"Rollicking Romance"
Reviewed by Diana Troldahl
Posted August 12, 2010
Romance Historical
Until the night of the abduction, Kate Madsen lived a quiet
life on the edge of the moors, kept company by her books.
There was no one to miss her, no one to search for her,
since her guardian, Old Charlie, had died the year before.
O'Banyan, the leader of the ruffians, called her "Kate Fox"
and would not hear her pleas that they had stolen the wrong
woman. Dazed by heavy doses of laudanum, dressed only in her shift
and whore's paint, she is brought barefoot before "The
Beast". He is the Duke who rules the smuggler-riddled
coastline to whom she is presented as a gift to sooth his
temper. Rohan Kilborn, Duke of Warrington, won't let the
gift of a whore blunt his wrath. The smugglers had become
Wreckers, and brought the attention of the coast guard upon
their heads. His anger does not mean he wont't enjoy the
toothsome wench, assuming she comes out of her drunken stupor. As the plot behind her abduction is revealed Kate learns her
identity is a sham perpetuated for her own protection by the
man she knew as her guardian. Rohan Kilborn, resigned to the
family curse that all he loves will be lost, discovers
tender but unwanted feelings for Kate. In MY DANGEROUS DUKE, Gaelen Foley has given us a rollicking
good tale. The romance is heavily threaded with adventure
and plot twists that keep you guessing, rushing through to
read to the end. This is a book I will enjoy reading a
second time, to catch the nuances I missed while being
caught up in the ride the first time through. I now have
another author to add to my 'favorites' shelf.
SUMMARY
The Inferno Club: In public, this scandalous society of
London aristocrats is notorious for pursuing all manner of
debauchery. But in private, they are warriors who would do
anything to protect king and country . . . They say that the very name of Warrington is cursed . . . From a time as old as the cold stone of the duke’s
ancestral castle, the Warrington men have been plagued by
tragedy. But Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington has
vowed to escape the predestined torment by forsaking love
and devoting his life to the Inferno Club and its secret
mission. And then she is brought to him unbidden by cutthroats
hoping to calm the duke’s infamous temper—a sacrificial
virgin of sorts. But even overpowered, Kate Madsen will be
no man’s sacrifice. And the duke’s price for claiming her
may be what he has sworn never to give—the heart he has so
long and fiercely guarded . . . to the beautiful hostage
he was never meant to love.
ExcerptChapter One
Cornwall, 1816She was to be given to him as a gift--a plaything for some
powerful, dark stranger. How her life had come to this,
Kate Madsen could barely comprehend, but her rage at this
horrifying fate was muted by the drug her kidnappers
forced down her throat. The tincture of the poppy soon dissolved her will to
fight. Within half an hour of being made to swallow it, it
had tamed her temper, blurred her mind, quelled the usual
sharp-tongued retorts she blasted at her captors, and left
her hands limp instead of her usual clenched fists when
the smugglers’ wives came in to prepare her for her doom. Barely two-third conscious, capable only of dull-witted
yes’s and no’s, she was uncharacteristically docile as the
women washed her roughly and dressed her like a harlot for
their lord. Kate did not know what the smugglers had done to anger the
dread Duke of Warrington, but from what she could glean,
she was to be the virgin sacrifice by which they hoped to
appease his wrath. His appetite for women was known to be voracious. This,
along with his expertise in all manner of violence was,
she had heard, why the locals privately called their
landlord “the Beast.” None of it felt real. When she saw her reflection clad in
the indecent shred of white muslin they had made her wear,
she could only laugh bitterly. She knew she did not have a
prayer. Half naked, she shivered uncontrollably--not so
much from the cold, but in terror of the night ahead. Only the sedative offered sweet refuge, carrying her fears
away to oblivion, like so much chimney smoke torn asunder
by the winter wind that even now was howling through the
seaside village. The women nearly scalped her combing out the tangles in
her long brown hair. They sprinkled her with cheap
perfume, and then stood back to admire their work. “Right pretty,” one weathered sea-wife declared. “She
don’t clean up too badly.” “Aye, the Beast should fancy her.” “Still too pale,” another said. “Put some rouge on her,
Gladys.” It all seemed to be happening to someone else. A slimy
daub of pink-tinted cream rubbed into her cheeks none too
gently, then her lips. “There.” This done, they pulled Kate to her feet and
started herding her toward the door. Through her dulled, distorted senses, the prospect of
exiting the cramped room that had been her recent prison
roused Kate slightly from her stupor. “Wait,” she forced
out in a mumble. “I . . . don’t have any shoes.” “That’s so you won’t try runnin’ away again, Miss Clever!”
