AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Nine
Hermione looked down, feeling her eyes widen and her hands tremble at what had happened. The arrow in the Duke’s hands had been at completely the wrong angle with the arrowhead catching her dress. At once, her dress had torn awfully, the skirt had come away partly from the bodice on one side, revealing the bottom of her corset and also the top of the chemise skirt underneath.
“Well, that was unfortunate,” the Duke said, with a chuckle under his breath. She pushed the arrowhead away as fast as she could and jumped back.
“You did that on purpose!” she accused, pulling at the skirt hopelessly, somehow praying it would magically fix itself.
“Believe me, I did not,” he said, stilling laughing away, “but the result is a very happy accident.”
“Happy? Do I look happy!?” she railed at him, still pulling at the skirt. In her effort to hold the silken skirt up, she pulled too hard, and she heard another tearing sound. She itched the silk to the side slightly, seeing that she had now ripped the chemise beneath as well, revealing a flash of bare skin.
“Well, I’m even happier now,” the Duke said with a husky tone. She held the skirt flat to her body, covering up the flash of skin as she lifted dark eyes to her. “Oh, I see you truly are angry. I apologize, I didn’t mean to do it, and I am merely jesting with you.” He hurriedly placed the longbow and arrow down on a table behind him and lifted his hands up in surrender.
“You expect me to believe that?” she scoffed before lowering her voice and glancing around them. Fortunately, her father, her aunt and the Dowager Duchess had wandered on and were nowhere nearby to see this scene unfold. “After what you did last night?”
“After whatwedid last night; I’d like to correct you,” he said with a smirk, “for I still maintain that you kissed me back.”
She let out a growl of frustration and turned away from him to pull back the skirt a little and examine the damage. The skirt was torn badly, perhaps beyond repair. Her father would be furious for that was another costly expense to buy her another dress.
Footsteps behind her made her snap the skirt closed, just as a voice whispered in her ear. “May I be of some assistance?” the Duke asked. She moved away from him.
“I think you have done enough,” she said sharply, about to walk away through the woods, back to the house, when she paused, looking down at the state she was in. It would hardly be proper for her to walk back into the house like this.
“I am being serious now; I assure you,” the Duke said, coming near her again.
“Are you capable of such a thing?” she said, arching her eyebrows. She briefly thought how mad her father would be if he could hear her speaking so to the Duke, but she didn’t care right now. The Duke deserved his admonishment.
“Occasionally,” he said, still smiling. “Here, take this.” He picked up the tailcoat he must have taken off earlier in order to practice his archery from where it was laying across a nearby tree branch and passed it to her. She was wary to take it, watching him as though it were some sort of trick.
“It is merely a jacket,” he said with that smile she was beginning to find insufferable, despite what it did to his handsome features. “No need to be scared of it.” He shook it slightly in the air, taunting her with it.
She lifted a hand to take it, but by releasing her skirt, she made the folds flash open again. She lowered her hand back down to the skirt, gathering it together without taking the jacket.
“In something of a pickle?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Look away,” she ordered, pointing at his face.
“Ah, we are back to our debate of orders. You expect me to follow your orders now?” he asked, still teasing her.
“Unless you wish me to find a new target for my archery practice, yes,” she said tartly. She hardly expected his reaction. He guffawed with laughter before turning his head away with the jacket held out for her to take.
“Well, I’ll be following your orders with due diligence now,” he remarked as she took the jacket from his hands and pulled it over her shoulders, pushing her arms through the sleeves and wrapping the loose covering around her body. It swamped her, because of his height, but it also held the scent that made her freeze and linger with her nose pressed into the collar.
It smelled of the sea and the woodland they were in, and something altogether deeper. It was the same scent that she had experienced in the library from him the night before. “Are you decent?” he asked, still looking away from her.
“Yes,” she said, checking that the jacket covered the rip. He turned back around, still smiling at her. She was so incensed that she threw Cordelia’s guidelines far from her mind. There was going to be nothing remotely demure or deferential in her next words. “I do not think I can forgive you for this, Your Grace.”
She briefly caught sight of his smile vanishing before she turned and hurried away. She walked as quickly as she could, through the trees and the formal garden, back in the direction of the house, holding the jacket close around her body. As she reached the pebbled path through the garden, she could hear something behind her– footsteps on the same path. She glanced back to see that the Duke was following her.
Frustrated that she had not escaped him, she picked up her pace and hurried in through the front door of the house, pushing past the butler, who nearly jumped at the sharpness of her arrival almost dropping the silverware in his hands that he had been cleaning, before she headed for the stairs. She glanced back part way up the steps, just long enough to see that the Duke’s arrival made the butler jump again. This time, he nearly tossed the silverware in the air.
“My apologies,” the Duke said quickly, before chasing her up the stairs. She huffed in frustration and lifted her skirt to aid her run up the steps.
As she reached the landing, she could hear the Duke was gaining on her fast now. She hurried down the corridors, as fast as she could, until she reached her chambers. She placed a hand on the door handle, about to fling the door open, when he caught her. He placed his arm across the door, holding it in place.
“Release the door, Your Grace,” she pleaded, pulling on the door handle in a futile effort.
“No, we have not finished our discussion.”
