Page 34 of The Duchess Curse

“Yes, Your Grace.” Bentley left.

And Bran closed the curtains, doused the lights, locked the door, sat behind his big desk in the darkness.

Last night, Guin had looked at him differently. In the firelight, she’d studied the lines of his body and face as if seeing him for the first time. Had his glamour been dissolving even then? If it had, not enough to give him away. She’d not stabbed him in the gut and twisted the knife.

What the hell was he going to do about this muddle? He wanted his wife back, wanted to kiss her at his leisure, but he didn’t want to be the duke. But he couldn’t kiss her as Bran because she’d likely realize his duplicity. If he’d known how all this would turn out, he never would have married her.

Ha. Lies. He’d still have done it.

He’d been new to the title and trying to do the right thing by it when her parents had approached him about marrying their daughter. They’d told him she was newly widowed and willing to remarry. And his first sight of her had been enough to convince him to do whatever they said.

There was nothing good about being a duke, Bran thought as the butler let him into the Pottinger London home with a stiff bow and a blank face. A glimpse of his own reflection in a mirror as he passed through the entry hall only emphasized how right he was. How could a woman look at his face and want to marry him not knowing what was beneath it? How was he to court a woman as someone other than himself?

But the woman in question—a one Lady Gabriella Cunning, Marchioness of Handsford—likely didn’t care what was beneath it. That wasn’t what mattered to the transcendent ton, and he’d have to remember that.

So much to remember, and none of it as easy to remember as the best force and angle to attack with a blade in order to pierce a man’s lung. He knew five different languages but putting Debrett’s to memory elluded him. In his other life, his Shadow life, he’d not needed to know the precedence for entering dinner. He simply needed to know the name of the man he was supposed to kill. Or protect.

The butler led him to a small sitting room on the side of the house, and Bran saw the woman almost immediately. It was as if she gathered all the light pouring in from the window.

She stood as he entered and curtsied.

He wanted to tell her not to. A woman like that—all sweet curves and red-gold curls—should never make herself smaller, should have men on their knees for her.

Bran almost hit his knees, but somehow he managed to make it across the room toward her. “You are Lady Handsford?” he asked, making sure to use the clipped, carefully moderated British tones he’d been practicing to go with the glamour.

She nodded. “And you are the Duke of Braxton?”

He nodded.

“My mother is just upstairs. She will return soon.” Her words were almost monotone, her face as blank as the glamour that covered his.

“Then we best make the most of our time alone.”

She stepped away from him, high color rushing across her cheeks. “I barely know you! I will not… You cannot convince me to…” She pulled herself up tall, chin high. “I will scratch your eyes out if you touch me, duke or not.”

Scratch… his eyes out? Fucking Jupiter, she was a hellcat, and it made him just a little bit aroused. “Do you think I’m going to… molest you? Good God, no! I meant conversation, not… whatever you thought was going to happen.”

She blinked at him.

He blinked at her.

And then she laughed, and the sound was so merry, so perfect, he knew he’d hear it in his soul every happy day of his life. He couldn’t withstand the siren call to join her, and when her mother joined them, they were both laughing, collapsed into matching chairs, thank God, and not on the floor.

When they’d finally wiped the tears away and caught their breath, her mother had been sulking in a corner like a good chaperone, and Bran sat up straight in his chair.

“I didn’t mean to proposition you,” he said. “Or threaten you.”

“I see that now.”

“Are you often propositioned?” Or threatened. He was well acquainted with violence and not hesitant to use it for her sake.

“No. Never, actually. Only I have been told that widows in town are supposed to be…” She leaned low and cupped a hand around her mouth. “Merry. And that many men think them… easy and eager to fall into bed. And you do look like a rogue of the first order.”

He studied what he could see of his glamour. “Do I?”

“Too handsome for your own good. And for the good of every woman within viewing distance.”

“Except your mother. She’s frowning at us.”