Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(27)

She bowed her head. “Your Grace.” His horse danced nervously along the riding path, whinnying its distress with the rumble of thunder.

The duke narrowed his eyes.

Was he displeased at that perfunctory greeting? He was a duke. Perhaps those peers a step below a prince expected more reserved greetings—even from ladies. In a park. During a storm. Without a chaperone.

“It is a pleasure to see you again” he growled. How very odd. She’d never taken him as a powerful noble who’d do something as primitive as growl.

Fury flared in his eyes. “What in bloody hell are you doing out in this weather, Miss Rogers?”

An unexpected warmth unfurled in her belly. Why, he was worried about her. No one worried about her. Certainly not her father or siblings. Nor her aunt. She was the single, stable element within their broken family. But this man…

“Miss Rogers?” he snapped.

This man expected an answer. “Er…” But God help her. What was the reason for this planned “meeting”? Her mind raced as Mr. Werksman’s demand for a brooding duke, and her insistence on an affable duke faded with her awareness of him as a man.

He folded his arms, drumming his fingertips along his drenched black cloak. “Has the rain addled your senses?”

Oh, the lout. “I—I…”

He thrust his face close, running a searching stare over her face. Hermione swallowed hard, her body thrilling with an awareness of him. She couldn’t very well say she’d orchestrated this incident, planned it out with the strictest intentions of making him her brooding duke. All words, actions and sensible thought fled. Her family’s circumstances, Father’s despondency, Elizabeth’s situation, all lifted when presented with his nearness.

He cast his gaze about, wholly unfazed by her nearness. “And where is your chaperone? What manner of parents, aunt, guardian, or whomever is charged with supervising you allows a young woman to go off in this weather?” The furious rumble of his voice warred with the thunder for supremacy.

Hermione bit back the truth on her tongue: deceased mothers and lax fathers made for poor guardians. “Er…I just sent her back to the carriage. I forgot something and came back for it.” Which wasn’t altogether untrue.

He scoured her face, and the intelligent spark of his eyes bespoke a man different than any other she’d ever known. Hmm, an intelligent duke. Who knew those rare creatures existed? A thick blanket of silence stretched between them. The blistering sting of rain pelted her cheeks and pinged like a thousand pinpricks upon the river’s surface.

If palpable outrage hadn’t stemmed from apparent concern of her well-being, she’d have been quite cross with his high-handed response. No one had been concerned about her in so very long, she’d all but forgotten the wonderful feeling of being cared after. Instead, she’d taken on the role of de facto parent and protector to her three siblings.

Then something hot and volatile shifted in his eyes, replacing the fury and concern. He trailed his gaze downward over her person, to her very exposed, lower legs. His expression grew pained. Of course lofty dukes would even feel the pain of an icy rain. A groan escaped him.

Had he groaned? “Are you all right?” It certainly sounded as though he had. She followed his intense focus and her cheeks blazed. Oh, my! Perhaps it was not the rain, after all.

“Fine,” he said, his voice garbled. Hermione scrambled to shove her skirts down over her knees. Some hot, indefinable emotion blazed to life in his eyes. In spite of the rainy cold, heat climbed a path up her neck, and warmed her insides, driving back the chill, the rain-dampened garments, so all she knew and all she felt was him.

Then the look passed. Did she merely imagine any interest in his emerald green eyes? Which surely she had because dukes did not admire rumpled, wet and graceless ladies who had the ill-sense to run around London without a chaperone, as he’d quite succinctly pointed out mere moments ago.

“Forgive me,” he said loudly, his voice carried through the rain. “Are you hurt?”

She strove for nonchalant miss. “I am well, Your Gr—eep.” Her words ended on a high-pitched squeak as in one fluid motion he rose and swept her into his arms.

Her heart pounded in rhythm to the thunder, deafening with its powerful intensity. She should be thinking of the Nefarious Duke and all the many words she could now commit to the page for Mr. Werksman’s story, but for all the words she did possess, the feel of him against her, the sight of his sun-kissed gold, unfashionably long hair—a splash of light in this dark day—could never be captured for any story.

He set her on her feet and she mourned the loss of his fleeting warmth.

She cleared her throat. “Well, then.” She glanced past his shoulder to where her sister, brother, and maid had disappeared a short while ago. Or had it been a long while ago? Time blurred together.

He bent and retrieved his black hat and jammed the thoroughly ruined piece atop his head then held out his elbow.

“What are you doing?” she blurted.

“Escorting you to your carriage.”

Her heart kicked up a frantic beat. She touched her fingers to the fabric of his rain-dampened cloak and accepted his escort. They started the long trek to the entrance of the park. All in the name of research. Perhaps if she repeated the words as a silent litany she might come to believe it.