My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1)(28)

“Oh.” She pressed her lips together in chagrin. “My mistake.”

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Don’t worry. I’m not offended. You know nothing about me.”

A wry smile crossed her face as he repeated her own words back to her. “Now you know another of my failings: I am sometimes quick to judgment.”

Unexpectedly he grinned back at her. Sophie took an involuntary step backward. With his face lit by mirth, the Duke of Ware was unbearably attractive. She imagined most women would find him so even at his most severe, but when he smiled . . . Oh, when he smiled, he looked like the sort of man even she could lose her head over. “Something we have in common, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Indeed?” she asked brightly, trying to scrub away all thoughts of losing her head over the duke. “How unflattering to both of us.”

“And yet proof that we may understand each other better than it seems.” Sophie closed her mouth at this subtle but unmistakable reproof as the duke strolled over to stand beside her. He gazed into the case as she stared at him, helpless to stop. It was one thing to find him attractive, in a wholly objective way, and quite another to feel the tug of attraction at close range.

Well . . . The tug was more like a steadily increasing pull. She could see the lock of his hair, tawny gold, that had caught on his neckcloth, curling it romantically upward; he smelled of rich, clean male, with a whiff of coffee. He glanced sideways at her, his eyes vivid blue today, and something elemental deep inside her seemed to swell in anticipation—-and even worse, longing.

“What else do we have in common, I wonder?” he murmured.

Sophie tensed. “Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

He must be standing too close to her; she felt hot and breathless and edged back a step to clear her head. “You sound as if you know something I don’t. What do you think we have in common, Your Grace?”

His mouth quirked again. “Determination.”

“In service of very different goals,” she said trenchantly.

“I acted to keep my brother from ruin.”

“While I acted—-or rather, argued—-to save myself from ruin. You’ll forgive me if I don’t prize Philip’s survival above my own.”

“Survival,” he said thoughtfully. “I never thought Philip’s survival was at stake, only his good name and credit. Did you really fear yourself at risk?”

She still did. There was a very delicate balance between doing what she had to do to earn her income and maintaining her nominal respectability. “If you knew what it costs a woman to lose her good name, you wouldn’t possibly ask that. But then, as a duke, I daresay you could do just about anything and still be welcome everywhere.”

“Are you envious of that? Do you also wish to be welcome anywhere?”

He was prying, trying to puzzle her out. That’s what she was trying to do to him, and she did not appreciate her own tactic being turned on her. Sophie drifted back another step and gave him an arch look. “If so, it must have worked. A duke was willing to risk five thousand pounds against the mere chance of winning my company!”

“Indeed.” His gaze swept over her, fleeting but thorough. It wasn’t a cynical glance, sizing her up as a charlatan. It was a glance of male assessment, and her body reacted to it, flushing warm from head to toe. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who felt that pull. “Will that wager close some doors to you?”

She laughed lightly. “It may open the wrong ones.”

“So it was a mistake.”

“Only because I lost,” Sophie shot back, nettled.

He rocked back on his heels. She savored the hit and turned to the shelves. “Do you read? What a fine library.”

“Every day,” he replied. “Though rarely anything so amusing as that.”

She looked closer at the finely tooled binding her fingertips were brushing. The books here must be worth a fortune. Each and every one was bound in leather. “But you own it.”

“Owning it is the smallest part of savoring it.”

“That is your loss, when the opportunity is always at hand.” She selected a book from the shelf and opened it, flipping pages for a moment. “ ‘There is great satisfaction in quarreling with her; and I think she never appears to such advantage as when she is doing everything in her power to plague me.’ ” She gave him a saucy look. “Perhaps you should read more. There’s tremendous wisdom in these pages.”

A thin line appeared between his brows. He put out one hand, and Sophie obligingly handed over the book. He read the page in silence, then aloud, “ ‘How pleasingly she shows her contempt for my authority.’ ” He tilted his head and gave her a look. “I see you’re familiar with this one.”

“I have seen that play performed, yes,” she said. Too late she realized her voice had gone breathless and soft.

He slid the book back on the shelf and let his hand linger there, right beside her head. “I don’t doubt it.” And he smiled.

He stood very close to her, his elbow brushing her arm. She ought to step away again, but somehow she stayed where she was. The duke might claim the wager was nothing but a means to separate her from Philip, but she sensed that he wouldn’t mind enjoying her company in more intimate ways.