Page 23 of The Duke of Deceit

“Perhaps I am,” he muttered to himself as he took the stairs three at a time, burning off what little frustrated energy he could.

Only madness could explain what he’d done with that troublesome gel on the terrace.Christ.Didn’t she know she was supposed to be afraid of him? She shouldn’t be pliant and soft with skin so delicious that he couldn’t decide if she were sweet or tangy on his tongue, but only that he knew he wanted to taste more. A hell of a lot more. If the Petersons hadn’t chosen thatmoment to step out onto the terrace and forced her to slap him, he would have embarrassed them both by showing her exactly how much because even those small touches and kisses had him nearly tenting his trousers.

That was the worst of it. Not that he found an unschooled miss particularly alluring, not that he’d caressed the same woman who wanted to destroy him—

It was that instead of proving himself to be the ruthless rakehell society thought he was, he’d behaved like some green lad who couldn’t control his cock.

What on God’s earth was it about Jessamyn St Clair that irritated him so much yet had him practically panting over her? Frustration. That was all.Hadto be. The damnable gel frustrated him with her relentless attacks on his character, yet didn’t know enough to stop when she should. It certainly wasn’t because he found her attractive.Impossible.She was nothing like the women he favored.

Yet whatever the reason he’d momentarily lost his mind tonight, he could never touch her like that again.

“I can control my cock, God damn it,” he muttered as he threw open the door of the sitting room off his bedroom and stomped inside.

“Glad to hear it.”

He halted mid-step. Slowly, he turned his gaze to the man sitting in the chair in the corner of the dark room.

Seamus Douglass, Duke of Malvern, returned his stare.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lucien demanded of his old friend and one of the men who had joined him to fight as mercenaries on the Continent with the Prussians, until Shay had come to his senses and taken a legitimate commission in the British army.

“I came to see you.”

“I meant in London.” Not an unexpected question, given that Shay now never left his Yorkshire estate. For any reason.

“I came to see you,” he repeated pointedly.

Oh, this could not be good.

Lucien crossed to the fireplace and snatched up the iron poker. Although he didn’t want the warmth of a fire—only something to do with his hands that still ached from the softness of Jess’s skin—he knew better than to stir the coals into a blaze or to light any of the lamps or candles in the room. Shay would want to remain in the shadows, and Lucien wouldn’t do anything to make his old friend uncomfortable. After all, while Lucien pretended to be a man shrouded in blackness, Shay had become a true creature of the darkness.

“Devlin said you were in London,” Lucien spoke into the fire as he poked at the banked coals.

“I arrived a few days ago.”

“Staying at Malvern House?”

“At the Prince of Wales Inn in Cheapside. I don’t want anyone else to know I’m here.”

Surprised, Lucien stopped stabbing the coals and looked over his shoulder. “Not even the Earl of Granville?”

“Especiallynot the Earl of Granville.” Shay leaned forward in the chair, elbows on knees and his face still hidden by the shadows. “Sophie can’t know I’m here.”

“All right.” An easy promise to keep considering that Lucien traveled nowhere near the social circle where the lovely Lady Sophie Winter and her father belonged, and Lucien certainly didn’t need to ask why Shay wanted it that way. After all, Lady Sophie and Shay—and Shay’s late brother—had all shared a past. Some men claimed they would die for love, others that they would give everything they possessed for it, and still others that they would kill for it. Shay had somehow managed to do all three, yet Lady Sophie still wasn’t his. “But unless you came inthrough the window, McGregor let you into the house, and he knows you.”

Lucien had hired McGregor as his butler because the man had once been a sergeant in the army, serving first in Spain and then in France after the Allies chased Bonaparte north from the Peninsula. When the wars ended, McGregor needed a position, and Lucien needed servants he could trust with his life. Even after the accident that scarred Shay’s face, the old soldier would surely have recognized the Duke of Malvern if the man arrived on the doorstep and asked to wait for Lucien.

“He also knows how to keep a secret,” Shay replied. “Which is why you hired him.”

“True enough,” Lucien muttered and turned back to stab at the coals again. “Not that I’m not happy to see you…”

He was thrilled, in fact. He’d been worried about Shay during the past few years. His old friend had holed himself up in his house and seldom came out. True, the house was a palatial country estate that could have given Blenheim Palace a run for its money in terms of grandeur. But Shay had given up coming to London for any reason—Hell, he’d given up leaving the estate for any reason, becoming little more than a hermit.

Lucien leveled a hard gaze on him over his shoulder. “But why are you here? It isn’t just to see me. You haven’t been to London in over five years, and you didn’t send word ahead. We both know the Royal Mail works just as well in Yorkshire as it does here.”

“I had no choice. Something happened.” He pushed himself out of the chair and came forward toward the fireplace, but even then, Lucien noted that he kept the right side of his face toward the shadows. “That is, something isgoingto happen unless I stop it.”

“What would that be?” Lucien could sense the agitation radiating from Shay.