Gladys snapped. “Here, finish your wine. I’d take it if I
were you. He’s like to be rough with ye.” Kate stared at her, her glassy eyes opening wide at the
warning. But she did not argue. She took the cup and
gulped down the last swallow of drugged red wine, while
the crude harpies cackled with laughter to think they had
finally succeeded in breaking her will. Lord knew, if not for the strong dose of laudanum they had
given her, she would have been screaming bloody murder and
fighting them like a wild thing, just as she had on the
night of her abduction about a month ago. Instead, she simply finished the cup and handed it back to
them with a grim, lost gaze. The women bound her wrists with some rope, then brought
her downstairs to the ground floor of the cluttered little
house. In the room below, grizzled old Caleb Doyle and the other
male leaders of the smugglers’ ring were waiting to take
her up to the castle. She could not bear to make eye
contact with anyone, humiliated by the way they had made
her look like a whore--she, who had always valued herself
for her brains, not her looks. Thank God, none of them saw fit to mock her. She did not
think what was left of her pride could have borne it. Despite the heavy, rolling fog that hung over her mind,
she noticed how somber the men’s mood was. There was none
of the cheerful vulgarity she had come to expect from the
citizens of the smugglers’ village. Tonight she could almost smell their fear, and it
multiplied her own exponentially. Good God, what manner of man were they taking her to, that
he could make these rough criminals tremble like whipped
dogs at their master’s approach? “Finally made a lady of the little hoyden, have ye?” old
Caleb, the smugglers’ chieftain, grunted at his wife. “Aye. She’ll show some manners now. Don’t worry, ’usband,”
Gladys added. “She’ll soften his anger.” “Let’s just hope he takes the bait,” Caleb muttered. He
turned away, but Gladys grasped his arm and pulled her
husband aside. “You’re sure you want to risk this?” she muttered to him. He scoffed. “What choice do I have?” Though the couple kept their voices down, Kate stood close
enough to hear their tense exchange--not that she was able
to make much sense of it, with her usually sharp wits
deliberately dulled, as was no doubt their plan. “Why don’t you just talk to him, Caleb? Aye, he’ll be
furious, but if ye explain what happened—” “I’m done groveling to him!” her husband shot back
angrily. “Look at the answer our fine duke sent back the
last time we asked him for help! Coldhearted bastard.
Rubbin’ elbows with princes and czars, wrapped up in God-
knows-what dark dealings on the Continent. His Grace is
too important to be bothered with the likes of us these
days,” he said bitterly. “I can’t even remember the last
time he troubled himself with a visit to Cornwall. Can
you?” “It’s been a long time,” she admitted. “Aye, and he only came back this time on account of the
blasted shipwreck! He don’t care about us anymore, never
mind we’re his own people. You ask me, he’s forgot where
he came from. But this little lesson ought to help remind
him.” “Caleb!” “Don’t worry. Once he’s had the girl, he’ll be up to his
neck in this, too, whether he likes it or not. Then he’ll
have no choice but to help us.” “Aye, and if you’re wrong, there will be hell to pay.” “I expect there will be,” he replied with a hard glitter
in his shrewd old eyes. “But look at my choices, Gladys.
