Dukes By the Dozen

“I do,” he said. “I wondered, when your father discovered us so shortly after you lured me into your arms…”

His slow half-smile told her he teased and when his gaze dropped to her mouth, she knew that he, too, was remembering those fevered kisses—the sensuous slide of lips and tongue, the pleasure.

She unconsciously wet her lips with her tongue and he snapped his gaze back to hers.

He cleared his throat once…twice. “But it didn’t take me long to realize that you would never do such a thing, even if he would have wished you to.”

Emmaline released a tight breath. “I’m glad.”

“I had no idea who you were, either,” he offered. “I’d worked out you were nobility from the first, but I never guessed I spent my mornings with the daughter of the man who’d usurped my afternoons.”

“Better yours than mine,” she muttered, and Granville huffed a laugh.

“I had been warned Montgomery had a daughter he wished to see me wed to. I refused his every offer of a quiet family dinner, or trip to the theater, or any other number of sly invitations designed to introduce us. I’d resolved to stay well clear of her.”

Emmaline’s lips lifted at the irony of it all. “Well, that plan didn’t work out too well for you.”

His voice dropped low. “Oh, but I think it did.”

And just like that, all the heat that had flared between them in the forest this morning came rushing back in an inferno. Curse that open door. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and pick up where they’d left off. Discover what came next…

“I—I suppose we should introduce ourselves,” she said instead, realizing she’d yet to learn his given name. “I’m Emmaline.”

Another smile. “Yes, I know. I’ve read it many times this afternoon in the marriage contracts.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“And before you ask,” he went on, “your father conceded to allow your sister to break her engagement, should she wish.”

Emmaline’s brows shot up. “Just like that?”

He grimaced. “Not exactly. But I am a barrister by trade, and thus accustomed to a good fight. You’d given me plenty of leverage, knowing how desperately he wished for a ducal alliance, and the lengths he’d go it get it. And I had little empathy for him, given how he’s treated you and your sister. It made it easy to stand firm. Once he accepted that I wouldn’t budge in Amelia’s case, he caved.”

Something melted inside of Emmaline. This man would always be a knight, be he a duke or a barrister or a candlestick maker. Her heart would be safe with him.

And so would her sister’s future. Emmaline’s guilt and worry started to melt away, too, leaving room for…hope. Hope for their future happiness.

“Thank you,” she said around the lump in her throat. “You didn’t have to do that, I know.”

“Of course, I did, dearest Emmaline.” His voice rang with tenderness and even more heat unfurled in her tummy. “I promised I would, were I your duke.”

“And now you are,” she whispered.

“And now I am,” he agreed.

He pinned her with a hot look, one that made her feel alive and desired and so very fortunate that she’d chosen Hyde Park as her refuge that fateful morning. And that he had, too.

But then his gaze clouded over, and his features slid into marble once again. “Almost.”

She frowned, not liking the sound of that.

He straightened his shoulders and took a long breath. “I must tell you, should the duchess bear a son and I do not become the duke, I won’t hold you to this engagement. I will allow you to cry off to find a more suitable match…if that is your wish.”

Emmaline simply stared at him. He would give her a choice?

“Nor will I withdraw my support of your sister, regardless of whether we marry,” he said. “Without the ducal income, I couldn’t keep her in the manner in which she is accustomed, but she will always have a home and means of her own, I swear it.”

His features softened ever so slightly, and his voice followed suit. “I know how important her future is to your happiness. Just as your happiness is to mine.”

Tears pricked Emmaline’s eyes, and as her vision blurred, she would have sworn that for a moment there, her knight’s plain wool suit actually shone like armor.

He was who she wanted. She would never wish to break from him. A tiny seed of love had already taken root in her heart and she knew, with all that she was, that it would bloom into the lushest of gardens as time passed—one that would sustain them for the rest of their lives.

“It is not the duke I wish to marry,” she said softly, “but my knight. Nothing will change that.”

A tender smile graced his lips. “And it is not a perfect duchess I want, only my fierce warrior queen. Nothing,” he reached out and lifted her left hand, caressing her ruined finger with his thumb, “will ever change that, my dear, dear Emmaline.”

And Emmaline saw the truth in his eyes. He did want her—just her. Not how she looked, but who she was. Her heart swelled in her chest, so much that she thought she might burst with happiness.

“My knight,” she whispered. “My duke. My—”

Her sweet declaration stalled when she realized, “I still don’t know your name.”