Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(57)

“Are you afraid, Daisy?” Even through the noise of the mundane streets sounds, his hard whisper reached her ears.

“D-don’t be silly” she scoffed. “Afraid of you.” Her words ended on a gasp as he wrapped his fingers loosely about her wrist. Her skin warmed with the heat of his touch and she alternated her gaze between his gloved hand upon her person and his snapping eyes. She moistened her lips, seeking to calm the wild fluttering in her belly.

“You should be afraid, madam.” Auric lowered his head. His breath fanned her ear. “Very afraid.”

Daisy tugged her hand free. She’d not been cowed by him as a girl and she’d not allow him to intimidate her in all his snarling fury now. Sometime between his damned list of suitors and this highhanded showing, she’d tired of this brotherly-like position he’d assumed. “I’m not a child in need of protection.” She jutted her chin out. “I am a woman, Auric.” A woman who’d wanted him for longer than she could remember. “And I needn’t answer to you.”

He ran his gaze over her face. “Do you believe I do not know you are a woman?” There was a husky quality to his tone that wrapped about those words and sucked the breath from her lungs. For this man, who stood tall, his eyes veiled, his mouth hardened, bore no hint of the proper, polite Auric, Duke of Crawford. This figure was that of a man who desired a woman. “My girl of the flowers has bloomed into something quite splendid and captivating.”

And the hope that she’d kicked ash upon long ago, the hope that he would someday see her, stirred to life once more. For with his words, he’d revealed that he saw her as more than just Lionel’s sister. He saw her.

There amidst the bustling street sounds, with gypsies peddling their wares, uncaring who watched, she tipped her head back her lids fluttering closed, craving his kiss. Needing it.

His low, mellifluous baritone brought her eyes open. “What brings you here?” He doffed his hat and gestured to the busy cobbled roads. A gentle breeze tugged at his hair, tumbling a chestnut strand over his eye giving him an almost boy-like look, when there had been nothing boy-like of the austere, aloof duke since that tragic day. Auric didn’t wait for her answer, instead perused the area with a black frown on his lips as though searching for someone.

“The heart of a duke,” she whispered.

He snapped his attention back to her.

She curled her feet into the soles of her slippers in abject mortification.

“Beg pardon?” Auric asked, standing there immobile.

“That is to say, the heart necklace, duke,” she amended feigning a nonchalance she did not feel.

“You’ve never addressed me as duke.”

Must he be so astute as to catch even those humiliating, inadvertent words from her lips? “Er, when you’re highhanded I do.” Which wasn’t true. If that were the case, she’d be “duking” him until the end of eternity. She waved a hand about in a breezy manner. “And it is quite highhanded of you to come here and forbid me from going out—”

“Where is your chaperone?” he asked between gritted teeth.

“With my maid as a chaperone,” she continued over him. “Now, if you’ll pardon me.” Then with braveness she didn’t feel, she marched off, leaving him standing there.

Auric’s long strides immediately ate up the distance between them.

She stole a sideways glance up at him and swallowed hard. The muscle ticking at the corner of his right eye and the tenseness of his mouth indicated his displeasure. He really was quite an imposing figure when mad. “What are you doing?” Had she not known him since she’d been in leading strings, she supposed she’d be terrified by the glowering duke.

“Accompanying you.”

Which, by his aggrieved tone, was not something he sounded altogether thrilled with. The lout. As they moved through the throngs of shoppers, he angled his body close to hers in an almost protective manner.

An old gypsy woman called out. “Would you care to have your fortune read, my lady?”

Daisy stopped beside a colorful wagon belonging to the aged woman with graying, thick hair. Some inexplicable energy radiated throughout her person, a sense of familiarity. Of course she did not know the woman. She’d been to Gipsy Hill but three times before this. “Have we met?” she blurted, Auric momentarily forgotten.

The woman’s mysterious grin widened. She beckoned her over. “Come, I shall tell you your future. A beautiful lady such as you surely dreams of love? Do you not wonder if the man whose heart you wish for will be yours?” Every day. Daisy was saved from replying. The gypsy’s gaze shifted, to the gentleman who’d positioned himself at Daisy’s side, eyeing him curiously. The old woman widened her eyes. “Ah, forgive me. I was mistaken. You already have love.”

Daisy and Auric exclaimed in unison. “No!”

Daisy’s cheeks burned at Auric’s volatile response. She cleared her throat. “You are mistaken.” I want love. His love.

The woman gave her a knowing look. “I’ve just the thing for you, my lady.” She hurried around to the other side of her massive wagon and sifted through the goods she had laid out, muttering to herself, periodically glancing up at Daisy, looking to Auric with a frown, and then returning her attention to her colorful collection of items.