Better the devil you know.” “Right, well, if you’re sure, then. Off ye go.” Gladys
folded her arms across her chest. Caleb turned away, his weathered face taut as he gestured
to his men. “Come on. Bring the girl. Let’s not keep His
Grace waitin’!” Two of the grubby smugglers took hold of Kate’s arms and,
without further ado, ushered her out into the biting cold
of the pitch-black January night. Her brain seethed as she tried to sort out the sketchy
information contained in the Doyles’ conversation. This
was the first sort of explanation she had heard about what
was going on, but with the laudanum working in her blood,
her wits weren’t working properly to weigh it all out. She
rose and fell on waves between euphoria and dread, and
following one train of thought simply took too much
effort. It was easier just to drift… Meanwhile, the smugglers lifted her limp body and
deposited her in the second of three battered, waiting
carriages. Caleb threw her a flimsy blanket to keep her
from catching her death. He locked her in with a wary
look, as if he suspected her of eavesdropping. A moment later, they set out for Kilburn Castle, the
ancestral home of the Beast. As their caravan rumbled out of the wind-whipped village,
Kate stared blankly out the carriage window. Above, the hooked moon tore like a claw through the smoky
scattered clouds, revealing pinprick stars; winter
constellations marched down over the horizon into the
glossy onyx English Channel. Feeble lanterns on the smugglers’ boats bobbed in the
harbor, riding out the frigid night at anchor. Ahead, the road hugged the hill as their small caravan
ascended. And far up on the distant crest, the black tower
of Kilburn Castle loomed. Kate rested her forehead for a moment against the carriage
window, staring dully at it. She had already had plenty of
time to contemplate what she might find there, for through
the window of the tiny bedchamber that had been her prison
cell, she had been able to see the stark tower standing
alone a few miles away on the bleak cliff-top. According to local legend, the castle was haunted, its
master’s bloodlines cursed. She shook her head in woozy annoyance. Ignorant peasant
superstitions.The Duke of Warrington was not cursed,
merely evil, she could have explained to these unlettered
brutes. What other sort of man would participate in such
iniquity? From the snatches of gossip she had overheard among the
smugglers’ women over the past few weeks, the duke sounded
like the very worst sort of aristocrat--rich, powerful,
corrupt. Steeped in sheer debauchery. She had also heard
the women say His Grace belonged to some unspeakable
libertines’ society in London called the Inferno Club. How he amused himself there made her shudder even to
wonder. Hating him, however, seemed as futile as wondering why all
this was happening to her. She had never really understood from the start why she had
been kidnapped. She lived so quietly at the edge of the
moors with her books and writings; she kept to herself,
never bothered anyone. She had no enemies that she knew
of. Nor many friends, admittedly. But why would somebody target her? For all her love of logic puzzles since she was a child,
she could not riddle this one out, until at length, she
had drawn her own conclusions based on the few facts she
possessed. The smugglers dealt in black markets, which, since the end
of the war, had ceased to exist. Now that there was peace,
there were no more tariffs on French luxury goods. Lean times had come to Cornwall. Ergo, to make a living,
the smugglers must have broadened their interests by
venturing into a darker sort of commodity. Oh, she had read about so-called ‘white slavery’ before.
The newspapers spoke of criminal rings that abducted young
females without any family, and sold them in secrecy to
decadent noblemen and other rich perverts to rape at will,
as though inflicting pain and terror was its own expensive
form of depraved amusement. Though she had heard of it, Kate had never dreamed it was
anything more than a lurid myth, the stuff of the Gothic
novels that were her secret vice. Yet somehow, to her
horror, here she was, caught up in it. It was the only explanation that seemed to fit at all. The Doyles’ tense conversation of a few moments ago she
had overheard offered new bits of insight, but in her
current muddled state, she did not have the wherewithal to
assimilate it into her working theory. Whatever their
words had meant, it did not bode well. But more important
than knowing why was figuring some way out of this. They were getting closer. Her fear mounted with every yard
of road the carriages covered. Rallying herself with a
mighty effort against the heaviness of the laudanum, Kate
sat up and tried the door-handle. She rattled it with some
vague notion of escape, but it did not budge. Even if she could succeed in breaking free, she realized
