Son of a Duke (9 page)

"You looked suddenly serious, Mr. Black.
 
Quite an unusual expression on your face, and I having only just met you.
 
You can understand what an odd occurrence it was."
 

"I was thinking on your son."
 
He smiled softly, skirting the truth without lying.

"Were you?"

Her lips formed a tighter line if that was possible, making them go almost white with lack of blood.
 
She went back to bathing his wound.
 

"And just what were you thinking?"

"He loves you very much."
 
She stopped to stare at him again, only this time, he saw the real Eleanora Quinton, not the one with the white face paint putting on a good show for everyone.
 
He saw a strong woman, a mother trying her hardest to make sure her son grew up safely, healthily, and most importantly, happily.
 
He saw a woman he very much admired.
 
"He is lucky to have you."

"I think I am the lucky one."
 
Her voice lost its boldness, the words flowing delicately from her lips, almost as if she could not be saying the words aloud.

"How are his flowers coming?"
 
Nathan found he liked this Miss Quinton best and tried to keep her around a little longer.
 
"And you do realize he talks like he is eighty instead of nine, do you not?"

"His flowers are coming along wonderfully, and yes, I know he talks like he's eighty."
 
She washed out the rag in the basin.
 
"That is probably my fault."
 
She smiled, or was it a smirk?

"Yes, probably."

They fell into silence then, mostly because Nathan could not think of a damn thing to say.
 
Too many things were crowding in at once, so many questions he wanted to ask her, so many things he wanted to learn.
 
He shifted in the seat, and his back scraped along the shape of his pistol in his greatcoat.
 
And he suddenly remembered why he was here, alone with her, a slice across his shoulder from a bullet that was meant to kill him.

"Miss Quinton-"

Her eyebrows went up.
 
"Oh, we are back to Miss Quinton.
 
This must be the serious portion of the evening."
 
The clock suddenly chimed two above the fireplace.
 
"Or should I say morning?" she amended.

Nathan was not sure he liked all the eyebrow raising.
 
It was normally he who did the raising.
 
"I need to discuss with you some...things."

She finished with the washing and moved to get the bottle of clear stuff from the table.
 
He sat straighter in the chair.
 

"Sometimes, Mr. Black, I wonder where you learned to speak.
 
You are just so profound at times."
 

The woman's wit was either going to drive him insane or-well, yes, it would probably just drive him insane.
 

"My father, I guess, mostly taught me how to speak."
 
Her eyebrow went up.
 
"He is a duke," Nathan finished.

Nora froze.
 
Nathan really had not believed it possible for her to go whiter under all the rice powder, but her skin definitely went down a few notches on the color scale.
 
The blood must have drained from her entire head.
 
He leaned forward just in case he would have to catch her in a faint.
 

"I beg your pardon...my lord.
 
I had not realized."
 
She ducked her head to work the cork out of the bottle.
 

"I am not a lord."
 
He closed both of his hands over hers to get her attention.
 
She jerked once, but he thought that was mostly from the sudden contact and not from an attempt to get away from him.
 
He waited until she looked up at him.
 
"I am the result of a burst of excitement, if you understand my meaning.
 
I am no lord and never will be."
 
He released her, but she did not move.
 
He pointed at the bottle.
 
"Do you need help with that?"

She looked down at her hands, looking as though she was not really certain how they had become wrapped around the bottle.
 
"No, thank you."
 
She pulled the cork, making a loud pop cut the air.
 

~

She was actually going to have to touch him now.
 
There was nothing else left to be done.
 
A large cleaning rag had been barrier enough, but to apply the medicine, she would need to make contact with his skin again.
 

Nora felt the bile rise in her throat, her lungs constricting any passage of air.
 

She focused on a spot above his shoulder where the fabric of his great coat blended through the intricacies of the fabric of the armchair.
 
The firelight glinted on the threads, and she let her eyes lose focus, wallowing in the undefined state of not seeing.
 

Eleanora Quinton could do this.
 
She had left Aunt Martha's at the young age of seventeen and made a way for herself in London with no reference and no one to help her.
 
She could dab some medicine on the arm of a Bow Street runner.
 
Surely, she could.
 
She had survived far worst.
 

She watched her hand drift in front of her, wondered as it moved of its own volition.
 
The tips of her middle fingers brushed his skin first.
 
He was warm and strangely soft.
 
She wondered why this astonished her as she did not have anything else on which to base an assumption of how his skin would feel.
 
It was not as if she made a practice of going about touching strange men.
 
Or any men, for that matter.
 
But still, she had expected him to feel...tougher, if that were the correct word.
 

There was something about his presence that just suggested strength and absoluteness, no room for yielding or tenderness.
 
But when she touched him, she felt something entirely different from the aura she exuded.
 

He stared intently into the fire; his eyes squinted, focusing on the flames.
 
She wondered what he thought.
 
She was finding Nathan Black to be an odd man, if not particularly in his actions but in his moods.
 
He often swung from one end of the pendulum to the other, keeping her guessing as to what he would say next.
 
He could be charming at the beginning of a sentence and serious at the end.
 
It was disconcerting.
 

