Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
‘I see no fruit.’ The moment I utter the words, Hercules enters with a silver platter and places it on the table that sits between the two chairs by the stone fireplace. I am taken aback by the colourful array of exotic choices.
‘You are told?’ I mimic, making an extremely risky move and returning my eyes to the Duke. I find him to be holding up the bottle of wine still.
‘I am yet to try it.’ He proceeds to pour me a glass before he sets it on the table with the fruit platter. With his hand resting on the glass, he looks up at me, his bent position bringing him alarmingly close again. My back presses into the soft material of the chair and my swallow is lumpy.
‘Are you always so hospitable and offer such delights to all of your guests?’ I ask.
‘I am not, and I do not.’
‘Then what makes me so special, Your Grace?’
He can only smile as he unfolds his tall, athletic body and leaves me to breathe somewhat easier than when he is close. ‘Back to the matter at hand.’
I frown and take some wine. ‘What was the matter at hand?’ I ask, my mind scrambled, as I have come to expect around Johnny Winters.
‘The rumours about me.’
‘And which rumours would they be?’ I ask. ‘I have heard many.’
‘I do not doubt it for a moment,’ he says, appearing to hold back a roll of his eyes. ‘But I am explicitly referring to the supposed murder of my family.’
I cough over my wine and shoot him a look that I expect can only be interpreted as horror. He shifts, as awkward as could be. I do not relish making him feel uncomfortable, but if he is to brandish such statements so freely, he cannot expect anything less of me. ‘What of it?’ I manage to croak once I have wiped the trail of wine from my chin. A lick of my lips. His eyes rest there and there alone.
‘Why are you here, Eliza?’ he asks, turning those green pools of fire up to my gaze. ‘Are you curious about the rakish, wicked Duke like all the other single young ladies and their unbearable mamas?’
‘You surely do not believe me to be a fool who trusts such nonsense?’ I do hope he answers appropriately. I would be outright insulted if the Duke were to tarnish me with the same brush as many of those short-sighted, gullible females.
I am disheartened when he stares at me, unmoving, with his glass at his lips. He did. He thought me naïve and gullible. ‘Then whatever are you doing here?’ he asks, sounding as flummoxed as he looks.
‘I am here because I was dragged, Your Grace,’ I retort curtly. ‘For I certainly did not travel here’ – I wave an arm around, splashing the fine wine everywhere – ‘of my own free will.’
He snorts and takes an overdue sip of Scotch, coming closer. ‘What claptrap. You could have, with ease, I might add, walked away.’
‘Pardon me?’ I stand. I do not appreciate his tall frame towering over my seated form. It is intimidating, and I am not to be intimidated. Not by him, not by anyone! ‘How do you propose I walk away with no legs to bloody walk on?’ I slam my glass down, wondering if anyone has ever made me feel so wildly irate? I think not. But this man? He has an uncanny knack of swinging me from improperly submissive, to fittingly furious. Damn it! I cannot keep up with him, nor my emotions, and in a demonstration of how out of control I am around Johnny Winters, I prod him in his chest, a move that the Duke appears to be amused by. Well, I am very glad he is finding this exasperating situation funny. If I were not a lady, I would slap that rakish grin clean from his maddeningly handsome face. Truth is, I could not have walked away, and not because I had no damn legs to walk on. Like now. Bugger it all to hell. I lower back to the chair and claim my wine, sipping casually. ‘Whomever you have fed this wine to, she is quite right. It’s really very nice.’
A slight curve of his eyebrow softens his features. ‘She?’
‘I am intuitive.’
‘That you are, Eliza. That you are.’ He lowers to the chair opposite me and nods to the platter of fruit, and my heart sinks a little. He did not refute my claims. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asks.
‘You seem to be well-versed in what I am or what I want, so you tell me.’
His look is warning me, but rather than challenge me and start a fresh bout with words, he reaches for the platter, plucks a piece of pineapple from the selection, and slips it past his lips in the most suggestive fashion. Eyes. On. Me. ‘I think you are hungry,’ he says, swallowing, and then he’s on his knees coming towards me with another piece held up, and like a puppet on his strings, my mouth falls open. He is so tall; the front of his breeches meets my knees. Eye contact. Body contact. I am doomed. ‘It appears I have discovered the secret to shutting you the hell up.’ He pops the fruit in my mouth on a smirk. ‘Chew.’