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“Say the whole thing,” she pleaded with him. She placed her hands on the stone and leaned toward him, startled to see him do the same thing, leaning toward her.
“I give you my word, Lady Hermione: I will not kiss you on the lips, nor anywhere else,” he said the latter part with another smirk, “unless you kiss me first.”
“You didn’t need to add the last part,” she said, standing up straight.
“I needed to add a caveat somewhere,” he shrugged as though it made perfect sense.
“Oh, you are infuriating.” She snapped up the fossil from on top of his jacket.
“You didn’t seem to think that a moment ago.”
“Oh, tush,” she said, walking away from him back down the beach.
“Is that it? Are we done fossil hunting for the day?” he called after her.
“Yes!” she called back. “We’re going back, Your Grace.”
“Am I following your orders again now?” His tease on their old running debate made her stop and turn back to him, offering a frown. “That look won’t make me obey you, you know.”
“Your Grace,” she turned, her tone was darker, and she held even more of a glare in her face.
“That one will.” He pretended fear and hurried to catch up with her before running ahead across the stones with his jacket over his shoulder and his fossil in his hands. She nearly laughed, so tempted she was at his antics, then she remembered what she had done, and the temptation left her.
This is for the best,she assured herself.No more kisses.Yet she couldn’t explain why the thought of no more kisses made her very sad.
* * *
“So? How did today go?” Rufus asked Hermione, sitting beside her on a chesterfield settee in the drawing room.
She tried to look away from Rufus back down at the book in her hands. She had foundThe Modern Prometheusin the library shortly after dinner and brought it back to the drawing room, not wanting to risk meeting the Duke alone. She had found a second bookmark between the pages amongst her own, suggesting he was reading it too.
“Father, not now,” she whispered to Rufus, glancing up from her book as she turned the page.
Their whispers were completely hidden by Phoebe’s piano playing at the far end of the room. Beside the grand instrument, Officer Stenham sat by Phoebe, looking more and more interested in her conversation than Hermione had seen him before. On the other side of the instrument, the Dowager Duchess and Cordelia were together, playing a game of cards. By the exclamations that erupted every now and then, she rather thought the Duchess kept playing the game wrong. It seemed Cordelia was winning easily. The Duke was in his study, working on business.
“Yes, now,” Rufus said, taking the book from Hermione’s hands. She tried to take it back, but when Officer Stenham looked up from the piano toward them, she abandoned her effort and smiled, pretending to be enjoying the piano music. She could see Rufus putting on the same act. A few seconds later, Officer Stenham returned his attentions to Phoebe’s playing. “Tell me, what happened today?”
“I accompanied the Duke into town and then to the fossil beach,” she said, feeling her stomach knot in anger at his intrusion into her life.
“And? Did he respond to your attentions?” he asked, fixing her with his full focus.
She knew she could have told him the truth, that the Duke seemed to like her a great deal, but she couldn’t. Somehow, she felt she would be betraying the Duke.I can never harm him. Not now. Not ever.
“It was formal and restrained,” she felt the lie make her mouth dry. Her father’s countenance stiffened. A muscle in his jaw appeared to tick with barely concealed anger.
“Come with me,” he said, moving to stand her to her feet.
“I’d prefer to stay here,” she whispered, hoping he would give the book back to her, but he did not. He lowered the book to the settee cushion and used the move to hide the hold he took on her wrist.
“I said, come with me.” He drew her to her feet. The pincer-like grip he had on her arm left her with no choice but to follow him. As they parted from the room, she worked hard to mask his hold on her from the others, loath to let them see it.
Once they were in the hallway, she though he would release her, but she had no such luck. Instead, he drew her up the stairs. When she tripped in her effort to follow him, his grip on her wrist tightened even more, and her squeal of pain did nothing to abate it. They moved along the landing and toward her chamber. Once inside, he still did not release his grip on her, not until he had pulled her across the room and forced her to sit in a chair by the window.
“Ah,” she muttered sounds against the pain, rubbing her wrist as he stepped back from her.
“Are you telling me that there is no progress? None whatsoever?” Rufus asked, standing back from her and staring down with his face almost turning purple in his anger. “He has barely even noticed you?”
“That is correct,” she lied, concentrating on the pain in her wrist. She realized with horror that her father had truly hurt her, just as pink swelling began to appear around the white skin beneath her hand.
