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“So you say,” Sir Owen pursued.
“Devil seize your heart and then feed it to the lions,” the viscount shouted. “Get out of my home.”
Sir Owen was up already and started for the door, “As a true friend of the Sherborne’s, I have to explore every possibility.”
“As do I,” the viscount shouted after him. “We all know that you and Celia were as you called it ‘intimately involved’ and that you were seeing her clandestinely up until nearly the moment she died, even when you were attempting to court Mandy. I think you have a sight more to answer for than I, my man!”
“Indeed,” put in the duke. “I think your involvement with Miss Celia trumps that of the viscount’s with regard to timing. After all, you must marry well in order to fully come about, must you not? Would the fair Miss Sherborne understand how you could so quickly drop her cousin and profess your love of her?”
“How dare you,” snapped Sir Owen. “I think you owe me an apology, if you are man enough…” Sir Owen snapped towards the viscount as he glared at the duke.
“Apology? You come into my house and insult me and turn around looking for an apology. You have a loose screw, my man, a loose screw,” Skip retorted.
“Good day, gentlemen,” Sir Owen said and slammed out of the library.
The duke turned to the viscount and said, “Well, this puts things in a new light. Sit, my friend…let’s talk.”
Chapter Nine
MANDY SAT UP and pushed the thin blanket away from her body. The darkness of her self imposed cell was all encompassing, yet she strained through the blackness in an attempt to see her brother lying some few feet away.
Although she could hear his breathing, she could not make out his form. She tried calling to see if he was awake, “Ned…Neddy, are you sleeping?”
She received a caustic response, heard some grumbling and then his deep breathing again. She grimaced to herself and sighed wearily and loudly. No response. She tried again—still no response. The sound of his heavy breathing continued.
It was musky and uncomfortable and her straw bed was certainly not what she was used to—nor did time seem to be an aid to adjustment. Her small bones ached. She was dismal and restless, and her thoughts for no reason at all were always about the duke. What was he doing and with whom was he doing it with? Where was he and did he think her desirable? Could he think her desirable and, would he if she put some effort into it?
She lay back down and her mind focused on the blue forever in her thoughts—the color of his eyes. Such deep sky blue and forever twinkling; at least when he wasn’t glaring at her. He seemed to wear an expression that said he found the world at large absurd, which is how she often felt. They were alike in many ways—rule breakers, independent, and wildly passionate about life. A heavy sigh escaped her as she thought about her life and what a mess she was in.
She thought about what her life had been like for the last almost two years and crinkled her nose. Life? She hadn’t had much of a life. Even this cold discomfort at least made her feel alive, as for months and months everything she had been doing had left her listless and hungry for something else, something more. There had to be more.
She no longer had a place, what with her friends all attached romantically. All of them, every single last one of them had whispered rapturously about the kisses they had enjoyed with a variety of fellows and then how much more they had enjoyed with their husbands.
Life for them had moved on and now here she was a fugitive. Kisses? Ah, but none of the few stolen kisses she had experienced had prepared her for the duke’s kisses. He had taken her out of her world and made her body and mind explode with sensation.
Sir Owen’s kiss had been the only kiss that had come from an experienced man. She had thought it very nice, but it was nothing, absolutely nothing when compared to the duke’s. When Sir Owen kissed her, she had thought it very exciting, but now she knew what it was to ‘feel’ really feel desire when a man took her into his arms, and she knew and admitted to herself that she desired the duke.
She had always been honest with herself. She might end an old maid, as her reputation was now ruined. Hiding out like a common criminal, would soil her for any guest list. So there would be no invitations to balls or routs in her future.
She sighed over this, for even if they saw themselves extricated safely out of this situation, she was ruined.
Her part in her brother’s escape would never be forgotten. No one, but a fortune seeker would want her. It was a very lowering thought.
And the problem here was, the man, the one man she seemed to think about above all others, was her guardian.
Even if he was attracted to her and the more she thought about it, the more she believed that because he was a duke, he would never soil his family’s name by aligning himself with a common criminal and that was what she had become.
Why had fate done this to her? Why was it that the man, whose kiss had driven her to distraction, was her guardian?
Why had fate turned her needs inside out and spelled his name as the director of those needs? Why?
And she knew she needed him—wanted his kisses to continue, wanted to learn everything his touch could teach her. She wanted him—only him.
Life at the moment had given her a kick in the stomach.
He was not only a duke but a rakehell. She was sure he had had many women. What would he want with her?
She knew this without anyone having to tell her it was so and still she wanted him, if only to experience lovemaking at his hands. She was outrageous. However, she had been good and sweet and decent and look where it gotten her! With nothing and no one.
