An Inconvenient Duke by Anna Harrington

Author:Anna Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

Dani hurried through the dark stretch of gardens as quickly as she could without stumbling on the uneven path. She wound her way back toward the lanterns and buildings of the main section of the park more relieved to be out of the wilderness with every step she took.

Her heart pounded brutally hard, and she gulped in great lungfuls of air. But she didn’t dare stop. She also didn’t bother to glance behind her, because she knew Marcus wasn’t following.

As a gentleman, he would wait before he returned to the box, to give several minutes’ space between their two arrivals to cover up any whispers of impropriety that they’d returned at the same time. And to give him an opportunity to collect himself, so there was no evidence of what they’d been doing in the darkness.

Oh, heavens, what they’d done! She pressed her fist against her chest to keep down the rising flush—not of regret or humiliation. Never that, never with Marcus. How could she ever regret something so wonderful with a man so special?

No, she fought down her emotions because she wanted nothing more than to turn around, run straight back into his arms, and beg him to do that again. To give him the same exquisite bliss that he brought to her. And with that, possibly lose both Nightingale and herself.

A long talk, indeed.

She slowed her pace as the path spilled out into the area surrounding the Chinese pavilion. Her fingers grabbed at her mask and she tore it off, her hand falling to her side and the long ties dangling against her skirt. She dragged in several deep lungfuls of the cool night air until it tingled her chest from the inside. But there wasn’t enough air in England to fight down the flaming heat lingering inside her that Marcus had ignited. A heat she knew only he could extinguish.

As she approached the rear of the gallery, a figure moved out of the darkness. Dani halted with a surprised gasp.

“There you are.” Mrs. Slater stepped into the lamplight from the shadows where she’d been waiting. “And gone dangerously longer than twenty minutes, I daresay.”

Thankful to hide her lack of breath under the pretense of being startled, Dani half panted out, “The line for the ices was exceedingly long.” But her voice held no inflection to support that lie. She added dryly, “Pity that we were separated in the crowd.”

“Indeed.” Mrs. Slater looked past her toward the avenue and lowered her voice, “And His Grace?”

Playing along with their very thin charade, Dani drawled, “I have no idea what you mean.”

Mrs. Slater’s face tensed as she continued to hunt for Marcus. “I was certain you’d have come back together,” she murmured. “This isn’t at all…” Then, in a beat, she cut off her musing, and her distraction was gone, a smile in its place. She took Dani’s hands and held her arms open wide, then raked an assessing gaze over her from head to toe and back again, looking for any sign in appearance that she’d engaged in anything less than proper.

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