“Maybe you should leave it here,” he said gently. “If you bring it with you, you’ll be tempted to sneak away and read it during the ball, and I know that your cousin and his wife would really appreciate it if you were present for the ball, not reading in dark corners.”
Rosalie worried the bottom of her lip as she thought about this. “But I have to know if they’re going to kiss… what if it’s in the next chapter?”
Nathan considered this. “What if I promise to make sure that the ball is far more exciting and romantic than anything that might be in that novel?”
“Oh?” she raised an eyebrow. “And how might you do that?”
He smiled and leaned forward to push back a lock of her hair. As his fingers grazed her skin, she shuddered.
“I have my ways.”
“Fine,” she said primly although the pink flush of her cheeks was anything but, “I’ll leave it here. but you’re going to have yourwork cut out for you. I haven’t been waiting years for you to kiss me, like I have been with this series.”
Nathan just smiled. “Oh, but you have, Rosalie. You have.”
Rosalie had to admit that her husband made a very interesting proposition. Not only that, but he followed up on it. Just as the dancing began, he was already by her side, asking her for her hand for the first dance.
“Not that anyone else would have dared,” he smirked as he led her out onto the dance floor. “Not when you are married to the Beast of Carramere.”
“I thought you hated that nickname!” she said, trying to disguise the flush on her face as he took her in his arms.
“I do,” he conceded, “but when it helps keep other men away from my wife, I find I don’t mind it as much.”
“That’s very overprotective of you.” She tried, and failed, to sound annoyed. “I am a grown woman after all, amarriedwoman. And I can have other men take me to the dance floor. In fact, some people would say it is more scandalous for a husband and wife to dance together.”
“Well, those people would be wrong. There is nothing bad about a man and wife dancing together at a ball. Sometimes Society can be so tedious and fastidious with its rules, don’t you think?”
He laughed throatily, and then the music started, and he moved away to the other side of the line. They bowed and curtsied to one another, and then the dance began.
“You’re thinking again of the taboo against women writers,” she said as their hands met again in the middle. “You think Society can be too limited.”
“I do, but perhaps that’s why I have the reputation that I do. I don’t like to be restricted. I don’t like to follow rules. I think humans should be free, and sometimes Society makes things more complicated and difficult than they need to be.”
“So how do you rebel against it?” she asked. “Because you don’t want to be the Beast of Carramere. Jokes aside about it keeping other men from asking me to dance, I know you hate it. There must be a better, healthier, lessbeastlyway of shunning Society’s more restrictive rules.”
He smiled; the twitch of his mouth was enough to make her heart race. She knew this look by now: it was the smile he always got on his face when she said something he thought was clever.
“I suppose that working for Scotland Yard was my way of doing that,” he said after a moment. “It’s a bit of an unusual pastime for a future duke. My father never approved, of course, but itallowed me to be myself and exercise the freedom I think is important for all humans to have.”
“And then what happened in the past two years?” The question was left hanging as the dance moved them away from each other again. It took several minutes before they were once again dancing together.
“What do you mean exactly?” he probed, once their hands met again.
“After your brother died—that’s when you became the Beast of Carramere, wasn’t it?”
He stiffened slightly, but she squeezed his hand. “I’m not trying to pry,” she murmured. “I just want to understand you.”
“Yes, after my brother died, my reputation began to change.” His tone was cold, but she knew it wasn’t meant to hurt her: he was simply trying to protect himself. “I was very angry, you see.”
“I can understand,” she murmured. “You watched your brother die. Of course, you were angry.”
“And I couldn’t forgive my father for holding me back from helping him.”
Again, she nodded. “Yes, I understand that as well. We both have complicated relationships with our fathers, it seems.”
The Duke was quiet for a moment then he said, “Yes, we do.”
She glanced at him. His jaw was set, and he looked tense, angry, and upset. Squeezing his hand a bit tighter, she murmured, “Maybe we should go somewhere more private to talk. I don’t mean to upset you. I’m merely trying to get to know you better.”
