I Married the Duke by Katharine Ashe Page B

you could imagine that would have put me at ease?”
    His eye hooded. “I am a sailor, Miss Caulfield.”
    Oh .
    But . . . champagne ? And his clothing . . . it was very fine. Handsome. He looked like a gentleman, except for the scar and black kerchief and shadow of whiskers on his jaw and wolfish glimmer in his eye and havoc he was wreaking with her insides.
    She wasn’t thinking straight.
    “Gentlemen tr-treat ladies better,” she said.
    “So I hear.”
    “Some gentlemen.”
    He leaned forward, his knees coming around hers. “Not all?”
    “Not . . . most.” She lifted her attention from their knees locked together.
    Hungry .
    His gaze upon her was hungry. Like the wolf looking upon the lamb.
    He stood abruptly, the chair scraping back, and swiped his hand around the back of his neck. “Not this one, apparently.”
    She got to her feet and the blanket drooped open. But she was warm finally. Her teeth clacked but deep inside her swirled heady heat. The lamplight threw his good eye into shadow, but she saw the confused desire there. He was both unsteady and authoritarian and he looked at her like no man ever had before, like he wanted her but did not understand that he did.
    “I think you should go to bed, Miss Caulfield.” His voice was low. “Now.”
    She could not think. The brandy stole her reason. Her head spun. Dr. Stewart was right: she was intrigued. More than that. She was infatuated . Upon so brief an acquaintance. Like a schoolgirl. Like the schoolgirl she had never really been because even then she had been serious, learning to be a lady despite all. When the other girls at school nursed tendres for the dancing master, she did not. She had remained directed and determined, waiting for a prince to come along and tell her the destiny that was just out of her grasp.
    Now, with only two glasses of spirits, a piratical shipmaster threw her into foolish infatuation.
    It was ridiculous.
    She must halt it before it got out of hand.
    “Why d-did you order Joshua to follow me about ship?” She said it like an accusation.
    “So that I would know where you are.”
    “D-Doctor Stewart s-said—”
    “What did he say?” He stood so close she could feel the heat from his body.
    She was having difficulty breathing. “He said I would not be the first.”
    The door swung open. “Captain, I have hung the lady’s garments in the warmest location aboard. Shall I make up the bed?”
    The captain stepped back from her and nodded, turning his head away. “Do.”
    His steward went to the little cabin off the captain’s day cabin. A dart of panic shot through Arabella. On wobbly knees she moved toward the door.
    “No escaping, duchess.” The captain stepped forward and swept her up into his arms. “Not this time.” He carried her into his bedchamber. To his bed. She could not catch breath. His arms gave her no quarter. Thrillingly muscular arms. And hard chest. She was touching his chest . A man was carrying her to his bed, a man with desire in his eyes who smelled of salt and sea and heat and power, and she was frightened because the drunken part of her wanted him to carry her.
    “No.” She struggled. “You must n—”
    He dropped her onto the mattress and backed out the door. “Rest well, duchess.” He disappeared.
    She pressed her burning face into the pillow while Mr. Miles tucked the blankets around her and made clucking sounds like a nurse settling an infant into a cradle.
    “Dr. Stewart will be in within an hour to see that you haven’t taken a fever,” he said. He left. No key sounded in the door, nothing trapping her except the softest mattress she’d slept on in years and a cocoon of warmth bearing her into sleep.
    H E SHOULD NOT have drunk a drop. He should have remained sober so that when the magnificent cornflowers grew hazy then wild then caressed him like a touch, he would not have started imagining peeling the blanket off her to reveal the woman beneath.
    With nothing to conceal