that exposed to the elements, half-naked as she was, the
wet, brutal cold would kill her within hours. She could not even hope for justice someday, she thought
in a flood of despair. Everyone knew that a duke was
practically immune to prosecution for any sort of criminal
barbarity. Whom would she tell? For that matter, who would believe
her? She barely believed it herself. For all she knew, this man might kill her in his pursuit
of twisted pleasure. No, her only hope at this point was that when he was
finally done with her, he might let her live, might let
her just go home. The thought of her cozy thatched cottage at the edge of
Dartmoor brought tears of nearly unbearable homesickness
to her eyes, all of her emotions intensified by the
opiates. By God, if she ever made it home, she swore she
would never complain again about her rural isolation out
there on the heath. For she had discovered lately that
there were worse things in the world than the loneliness. The hardest part was thinking that stupid O’Banyon had not
even kidnapped the right girl! On the night of her abduction, the ringleader, O’Banyon,
kept calling her by the wrong name—Kate Fox instead of
Kate Madsen. Her name was Kate Madsen! With failing hope, she thought perhaps it might all be an
outrageous case of mistaken identity. Perhaps she could
convince the duke this was never supposed to happen, not
to her. And yet… A glimmer of a childhood memory, a tiny incident she had
almost forgotten poked a hole in her neat little theory of
why all this was happening. Indeed, it spawned a fearful
bewilderment that shook her to the core. But there was no time left to ponder the question. Her fate was at hand. They had come to Kilburn Castle. Surrounded by a landscape of bleakly frosted rock, its
rugged stone face was silvered by moonlight, contoured
with charcoal shadows. Kate turned, looking this way and that as the three
carriages pounded over the drawbridge and gusted under the
archway of the barbican gate-house, a bristling portcullis
hanging overhead. A pair of burly guards there waved them
through without stopping them. So. We are expected. She stared out the carriage window at the castle’s outer
walls. They stretched out on either side and disappeared
into the night, like a steely embrace she would never
escape. Her pulse slammed. Escape from here? No. There is no
way.Even if she were warmly dressed and in her right mind,
there were armed men everywhere. Why? Why does he keep all these guards? It seemed to be more evidence that the duke had plenty to
hide. She had already drawn a few conclusions about his dealings
with the smugglers. As the aristocratic patron of these criminals, she had
ascertained that the duke allowed the smugglers to operate
freely along his coastal lands, no doubt in exchange for a
cut of their ill-gotten gains. The smugglers probably
supplied the girls that fed the demon appetites of the
Inferno Club. No wonder he kept all these guards, she thought. Even
drugged, she could see it was only logical that a wealthy
peer who dabbled in the criminal underworld would want to
take added measures to ensure his security. Perhaps he was merely as paranoid as every tyrant in
history, she thought, missing her dusty historical tomes.
Caesar and his Praetorian Guards— and the modern-day
Caesar, Napoleon, with his elite Grand Armee, or what was
left of it, after Waterloo last summer. Lord, if the duke was this paranoid, her situation might
be even more dire than she had thought. Ahead, the Norman keep with its four rounded towers rose
against the darkness. The carriages filed into the mighty
quadrangle, arriving in a formal courtyard at the center
of the inner bailey. As the horses clattered to a halt, a fresh wave of terror
gripped her, any hope of some miraculous reprieve
dwindling by the second. Quickly, the smugglers began jumping out of their three
vehicles. The door to the middle one flew open abruptly; a
burst of frigid air rushed in. “Come on,” Caleb ordered gruffly. Reaching into the
carriage, the old smugglers’ chieftain pulled her out. Kate clutched the too-small blanket, trying to protect
herself from the elements, but he ripped it away, leaving
her exposed again in her harlot gown. “You don’t need
that.” When he set her on her feet, she let out a small cry of
pain, for the thin white stockings she wore offered no
protection against the coating of frost on the flagstones. Doyle nodded to a pair of his underlings. “Help her walk.” “Aye, sir.” The two men grabbed her by her elbows and
began steering her toward the yawning Gothic entrance. Teeth chattering, her body shivering violently, Kate did
her best to keep up, but her legs were wobbly with fear,
her almost-bare feet smarting with every step. Still dizzy and disoriented, she thought surely anyone who
saw her at this moment would believe she was indeed just a
