Addicted to the Duke (Imperfect Lords #1)(44)

Her tapestry all but forgotten, her heart clenched in her bosom at how it had all gone horribly wrong.

The rawness of her ordeal at Murad’s hands meant her father, her Aunt Eliza, and all the household staff had hovered over her, treating her as if she were made of glass, trying to swathe her in bales of wool. The overprotectiveness was stifling, especially for a young woman on the cusp of her first romantic foray. She’d romped about freely on Alex’s schooner, no one to keep her in check, but now that she was home, she was consigned back to drawing room etiquette. Her aunt, concerned at the scandal her abduction had created, ensured she followed every society rule to the letter.

Alex, sensing her frustration and taking pity on her, had helped her escape the endless fussing. Perhaps having had a similar experience, been released from enforced captivity, he could empathize with her reluctance to be penned in. Each morning, accompanied by a groom, he would take her riding along the cliff tops on the estate.

Her heart had soared as she rode across the rolling acres, the sky wide and clear above her, the wind whipping the tendrils of her hair about her face, and the most gorgeous man alive by her side. She always challenged Alex to race her to the cove. In her innocence, Hestia had not recognized Alex’s gallantry: he always let her win, and she’d thought, at the time, it was her superior horsemanship.

As they’d ridden, he’d entertained her with stories of his family’s estate in Bedfordshire.

To a young girl in the throes of her first budding romance, was it any wonder she’d fallen hopelessly in love with him? The idea of living at Bracken Park, enveloped in the bosom of his large family…She had been so lonely growing up that his tales of how he filled his sister’s shoes with frogs, or how he’d been fox hunting with his brothers and fallen in the stinging nettle, made her yearn to become part of his family.

At the end of what was to be their last ride together before Alex departed, she’d been so fixated on his strong, warm hands as they lifted her from her saddle that she’d not noticed her father riding up behind them. She’d gazed in rapture into Alex’s mesmerizing fresh-as-a-summer-meadow green eyes and couldn’t hide how she felt; she let her love pour out.

Hestia hadn’t missed how his hands lingered on her waist, even though her feet were firmly on the ground. She’d held her breath, certain he was going to kiss her. Then her father had called his name and the spell had been broken.

Alex left Cresselly House that afternoon, without saying goodbye. It had broken her heart.

She wrote to him but he never returned her correspondence.

Alex never at any time appeared at Cresselly House over the following eighteen months, although she knew he’d written to her father, and her father wrote back. She recognized the handwriting.

Finally, a year later on her first outing of her first season, she’d sought him out at Lord Warrington’s ball. He was polite but very formal, as if they’d never had an adventure together. He did not even request a dance. Where was the Alex she’d known on the voyage home? Where was the man she’d fallen in love with?

She’d followed him about the ballroom shamelessly all night, heedless of everyone’s smirks. She was too angry and hurt to care about society’s niceties. Hestia seethed as the women fawned all over him, in particular a busty young widow named Lady Chester. She’d had a chest all right, and had displayed far too much of it.

Alex had charmed, flattered, and flirted with all the women at the ball except her. He’d avoided her as if she would give him the plague by just being in her presence.

During one of the few times she allowed herself to be swept onto the dance floor, she’d lost sight of him. As the young man, her dance partner, whirled her around the floor for a minuet, Hestia realized with a frown that Lady Chester was also missing.

Determined not to give up on her man and let the witchy woman sink her claws into Alex, she’d slipped away from the ballroom in search of them. It had been raining so she knew they were unlikely to be in the garden. She’d stopped on the landing and concentrated on where they might be. Her eyebrow had arched. The library.

Hurrying up the carved wooden stairs, her pulse rising with each step, she didn’t stop to think of the audacity of her actions. All she could think of was saving Alex, who was about to be taken advantage of. She had to help him. She’d gone after him driven by her painful, adolescent ardor.

Arriving before the library door, she’d stopped, taken a deep breath, and listened for any sounds. She’d heard one muffled groan and immediately flung open the door, hands on hips ready to do battle for her man.

She’d never forget the sight that greeted her.

Alex had Lady Chester pinned against the far wall, his cravat, jacket, and waistcoat discarded. His white shirt hung loose from his shoulders, revealing his golden chest. His black breeches clung to his lean hips as Lady Chester with her skirts hitched up fumbled to undo the buttons of his falls.

At Hestia’s dramatic entry, he’d looked over and held her shocked gaze for a second.

“Damn, I should have locked the door.”

She still remembered the mocking smile that followed those words, but before she’d slammed the door and fled, she caught the smoldering look in his eyes as he drank her in while she stood there, mouth agape, eyes wide.

Now, as she sat in Alex’s cabin looking back with more experienced eyes, deep in her heart she understood—he wanted her, not Lady Chester.