the headaches?”

Piper squeezed her hand and a calming shiver moved through her. Her mind emptied as the door to her attic clicked shut. Blessed serenity. “Fifteen minutes. I’ve had to shoo Sebastian away twice.”

Delaney gave anI’m finewave to the group of men, too shaky to provide more reassurance at the moment. “Why is this happening? I used to go in and out without any trouble. And quickly, without a lag in timing, like the continuum is different there than here.”

Piper smoothed her thumb over Delaney’s palm. “My guess is, you’re stockpiling information faster than your mind can accommodate. We’ve asked you to research children inheriting gifts, meaning you’re searching through hundreds of years of documents, thousands of pages. You’re helping Finn translate coded messages and trying to uncover who is blackmailing you. Your mind isn’t an attic, Delaney. That’s your vision. And it’s only a vision, a mirage. There are limits where you find your gift is overwhelming you.”