common drunken trollop. Oh, God, her highborn French mama
would be turning over in her grave to see her now. Fortunately, however, the cold served one purpose in
Kate’s favor. It cleared away some of her stupor, forcing
her to stay relatively alert and aware of her surroundings. She kept a bleary eye out for any means of escape, either
now or in the future. Scanning the smugglers who had come
along, she did not see any of the three who had burst into
her cottage on the night of her kidnapping. She especially hated O’Banyon. Filthy, leering brute. She had overheard the ringleader’s name on the night of
her abduction when one of the two younger men had asked
him for permission to rob her home after they had taken
her captive. O’Banyon had generously allowed his
assistants that night to help themselves to whatever money
and jewelry they could find. Which wasn’t much, anyway. The possessions Kate valued most all sat on her bookshelf,
but those ruffians were too crude to care about the likes
of Aristotle and the Bard. Just inside the windbreak of the mighty stone entrance,
Doyle called a halt. “Untie her hands,” he ordered his
underlings. The men holding her arms looked at their chief in surprise. “His Grace might not like it,” Caleb muttered. “Let him
tie her up himself if that’s how he wants her. Don’t
worry, she ain’t goin’ nowhere. Lass barely knows her own
name at the moment. Go on, be quick about it!” he ordered,
nodding at the ropes around her wrists. “I’m freezin’ me
arse off.” To Kate’s relief, the man he had spoken to obeyed,
removing the knotted rope that bound her wrists. Before moving on, however, Mr. Doyle stuck his finger in
her face and issued a dire warning. “Don’t you give His
Grace any o’ your lip, my girl, or you’ll wish you was
back in that cellar. Ye mark me? He don’t take kindly to
insolence. He’s a very powerful man. If you’re smart, you
keep your mouth shut and do as he tells you. Understand?” She nodded meekly, rubbing her chafed wrists. The smugglers’ chief looked startled by the absence of her
usual fighting spirit. The frown on Caleb’s lined face
deepened to a scowl. “Aw, don’t look at me like that—some
wee lamb brought to slaughter!” he blustered. “Dozens o’
lasses around these parts would give their right arm to
spend a few nights in his bed! You’ll live.” Kate stiffened, but his rough tone had succeeded in
chasing off the threat of tears that stung her eyelids and
calling up the last reserves of her courage. She steeled
herself the best she could and squared her shoulders,
determined to survive. By God, she would not go into this
already cringing and defeated. “Come on, you lot,” Doyle muttered to his men, shrugging
off her ruin. “Let’s give the devil his due.” With that,
he banged on the iron-studded door with the huge metal
knocker. At once, a wiry, black-clad butler admitted them. “Evening, Mr. Eldred,” Caleb greeted him with all the
charm he could muster as they all stepped inside. The butler bowed like an animated skeleton in black
clothes. “Mr. Doyle.” He had shrewd, deep-set eyes, a bony
face, and a gaunt, foreboding stillness about him. Behind his pale high forehead, a storm-cloud of wild gray
hair stuck out in all directions at the back of his head.
His expression inscrutable, Eldred the butler glanced at
Kate, but was apparently too shrewd to ask any questions. He turned away, lifting his lantern high. “This way,
please. The master is expecting you.” Their whole party followed as Eldred led them down a tall,
shadowy corridor, all stone and aged plaster and carved
dark wood. Kate stumbled along on her frozen feet, staring
all around her. She had never been in a castle before, but
it was hard to believe that anyone could actually live in
such a place. It was not a home, it was a fortress, a mighty barracks
left over from the days of knights and dragons. Everything was dark and hard, cold and threatening.
Ancient weapons, shields and pieces of armor, tattered
battle flags hung on the walls instead of paintings. There
was not one cozy thing about it, yet perversely, despite
its unwelcoming atmosphere, the castle’s historical
significance made her forget her dread for one or two
seconds. Her scholar’s unquenchable curiosity was roused about the
place, the battles it had seen, and all the other
mysterious things that might have happened here over the
centuries. Then she noticed her captors becoming increasingly nervous. “’Hoy, Eldred.” Doyle leaned toward the butler as they
trudged down a darkly paneled corridor. “How’s his mood
tonight?” “I beg your pardon, sir?” “The Beast!” he whispered. “Is he in a foul temper?” The butler eyed him in disapproval. “I’m sure I couldn’t
say.” “So, that’s a yes,” Caleb muttered.
Stepping past the screens passage, Eldred led them into a
cavernous great hall with a soaring vaulted ceiling. Darkness clustered thickly between the arching beams.
