How to Catch a Duke in Ten Days by Violet Hamers

Chapter Thirteen

Hermione was lost in the Duke’s kiss. It was tender, gentle even, far from being like their first kiss. His lips were moving against hers and pushing the boundaries just slightly. His hands came up to her, resting on her waist and pulling her body to rest against his. The brush ignited a heat.

It was that heat that made her eyes shoot open in realization of what she had just done. She had wanted to kiss the Duke. So enthralled and touched by him, she had felt drawn to him. As though there were some sort of force pulling her in, a force that would only be satisfied by a kiss. Now, she realized just what she had done. She had played with him, the way her father had told her to. If anyone had seen them, the Duke would be trapped.

She made a sound into their kiss as she backed away from him, stumbling away across the beach. The moment she was away, she could see his shocked expression entirely, but she turned from him regardless, looking across the beach. The maid and the footman hadn’t seen a thing, far too absorbed in their own conversation with their backs turned this way. She sighed out of relief. The Duke was safe! He would not be forced into marrying her.

“Well, that was interesting,” the Duke’s chuckle prompted her to turn back to him. She was breathing heavily, struggling to control her pulse that was racing from his kiss.

“Interesting?” she said in outrage, hurt by the description of their kiss.

“No, do not be offended,” he said quickly. “The kiss, believe me, that was…” he paused, before casting his eyes up to the sky. “Something else entirely. I meant it was interesting that you were the one to kiss me and are now backing away from me like I have trodden on your favorite puppy.”

“Oh, I should not have done that.” She walked away from him, traipsing across the rocks as quickly as she could. She placed her hands on the stones when she stumbled, trying to stand straight in her effort to be further away from him. It didn’t work; he merely followed.

“Why not?” he asked, chuckling. “I am already thinking of what the next kiss will be like.”

“What? No! No more kisses,” she said quickly, whipping around to face him, walking backward. Not looking where she was going, she tripped on a stone. She was about to keel over when his arm came up around her waist, catching her and holding her up to him. Her words were silenced as she grew distracted, looking at him.

I like you, Your Grace. More than I can say. That is why I cannot do this!

She was tempted to say the words aloud and only just managed to keep them in.

“Why no more kisses?” he asked, so close to her that they could kiss again. She pushed away from him, parting their bodies and walking back to the stone where they had left their fossils. She stood on the other side of the giant stone where he had been sitting, using it to separate the two of them.

“You know why! It is wrong.”

“That certainly didn’t feel wrong,” he said, gesturing to his own lips, making her cast her eyes down to them again. “Did it feel wrong to you?”

“Of course not,” she said quickly, “but it is wrong.” She wanted to tell him it was because of her guilt. That if she continued to kiss him, sooner or later they would be seen, and he would be trapped in a marriage with a woman who had a ruined reputation. It hardly mattered that she had loved every part of that kiss, nor that she wanted to do it again.

It is too cruel to you.

“You are worried about your reputation,” he said, summarizing an answer before she could give one.

“Exactly,” she said, hoping that would be enough to convince him.

“Ah, I cannot argue with that,” he said, grimacing. “It is a shame though. Those two kisses we’ve shared…” he trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. “They were quite something.”

“Oh, do not torment me so!” She turned away from him, covering her face. She wanted nothing more than to kiss him another time, even though her mind was telling her of the danger of it. “We cannot do that anymore.” She came up with a plan, turning back around to him and dropping her hands from her face. “Promise me that.”

“Promise you what?” He seemed confused; he came to a stop on the other side of the rock, opposite her.

“Promise me there will be no more kisses between us,” she pleaded with him, clasping her hands together.

“You started that kiss,” he said, laughing at her.

“I know I did, but I promise not to again,” she said hurriedly. “Please, Your Grace. Please promise me you will not kiss me either.”

“Kiss you where?” he asked.

“On the lips!” she said insistently, angered by his infuriating want to tease her.

“So, I can kiss you elsewhere?” he said, smirking and lifting just one eyebrow. Realizing what he meant, she let out a growl of exasperation.

“No, nowhere at all.” She waved her hands frantically in the air. “Please, promise me, Your Grace.”

“Well, it is a promise I really do not want to give,” he sighed with the words, “but seeing how much that kiss has made you panic, how could I defy you? I give you my word.” He bowed to her with the statement, emphasizing it further.

“Say the whole thing,” she pleaded with him. She placed her hands on the stone and leaned toward him, startled to see him do the same thing, leaning toward her.

“I give you my word, Lady Hermione: I will not kiss you on the lips, nor anywhere else,” he said the latter part with another smirk, “unless you kiss me first.”

“You didn’t need to add the last part,” she said, standing up straight.

“I needed to add a caveat somewhere,” he shrugged as though it made perfect sense.

“Oh, you are infuriating.” She snapped up the fossil from on top of his jacket.

“You didn’t seem to think that a moment ago.”

“Oh, tush,” she said, walking away from him back down the beach.

“Is that it? Are we done fossil hunting for the day?” he called after her.

“Yes!” she called back. “We’re going back, Your Grace.”

“Am I following your orders again now?” His tease on their old running debate made her stop and turn back to him, offering a frown. “That look won’t make me obey you, you know.”

“Your Grace,” she turned, her tone was darker, and she held even more of a glare in her face.

“That one will.” He pretended fear and hurried to catch up with her before running ahead across the stones with his jacket over his shoulder and his fossil in his hands. She nearly laughed, so tempted she was at his antics, then she remembered what she had done, and the temptation left her.

This is for the best, she assured herself. No more kisses. Yet she couldn’t explain why the thought of no more kisses made her very sad.

* * *

“So? How did today go?” Rufus asked Hermione, sitting beside her on a chesterfield settee in the drawing room.

