“Yes, Your Grace.” Still holding a whimpering Bella, Jane turned on her heel and rushed away, her cloak flapping about her ankles.
Flabbergasted, Nicolette stared after her.
Why, she’s abandoned me.
“Your Grace,” Nicolette objected, flames licking at her face and all too aware the onlookers had yet to disburse completely. “Do put me down at once,” she hissed into his ear, clutching at his entirely too broad and muscular shoulders for fear of taking another tumble.
Westfall, was after all, well over six feet tall.
She might’ve also have caught a delicious whiff of his manly scent. And she did not lower her nose a fraction to inhale his cologne. She’d simply adjusted the angle of her neck.
Liar.
“Shh, relax.” His rich voice held a playful note. He gave her thighs a little squeeze, and a pulse of desire trilled through her.
Relax? Was he utterly mad?
“This is most inappropriate,” she said under her breath, forcing calm and modulation to her tone. She couldn’t very well screech like a harpy even if it would be ever so satisfying. “Whatever will people think, Your Grace?”
Another few strands of hair escaped her pins, and he grinned as they cascaded down her back.
This assuredly wasn’t the type of adventure she’d wished for no more than ten minutes ago.
“I can hardly permit you to hobble home on your injured ankle, Miss Twistleton.”
He glanced down, and once again, she was taken by the shade of his blue eyes and the annoyingly perfect lines of his well-defined face. It was much easier to resist a man if he had bad breath, body odor, or a razor rash.
“I am inadvertently responsible for your injuries,” he continued. “And therefore, it is my duty to ensure you arrive at your residence and are examined by a physician.”
Everything he’s said was practical and, in truth, correct.
“But—” she started to protest.
He flashed that sinful grin again, and she swore he was enjoying himself.
“Besides, your maid just left you in my care.” His voice took on a rather thrilling and oh-so-naughty timbre, and she trembled.
“It wouldn’t do at all for you to be seen walking without a chaperone, my dear. Think of your reputation.” Sarcasm fairly dripped from his conciliatory tone, and he had the ballocks—the absolute ballocks!—to waggle his eyebrows.
Nicolette wanted to hit him.
She really and truly did. And she wasn’t given to violence or aggression.
She couldn’t help think he took liberties because of their mutual friends and their long acquaintance. That didn’t sit well, and Lord knew the ton would be in a dither over the day’s events.
Why he, of all men, should stir such a primal response baffled her to no end. Instead, she pinched his neck, though, with her gloves on, it scarcely counted as a real pinch.
“Ow! You little hellion.” He shot her a surprised look, a spark of something undefinable but, nevertheless, tantalizing shining in his eyes. “Out for your pound of flesh, eh?”
“You, Westfall, are compromising my reputation,” she said through clenched teeth as she peeked over his shoulder, positive she’d see people staring after them.
She was right.
“Oh, Lord.” Closing her eyes, she groaned. “They’re still watching us, Mathias.”
“Mathias?” he murmured suggestively, his eyes smoldering. “May I presume to call you Nicolette?”
Good God.
“You may not.” Between his voice and eyes, she’d be a pile of smoldering cinders if she permitted any such thing.
This situation grew worse with every passing second.
“Do you know your eyes fairly flash blue fire, when you are peeved?” he asked, conversationally.
She chose to ignore his question.
“I cannot imagine what tales they will spread. This could very well see us both ruined, Your Grace.”
“Nonsense. I’m merely assisting a damsel in distress,” he said airily, striding along as if she weighed no more than Bella. “How can they find fault with that?”
Oh, they’d find fault, even if they had to contrive twaddle themselves.
“You are no knight in shining armor,” she muttered, peevishly.
Chivalry and gallantry had gone by the wayside centuries ago. Men nowadays—except for Ansley and a select few others—only cared about one thing. Themselves.
No, that wasn’t accurate.
They cared about five things: themselves, drink, gambling, bit o’ muslins, and horses.
The Duke of Westfall glanced down, a challenging grin slanting across his strong, tempting mouth. “I’ve never taken you for the melodramatic sort, Miss Twistleton.”
“You, sir, well know how rumors start,” she snapped, far too aware of the sinewy arms holding her and the very masculine wall of his chest pressing into her injured side. Heat exuded from him, and it was all she could do not to snuggle closer and hold him tightly. Dangerous musings, indeed, for an avowed spinster.
“I don’t even want to think of what will be said about us,” she said, cringing at her strident tenor.
Was she well on her way to becoming a crotchety old tabby already?
Mayhap she should acquire a dozen cats and a few moth-eaten shawls, too. And a cane. A scandalous one with a shockingly engraved handle. And she’d only wear one color—scarlet—ever.
Whether the increasingly painful throb in her shoulder and ankle or the genuine fear their names would be on every gossipmonger’s tongue before day’s end caused her heightened temper, she couldn’t guess.
Indeed, it had nothing to do with the peculiar flutters and sensations assailing her.
Did the duke have to smell so bloody divine, too?
Peppermint and starch and sandalwood and perhaps a hint of brandy or whisky?
A hundred winged insects of some sort took flight in her belly. The feeling was rather heady and unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.
“Rest assured, Miss Twistleton, I shall quell any gossip.” He winked and flashed that devil-may-care smile again. “We dukes can do that.”
Nicolette’s mind went blank as a sheet of foolscap for a blink, and then a horrendous, ghastly, catastrophic epiphany struck with the force of a sailing schooner’s foremast cudgeling her.
And, good Lord, if she didn’t find herself gaping in utter disbelief, unable to accept the insight.
Her ragged breath stalled for several heartbeats.
No, she instantly denied.
She’d been so diligent. So cautious. So, so punctilious.
It wasn’t possible.
Yes. It is.
She, Nicolette Adelia Estelle Twistleton, a woman sworn to never succumb to a man’s charms again, was attracted to Mathias. And while not precisely a roué nor a rakehell, neither was he a pillar of morality and respectability.
Her bruised heart could not stand to be shattered again. Most especially by the captivatingly charming and irresistibly handsome Duke of Westfall.
God, curse her for a nincompoop.
Booby. Numpty. Peagoose.
She was not—by all that is holy, I am not—making that mistake again. To do so would be the height of folly.
Only, Nicolette feared it was already too late.
Grosvenor Square, Mayfair