Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
In Which the Statue Is Unnecessary and the Duke Is a Full-Body Sedative
The Duke stood near the washstand, stripped to the waist, a gleaming blade in hand. He shaved with brisk strokes, each pass down his jaw an exercise in control. His shoulders flexed with restrained power, muscles shifting beneath skin bronzed by war and steam.
Wanton sat nearby on a velvet chaise, one leg tucked beneath her, notebook balanced on her thigh. Her limbs were still deliciously boneless, her entire body humming from recent exertions that would scandalize any etiquette guide. But her mind refused to rest. Curiosity prickled at her fingers.
She watched him openly, quill poised above the page. Noting angles. Observing tension. The exact moment when discipline met desire. For science. Obviously.
Her stay at the spa had come to an end. She would leave in the morrow. The cart and Henrietta were ready, as was her canvas bag.
She gazed at the statue in the corner. Canova's final secret.
She'd grown used to gazing at it. It had soothing qualities. Grounding, really. Especially when the Duke had her flipped upside down last night, using his mouth like a man possessed, while she stared at the stone calf and tried not to levitate.
Or that other time—against the windowsill—when she clung to the curtains like a sea captain in a storm, and caught the statue from the corner of her eye. Somehow, it had helped. Calmed her. Anchored her while her very concept of anatomy was being enthusiastically redefined.
Yes. The statue had therapeutic properties. It was an artifact. An educational tool. A reference sculpture. She had a duty to her fellow Flowery Spinsters to bring something back from this scandalous field study besides a limp and a suspicious glow.
"I wonder," she said slowly, "if I could steal it."
The blade stopped near his chin.
"For science. It would look lovely in my study. Right next to Uncle Barth's oil painting of a topless map of Sicily."
"Wanton."
She continued, encouraged. "It just has such reliable proportions. I've found it quite relaxing. Almost therapeutic, really."
He wiped his face with a linen cloth, then turned.
His gaze locked on her. Without a word, he crossed the room in measured strides. Wanton barely had time to lift her quill in defense when he plucked the notebook from her lap and tossed it aside with casual disdain. The quill followed, clattering uselessly to the floor.
Before she could so much as squeak, he caught her wrist, dragged her upright and onto the bed.
In a flash, he pinned her beneath him.
She let out a breathless sound that had no place in a lady’s handbook.
He pressed her into the mattress, and his lips hovered a breath away from hers.
“You don’t need the statue,” he murmured, his voice a rich ribbon of silk and sin, laced with a promise far more decadent than marble. “You’re going to be very relaxed. Right here. Under me.”
“But I—Henrietta—”
He kissed her. The kind of kiss that melted resistance, rewrote decisions, and rendered poultry-based excuses utterly irrelevant.
His mouth slanted over hers, and then he deepened the kiss until her spine arched and her thoughts scattered like flower petals in a storm.
She clung to him, fingers curling into his back, dangerously close to surrender. He kissed her jaw. Her throat. The delicate space behind her ear that made her breath catch and her knees forget they once had purpose.
“Stay with me,” he murmured against her skin. “You are not... thoroughly soothed.”
Her laugh came out breathless. Shaky. “I suppose... I could extend my stay. For... therapeutic balance.”
His hands found her hips. His mouth found all her best hypotheses.
She arched, sighed, and considered the facts.
She had survived medieval mud, poultry-related transport, and a man whose eyebrows issued commands more efficiently than Parliament.
She had earned this.
Uncle Barth would absolutely approve.
Especially when the Duke’s idea of “relaxation” left her too exhausted to remember her own name.
Let alone spell Canova.
***