Trapped with the Duke by Annabelle Anders

The Incident

Collette stepped past the duke to try the door herself, but something in his demeanor had her turning to study him instead. Even with only the dim light coming through the window at the very top of the stairwell shaft, she could tell that something was wrong.

“Your Grace?”

He’d removed his gloves and was pressing neatly trimmed and buffed fingertips to his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his breath hissed as he seemed to struggle for control.

Was he terribly angry with her? He was a duke, after all, and she’d gotten them trapped in this horrid little stairwell. If she were to judge by his disapproving demeanor in her classroom earlier, he likely was doing his best to keep from strangling her right about now.

But no, he seemed to have forgotten her presence altogether.

Collette lowered herself to her haunches and closer, noticing his breaths seemed shallow and labored. “Your Grace?” she whispered. “Are you unwell?”

“It’s nothing,” he barely managed to gasp. “I’m fine…” When he stared at her from those icy-blue eyes of his, the disdain from earlier was noticeably absent. Was that panic?

Was he having apoplexy?

“Get someone to open—” he inhaled sharply “—that blasted door.”

Collette nodded and then bit her lip. She’d once gotten herself trapped beneath her bed and thought she was going to die. Fortunately, the feeling had lasted barely thirty seconds as she’d managed to wedge herself out in her panic.

But the duke could not wedge himself out of this stairwell.

And he was, indeed, terribly unnerved.

“Stay right there.” She pressed a hand to his knee and then realized the futility of her advice as she pushed herself to her feet and started pounding on the door again. “Help! We’re stuck in here! Someone help!”

She paused every half a minute or so, hoping to hear someone answer, and then started up again when none came. The more she pounded in vain, the less fervent her shouts became.

If anyone heard her, they were being exceedingly rude not to come to their aid. She only wished that was the case.

“Everyone must have left for the picnic already.” She turned her back to the door and slid downward until her bum landed softly on the floor. He really was quite pale.

She hoped he wouldn’t faint, or vomit. Did dukes vomit? She immediately chided herself for being ridiculous. Of course they did.

He was a flesh and blood human, like herself—even if only in regard to the most basic aspects of his person.

A glance at her reddened fists had her contemplating that her voice felt equally raw. She hated feeling helpless. As the oldest of all her sisters, she was a doer—a fixer.

She couldn’t just sit here doing nothing! Collette rose, scrambled up the steps, and proceeded to pound and holler on the second, third, and then the fourth floor with the same dismal results.

By the time she returned to where he was sitting, although still pale, he was sitting up straight. If not for the sweat hovering above his lip, she could almost wonder if she’d imagined his anxiety.

“I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” she said between breaths.

At an utter loss, Collette scooted across the floor and then took the space on the step beside him. “No one is likely to worry over my absence from the tea—although they won’t be happy to have two less helping hands—but surely, your absence will not go unnoticed?”

If she hadn’t been sitting beside him, she would have missed the tremor that shook his much larger frame. The staircase was narrow, however, and most of her side pressed up against his.

“Fiona will be glad of it.” The words were the first she’d heard from him in nearly half an hour. He exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

Having dealt with her mother more than once when she’d become overset by one thing or another, Collette decided her best course of action was to take his mind off their situation. Someone would come soon. It wasn’t as though they were trapped forever.

“Likely, you are right,” she agreed. “I have two younger sisters myself and more than once I’ve been called the spoilsport. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

She instinctively settled her fingertips on his knee, which was only inches from hers. Touch was another thing that had helped her mother—providing a connection to reason and calm.

Another tremor rolled through him, this one however, less pronounced. “One brother.”

“Is he younger than Fiona?”

“He is older than me.”

“But…” She frowned. He could not possibly have an older brother if he was the duke. “How does that work exactly?”

“My father did not marry my brother’s mother. He is what’s known as a bastard.”

Of course.

