Glad to oblige and relieved at the interruption, Fallon turned, fleeing the room, the heat of Damon’s stare following her as she fled.
In the future, until she found a way to remove herself from this mess, she would take care to never find herself alone with him again. Because next time Martha might not arrive to save her.
Fallon stood on her tiptoes, stretching for the canister of walnuts the Cook asked her to fetch.
With a grunt, she ceased reaching for the impossibly high shelf. Hands propped on her hips, she fixed a considering glare on the inoffensive-looking jar.
“Let me help you with that.”
Fallon turned, finding Daniel, the head footman, immediately behind her. She smiled at him, and his grin broadened in his narrow, freckled face.
He had been exceptionally kind to her since her “unveiling,” paving the way for the other servants to do the same. That alone endeared him to her. Especially considering the less than warm welcome she had received when Mr. Adams first presented her to the staff. No doubt Mr.
Adams’s gimlet stare and Daniel’s ready acceptance had saved her from total annihilation. Aside of a few snickers and sidelong stares, no one treated her outright poorly. Well, no one save Nancy. The maid seemed disinclined to like her, no doubt embarrassed over her infatuation with Francis.
Fallon eyed the man who stood several inches shorter then herself. Rather than wound his ego by pointing out she was taller, she stepped aside. “I’m trying to reach the walnuts.”
Soon he realized what she already surmised. He could no more reach the canister than she.
Shooting her a determined glance, he hopped upon the lowest shelf and seized the canister, dropping back down to his feet with a flourish. With an elaborate bow, he presented it to her.
“Thank you, Daniel.” She accepted the jar.
“Always happy to help a lady in need.”
“Am I interrupting?”
Fallon and Daniel swung around to face the looming figure in the pantry’s threshold. Her heart jumped a little in her chest at the familiar visage of the duke.
His lips barely moved as he spoke. A dark shadow passed over his hard features. “Isn’t this a cozy scene.”
Daniel made a sound in his throat that sounded like a chicken being strangled. “Y-Your Grace.”
Clicking his heels together, he bowed smartly.
Without even looking at the footman, the duke bit out, “Leave us.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Daniel scurried past, dipping one last bow of deference. With a hasty, apologetic glance for Fallon, he disappeared from the pantry.
Her pulse hammered madly at her neck. She could not— _must _ not—be alone with him. She stretched out a hand, her mouth parting, ready to call Daniel back.
“Good riddance,” the duke drawled as the door to the pantry clicked shut. He leveled her with his intent stare. “I have you alone now. You may have escaped me earlier this afternoon, but no one can save you now.”
She dropped her hand to her side. Fallon inhaled deeply against the sting of resentment his words elicited. “I don’t need anyone to save me. I can look after myself.”
“Indeed,” he retorted, stepping close. Too close. “You’re like a cat, is that it? Always landing on your feet. It hasn’t taken you long to win over the men on my staff.”
A small window high in the pantry’s wall offered enough light for her to see the dark ring of blue around his irises. Beautiful and subtle, soft as undulating grass in the glow of moonlight. Ironic considering the hard bend of his lips.
He glanced at the door Daniel departed through, then back at her. His smoky gaze slid over her in a slow drag of heat. “Perhaps there’s a reason you keep getting the sack.”
Cold swept over her, effectively dousing the heat his gaze evoked. “Meaning what precisely?”
“You do have a way about you…”
Indignation began a slow creeping burn up her neck. “What _way _ would that be?” Even as she asked the question, she was certain she would not like his answer.
He shrugged one shoulder. “You could be less provocative.”
Anger churned through her stomach. She pressed a hand to her belly. “You think I bring unwelcome advances upon myself?” she demanded, the blood rising in her face.
He cocked his head. “Well, you were fending off the attentions of a man the first time I saw you.
Every time I turn around, I find you in the same scenario. Even I have trouble keeping my hands to myself.”
“You cannot be accusing me…”
He took a step closer, an encroaching wall of heat, and she saw from the hard glint in his eyes that he was not jesting. He thought her _responsible _ when a man fawned over her?
His indigo blue jacket brushed the starched front of her dress, a bright splash of color against the muted gray of her dress. “Perhaps you should rethink what you _do _ around men.”
“What I _do _ around men?”
As if she did anything deliberate. As if she set out to get sacked and put her livelihood in jeopardy. As if she enjoyed living one step from the streets.
“And what is that?” she spit out.
“Twist them into knots…make them want you even when they know they should not.”
“Only an arrogant bastard born with the world bowed before him would say such a, a…stupid thing!” Her chest lifted on ragged breath, but she could not regret her outburst. Not even at the narrowing of his eyes or the deepening color in his cheeks. She jabbed him once in the chest.
“Why not call me a whore?”
His hand closed over her hand, his grip hard, a warm pulsing manacle.
She wrenched her hand free and buried it in the fold of her skirts.
He was silent for some moments, tension emanating from him in waves as palpable as steam.
When he at last spoke, his query gouged her, swiping at an already open wound. “I should be glad if you were, then we could stop these games and do what we really want to each other.”
She flinched, his words too crude, too rough…too stark and thrilling in their honesty. Her palm swung toward him—without thought or deliberation—a blurring arc on the air.