She tried to look away from Rufus back down at the book in her hands. She had found The Modern Prometheus in the library shortly after dinner and brought it back to the drawing room, not wanting to risk meeting the Duke alone. She had found a second bookmark between the pages amongst her own, suggesting he was reading it too.

“Father, not now,” she whispered to Rufus, glancing up from her book as she turned the page.

Their whispers were completely hidden by Phoebe’s piano playing at the far end of the room. Beside the grand instrument, Officer Stenham sat by Phoebe, looking more and more interested in her conversation than Hermione had seen him before. On the other side of the instrument, the Dowager Duchess and Cordelia were together, playing a game of cards. By the exclamations that erupted every now and then, she rather thought the Duchess kept playing the game wrong. It seemed Cordelia was winning easily. The Duke was in his study, working on business.

“Yes, now,” Rufus said, taking the book from Hermione’s hands. She tried to take it back, but when Officer Stenham looked up from the piano toward them, she abandoned her effort and smiled, pretending to be enjoying the piano music. She could see Rufus putting on the same act. A few seconds later, Officer Stenham returned his attentions to Phoebe’s playing. “Tell me, what happened today?”

“I accompanied the Duke into town and then to the fossil beach,” she said, feeling her stomach knot in anger at his intrusion into her life.

“And? Did he respond to your attentions?” he asked, fixing her with his full focus.

She knew she could have told him the truth, that the Duke seemed to like her a great deal, but she couldn’t. Somehow, she felt she would be betraying the Duke. I can never harm him. Not now. Not ever.

“It was formal and restrained,” she felt the lie make her mouth dry. Her father’s countenance stiffened. A muscle in his jaw appeared to tick with barely concealed anger.

“Come with me,” he said, moving to stand her to her feet.

“I’d prefer to stay here,” she whispered, hoping he would give the book back to her, but he did not. He lowered the book to the settee cushion and used the move to hide the hold he took on her wrist.

“I said, come with me.” He drew her to her feet. The pincer-like grip he had on her arm left her with no choice but to follow him. As they parted from the room, she worked hard to mask his hold on her from the others, loath to let them see it.

Once they were in the hallway, she though he would release her, but she had no such luck. Instead, he drew her up the stairs. When she tripped in her effort to follow him, his grip on her wrist tightened even more, and her squeal of pain did nothing to abate it. They moved along the landing and toward her chamber. Once inside, he still did not release his grip on her, not until he had pulled her across the room and forced her to sit in a chair by the window.

“Ah,” she muttered sounds against the pain, rubbing her wrist as he stepped back from her.

“Are you telling me that there is no progress? None whatsoever?” Rufus asked, standing back from her and staring down with his face almost turning purple in his anger. “He has barely even noticed you?”

“That is correct,” she lied, concentrating on the pain in her wrist. She realized with horror that her father had truly hurt her, just as pink swelling began to appear around the white skin beneath her hand.

“Have you not tried to flirt, child?” he asked, his tone insistent.

“A father ordering his daughter to flirt,” she scoffed with derision. “Does that not sound a little outrageous to you, father?” Her words seemed to connect with him more so than any of her other objections had done.

He backed away from her, walking toward the fireplace where he rested his elbow on the mantelpiece then placed his hand in his open palm. “This order is to protect you, Hermione.”

“You treat me like I am some bawd at a brothel,” she murmured, feeling her temptation to cry bubble to the surface.

“I beg your pardon?” He snapped his head up from his hand.

“Flirt with him, Hermione. Catch him in a compromising position,” she mocked her father’s voice. “Do you have any idea how that sounds?”

“This is for your own good! Need I remind you that you brought it on yourself?” He strode away from the mantelpiece and pointed at her for emphasis.

“I did not,” she wailed, just as the tears began to fall. “It was not my fault that he no longer wanted me.” She didn’t need to say his name; they both knew who she was referring to.

“Who else’s fault was it? It had to be yours,” he pointed at her. “I am not having the same argument again with you, Hermione. You must work harder. Capture the Duke’s attentions within the next week, or we are all doomed.” He walked around the room in a small circle. “We might have to do something dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” she paused in her tears, looking up to him. “Like what?”

“That is for me to know.” He turned and walked away from her, evidently intending for it to be his last word on the matter, but she wouldn’t let it be.

“What is it you would plan?” she asked, jumping to her feet to follow him. Seeing her do so, he took hold of the same wrist he had been holding before. She yelped at the fresh pain, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“If it comes to setting a trap for this Duke, and you do not have the stomach to do it, then I will,” he said, not releasing her wrist.

“I will not let you hurt him,” she declared, finding surprising strength in her voice. “Are you listening to me? I won’t let you….” She broke off sharply, just as he lifted his free hand in the air.

He had never hurt her in his life, never lifted a hand to her, even when she was a child and misbehaved. Now, she was cowering from him, trying to push his hand off her wrist as he lifted his other hand as though to strike her.

“Who are you?” she whispered. “I do not recognize you anymore.”

He looked at his own hand with apparent disgust, even amazed at himself. He lowered the hand. “I would never hurt you, Hermione,” he said softly.

“Then release my wrist!” she ordered, pulling on it still. He released it at once. It was so abrupt that she felt back on the floor, landing to the rug with a thump on her rear as she cradled her wrist.

Her father looked down at her, his purple cheeks paling, before he stumbled away, looking at the hand that had hurt her as though it were foreign to himself.

“I’ll leave you to rest now,” he said, clearing his throat and trying to sound normal. She supposed he was trying to pretend that nothing had happened.

After he left, Hermione didn’t move for some time. She just stared down at her wrist, watching as a bruise began to develop, speckled purple and blue. I wonder… how far will my father go in order to see this marriage happen?