Page 33 of An Offer By the Beastly Duke

“Penelope…” he said, his thumb pressing firmly against her lower lip, pulling it down just enough to reveal the white of her teeth. “All I can think about right now is how much I want to feel you come undone in my arms. I want to see that composure of yours burn away until there’s nothing left but this.”

His fingers tangled deep into the hair at the nape of her neck, tilting her head back to an impossible angle. He didn’t look like a duke; he looked like a man who had finally reached the end of his tether.

“Heavens, Penelope,” he groaned, his eyes darkening to the color of a storm-tossed sea. “I have been starving for you.”

She had been cold for years. She had lived inside that coldness and called it dignity, called it her shield against a world that had hurt her. She had not known, until this exact moment, how freezing she had been. The gravity of him was terrifying, the way he looked at her as if she were something he had already decided to own.

Her husband had looked at her like a piece of furniture. The ton looked at her like a ghost. This was neither.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink.

He kissed her.

It wasn’t a question. His mouth found hers with a devastating certainty. The final defense in Penelope’s chest—the carefully rehearsed arguments, the maternal fear, the icy pride—disintegrated. Her hand went to his chest before she knew she had moved it. She felt his heartbeat under her palm, fast and heavy, mirroring her own.

She was kissing him back.

The composure she had carried into the garden was gone, replaced by a desperate, starving heat. She felt his hands, solid and warm through the silk at her waist, pulling her flush against his damp, hard frame. She didn’t pull back; she leaned into him, her fingers curling into the wet linen of his shirt.

The garden door creaked open.

“Your Grace⁠—”

Penelope pulled herself away, turned, and saw a footman stepping through, carrying a copper watering can. He froze, then bowed and scuttled away.

Penelope tore herself even further away, so sharply the gravel shifted under her feet. Her hand flew to her mouth, her lips stinging and swollen.

The Duke was watching her. He was perfectly still, showing no triumph, no amusement. He simply watched her with those grey eyes that seemed to see everything she was trying to hide.

She could not stay. She could not breathe.

“Good day, Your Grace,” she managed, her voice whispery.

She turned and fled up the gravel path. Through the beautiful, unruly garden. Through the cool, silent corridor. Past the butler, who stood in the hall and looked at her flushed face with an expression of profound silence.

She walked down the drive at a measured, dignified pace. She did not run, though her heart demanded it.

She pressed her fingers against her lips, the taste of him still lingering there. She kept walking, her gaze fixed straight ahead, realizing with a jolt of terror that she had failed to say a single word of what she had come to say.

Chapter Eleven

“You have barely touched that drink.” Benedict set his elbows on the scarred, beer-slicked wood of the tavern table.

He looked at Malcolm.

The tavern was low-ceilinged and thick with the haze of tallow smoke and the yeasty tang of spilled ale. It was a warm, noisy sanctuary, filled with men who had come somewhere other than home to sit.

A fire roared at the far wall, spitting sparks against the soot-stained hearth. The noise, a cacophony of clinking glass and raucous laughter, was substantial enough to swallow a private conversation whole. This was precisely why Benedict had chosen this village over the one adjacent to his own estate.

Malcolm picked up the glass. The amber liquid burned his throat, but he welcomed the heat. “I have touched it now.”

“The boy on the hunt,” Benedict guessed, “and his mother.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No¸ we are not discussing it.”