In Need of a Duke (The Heart of a Duke 0.5)(11)

Jealousy churned in his gut. Michael shoved aside the unpleasant (and unwelcome) emotion.

They moved through the grass still slicked wet from an earlier morning shower. Lady Aldora slipped and he wrapped an arm about her waist, holding her up.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Michael led her to the row of shaped topiaries that rested at the base of the balustrade and stopped. He gestured to the ground. “What is it we are looking for this time? An earbob?”

She shook her head. “Though if it were an earbob, I venture it would be nigh on impossible to find.”

“You are right there, my lady. A glove?”

“No.”

“A fan then?”

Pale pink color continued to grow in her cheeks until blazing red splotches glowed in the moonlight. Hmm, fascinating. Michael fell silent. What had his vixen lost this time?

“Uh-you see I dropped my, my…”

“Your?”

“Spectacles.”

Michael grinned. So the lady wore glasses.

Lady Aldora’s lips tightened. “Do you find that funny, my lord?”

Somehow it made her all the more perfect. It also well explained her inability to see him or her missing necklace in Hyde Park those two days ago.

He held a hand to his heart. “Not at all, my lady.” He directed his attention toward the ground, dropping to a knee, he felt around the damp earth for the missing treasure.

She sank down beside him and her mint green skirts fanned a soft breeze upon his skin. Michael sucked in a breath and glanced over at her. What was it about this bespectacled, troublesome miss that had so captivated him? Why when the last thing he wanted or needed were any emotional entanglements should he be so intrigued by this small slip of a woman?

Lady Aldora caught her lower lip between her teeth. Brown eyes flecked with gold held his, and he was overwhelmed by a desire to lose himself in their shimmering depths.

Michael gave his head a shake. Good God, where had this poetic drivel come from?

“Are you all right, my lord?”

If he were smart, he’d storm off and escape this maddening hold she possessed over him. She was a sorceress and he was helpless to resist her lure.

“My lord?”

Michael cupped her cheek, his fingers taking the time to memorize the satiny smoothness of her flesh. Her lashes fluttered as she leaned into his touch, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to lay her down and worship her beneath the moon’s gentle beams.

There was no helping it. He was lost.





Chapter Three





Aldora knew there was everything scandalous about her being alone with the Marquess of St. James. Since her father’s death, sensibility had dictated her every action. Even her decision to pursue the marquess had stemmed from her need for a gentleman who possessed a distinguished title, power, and the trace of scandal that would make him slightly less than illustrious. After all, what gentleman would burden himself with a debt-ridden family and a dowerless wife?

All the rules drummed into her head from early on flew right out at the touch of his hand.

The feel of his skin on hers, the smoldering intensity of his sapphire gaze, the unabashed teasing that drew her to him were far from logical and reasonable decisions. No, St. James, this relative stranger to her had begun to make her crave…him—the man, not the title. Aldora reached up and stroked the pendant at her neck, the metal heart all but burned her fingers. The talisman that had brought love and happiness to her friends who’d worn it before her had worked its magic upon Aldora.

As if drawn by her movement, the marquess’s gaze lowered, and then lingered upon the rapid rise and fall of her décolletage. He held his hand up. “May I have this dance?”

Logic reared its bothersome head as a quiet laugh escaped her. “But there is no music.”

He arched a single brow. “Shh, don’t you hear it?”

Aldora strained to hear the distant sounds of the orchestra’s strings. She shook her head. As long as she could remember, her vision had been poor. She’d never before realized her hearing, too, was a problem.

“Then you aren’t listening to what is right before you,” he chided. “Close your eyes.”

She hesitated for the fraction of a moment before doing as he bid.

“Now listen. What do you hear?”

Aldora listened. The chirp of crickets filled the quiet. She smiled.

“Ahh, so you hear it. What else do you hear, my lady?”

She focused on the nighttime song of a lone robin. “A bird,” she whispered.

A breeze rustled the trees around them and set the leaves to dancing.

“And what else?”

Aldora opened her eyes. “You. I hear you, my lord.”

“Michael. I want you to call me by my given name.”

Aldora had scoured through the book of peers. Milburn Michael Christopher Knightly, the Marquess of St. James. He preferred to use his middle name, and it suited him vastly better than his given one.

It was a scandalous proposition and yet…

“Very well. Michael,” she said, testing out the feel of his name on her lips. In the secret of these grounds, it felt right.

Michael. The archangel who’d defeated the demon. How perfectly appropriate for this man who would slay Aldora’s monsters, even if he did not yet know it.