Lady Be Reckless (Duke's Daughters #2)(77)

But now, for just a few moments, she was alone. Granted, she was in a dusty bookshop heading toward what was likely an even-dustier room, but she was almost technically alone.

Until she wasn’t.

The room she was heading for was even darker than the rest of the shop, and her gaze was transfixed by the shelves crammed with books, the titles just blurry enough for her not to be able to make out.

She reached into her reticule and withdrew her spectacles when she felt something smash into her side, making her fall against one of the bookshelves, which began to teeter alarmingly.

She yelped and thrust her hand out, the one holding the spectacles, and then began to fall, feeling as though her movements were arrested in time, each moment—I can’t right myself, I’m halfway down, I hope the floor isn’t too hard, I hope my spectacles don’t crack—seeming as though it lasted an eternity until she came to rest. Not on a hard floor as she’d anticipated, but on a human body, one with an arm that had reached around her waist to do . . . something. Steady her fall? Make her crash harder? She had no idea.

“What—what?” she sputtered, trying to wriggle off the person, torn between wanting to yell for making her fall or be grateful for making sure she hadn’t fallen on the hard ground. Though the body she was on was certainly firm enough.

“Get off me, woman,” a voice growled. A man’s voice. Definitely a man. A rude man, for that matter. No “Are you all right? Here, let me help you rise.” Just a curt command spoken in a low male voice.

Why did it have to be a man? Eleanor thought to herself.

She did manage to get onto her hands and knees, her face low to the ground, low enough that, even without her spectacles, which she was still clutching in her hand, she could see the picture engraved on the book that the man had presumably dropped when he’d also felled her.

And then she forgot about everything, about falling, about the man, about the book she had come in the room for in the first place—everything but the picture she was close enough to see, practically brushing her nose against the paper. It was of a man and a woman doing something that Eleanor knew about only vaguely, but was now emblazoned forever in her memory.

“See something of interest?” the man said, his tone much less abrupt than before. Eleanor was vaguely aware of him moving beside her, a long, elegant finger pointing to one of the places where the man and the woman were joined. “I have to admire the man’s strength, to hold his lady up like that,” he continued, his finger sliding down the page in excruciating slowness.

Eleanor swallowed. She didn’t dare look over at him, for fear he would see everything she was feeling reflected on her face. She wasn’t certain she could identify everything she was feeling herself, but she knew that young, unmarried ladies did not usually feel this way. Especially not the eldest daughter of the Duke of Marymount, who was only supposed to be making a respectable, non-eyebrow-raising match. She couldn’t imagine an eyebrow would remain static if anyone were to see her. Him. Them.

“It’s Hercules,” she said, pointing underneath the picture to where the words were written. There were other words too, in Italian, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to read them. “Hercules and Dejanire. He’s Hercules—of course he can hold her up.” Hold her up while also connecting with her in a very carnal way, Eleanor couldn’t help but notice. And wonder what those other words might possibly say, given what was happening above.

“Dejanire,” he said slowly, stumbling over the name. “I know who Hercules is, but I don’t know who she is.” A pause, then a chuckle. “Then again, it looks as though he does, and that’s all that is important.”

Eleanor cleared her throat. “She is Hercules’s wife, only she accidentally kills him even though she was only trying to help.”

“This was them in happier times, then,” he said in a wry tone of voice.

She dared to glance over at him. Curious to see this man upon whom she’d fallen and was now, inexplicably, exchanging comments over a particularly salacious picture. And then immediately regretted that decision. He was close, so close she could see him clearly, and what she saw was just—well, overwhelming would be one word. Another word would be gorgeous. Overwhelmingly gorgeous would be how she could best sum him up.

He sprawled on the floor beside her, leaning casually on one elbow, a lock of long, tawny-gold hair falling forward onto the clean, strong lines of his face. He traced the lines of the engraving with his other hand. I should get up, Eleanor thought, not moving.

“You know a lot about these two. Though probably not as much about what they’re doing, judging by the color of your face,” he said matter-of-factly.

She felt herself blush even harder at his words. At the knowing expression on his face. At the knowledge he’d just pronounced she did not have. But that he, presumably, did. How did he do that? Look so casually at home, so assuredly confident even when sprawled out on the floor of a dusty bookshop?

“How did she kill him?” he continued. He didn’t make a move to get up, and neither did she. She knew she should, likely Cotswold was about to burst in and start exclaiming, but she found she couldn’t move. Like moments before when she’d fallen, it felt as though this movement was encased in honey, a sweet, languorous feeling imbuing her whole self. Her whole self that could not move.