“Your Grace—” she started, meaning to apologize for offending him, but he was already gone. The room seemed colder after his abrupt departure. Their argument had made her blood pound and her heart speed. What did he want from her? First he alluded so tantalizingly to logistical inconsistencies in her description of kissing, then he ordered her never to be kissed, and then he took umbrage at her very accurate description of the dinners they had shared.
And then there was the matter of how every time she was near him, she thought about what it would be like to kiss the man. What was it about him that turned her thoughts so wanton? He was distant and silent most of the time. Yet he’d thought enough about her to invite her to attend the art exhibition. She was looking forward to it. Perhaps she’d spent too long in the company of the Dread Duke of Warburton. It was time to experience all that London society had to offer, and then write the most vivid, wildly romantic novel imaginable.
A novel that Mr. Norwood simply couldn’t refuse to publish.
Chapter Ten
“Be damned to a thousand eternities of pain, thou Wretched Fiend!” she sobbed, struggling against the supple, scaly limb that surrounded her. To have made it all the way to sunlight! To have tasted fresh air upon her lips and then be corralled again in such a humiliating fashion—it was too much to bear. “Let me go! If thou won’t help me, yet have no desire to kill me, why keep me here as a prisoner?”
—The Dragon and the Blue Starby Analise Crewe
“It’s hopeless,” Aunt Glynis sighed, an air of injury creasing her brow. “She can’t be readied for her debut at Lady Chetwynd-Ellerton’s ball, at least not in a fortnight’s time. I swear it cannot be done, even by me. My dear nephew, you have given me an impossible task. I’m throwing in the towel. Find another chaperone for that hoyden.”
“You can’t quit. I’m counting on you,” Dex pleaded. “What has Miss Crewe done now? I’ll have a talk with her.”
“It won’t have any effect. She’s impervious to good sense. She’s more whirlwind than young lady. She’s been dragging me all over town to various and sundry locations of interest and pestering mewith an inexhaustible stream of oddly specific questions about societal rituals. I tell you my nerves won’t stand for it.”
Dex sympathized. He hadn’t had a moment of peace since Miss Crewe arrived in his home. Her warmth and vitality filled the entire structure, even when he wasn’t physically near her. He could hear her laughing with the maids, smell her clean lavender scent in the hallways. He found her pencils in the oddest places. They reminded him how fiercely she’d fought to protect herself on their first meeting, how a woman half his size had almost bested him with the aid of that humble but dangerous writing implement. That made him smile despite himself. And smiling made his scars ache.
The nights were the worst part. She had somehow found entry into his dreams. They were rife with bright red-gold hair and soft pink lips, supple skin that pressed into his own, tangled limbs.
He dreamed she was pulling him from a dark cave into bright sunlight.
He dreamed he was unfurling a great roll of cloth, and when he’d reached the end of it she tumbled out. Perfectly naked. Looking up at him with lambent green eyes, her arms outstretched, murmuring, “How does kissing work?” and other inane but wildly pleasant questions that woke him right up, boiling hot and aching to go back to sleep so that he could show her.
They never spoke without arguing, yet in his dreams all they did was... entirely inappropriate and entirely forbidden things.
“I’m afraid I’m partially to blame for those harebrained ideas. I said something about her novel lacking the ring of practical experience and now she’s determined to experience as many of the things her heroine experiences in real life.”
“Well-bred young ladies should not be writing novels, and theycertainly shouldn’t be rehearsing them. She’s altogether too eccentric and opinionated to be a success. My advice for you, my boy? Give up the notion of introducing her to society altogether. Find some impoverished lord to wed her, offer him a handsome settlement, and he’ll take her off your hands.”
Her words filled him with disgust. Why did the idea of Miss Crewe marrying a fortune hunter make him so ill? It must be because he knew her to be a romantic. She’d never be happy in a loveless marriage.
“She must have her chance to dance at balls, to be on display, to make her own choice from the potential suitor pool.”
“Then I wash my hands of this whole affair. I will not chaperone her at a ball, for fear she might say or do something to damage this family’s good reputation.”
There was a loud knocking on the door. “Enter,” said Dex.
McArdle burst into the room, bright spots of color on his cheeks, panting heavily. “Your Grace, Miss Crewe is causing a commotion in the ballroom. She’s forcing the footmen to fight a duel and it’s frightening the maids.”
Aunt Glynis raised her eyebrows. “You see what I mean? I wash my hands, I tell you. You’re on your own, my boy.”
“Wait, Aunt, don’t leave. There must be something I can do to induce you to continue?”
The good lady paused. Though a veritable pillar of society, she was not immune to bribery. He did some quick mental calculations. “Your townhouse—I’ve heard you speak of renovations?”
“Ah yes,” she sighed, turning aggrieved eyes skyward. “The whole thing needs remodeling! Such a sorry state. But the cost—”
“Allow me to cover it.”
“And the furnishings! In such desperate need of updating...”Aunt Glynis was far too good to gloat, but she had him where she wanted and they both knew it.
“I’ll cover them. Anything you want. Just stay.”
“Anything I want? Any designer I choose?”
“Yes, of course. Just please stay. I need you.”