Free When a Duke Says I Do by Jane Goodger Page B

us. Would you agree?” she said, trying to sound sophisticated even though her heart beat madly in her chest. To suggest such a thing was quite unlike her.
    He tilted his head as if examining her. “I would.”
    “But I, for one, believe I can restrain myself from thinking of you as anything other than a friend.” She ended this last with a sharp nod. He raised one eyebrow and gave her one of his half-grins, as if everything she uttered was charming and not entirely serious.
    “You could try to think of me as a servant,” he said in that same amused tone. Why he thought this was funny was beyond her comprehension.
    “Is it impossible for a man and woman to be friends?”
    Alexander could not quite believe what she was asking of him, and his old assessment about how incredibly naïve she was seemed to be true. All he could think of when she was gone was how he wanted to hold her, how he longed to bury himself inside her, how she would taste, sound, feel when his mouth closed around her taut nipple. It had been pure agony staying away from her when he’d known she’d returned and he knew she was wandering about the house alone wearing only her nightclothes. He was not a saint, he was nothing close to a saint and he hadn’t had a woman in far too long to be able to sit by one this beautiful and be able to tolerate it with a smile. And yet, if he wanted her company, if he wanted the privilege of talking to her, looking at her, it would seem he would have to accept her olive branch of friendship and pretend he didn’t want to lay her down on this couch and taste every inch of her delectable body.
    “No, it is not impossible,” Alexander said slowly and completely disingenuously, though part of him wished it were true. It would be far less torturous if he could think of her as some asexual being.
    “So. We are agreed.”
    He decided that he was willing to suffer through his unfulfilled desire simply to be with her. A frighteningly telling thought, indeed. “Yes. Agreed.”
    “Oh, marvelous,” she said with a little clap. It was an adorable habit of hers when she could not contain her happiness, that little clap. “Good, then. Now that we are friends, I want you to tell me about your childhood.”
    “A very boring story,” he said, feeling his entire body heat.
    “But it is your story and I am interested.”
    Alexander swallowed. He’d never told anyone about the pain of his childhood, the humiliations, the beatings. He had never told a soul who he really was, and God willing, she would never find out.
    “My father was an important man,” he said. “And I was a shameful embarrassment to him.” He stopped to gauge Elsie’s reaction, and was gratified that he saw no pity on her lovely face, only curiosity. “I suppose it was maddening to him that I refused to speak to him.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    Alexander shook his head, for it was a question he’d asked himself a thousand times over. “He was a stranger to me and I could not speak to strangers. He spent most of his time in London, coming home only rarely. My throat would freeze up. I tried so hard so many times. In my head I screamed to myself, but nothing would come out. It was only after I knew someone well that I felt brave enough to speak.”
    His father had been a large and frightening man, especially to a little boy who constantly lived in fear of him. It became so bad that all Alexander needed was to hear his father’s footsteps and he would freeze up, putting on what his father called “that idiot look.” He’d hated himself nearly as much as he hated his father.
    It was always the same. His father would demand something, and he would stand there, stiff and unmoving, unable to utter a sound, and his father would have his secretary cane him. He never laid a hand upon Alexander himself, but always delegated the task as if even touching his son would somehow contaminate him.
    One of the worst beatings came when his father had quietly come