Page 18 of The Duke of My Desire

He shook his head. “I’d feel better if I slept in the chair.”

“Are you worried the wicked widow will try to seduce you in the night?”

He looked at her and was met with an arched eyebrow. “No,” he answered honestly. The thought had never crossed his mind. He wouldn’t dare to hope for such a thing.

“Then are you worried you might try to seduce me?”

He grunted. He wouldn’t know where to begin to seduce a woman, let alone one as attractive and self-assured as Justina. But he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands to himself with her curves and soft hair and delicious scent all around him.

No. He absolutely could not get in that bed with her.

“I’m not worried about anything except doing what is right,” he said finally. “And sleeping in that bed with you would not be right. We only met yesterday, if you’ll recall.”

He knew he sounded like a prude with a stick up his arse, but it couldn’t be helped. It was his only defense against her.

“Very well,” she murmured as she rose from her chair. “Have it your way, Your Grace.”

His way. If he had his way, he’d be in that bed right now with Justina beneath him, warm and naked and begging for his touch.

Instead, he’d be spending the night alone in a hard chair with only a blanket to hold. His way, indeed.

Justina stole another glance at Gregory as she slipped beneath the cool bed linens and lay back on the slightly lumpy mattress.

He had removed his waistcoat, and as he draped it around the chair he was so determined to sleep in tonight, the glow from the fire drew her eye to the broad, capable-looking shoulders filling out his obviously expensive white cotton shirt.

She let her gaze travel down his back, over his backside and thighs, and her body flushed with heat as she wondered if he was the sort of man who usually slept in the nude.

She very nearly asked him but managed to hold her tongue. It wasn’t easy for her, but she’d probably teased him enough for one day.

He really was the sweetest man, protecting her honor, ordering her a tray of food, offering to take her to Cheshire in the first place.

He would make a considerate husband when he married.

The observation made her realize she knew very little of his personal situation. She could safely assume he was single—he’d never mentioned a wife, and if he had one, he was hardly likely to be here with her now, not a man as honorable as him.

But what about before now? Was there a wife in his past? A wife who had died, perhaps, leaving him a widower?

Justina glanced at the duke again and watched while he wrestled with the woolen blanket he’d draped over his legs, trying to get comfortable in the uncomfortable chair that would be his bed for the night. Stubborn man.

But he’d made his chair and now he must lie in it.

“Your Grace,” she said. “May I ask you a question?”

“It’s Gregory,” he reminded her, still shifting about in his chair. “And you may ask me anything you like.”

“Gregory, then.” She curled her arm under her pillow to prop her head up. “Have you ever been married?”

He seemed to hesitate, as if weighing his words, though surely it was a simple enough question. “No. I…was betrothed once for a short time, but she—” He paused, pressing his lips together briefly. “But it ended.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, and though she burned to ask what had happened, she forced herself to exercise restraint.

He shrugged one shoulder. “It was for the best. She loved another man.”

“I see.”

He was trying so hard to appear unbothered, but she wasn’t fooled. The lady from his past had not loved him, but Justina suspected he had loved her very much. And then he’d let her go.

She knew what it was like to suffer a broken heart, though her loss was very different from his. In a way, his was worse. She had lost Phillip, but at least he had loved her.