Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Sleep proved impossible.
Cressida twisted beneath the coverlet, listening to the storm batter the ancient stones of Ashmere Castle. Every crack of thunder seemed to echo the turmoil in her chest; that maddening mix of frustration and something far more dangerous that the Duke had stirred during dinner.
Heat flooded her cheeks at the memory of her own boldness. What had possessed her to be so defiant? And worse, what did it mean that some reckless part of her had wanted him to see what he would have done if he hadn’t walked away?
She threw back the covers with more force than necessary. This was absurd. She was not some silly debutante who lost her head over a pair of dark eyes and broad shoulders. She had survived two years of her aunt’s cruelty through sheer resilience.
She would not be undone by a brooding duke with a talent for infuriating her. She barely even knew the man, for heaven’s sake!
A candlestick sat on the bedside table. Cressida wrapped her shawl more tightly over her nightgown and ventured into the corridor, her bare feet silent on the cold stone.
She needed a book to calm herself down, but the castle was enormous. She’d have to spend hours to find the library, and she wasn’t going to wake a servant to ask.
Then she recalled that she’d glimpsed a study during her brief tour earlier, shelves crammed with books.
She remembered how to get there. It would be trespassing, but she wasn’t going to rummage through the Duke’s private things. She only wanted a book to read, that was all.
Though she still felt guilty.
The castle was a labyrinth of shadows and moonlight filtering through mullioned windows. She moved carefully, one hand trailing along the wall, until she found the door she had been seeking.
It opened with barely a whisper.
The study was precisely as she’d imagined a duke’s private sanctuary might be: a mahogany desk polished to a mirror shine, leather chairs worn comfortable with use, and walls lined floor to ceiling with books.
Cressida lit several candles from her taper, watching warm light spill across gilt-embossed spines.
Her fingers traced the titles reverently. Milton. Donne. Shakespeare, naturally, but also mathematical treatises and works of natural philosophy. She pulled down a volume of Wordsworth, flipping through pages that showed the telltale creases of frequent reading.
So the Duke of Ashmere reads poetry.
The discovery felt oddly intimate.
She replaced the book and continued her exploration, drawn to a portrait above the fireplace, a landscape rendered in oils that captured the wild beauty of moorland beneath stormy skies. The brushwork was exquisite, each detail lovingly observed—
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Cressida spun around, her heart leaping into her throat.
The Duke stood in the doorway, and the sight of him drove every coherent thought from her mind.
He wore a loose white shirt, the top buttons undone to reveal the strong column of his throat and a glimpse of muscled chest. His long dark hair fell down his shoulders in disarray, as though he’d been running his hands through it. His trousers hung low on lean hips.
He looked dangerous. Disheveled.
Devastatingly attractive.
“I… I couldn’t sleep,” she managed, acutely aware of her own state of undress. The nightgown Mrs. Agnes had provided was modest enough, but the candlelight rendered the thin fabric nearly translucent. Her shawl suddenly felt woefully inadequate. “I saw the books earlier and thought—”
“You thought you’d help yourself to my private study?” He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with a quiet click that seemed to reverberate through her bones. “In the middle of the night? Unchaperoned?”
“We’re already unchaperoned,” Cressida pointed out, lifting her chin. “I’m staying in your castle, wearing clothes you provided, entirely dependent on your discretion, as you made abundantly clear at dinner.”
His jaw ticked. “That was not an invitation to wander my home at will,” he said tightly.
“I apologize for coming here. I didn’t know where your library was, and this was the only place I could think of to find a book.” She pulled another book down at random, not even reading the title.
He crossed the room in three long strides, before snatching the book from her hands and replacing it on the shelf.
They were standing too close now, close enough that she could smell him, and his scent was something she did not quite recognize and made her want to lean in rather than step away.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered there. “Wandering through a strange man’s castle in your nightclothes. Do you have any sense of self-preservation?”
“With you?” The words came out breathier than she’d intended. “I thought you were a gentleman.”
His dark eyes flickered, and it made her pulse quicken. “You’ve been testing that theory rather thoroughly since we met, Lady Cressida.”
She should leave. She knew she should leave. But her feet remained rooted to the floor, her body swaying slightly toward his as though drawn by some invisible force.
Heat flooded her cheeks, but she refused to look away. “It shouldn’t be a theory, Your Grace. It should be a fact.”
His gaze traced the line of her throat, the curve of her shoulder where the shawl had slipped. “Tell me, Lady Cressida, what did you hope to find in my study? Besides books you could have requested in daylight?”
“I am being honest, Your Grace. I only needed a book because I couldn’t sleep.”
He frowned. “Why couldn’t you sleep? Is something the matter with your chambers?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, edging closer.
“I…” She hesitated. “Well, it’s hard to fall asleep after everything that happened today, Your Grace. Not to mention I am in a stranger’s home.”
“Now you have a sense of self-preservation?”
“Why are you so determined to think the worst of me?”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t think the worst of you.”
“Then what do you think?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
For a long moment, he simply looked at her. Then he took a breath. “I think you’re the most maddening woman I’ve ever encountered. I think you’re brave to the point of foolishness and too clever for your own good. I think—” He stopped, jaw clenching.
“What?” she pressed.
“Go back to your room, Lady Cressida,” he said. Beneath the white fabric, his arms bunched as he clenched his fists.
Thunder cracked overhead, so loud the windows rattled, so close it felt as though the sky itself was splitting open.
Cressida jumped, startled, and she saw the Duke step forward, as though ready to catch her should she fall.
“It was only thunder,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.
She nodded. “Yes. I’m all right.”
Rain battered the windows in violent waves, wind whining faintly through the old stone corridors beyond the room. The storm had swallowed the world whole; there was nothing beyond this chamber now but darkness and thunder.
And him.
The Duke still stood close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Good. Now, go back upstairs,” he said at last, his tone impatient, his body tensing.
For some reason, she could not force herself to step away. Perhaps because she had never heard a man sound like that before—not angry, not mocking, not flirtatious, but tempted.
“Lady Cressida…” the Duke warned.
With that, she slipped past him, rushing upstairs.
Only when she closed the door to her room behind her did she put the book over her face, as though it could shield her from the shame spreading through her like vines.
What was she doing, playing this game with the Duke?
No. She had to stop.
Yet his intense brown gaze still burned behind her eyes.
“When will this storm end?” she exhaled.
But she did not know which storm she meant, the one raging beyond the windows or the one now raging within her.