The Duke Makes Me Feel... by Adriana Herrera

Author:Adriana Herrera [Herrera, Adriana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adriana Herrera Publishing, LLC

Chapter Eight

Dinner had been exquisite torture. Arlo’s upbringing at the hands of a loving but practical woman had taught him to harness impatience and relish anticipation. Beatrice would always remind him that waiting meant a deeper satisfaction when the thing he desired was finally his. And for most of his life, he’d considered his composure one of his most valued attributes. He could keep a cool head and a steady hand in almost any situation. It had served him well a decade earlier, when his father’s poor judgment had put the substantial holdings of the duchy in dire straits and had required Arlo—with the help of his grandmother—to bring them back from the precipice of financial ruin.

It had also been a valuable skill in the past year when he tried to appeal to the peerage to pass bills that expanded rights for and improved the living conditions of women, children, and the poor. Arlo could wait anyone out. He’d seen far more dignified men than he work themselves into a frenzy while he remained calm and collected. But that was before he, the man known to the peerage as “that unflappable stone-cold bastard,” had to sit through a full hour of Marena Baine-Torres licking her lips and moaning in ecstasy as she made swift work of three courses of the best gastronomic offerings in Paris.

“You never told me how you became involved in women’s suffrage.” Her voice was redolent with the smile that had been on her lips through the meal, and it blessedly pulled him out of his fevered thoughts. Arlo was not a fanciful man, but something possessive and not a little primal pulsed in him with the need to keep this woman glowing. The thrill he felt from knowing he’d been the one to do this for her, to feed her, fill her senses with things that delighted her, was a revelation. And now she was looking at him like she wanted to know him, the distant, wary woman of mere days ago replaced by a whirlwind of curls and bright smiles.

Arlo usually kept his past, his true self, close to his chest. He’d learned early on that being the Duke of Linley could erase who he was completely. He always kept the two Arlos separate. The grandson of Beatrice Brooks, and son of Clarice, only appeared for those who had known him before the move to Linley house. That Arlo needed to be hidden from the world into which he had been thrust, lest the peerage recall he was not one of them.

Not because he was afraid of losing his title. If there was something aristocrats were good at, it was making sure their kind could do and say what they wanted with absolute impunity. His fear was that he’d gotten so good at wearing that mask, he wasn’t sure he could take it off. But for the past day he’d been letting her see him. As though he was finding his way back to a place from which he’d strayed, and to which he yearned to go back.

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