“I quite understand the concept.” She withdrew her hands and hugged her arms in front of her. “As a bastard myself.”

He slid her a sideways glance. Until that moment, she’d wager all her pin money that she had been completely uninteresting to him. “Bravo to Miss Primm for hiring you.”

His unexpected response bolstered her enough to brave his gaze. “She would not have, if not for my brother.”

“Baron Chaswick.”

He knew. Everyone knew. That the entirety of the Ton had been privy to her and her sister’s circumstances was one of the things Collette had lamented often with Diana.

With her sister, Lady Greystone now, who was now married and living a life very different than the one Collette had chosen. Not that Collette was jealous of Diana for marrying the marquess, but that she was jealous of the marquess for having first claim to her sister now.

“A good man.” The duke nodded ever so slightly, drawing Collette out of self-pitying thoughts.

Her brother was a good man. He was a very good man. Hearing the duke acknowledge that made him seem a little more likable.

Collette reached into her apron and withdrew the small tin she almost always had on hand. “Have a comfit.”

He stared down at it suspiciously.

“It won’t kill you. It’s just a mint.”

“I didn’t think it was poison.”

Collette ignored him and proceeded to open the small container and hand over two of the candies. She normally only allotted herself one a day, but these circumstances were, in fact, dire. “You look rather pale,” she added.

“I—thank you.” He accepted them and then popped both in his mouth.

“Perhaps you ought to loosen your cravat.”

“I’m fine.” But when his eyes shot up and around the stairwell, panic crept into them again.

“Don’t think about it,” she ordered him. “Look at me.” Her words successfully drew his gaze, and she willed him to forget about the locked doors. “Chase. Lord Chaswick—my brother. You know him then?”

He nodded slowly. “We’ve met on more than one occasion.” Even in his diminished state, this man spoke in cultured tones, sounding proper and formal.

“He kept me and my sisters a secret until recently. It was his wife who suggested we enter society. As ladies! Can you imagine? Diana—my sister who is two years younger than me—happily went along with the idea.

“I take it you did not?”

“Good Lord, no! I’d rather be a horse up for auction at Tattersalls—that way, at least, my lack of breeding would be out in the open rather than murmured about behind my back.” Collette had done her best to pretend she hadn’t been bothered by the whispers, but she and Diana had known many of the same ladies who’d smiled at them one moment, then turned to gossip about them in the next. “Knowing I wished to teach, Chase made inquiries with Miss Primm.”

“Along with a sizeable donation.”

Collette sat up straight. Even if he had the right of it, she did not appreciate the insinuation that she wasn’t up to her task. “For your information, I am highly qualified to teach both Latin and French, and some Greek as well.”

He had closed his eyes again, thick lashes fanned out above his cheeks. “But of course,” he agreed too easily. “And Miss Primm is going to approve of her newest employee locking herself in a stairwell with one of her student’s guardians?”

“But I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Of course, you didn’t.”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything.”

He tilted his head back and despite his accusation, Collette couldn’t stop her gaze from admiring the strong lines that ran along his jaw and throat to disappear beneath the white linen cloth.

“You aren’t seriously suggesting I trapped us together intentionally, are you?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What kind of a person do you—"

“No.” His fingers plucked ineffectively at the knot tied in the cravat around his neck. “I’m not really. But it would be nice to have somebody to blame for this debacle.” Twin lines appeared between his eyes as he struggled ineffectually with what was beginning to resemble more of a noose.

“You’re tightening it. Turn here.” Collette pushed his hands away from the strip of linen, and when he obeyed, she went to work on the knot herself.

His face was but a few inches from hers. What she’d thought had been a shadow was actually light brown whiskers, and she itched to brush her fingertips over them to see if they would feel as scratchy as they looked. His breath was minty, from the comfit, but his scent was also woodsy and spicy and more than a little intoxicating.

She required a good deal of willpower to keep herself focused on the knot.

“Bloody thing is strangling me.”

