Page 31 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

Water ran in long, shimmering lines down the heavy muscles of his shoulders and the ridged, hard plane of his stomach. There were scars. A deep, jagged line along his ribs, another that crossed over his shoulder and disappeared down his shoulder blade like a pale ribbon.

She had been married. She had seen a man undressed. But she had never seen anything like this.

A wave of heat crashed from her chest to her face. It was physical, mortifying, and impossible to hide. She spun around, her back to him.

“Trespassing again.” His voice came from behind her, dry and unhurried. There was a low, vibrating quality to it, almost amused. “Must run in the family.”

Penelope pressed her hands flat against her skirts. Her cheeks were burning, and she was profoundly grateful for the distance between them.

“I have come to speak with you,” she said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt, though her pulse was thrumming in her throat. “It is a matter of importance.”

“Then speak.”

“You are not dressed.”

“That is true.”

Water lapped softly against the bank. In the reeds, a bird called once and went silent. She stared straight ahead at the overgrown garden gate, focusing on a single white rosebud.

“I would ask that you dress before we continue this conversation.”

Nothing for a moment. Then the sound of movement. The wet, heavy drag of cloth over skin. The unhurried efficiency of a man who had dressed in far worse conditions and found her presence merely a curiosity.

“Then do not turn around. I shall say when.”

She didn’t move. She kept her eyes on the roses and tried to think of absolutely nothing, a feat that required significant effort while her ears were tuned to the sound of him moving behind her.

“You may turn around,” he finally said.

She turned.

He had pulled on a shirt and trousers, but both were soaked through.

The damp linen clung to the lines of his body with a fidelity she found profoundly inconvenient. The shirt was translucent across his chest, the muscles beneath it as visible as if he had bothered with no clothes at all. She forced her gaze directly to his face, a deliberate act of will.

“You were saying,” he said.

She lifted her chin, clutching at her fading composure. “I came to ask you to stay away from my son.”

Something moved in his expression, not surprise, but something quieter and more considered. He reached for his jacket, which lay folded on the stone wall, but he didn’t put it on. He just held it.

“I have been trying to,” he said.

“Try harder.”

“He comes to my estate. I don’t seek him out. You might remember that I have ordered both of you to leave—twice.”

“You found him in those woods yesterday.” She kept her voice level, though it felt thin. “You stayed with him. You let him watch you shoot, and then you gave him a lesson. That is not a small thing to a seven-year-old boy. Especially one like my son who seeks a⁠—”

She cut herself off from saying a father figure.

Her hands tightened at her sides. “He came home and talked of nothing but you for an hour.”

“And that is the trouble.” His voice remained neutral, but his eyes narrowed. “That he found something worth admiring.”

“The trouble is that you are cultivating a connection I did not approve and do not want.”

He tilted his head slightly, the grey of his eyes darkening. “Was I meant to leave him alone in the ferns?”