A Duchess a Day (Awakened by a Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,44

certain it’s her. Arrived not five minutes ago. Young. Blonde. Expensive looking. And believe or not, she’s alone. I saw her go into—”

He stopped.

His attention was finally, unerringly, fixed on Helena.

She was half-dressed in loose, diaphanous green silk. Her hair down and her feet bare. He saw the perfect outline of her body through the silk, every shade and texture, every dip and swell. She was a fantasy standing before him.

Declan’s mind went blank.

“What?” Helena asked, baring a shoulder as she stooped to collect a swath of silk and step from the dais. The movement sent lingerie billowing and flowing like froth on a clear sea. Through the fabric, he saw long thin legs, a flat belly, and small breasts with dusky pink tips.

“You saw her go . . . ?” she prompted.

Declan fought to keep up. He fought to remember anything but the overwhelming sight of her, mostly naked, before him.

“But did she go far?” Helena asked. “How did she look? Was she beautiful?”

There is no beauty beyond you, he thought. He could not form the words.

“Declan?” she demanded.

“I . . . I cannot form words,” he admitted.

“What?” she snapped. “But why not? Are you—”

And then she followed his eyes, looking down at the outline of her body in the green silk.

“Oh,” she said. Her head popped up, her eyes wide. Color rose in her cheeks.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was raspy. “Perhaps it’s not so very bad.” Her nipples hardened into pebbles beneath the thin fabric, and Declan’s mouth went dry.

“Not bad at all,” he agreed. He took a step toward her.

“I’ve told Madame that I hate it. She flew into a rage and they’ve gone to make some change.” She licked her lips, staring at his mouth. “Lucky for us. She’s only been gone five minutes. So we may . . .”

She splayed a hand on her neck, the languid sort of gesture of someone who needed to feel touch.

Declan would kill, he thought, to fulfill that need.

“I’m glad someone will see it, I suppose,” she went on. “I would never wear it in the company of Lusk.”

Declan took another step toward her. His brain snagged on the words Lusk and wear it in the company of, and he heard little else. He was filled with the kind of violent opposition that starts wars.

“Helena,” he breathed.

“Yes?” A whisper.

“Helena,” he repeated. Lust was an iron stake, pinning him to this moment. He saw only her.

“We mustn’t.” Another whisper. She began shaking her head. Her hair swayed down her back in a soft, black curtain. “You made this mandate. In the armory, you said no more. And in the carriage. Every time is the last time—that is what you say.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” he rasped.

“It should be only you,” she said, and Declan’s heart squeezed.

She went on. “I want . . . I want one hour when it is only you and me. A very long, very private hour. But—” She drew a long, ragged breath. “We are less alone in this moment than we’ve been since the beginning. Madame could return any moment.”

“Yes.” He couldn’t look away.

“Yes.” A thoughtful smile. “So . . . let us endeavor to stay on task?”

“Yes.”

She made a purposeful turn, presenting him with a knee-weakening view of her anterior.

She spoke to a nearby chair. “Tell me about Lady Genevieve?”

Declan’s brain still had not caught up. He watched her trudge to the chair and sink into it, gathering the frothy green silk around her like suds in a bath.

In his mind’s eye, Declan saw himself coming to her, dropping to his knees before the chair, dipping a hand into—

“Declan!” she insisted.

Declan spun and faced the wall. “She’s here—yes. Lady Genevieve. In the street. I’ve just seen her.”

“Yes, yes, but how does she look?”

“Ah.” He stared at the wall. “She has a dog.”

“What? A dog? What care have we for a dog? Is she the sort of girl who might appeal to Lusk?”

Declan shrugged his shoulders. “She looked very . . . happy. She smiles unceasingly. She has a bit of a lunatic smile.”

He turned, forcing himself to look only at her face.

“Unceasing, lunatic smile. I need more. I must see her myself.”

She shoved from the chair and began to pace. “But how can I get outside to see her? Madame won’t return my dress until she is satisfied with this . . .” she gathered up a puff of green silk and flounced it, “. . . and I can hardly go out wearing