The Duke of Defiance (The Untouchables #5)(47)

“It’s also something you do if you’re tenacious. Have I misjudged you?”

Tenacious. Did he want Mrs. Shaw that badly?

Yes.

Perhaps he should try again.

“I’ll consider it some more.”

“Good. Do let me know how it goes.”

Lady Dunn left a short time later, leaving Bran to wonder just how he was going to make his next move.





Chapter 11





Jo set the book aside on her nightstand. She wasn’t particularly tired, but she wasn’t enjoying the story either. It was supposed to be a romance, but the characters seemed lacking somehow. Probably because she kept comparing one of them in particular to Knighton.

Bran.

He’d urged her to call him that, but she couldn’t. At least not out loud. In her mind, she could think of him as Bran. Just as she thought of him in his preferred state of dress—a loose shirt that exposed his neck and pantaloons or breeches that hugged the athletic slope of his hip and backside. It was an incredibly distracting image, particularly when she was supposed to be focused on other matters. Such as teaching his daughter.

She rolled onto her side but didn’t turn down the lamp. In years gone by, she’d wait, nervously, to see if her husband would come to her. He never warned her, just entered her chamber whenever he saw fit. If she had the lamp lit, he invariably turned it down, preferring total darkness when he came to her bed.

How she’d hated those nights.

Stop thinking of him.

She turned her mind back to Bran and instead recalled the feel of his chest beneath her fingertips the other day at the Tower. There’d been a moment when she’d thought he might kiss her again. Which was foolish since they’d been in the middle of a crowded exhibition.

Still, she imagined the sensation—his lips covering hers, their bodies pressed together.

A rap on the door jolted her to a sitting position. No one had ever come to her chamber at this hour. Her first inkling was that it had to be Evie.

Jo climbed out of bed and wrapped a robe around her night rail before padding across the chamber on bare feet.

She opened the door, and her pulse immediately sped. “Knighton.”

He stood just over the threshold, garbed in his usual ensemble, but without any stockings or shoes. His feet were as bare as hers. “Good evening. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No. Is everything all right?”

His hair was a bit tousled, as if he’d stood outside in a breeze. She saw him on the prow of the ship that had brought him here, his hair wild and his eyes narrowed against the sun. A shiver danced along her spine.

“Yes. Might I come in? I’ve something to discuss with you.”

Alarm overtook the haze of desire that had stolen through her at the sight of him. Was he here to dismiss her? Calling on her at this hour and in her bedchamber seemed…odd. But then she’d well established that Bran was unusual. In fact, she liked that about him.

She peered past him into the corridor. “It’s a bit unseemly.”

His brow furrowed. “No one knows I’m here. Anyway, so much of what I do is unseemly, why should this be different?”

A bubble of laughter formed in her chest, which helped her to relax. After all, she had nothing to fear from him. “Come in.” She opened the door wider, and he stepped inside. Closing the portal behind him, she moved past him. “What did you wish to discuss?”

He moved closer until he stood about a foot from her. It was well within the proximity that triggered the fluttering in her belly. In fact, over the past several days, she’d only to be in the same room with him to experience a pull toward him that bordered on magnetism. This was completely different from when Matthias had come to her room.

His dark gaze settled on hers. “You.”

Her flesh tingled with awareness as it had that night at the ball and again at the Tower. When she’d been certain of his intent—that he wanted her. “Me?” The word came out like a mouse’s squeak.

“More specifically, your inability to have children. Are you certain of that fact?”

She deflated, feeling suddenly worthless again. Maybe this was like Matthias all over again. “Quite.”

He tipped his head to the side, regarding her with skepticism. “Indeed? How can you be certain?”

“I was married for eight years. My husband came to my bed…often.” In the early years. But the frequency of his visits had diminished. He’d been eager to get her with child, desperate even. And when she’d failed, he’d grown angry and bitter, blaming her both for a lack of skill and ability. As a woman, if she couldn’t please him nor give him a child, what point did she have?

Pain shot through her as his taunts and abuse rolled through her brain. She’d pushed them aside for so long.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Bran said, drawing her back to the present, away from the self-loathing. “Perhaps you merely need to try with someone else.”

She blinked at him, uncertain she’d heard him correctly. “What are you suggesting?”

“That you invite me into your bed.”

Jo took a step backward even while her body thrummed with want. Her brain, however, railed against the idea. She was an abject failure when it came to womanhood. Surely her husband’s proclivities and her lack of conception proved that.