Free This Duke is Mine by Eloisa James Page A

inhabited on a regular basis—peeled away. “And you are very beautiful,” he added.
    She blinked. And then, just as if she were the vicar’s wife and he was a man who’d suddenly lost his mind, he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers.
    They were soft and berry colored, like a raspberry tart. It was a gentle kiss, at least until he pulled her against his chest. His body turned to flame and the kiss changed, turned dark and deep. He gave a silent groan and put a hand to her cheek, tilting her head so that he could kiss her again . . .
    Her cheek was very cold to the touch. He straightened, reluctantly. “I had better fetch you a blanket.”
    That snapped the invisible thread that had kept them staring at each other. Just like that, all the outrage flooded back into her eyes. Quin felt a deep sense of rightness. He could read her, just like a book.
    “I suppose you are the duke,” she said stiffly. “I realize now that you sound like one, though I might add that you are not behaving like one.”
    “I am not the one who was throwing around references to willies, whether belonging to small rodents or other mammals. The last time I heard that word I was five years old.”
    He was fascinated to see that although a trace of pink was stealing into her cheeks, she tilted her little nose firmly in the air. “Lady Cecily is out there in the rain, as is my sister. Why aren’t you sending people to rescue them, not to mention that poor coachman? It’s cold and wet.”
    She had the bearing and tone of a duchess, he thought, and then: Lady Cecily?
    “Lady Cecily Bumtrinket ? My aunt? Lady Cecily is out in the rain?” As she started an explanation that had to do with her carriage and the missing coachman, Quin finally snapped out of his trance. He yanked the cords connected to Cleese’s rooms, the kitchens, and the fourth floor. For good measure, he pulled open the door and bellowed, “Cleese!”
    Then he turned back to Miss Lytton. She was shivering, her arms still wrapped around that magnificent chest of hers. He felt for his coat and realized that he wasn’t wearing it, nor even a waistcoat. No wonder she’d decided he was a footman. A gentleman is never seen in disarray.
    Livery hung on the wall, and he grabbed a coat.
    Her eyes were dark and suspicious, but she took the garment. She wasn’t fast enough, so he threw the coat around her shoulders himself and pulled it tight, even though he didn’t like seeing her luscious bosom disappear under a swaddling of black cloth.
    “What happened?” he demanded.
    “I’ve been trying to tell you. We hit a pillar at the end of the drive,” she said. “I think Lady Cecily is fine, but she’s injured her ankle and her ear hurts where she struck the edge of the window. My sister and I were unhurt, luckily, but I couldn’t find the coachman anywhere. The horses seem to be sound, though it was so dark I couldn’t be completely certain.”
    Quin was quite aware that what he most wanted to do was scoop up his watery visitor and then sit down, with her on his lap. At the very least, he didn’t want to leave her.
    The very thought was a shock. He had felt like this once before.
    The first time he met Evangeline, he had felt intoxicated. He had seen her dancing, as delicate and joyful as if she were floating on the wind, and he had succumbed on the spot. Even now, after the years of disappointment and grief, he could remember the sense of wonder he’d felt.
    But he could also feel his scalp prickling. He was at risk of succumbing again. As if he were a mad hare in the springtime . . . just what his mother warned that he shouldn’t do.
    What’s more, given Miss Lytton’s creative vocabulary—not to mention the fact that she allowed a man she believed to be a footman to kiss her—she was as unlikely a candidate for the role of Duchess of Sconce as Evangeline had been.
    If there was one thing he knew in his bones, it was that he never, ever, wanted to fall under the