The Duke Meets His Match (The Infamous Somertons #3)(31)

“Yes.”

“And the first time I met you at Bullock’s Museum, when we saw Napoleon’s carriage, you had an episode as well?”

He nodded. “I’m powerless to stop the fits. Anything can trigger them, and I’m taken back to the war, to the battle where I lost my best friend. I’ve had difficulty sleeping since my return.”

Chloe’s nightmares weren’t of bloody battlefields, but of sickness, poverty, and running from constables in dark, damp alleys. Both had the same effect. Neither of them could sleep peacefully through the night.

“You helped me last night. I’m grateful,” he said.

“Anyone would have done the same.”

“No, you’re wrong. You are no wallflower, Chloe, or a delicate miss. Your past has shaped you and made you different from all the other debutantes. It’s made you special and I admire it.”

He admired her past? Heavens. She wondered if he could hear her wildly beating heart.

She patted the bed beside her. “Lie down.”

A corner of his lips turned upward. “I’m more than happy to oblige you, but I think you’d be too sore.”

Her cheeks heated. “Not for that. I have an idea to help ease your tension. Now lie down on your stomach.”

“Your wish is my command.” He flipped over.

He had to have the most perfect backside. She rose on her knees beside him and began to stroke his scalp. Her fingers stroked his temples and kneaded the muscles at the base of his neck and across his shoulders. He flexed and she watched the play of muscles across his back and buttocks.

He groaned. She felt his breathing relax and the tenseness in his shoulders ease. They sat in silence as she soothed his stress with her fingers. His breathing grew deeper until his eyes closed and he became drowsy. Soon he slept. She watched him for several moments. His face was relaxed and he appeared younger.

She had no regrets. One afternoon of passion may have changed her forever, but she refused to allow it to alter her future.

She grabbed her reticule and quietly slipped out.

…

Michael woke feeling better rested than he had in over a year. He had slept a deep, dreamless sleep free of horrific nightmares of shadowy battlefields and bloodcurdling screams. Chloe’s smooth, stroking fingers on his neck, across his shoulders, and down his back had released much of the tension he’d been carrying.

If only a cure to his condition were that simple.

He reached across the bed. Empty. His eyes flew open. She’d gone. He knew not to be surprised or disappointed, but nonetheless, his chest tightened with an unknown emotion.

What did he expect? She couldn’t stay. She’d be ruined.

She already was.

Christ. She’d been a virgin. Never in his wildest dreams had he believed she was sexually innocent. He would have bet all the fortune of the dukedom that she was experienced, and he would have lost. She possessed an innate sensuality that made a man think of tangled sheets and earthy sex. He’d been determined to bed her, to make her his mistress, only to learn that she was innocent and pure.

He was a rogue, a blackguard. He didn’t go around seducing innocents or seeking to make them his lovers. He should feel remorseful, but the truth was he was more shaken than regretful. Now that he’d tasted her passion, would he ever be satisfied by another? He screwed his eyes shut as heated memories returned in a rush.

God…the silken softness of her skin, her golden hair spread across his pillow, and her throaty moans of pleasure had driven him over the edge, until he’d lost all control and had thrust inside her wet, welcoming body. He reached for the pillow beside him and inhaled. Her unique scent—lemongrass and lavender—lingered. He rubbed a hand down his face. Another scent—female arousal—clung to his hands.

He wanted her again. Badly.

But he couldn’t bind her to his side. She’d been a virgin, and he grudgingly admitted that she was right to demand marriage. Had he been a cruel bastard to keep her from the likes of men like Henry when he couldn’t offer her what she deserved?

No, Henry wasn’t for her. Of that he was certain. But he wasn’t for her, either. The all too familiar feelings of anger and frustration roiled in his gut.

He’d been in bad shape after the fireworks. He owed Chloe a debt of gratitude for helping him get home unnoticed. He’d still been suffering the effects of his latest episode when she’d showed up in his bedchamber over twelve hours afterward.

He’d braced himself for her pity—even her disgust—when he’d told her about the death of his best friend in battle, but to his amazement it hadn’t come. In its place had been an instant of connection…of understanding…as if she’d experienced an emotional wound herself—a harrowing event that had caused her great pain.

Could it be true?

He knew so little about her past. Yes, he’d seen her pickpocket with startling ease. But why had she done it? He’d always assumed that she needed money—like many of the struggling lower classes in the city—but that explanation didn’t entirely make sense, because her sisters had owned a print shop. They hadn’t been wealthy, but neither had they been impoverished. So why had she done it? What was the reason behind her thievery?

Chloe Somerton was as complex as she was fascinating.

His opinions about her were changing. She wasn’t just a cold-blooded woman, a former pickpocket who was after Henry for his title and fortune. Most shockingly, she hadn’t feared his madness last night, but she’d taken care to see him home and had returned the next day to check on him.