One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(94)

Sweet heaven. Embarrassing or not, he was already close. So close. Perhaps he ought to warn her. She’d never done this before. She might not realize she had a choice, but … bloody hell. Why would he want to give her one? Really, of all the times for a man’s nobility to be put to the test.

“Amelia,” he groaned. There. That was all the warning she’d get. He knew she’d recognize the desperation in his voice.

Bless her, she only increased her efforts. Her very effective efforts. Her brilliant, amazing, soul-shattering, credibility-defying, best-ever-in-his-life efforts.

“Oh, God.” He arched off the chair, his whole body racked by bliss.

In the aftermath, he stared unfocused at the cracked plaster and roughhewn ceiling beams. Amelia had been right. This drafty little cottage was paradise on earth.

She rose from the floor and sat on the desk facing him, wiggling her bottom backward and letting her legs dangle between his sprawled boots. Her kittenish expression was one of extreme self-satisfaction.

Minx. He would teach her something about satisfaction. Just as soon as he recovered his breath. Reaching out with a leaden arm, he encircled her ankle with his fingers. “Now you.”

She shook her head. “Thank you, no. I don’t want to get mussed. They’ll be here any time now. The beds are prepared, but I’d hoped to gather fresh flowers for each room.” Her brow wrinkled. “And I’m still missing a vegetable dish for dinner. How do you feel about parsnips?”

“I’m completely indifferent to parsnips,” he said, sliding his hand up her calf. “But I very much want to taste you.”

Laughing, she slid back on the desk, out of his reach. “Not now. I’ve so much yet to do.”

“And if you don’t finish, what does it matter? Amelia, you are too quick to put others ahead of yourself.”

She shrugged and flicked a glance at his lap. “Are you saying you wish I hadn’t …”

“Of course not. Are you mad?” He grinned. Tucking himself back in, he straightened in his chair and took a more serious tone. “But I’ve been wondering something. At the Granthams’ the other night, you were radiant. Bewitching. The center of attention. If you’d behaved like that in Town, I could not have attended a single ball without noticing you, let alone dozens. How is it I never saw that Amelia in London?”

She bit her lip. “I’ve been pondering that question myself. Obviously, you’re a great boost for my confidence. I defy any woman to be a wallflower with a handsome duke at her side.” She tickled his knee with her toes. “But before I met you … I think I once mentioned Mr. Poste to you. The squire I was engaged to marry?”

He nodded.

“My father owed him a great deal of money, you see, and he made certain I understood he would forgive the debts in exchange for … well, for me.” Her voice grew soft. “He had his eye on me, from the time I was very young. Too young. I developed earlier than most girls, and even when I was twelve, I would catch him leering at me. It made me feel so unclean, and I was only a child.”

Spencer wanted to hit something. Hard. “Did he touch you?”

“A few pinches, here and there. Nothing more. But I didn’t know how to cope with that sort of attention, and I never spoke of it to my parents. I was afraid they wouldn’t let me marry him, and I wanted so much to help. In the end, I just couldn’t go through with it. My motives were entirely selfish. I dreamed of having my turn at courtship and romance. But even after I broke the engagement, it took years before I could feel a man’s eyes on my body and not simply … wither where I stood.”

Damn it all. There was nothing to make a man feel more useless than the revelation of a wound suffered years in the past, healed over in the present, that he couldn’t do a blasted thing to remedy now.

“So if no one saw me, I suspect it was because I didn’t want to be seen. Perhaps I didn’t feel worthy of attention.” She gave him a bittersweet smile. “You see, Poste died soon after our betrothal ended. If I’d endured just a year of marriage to him, my family would have been saved so much trouble. And I’d be a wealthy widow now.”

“Surely you don’t feel guilty for that.”

One of her shoulders lifted in a shrug. A clear admission that she did.

Dear, addled girl. To have carried that misplaced guilt—and the weight of her family’s financial distress—all these years. Simply because she’d balked at marrying a lecherous old stick? At least it made some sense now, why she would so eagerly deny herself in the name of helping her brothers.

He caught her hand and squeezed it. “I’m very glad you didn’t marry him.”

She slanted her gaze away.

He waited, hoping she’d return the sentiment and say she was happy with the way life had turned out, too. That being a wealthy widow was nothing compared to being the Duchess of Morland, and she would not give up Spencer for anything—not even to redeem her father’s debts.

But she didn’t say any of that.

“I love you,” she said.

His heart cinched with disappointment. He knew the words were sincere. The only trouble was, there were a great many people Amelia sincerely loved. And he’d never felt comfortable in a crowd.

Needing a diversion, he dropped his gaze to the papers scattered on his desk. “Who was that earlier, at the door?”