“Are all dukes as ill-mannered as you?” The question escaped before she could think better of it.

“Are all first-year teachers as impertinent as you?”

“As I’m the only first-year teacher of my acquaintance, I’m afraid I cannot answer that.” She could almost slip her finger beneath the coil that she hoped would loosen the knot. “But if I were to guess, I would say most likely not.”

“It was a rhetorical question.”

“Whereas mine was not. Aha!” The knot began to relax. She tugged and then drew the fabric through the loop she’d loosened.

“More than likely, most dukes are perceived as being ill-mannered.” He surprised her by providing an answer. “Especially when dealing with impertinent teachers.”

Collette scoffed even as she contemplated retying the fabric and giving it a not-at-all gentle tug. Instead, she unwound it, exposing his neck and the base of his throat.

Noticing the shadows and smooth skin there, Collette blinked, struck by the intimacy of it.

“That should help.” She dropped her hands and leaned away from him, her own throat feeling unusually constricted.

And still, she couldn’t keep herself from watching his hands as he rubbed the skin along his jaw and stretched. When his gaze landed on the walls, he closed his eyes and inhaled before opening them to stare at her again. “Tell me more about your sisters.”

Collette didn’t have to think very hard to find things to tell him about two of her favorite people in the world.

“Diana loves to dance. She’s married now and her husband has made arrangements for her to have formal instruction. I should have been surprised, really, that she married the marquess. Even if he is so much older. She’s not quite twenty.”

“And you are…?”

“Two and twenty. You are considerably older than Fiona. How old are you?”

He chuckled but answered her anyway. “Seven and twenty.”

“Do you get on well with your brother? And yes, I realize it’s an impertinent question but…” She shrugged. “We could be here for hours. What else are we to discuss?”

His jaw ticked, and his nostrils flared. Oh, drat. She shouldn’t have mentioned their circumstances. “Do you see your brother often? Does he resent you? I thought Chase would resent us when we first met but he’s been like a guardian angel since our father died.”

“Why did he keep you a secret then?” His voice sounded tighter but still refined.

“To protect his mother’s sensibilities. She is… somewhat high-strung. Was your brother’s existence ever kept secret from you?”

“God, no.” But he didn’t expand on his answer. Instead, he startled her by bursting off the stair to pound on the door again. Collette jumped and covered her ears.

His blows were loud enough that if anyone was anywhere in the building, they would hear them. “Hello!” he bellowed. “Open up! At once!”

After he’d spent another sixty or so seconds expending his frustrations, he bowed his head and pressed it against the door.

A heavy sadness weighed on Collette’s shoulders as she watched him give up. Seeing such a terribly proud human so defeated and vulnerable felt wrong.

The deliberate rise and fall of his shoulders gave away his struggle to maintain control.

Collette jumped when he landed one last blow to the door—this time using his forehead rather than his fist.

“At the risk of sounding impertinent again, Your Grace, bashing your brains against it isn’t going to help this situation.”

“But it gives me something else to think about.”

“Pain?”

“Yes, he groused, but this time, Collette suspected his irritation was directed more at himself than at her.

His fear was more powerful than she’d imagined.

Collette hugged her arms in front of her, contemplating what she could do to help him.

“Are you close to your brother?” She’d use her curiosity to distract him.

“There is no one I esteem more.”

Collette felt the same way about Chase, and she knew without a doubt that her brother loved her and her sisters with all of his heart. But a dukedom didn’t stand between them.

“Why?”

He turned his head. “Why do I esteem him?”

“Yes.”

“He is my older brother. We were raised together—educated together. Why would I not esteem him?” But there was something else he wasn’t saying. Collette pondered two brothers: a younger one and an older one. And if the younger loved the older, he likely looked up to him—saw him as a hero, even. Did this duke feel guilty for inheriting his father’s title? But she couldn’t ask that. Such an observation would be far too impertinent to make.

Even for her.