Moldering tapestries draped the side walls here and there,
with an empty space for the minstrel’s gallery, a small
balcony that jutted out slight from the far wall of the
room. Here and there several pieces of thick, ancient
furniture hewn from dark wood provided barren comfort. Two black-clad guards like those stationed at the gate-
house were posted in the nearest corners. They stood at
attention, as immovable as the ancient suits of armor that
adorned the great hall. The only real sign of life glowed from the blazing bonfire
in the yawning fireplace, far away down at the dais end of
the hall--and it was there that Kate caught her first
glimpse of the Beast. She knew at once that it was he. The huge, crackling power of his presence filled the hall
before he even turned around. His back to them, the Duke
of Warrington stood before the fire, a towering figure
silhouetted against the flames. He was toying with a large, strange weapon with a long,
notched blade, some sort of deadly cross between a lance
and a sword. Balancing it on its tip, he twirled it slowly
in a most ominous fashion. Eldred announced them with a polite cough. “Ahem, Your
Grace: Caleb Doyle and company.” He lifted the weapon, resting the bar of its long handle
on his huge shoulder. Her heart leaped up into her throat as the iron giant
slowly pivoted to face them. He paused, studying them from
across the hall with a dissecting stare. Then he began prowling toward them, his long paces
unhurried yet relentless: a medieval warlord in modern-day
clothes. Each fall of his mud-flecked boots boomed in the
hollow vastness of the chamber. Kate’s mouth hung open slightly as she stared at him in
fear and some degree of awe. Caleb whipped off his hat and took a couple steps forward,
gesturing to his men to do the same. The smugglers’ party advanced in cringing dread, with Kate
in the center. Her stare stayed locked on the warrior duke as he
sauntered closer. She searched in vain for any sign of
softness in the man, but instead, a capacity for ruthless
force emanated from him. He was hard and dark and
dangerous, intimidation incarnate. It was clear he had just arrived, his wild, windblown mane
of thick sable hair tied back in a queue. She studied him,
wide-eyed. The dark knotted cloth around his neck was
nothing so formal as a cravat. His loose white shirt hung
open a bit at the neck, disappearing into a black
waistcoat that hugged his lean, sculpted torso. Rain and sleet still dotted his black riding breeches,
while the reddish firelight gleamed on the blade that he
wielded so idly as he advanced, as though he’d been born
with it in his hand. Heart pounding, Kate could not take her eyes off him. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties; she scanned his
square, rugged face as he drew closer. He had thick, dark
eyebrows with a scar above the left like the mark of a
thunderbolt. His skin was unfashionably bronzed, as though
he had spent years in sunnier climes. His nose was broad
but straight, the grim set of his hard mouth bracketed by
lines. His eyes were terrifying. Steely in color and expression, they were narrowed with
suspicion, their depths gleaming with a banked fury that
she realized he was waiting to unleash on the smugglers--
and might take out on her, as well, before the night was
through. Dear God, he could kill her easily, she understood at
once. The man was huge, nearly six and a half feet tall,
with arms of iron, and shoulders like the Cornish cliffs.
He looked strong enough to lift a horse, while she only
came up to the center of his massive chest. No wonder the smugglers were terrified of him. A fresh
wave of fear left her lightheaded, as well. He had the
imposing physique of a conqueror, and all the worldly
power of the aristocracy’s highest rank, save the royal
family. She tried to back away as Warrington stalked closer,
running a bold stare over the length of her. “What is this?” he growled softly at Doyle, nodding at
her. She reacted instinctively to his notice, pulling
against her captors’ hold in panic. She tried to run. They stopped her. “A gift, Your Grace!” Caleb Doyle exclaimed in forced
joviality. As the smugglers dragged her over to him, Warrington
studied her like a predatory wolf. “A gift?” he echoed in a musing tone. Caleb thrust her toward him with a cheerful grin. “Aye,
sir! A token of our regard to welcome you back to Cornwall
after all this time! A fine young bed-warmer for a cold
winter’s night. Right little beauty, ain’t she?” He was silent for a long moment, perusing her intently.
Then he answered barely audibly, his deep voice
reverberated like a distant rumble of thunder drawing
closer: “Indeed.” Caught in his stare, Kate could not even move. She was
lucky she remembered to keep breathing. When Caleb laughed again uneasily, the other men followed
his example, but Warrington barely took note of them, his
stare trailing over her in appreciation. “Very thoughtful of you, Doyle,” he murmured, taking
lecherous note of how the chill effected certain regions
of her anatomy.
His brazen stare erased any faint hope in her that he
might not be in on it with them. Of course he was. She was naught but merchandise to him. “We thought you’d like ’er, sir. We brought a few other
tokens of our regard, as well--” Doyle gestured hastily to
his followers. “Show him. Hurry!” His men leaped into
motion, presenting their lord with a case of premium
brandy and a selection of fine tobaccos. He barely glanced at these offerings, however, still
studying Kate with a speculative gleam in his eyes. She barely knew what to do with herself. She had never
been looked at this way by a man before—inspected, nay,
devoured. Warrington’s glance flicked down from her still-damp hair
to her stockinged feet, assessing her from top to bottom;
then, to her surprise, he stared, hard, into her eyes—but
only for a moment. In that fleeting instant, she was not sure what she read
in his penetrating gaze, other than a chilling degree of
intelligence, like a man in the midst of a chess game. “The gift is, er, acceptable, Your Grace?” Caleb ventured
in a delicate tone. The duke flashed a dangerous smile more potent than the
laudanum. “We’ll soon find out,” he said. Never taking his stare off
her, he nodded to his silent guardsmen. “Put her in my
chamber.”
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