Free The Ugly Duchess by Eloisa James

not proper.”
    Theo crossed her arms again. She’d noticed that it made her breasts plump up. “Why won’t you tell me?”
    “Because it’s not proper,” James repeated, starting up from his chair. His eyes were fiery, and Theo felt a glow of excitement. She loved it when James lost his temper, even though she hated it when his father did. He bent over her, bracing his arms on her chair. “Why do you want to know? Was there something about last night that made you feel that my experience was insufficient?”
    Enthralled by his darkening eyes, Theo fought the desire to pull him closer. Or break into laughter. “How would I know if last night was insufficient?” she said, choking back a giggle.
    One hand closed around her neck with slow deliberation. “You’ll probably be the death of me.” A thumb nudged up her chin. “Were you satisfied last night, Daisy?”
    She scowled at him and shook her head, dislodging his hand. “ Theo. ”
    “How can I not think of you as Daisy when your hair is all about your face like the petals of a flower?” He crouched down on his heels before her chair and picked up a thick curl. “It’s glossy, like sunshine.”
    “I prefer to be addressed as Theo,” she told him, once again. “And it was very nice last night, thank you. I asked about others because I want to know something about you that no other person knows.”
    James was looking at the lock of hair he held with as much concentration as if he held strands of gold, but at that he met her eyes. “You know everything about me.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “You’re the only one who knows me,” he said quietly. “All there is to know about me that matters, Daisy—I mean, Theo. I’m rotten with figures. I’m good with animals. I detest my father. I can’t control my temper, and I hate the fact I inherited that trait from him. I’m possessive. I’m intolerable—you’ve said that many times.”
    “You love your father, too,” Theo pointed out, “however much you rage against him. And I still want to know the answer to my question.”
    “If I tell you, may I have a lock of hair?”
    “Goodness, how romantic,” Theo breathed, a thrill going straight to her toes. But a pang of common sense intruded. “If you cut one from the back, where it won’t show.”
    James pulled out a penknife and moved behind her. “Not too much,” she entreated him, pulling her hair up and then letting it fall down the chair back. “Amélie will be terribly cross if I have a bald spot.”
    He ran his hands through her hair and then said, quietly, “You were the second, Daisy. And the last.”
    The smile on Theo’s face came straight from her heart, but she thought the brevity of his list was probably not a matter for celebration, to his mind at least, so she said nothing. She tilted her head back and saw that he had cut off a thick lock of her hair. “What on earth are you going to do with that? I’m dazzled by this sentimental streak of yours, James.” She reached up toward him. “What about a good morning kiss, then? For the one person who knows you best and still signed on to a lifetime of tolerating intolerableness?”
    His eyes were still dark and troubled, but he leaned over and dropped an upside-down kiss, a soft and sweet one, on her lips.
    “Actually, I’d prefer the other kind.” She felt her heartbeat start a tattoo in her throat.
    “The other kind,” James said slowly. He drew the lock of hair through his fingers, then put it on a side table and drew her to her feet. “One kiss. Then I must make my way downstairs.”
    For all that, he took her mouth slowly, as if they had all day to do nothing but taste each other, come together like silk and velvet.
    At some point the door opened, and a maid squeaked something. The door closed again, and still they kissed.
    James’s mouth kept sliding to her jaw, to an eyebrow, to an ear, always coming back, taking her mouth again. Theo began a rambling sort of monologue, a