She took the moment to actually look at him, really see what he was made of.
 
She had never studied a man before, picked him apart piece by piece, put the pieces back together to see what they made.
 
Men were never very interesting to her, less so after....
 
Well, after.
 
But this one was suddenly drawing her attention, for what reason she did not know.
 
He was just like all the rest, perhaps a little more charming, a little more...friendly.
 
Perhaps it had been the occasion of their meeting, something in the suspense and tension of murder that made her take notice of him.
 
But she doubted that.
 

The pull was intrinsic.
 
She could feel that much.
 
There was something in Nathan Black that spoke to her.
 
Her stomach churned, not wanting in the least to find out what it was.

She stepped back, lifting the alcohol soaked rag from his shoulder.
 
Nathan was still stared at the fire, not noticing that she had moved.
 
His dark hair fell across his forehead.
 
The light did not touch the recesses of his eyes, making her wonder what color they were in the firelight.
 

He was so tall and broad, that she had not dared look at him before.
 
She had looked past him, over his shoulder, making it appear as though she looked through him.
 
But looking at him now, she found he was quite...pleasing in his make up.
 
His shoulders easily spanned the width of the chair back, and his large hands rested casually on either arm of the chair.
 
His legs were stretched before him, too long for him to sit comfortably without stretching them thusly.
 
His clothes were of fine quality but not quite as fine as that of a gentleman of the realm.
 
But he had said he was the son of a duke.
 
An illegitimate son.
 
The notion opened many questions, but she did not dare to ask a single one of them.
 

His mouth was relaxed, tiny lines framing it.
 
She had a sudden urge to run her fingertips over his lips, across his jaw, and along his cheekbones, to feel the scrape of his skin along hers.
 
She wanted to touch more of him, see if all of his pieces felt the same as the skin of his arm.
 
She wanted to know what it would feel like for him to touch her.
 

She stepped back so quickly she smacked into the table she had set the medicine box on.
 
The whole thing shook, sending the lantern light swinging recklessly across the room.
 
Nora grabbed for the latern first.
 
The last thing she needed tonight was to set the study on fire.
 
The other clean rags fell off the table to the floor; the lid of the medicine box tottered shut with a snap.
 
Steadying the lantern, she turned her head, knowing Nathan had heard the racket.
 

He had turned his head as well, but otherwise looked exactly the same, completely relaxed and calm.
 

"Skirts," Nora said, "They tend to get in the way."

"I can only imagine."
 
His voice was soft with the slightest infliction of mockery.
 

She turned her head back to the lantern and bit her lip.
 
She was slowly losing her mind, assuming she had not lost it already.
 
First, she wanted to run her fingers all over his face and then suddenly when he had teased her, she had wondered what it would feel like to kiss him.

"Are you finished with me?"
 
Nathan said behind her.

Nora bent and retrieved the fallen rags before turning back to him.
 
"Yes, you will be fine."

But she very much doubted she would be equally as fine.
 
This man was doing things to her she had never imagined any man could.
 
And then he stood, and her stomach made a motion inside of her that had never occurred before.
 
He towered over her, and it was not fear that she felt.
 
It was an inexplicable tightening, an uncontrolled spasm deep within her.

"Excellent," he said and stepped toward her.

She would have stepped back, but that would have meant running into the table again.
 
She knew her mouth had fallen open, and she probably had meant to scream, but it stuck in her throat.
 
But no, that did not feel right.
 
She was not afraid of him any longer.
 
She was the very opposite.
 
Something about him pulled at her, wanting him to come closer, wanting him to touch her.

And then he did, and the air rushed from her lungs.

Nathan reached for her.
 
No, he was reaching around her, and the sudden feeling of loss that the near touch sent through her left her reeling.
 
He picked up a clean rag and dipped it in the basin of water.
 
Wringing out the excess water, he looked back at her.
 

She could see his eyes now, brilliant blue even in the soft light cast from the fire.
 
The moving light played over his features like moonlight across the even surface of a lake.
 
The planes and crevices invited her in, begged her fingers to explore.
 
She did not know what was happening to her, but she did not want it to stop.

And then Nathan spoke.
 

"My turn," he said and finally touched her.
           

~

Nathan thought she looked absolutely terrified.
 
But there was the slightest softness around her mouth that made him doubt the validity of his observation.
 
It was not terror.
 
It was unwanted curiosity he saw masking her features.

She wanted to see what he was going to do next, and he was not leaving tonight without seeing what her face really looked like.
 
He wanted the rice powder off of her skin.
 
He wanted to see Eleanora Quinton for what she really looked like.
 
He wanted to see her.

He gripped her shoulder first, and she did not flinch.
 
She did not move at all under his touch.
 
He swiped the wet rag along the line of her jaw, making a streak in the rice powder.
 
He unearthed the curve of her cheek, the line of her nose, the soft angle of her jaw.
 
The scar running from her eyebrow to the corner of her jaw became paler as the powder was wiped clean from it.
 
He pulled the rag across her forehead, his fingertips inadvertently brushing the softness of her hair.
 
Finished, he tipped her face up with a hand under her chin and studied her face in the lantern light.