Chapter 4
By Annabelle Anders
She’d had one task. Make the bid. Beat out the competition. Acquire the dratted land.
And she’d failed.
Felicia rolled over, fighting the coverlet and punching her pillow in frustration.
She’d lost sight of the prize.
Because of him.
Drat the man. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d allowed herself to become distracted by their gorgeous ducal neighbor.
How many times had she stared out the window instead of working on her schoolwork, watching him train his stallion across the meadow?
Not to mention the way she would literally trip over herself whenever he was in the vicinity.
She had yet to fall entirely on her face, luckily, but it was not for lack of opportunity.
The worst part was that he knew the effect that he had on her, always smirking if he ever happened to glance her way.
No one could induce this sort of insanity in her like he could. But today? Today, she’d let him unravel her entirely.
He’d seen right through her disguise—her trousers and the ridiculous cravat—and declared, without a hint of shame, that he’d be bidding against her.
“I was watching, you see,” he’d said. “I was protecting you.”
Arrogant. Insufferable. Deliciously tall.
And then he’d said he was well aware that she wasn’t a child.
Felicia turned again, sliding one hand between her thighs and groaning softly into her pillow.
Tap.
Tap. Tap.
Her head shot up.
Another tap. Not a bird, surely.
She scrambled to the window, pulling aside the curtain just enough to peek into the moonlight.
“Charlie?” she whispered.
The Duke of Kenbrook—although he would always be Charlie to her—stood just beyond the shrubs beneath her window, shadows slashing across the noble cut of his cheekbones and the hard set of his jaw.
“We need to talk,” he called softly.
Her heart thudded.
He could be here for any number of reasons—most likely to convince her to give up on attempting to purchase the land. Definitely not because he wished to rub his thumb across her wrist again, perhaps pull her closer this time…
“I’m not giving up!” she half-whispered, half-called down to him.
Instead of ridiculing her, however, he sighed. “Just… Come down. For once in your life, I’d appreciate it if you could forget…”
Forget?
“… the damn feud. Just this once.” Felicia’s heart skipped a beat when he added, “Please?”
Her feet were moving before her brain could even catch up.
She grabbed her dressing gown and belted it tight over her night rail.
Even though by all intents and purposes, it was modest, the fabric clung in places it oughtn’t, thanks to the heat of her skin and the curse of her very unladylike bosom.
No slippers. No bonnet.
Definitely no careful consideration.
She slipped through the back door and padded across the dewy grass until she reached him.
“Have you gone mad?” she hissed. “You can’t just… appear beneath a lady’s window like this!”
“Would you have preferred that I come to the front door? Announce to your father’s household that you and I need to discuss—”
Felicia reached up and clapped a hand over his mouth, silencing him before he could say it aloud—on the off chance anyone, however unlikely, might overhear.
And then she realized, with a strange little jolt, that she was… touching his mouth.
His lips, which she’d always imagined to be cold and hard—like the rest of him—were surprisingly soft. And warm.
And while she was having that disconcerting revelation, his gaze swept over her, slow and heated, lingering for a breath too long just below her neckline before climbing back to her eyes.
“I take it that’s a no?” he said, his lips moving beneath her fingers.
Flustered, she snatched her hand away as though burned. “What do you want, Your Grace?”
“You need to give up this mad scheme of yours—”
“Absolutely not. No.” She spun on her heel to walk away but only made two full steps before he reached out and caught her arm.
“Just… hear me out.”
She froze. His hand on her bare arm through the thin sleeve of her night rail was scandalous. Scalding. Paralyzing.
He took her silence as leave to continue.
“You looked at me today like I was the villain.” She heard his feet shuffle. Felt him move closer. “But… I’m not. I need you to give me your word that you’ll let Loxley do the bidding.”
“Why would I do that?”
Instead of letting her go, he turned her around to face him.
“Because I have a plan,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“For you to convince your father to banish Loxley once and for all, you’re going to have to supply proof of his misconduct. And, after speaking with Fernbottom, I’ve reason to believe that once Loxley extends an offer on behalf of your father, I’ll have the proof you need.”
Felicia narrowed her eyes. “But you’ll have the land?”
“And you’ll have control of your father’s estate.”
It was a devil’s bargain. But if she could rid Loxley from their life, she could make the necessary changes to protect what was rightfully theirs.
And yet… “Why would you want to help me?”
Charles let out a long, almost exaggerated sigh before answering. “Because, Felicia, we don’t need to be enemies forever.”
He said that like it was easy, but things between their families were never going to be that simple. “How do I know you aren’t simply playing me for a fool?”
He shrugged. “You can’t. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
But could she? Could she trust this man?
“Why should I do that?”
“Because… you know me.”
And dash it all.
He was right. Still…
“I would have won the bid, you know,” she insisted.
Recognizing the concession for what it was though, all the tension went out of his shoulders.
“Perhaps.” His low laugh sent all kinds of inappropriate ideas racing around inside.
Ideas she’d never say out loud. “I knew the moment you turned toward me—dressed like a pirate’s cabin boy with too much bosom—that you’d cut off your nose to spite your face rather than let me win. ”
Her breath caught. He was insinuating that she didn’t know what she was doing but he had also said… “You think I have too much bosom?” She resisted the urge to fold her arms across them again. Doing that never really worked at hiding anything anyway.
“I think,” he said, stepping so close that she could feel the heat of him, “you have entirely the right amount.”
For a moment, the world tilted.
“I think about it more than I should,” he murmured, brushing a damp curl back from her cheek.
She’d seen his gentle side once, after Rosamond had been thrown by her horse. Charles had carried his sister back to the house, barking orders like a general but murmuring softly to her the whole time.
Felicia had never, ever expected he’d use that tone with her.
And hearing it now, she felt dizzy. “Are… you—”
“You drive me mad, Felicia Montclair. And I don’t know if I want to kiss you or throttle you.”
“If you dare throttle me, Your Grace, I’ll throttle you right back,” she whispered, breathless. “So…”
This wasn’t why she’d come outside.
She should have been furious. Or at the very least, annoyed that, once again, Charles Aubyn Thistlewood Beauregard Fitzwilliam Harrington, the impossible Duke of Kenbrook, had pulled her entirely off course.
But oddly, she wasn’t angry at all.
Because even if he was distracting her, he was also looking at her like she wasn’t a nuisance. Or a rival. Or the daughter of a man who’d feuded with his family for decades.
He was looking at her like she was… irresistible.
And dash it all, if that didn’t feel rather thrilling.
Her heart lurched. She rose onto her toes to meet him halfway—but he was already there.
His hands slid to her waist, and suddenly she wasn’t kissing him so much as being kissed. Lifted. Anchored to him like she weighed nothing at all.
She was not a small woman.
And yet her toes no longer touched the ground.
She gasped against his mouth, her fingers curling into the lapels of his coat. The kiss deepened, dizzying and delicious, a tangle of breath and warmth and years of unspoken longing.
This wasn’t a polite, stolen kiss in a moonlit garden. This was a lifetime’s worth of fantasy crashing into reality. Her skin prickled. Her chest ached. Her lips parted on a sigh.
She was floating.
And then—
A cough.
Charles stiffened. Felicia blinked, her dazed gaze dragging toward the source of the sound.
A shadow emerged from the hedgerow.
Mr. Loxley.
His smile was oily. Triumphant.
“Well, well,” he drawled. “What would the earl say if he knew his daughter was lifting her skirts for the enemy?”