Free The Rake and the Recluse REDUX (a time travel romance) by Jenn LeBlanc Page A

started to remove his shirt, jerking it from his riding breeches and stretching as he pulled it over his head.
    “I will take supper here, Ferry,” Roxleigh said quietly. “Have a tray sent up.”
    “Yes, Your Grace. Do you require further assistance?”
    Roxleigh stilled. He knew he was acting peculiar as of late and Ferry was not one to comment, but Roxleigh could see concern in his eyes and heard it in the way he spoke.
    He shook his head and finished undressing. “No, Ferry, that will be all.”
    The valet bowed and disappeared.
    Roxleigh’s suite of rooms was much like the main guest suite, mirrored on the opposite side of the great entrance, but his suite was nearly twice the size of the other. He dropped his clothes where he stood and walked to the tub, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. He sank in, the steaming water washing over his aching muscles as he groaned and leaned back, resting his head on the edge. For the first time in several days, he started to relax as his mind drifted.
    The only thing in attendance in his mind was her.
    Gideon took himself in hand—and not at all gently. His tension mounted every time he thought on the girl in his manor. Francine. He had done his best to avoid her, and the fact that she was unable to wander from her rooms and the private parlor certainly helped in that endeavor.
    Nonetheless, he found himself searching her out in the depths of the first floor balconies whenever he left his study, or walked the stairs, or went to the dining room. She had touched a nerve in him he never knew existed, and he was having a most difficult time in quelling his rampant need.
    There was more. Certainly his cock twitched whenever he thought of her, but there was a knot in his chest where she was concerned as well. His position in the peerage, and her status as an unknown, drove him like nothing had in all his years as the Duke of Roxleigh.
    He shifted in the bath. Water hit his chest like a waking slap and he released himself. What was he doing?
    Bloody hell and damn . He finished the bath and toweled himself off, then wrapped it around his waist. Standing by the fire, he felt the heat singe the hair on his shins, the crackle dissipating his reverie and backing him up against the chaise. He fell into it, the towel falling open as he stretched out long, his ankles hanging from the end. He threw one arm over his eyes.
    “Supper, Your Grace,” Ferry said as he entered with a tray. Roxleigh couldn’t even be troubled to grunt a response. Instead he left Ferry to his duty, listening to his footsteps slide across the floor, then become muffled by the rug. The delicate clink of china followed as he arranged the tray in front of the fire before leaving the way he came.
    Roxleigh glanced at the tray and saw a missive set by the terrine of soup. He closed his eyes and returned to his thoughts.
    Better not to think of her by name. Instead she would be this girl . This unwanted bit of distraction. That was what she was, that was how he had to think of her. No more, no less. She would be gone from his life soon enough, with all of her spit and fire with her.
    He thought of the shock of her pulled up against him, neck to knee. Her indecision as her hands drifted between them, unsure whether to touch his chest or curl her fingers in retreat. He remembered the fight in her eyes, stolen by shock when she turned and glimpsed herself in the looking glass. He would have it destroyed. She had been moments from deciding to set him down good and proper, he was sure of it, and nothing in his life had stoked his passion as the anticipation of that set-down.
    He felt his grin against his arm. This girl, this girl. God help him with this girl. How was he to survive in his own household? Part of him wanted to catch her somewhere she should not be, only for the chance to reprimand her, to see if he could get her to fight him again.
    He growled. Picking fights with a girl? What was he, still in short pants? But