For the second time in one week, she struck a duke.
Or tried, at any rate.
He ducked aside and she missed entirely. Rot! A small sound of distress escaped her tightly compressed lips and she swung again.
This time, he caught her hand.
She gave a fierce tug, but he would not surrender her hand. Anger swept through her in a savage burn. She fought to be free. Beyond control now, she swung again. He caught her other hand, too. Fallon stood there, both hands caught, and felt an utter fool.
With both hands imprisoned, he forced her back until her body met the wall of shelves in a noisy rattle of jars and crockery.
She gasped at the sudden move. With the sharp bite of shelves at her back, the hard wall of his body at her front, she could scarcely draw breath.
Their eyes locked, collided, battled with unspoken words. Tension crackled on the air.
Awareness throbbed between them. His eyes smoldered, nostrils flaring.
She opened her mouth, but no words fell. A mistake.
His gaze dropped to her lips. The blue ring around his pupils darkened to near black. Her throat tightened. His head moved slightly, dipping, then stopped with his lips a hairsbreadth from her own.
A shutter fell over his eyes—the fire once there gone, banked.
Her heart twisted even more fiercely as his fingers began to loosen their grip on her hands.
Now he would stop?
Her heart sank and squeezed.
She felt his withdrawal, felt his body ease away, saw it in the impassivity stealing over his face.
That single realization fired her blood. Before she could stop herself, before she could allow herself to think, her head shot forward, neck straining, lips seeking his with a desperation that bordered violence.
Shock rippled through her at the first brush of her lips on his. Warm and firm. Intoxicating.
Sweeter, hotter, than even their last chocolate-laced kiss. She gasped against his mouth, taking his breath deep inside her.
One of his hands slid around her nape and hauled her closer yet. His lips stole over hers, moving, tasting, caressing, devouring. His tongue slipped inside her mouth and she knew heaven. On and on, they kissed. His h*ps shoved against hers. The prodding bulge of him very real, very large.
The flat of his palm brushed down the front of her dress, between the vee of her br**sts.
No! She tore her lips free with a gasp and wedged her hands between them, prepared to push him away…when the door to the pantry opened.
Fallon staggered free. Heaving serrated breaths, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, horrified to have been caught by…
Her gaze turned to the door and her eyes settled on Nancy. Grand. The girl gaped from where she stood in the threshold, feasting large eyes on Fallon and the duke.
As mortification rolled over her, she considered the irony. She had found Nancy in a similar scenario with Lord Hunt. Heat scored her cheeks as she recalled her opinion of Nancy then. She judged her naïve. Easy prey. A fool. All the things Fallon prided herself too smart, too _good _ to be.
How little she knew herself. The woman she claimed to be, the woman she _wanted _ to be, would never give any part of herself—especially her heart—to a blue-blooded devil who swam in vice and possessed a stone for a heart. Her throat thick with emotion, she averted her eyes from Nancy’s smirk.
With the duke’s intent stare burning on her, she lifted her skirts and fled the pantry, shoving past Nancy…her fingers pressed to lips that still tingled in a manner she vowed to forget.
Chapter 22
“_Who _ is that?”
Dominic followed Hunt’s gaze, spying Fallon gathering flowers in the garden with another maid.
He grimaced, preferring not having to explain Fallon’s little deception.
With a shrug, he attempted to continue the conversation regarding Britain’s war with China.
Only Hunt no longer participated. A rapt expression on his face, he rose to his feet and strode to the French doors, peering out at Fallon as she kneeled among bulbs of tulips.
Dominic scowled. “Ethan?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing?”
“Simply admiring the view.”
Dominic tapped a finger impatiently upon the boot crossed over his knee, clearing his throat a time or two in the hope of regaining Hunt’s attention. He wondered if it would be bad form to strike a friend of twenty-odd years for ogling a maid in his employ—a female whose existence should scarcely register upon his consciousness. And yet she did. Painfully so. She haunted his every moment, waking or asleep. As she had for some time. Even before he realized her identity.
“Something dashed familiar about her.”
If ever a moment arose to explain his valet’s disappearance and Fallon’s sudden appearance, Dominic supposed it was now. But for some reason he held his tongue, preferring to keep Fallon’s unseemly and fraudulent behavior his affair alone. “I am certain you have never seen her before.”
“Likely so.” He nodded. “How could one forget someone like her?” Hunt shot him a quick glance. “She must be new, eh.” Without waiting for an answer, he asked, “Is she as tall as she looks?”
His lips twisted. Tall enough to pass for a man.
“I suppose,” he returned, rising to stand beside Hunt at the doors overlooking the garden. “I have never made a study of her.” Surprisingly, he did not choke on the lie. If he closed his eyes, he could still taste her on his lips.
Hunt smiled. “No? You never imagined those legs wrapped around you?”
His throat tightened at the immediate image. Fallon’s long legs wrapped around his h*ps as he drove into her had become a favorite fantasy. “I’d appreciate it if you quit ogling the girl.”
“Look at her.” Ethan waved a hand. “She’s a woman that demands a second look.” His lips twitched. “And a third.”