Free The Duke’s Desire by Margaret Moore Page A

since my return, I have had my old self cast up to me a hundred times, and I can see the selfish beast I was.”
    “I have thought about you, too, yet I only cursed myself.”
    “You must promise me that you won’t do that anymore.” He inched closer. “I needed to be saved, Verity, and you did it. I shall be forever in your debt, and glad to be so.”
    Still cautiously, as if he were afraid she might shatter like glass in his arms, he drew her to him. “Thank you, Verity, my beautiful savior,” he murmured as he bent his head to kiss her.
    This kiss was different from any they had shared: tentative, tender, as if they were both in the first flush of youth, and this their very first kiss.
    Not wanting the feeling to end, Verity woundher arms around his neck and gave herself up to the pleasure and yearning that filled her.
    His tongue pressed gently against her lips and she parted them. With a low moan, she relaxed against him.
    If only this were their first kiss. If only she had not given herself in marriage out of desperation and fear of poverty. If only she had not spent the past ten years in a cauldron of regret and dread that their secret would be discovered by her brother-in-law, and everybody else they knew.
    Yet that was the choice she had made, the choice she had to live with, and it must still be so. The alternative was shame, ridicule, disgrace.
    Reluctantly she pulled away, ignoring the look of loss in his eyes that mirrored what was in her own heart. “Please, don’t kiss me again.”
    “No?”
    “No. I am a respectable widow now.”
    “While I am still a lascivious scoundrel?”
    “I…I am not sure what you are.”
    If he was disappointed by her answer, he gave no sign. Instead, he made a rueful smile and put his hand over his heart. “I am yours to command, Mrs. Davis-Jones. I promise I shall not do anything that will upset you.” His smile disappeared, to be replaced by a blatant yearning. “If you will give me permission to visit Jocelyn. She is, after all, my child.”
    Verity tried to calm her fiercely beating heart, while her mind cried out that to allow him to come again would be folly, dangerous folly, that could end in disaster.
    And yet…and yet he was Jocelyn’s natural father.
    She had denied him knowledge of his child for ten years and when he looked at her thus, with such hope and need, how could she refuse him? Perhaps if they were very careful…
    “You may come to visit us Saturday morning. If the day is fine, we shall meet you in the wood, as if by accident.”
    He nodded and she relaxed a little, glad he would accept this. “Where are you staying?”
    “With Myron Thorpe at his so-called hunting lodge.”
    “You know Sir Myron?”
    “We were at school together. He tells me you and he barely know each other.”
    “He and I have nothing in common.”
    The duke’s lips jerked upward in a small smile as he went to untie his horse. “Nor do I, except for our school days. I understand Jocelyn upset him over some cows?”
    “That was an accident.”
    “So I thought.” He paused, stroking his horse’s head with his lean, strong fingers. “What if the day is not fine?”
    Verity tore her gaze away from his hand. “You will have to wait until the next Saturday.”
    He nodded as he started to lead his horse toward the door. “Very well.”
    “I appreciate that you are willing to be careful.”
    “I gather I have little choice.”
    She could not deny that.
    She hurried ahead of him to the door and peered out. “I don’t see Jocelyn or Nancy through the window, so you can go back the way you came. What will you tell Sir Myron on Saturday?”
    Galen untied his horse. “That I am going to the village.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    “You must have an excuse.”
    “In that case, I shall say I am going to the blacksmith’s to have my horse’s shoes checked. Myron will appreciate my concern over that, I’m sure.”
    “I hope you’re right.”
    The duke led his horse