The Duke Goes Down (The Duke Hunt #1) - Sophie Jordan Page 0,32

good a person not to do the right thing.”

Her lips twitched. “I’m far from a saint, Mr. Butler.”

“Of that I am very aware,” he retorted.

“Then I don’t understand where these high expectations of yours are coming from.”

Following those haughty words, she left him then.

Her utter temerity should have infuriated him. And it did. But she also aroused the hell out of him.

He stood behind the fountain, peering through the fall of water, watching the blurry shape of her as she approached her friend. Mercy Kittinger made a gesture of exclamation and touched Miss Bates’s lovely fallen hair.

If she were mine, I’d have that hair loose and flowing and tangled on my pillow every night. I would grab a fistful of it as I covered her body with mine . . .

Bloody hell. He was hard as a post.

He reached down and adjusted his cock against his trousers and took a deep, bracing breath, forcing himself to think of normal things—anything except the suddenly arousing Miss Bates.

This was not what he had intended for this night.

He’d never imagined himself standing alone in the night at a country ball, struggling to overcome an unwanted arousal for an unwanted female.

A few more words were exchanged and then the ladies’ hazy forms turned and disappeared somewhere deeper into the gardens where Miss Kittinger would doubtlessly repair all of Imogen Bates’s glorious hair back into its usual confinement.

He had the mad urge to follow and watch her and he called himself ten kinds of fool. She’d shocked him and now he was under some manner of temporary infatuation. There was only one cure. He needed to throw himself into the task of settling on one of these local heiresses and begin courting in earnest. With any luck, he could be betrothed before the first leaves turned in the fall.

He had intended to make significant progress this night. Both his mother and Thurman would be exceedingly disappointed in him. Hellfire. Perry was disappointed himself. But he could not yet summon forth the will to venture back into that ball and charm the ladies he had intended to court—all ladies, thanks to Imogen Bates, who were now avoiding him. He could simply slip away for home. He needn’t even return to that ballroom.

He inhaled the crisp night air until his erection subsided and he felt his composure return. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he left now, Imogen Bates would win this battle. He didn’t want to be at war with her, but it seemed they were. Without his wanting it, a war had somehow started between them.

He might not have started it, but he would not lose it. He was not defeated. He was not running away. He came here tonight to mingle with the heiresses of Shropshire, and he would do just that.

He was going back inside that ballroom.

Chapter Nine

“What happened? Were you accosted?” Mercy demanded, her eyes afire, ready to fight for Imogen.

“What?” Imogen blinked from her distracted and whirling thoughts as they walked deeper into the gardens for more privacy. It took everything in her not to turn and glance over her shoulder in search of Mr. Butler. “Accosted? No, no. Not at all.”

If anything, Mr. Butler might feel as though she accosted him. Certainly he had initiated the kiss, but she took over from there and led the way.

“Then what happened to your hair?” Mercy’s gaze scanned her face and hair worriedly.

“It simply fell,” she lied. “There was a fierce wind.”

Mercy shot her a dubious look and then glanced around them. “There was a gale-force wind and we somehow did not notice it inside the house?”

Imogen shrugged weakly. She could scarcely pay attention to her friend. She was too busy reeling from what had just transpired with Mr. Butler—what she had done to Mr. Butler. With Mr. Butler. It was scandalous.

She was a perfect scandal and she could not forgive herself. She knew better.

She had vowed never again. No more romantic peccadilloes. She had thought herself above such needs and desires. She had thought herself stronger than that. One heartbreak a lifetime was enough as far as she was concerned.

Heartbreak?

The thought jarred her. What had occurred tonight did not involve the heart. Nothing had changed regarding her feelings toward Mr. Butler. Er, nothing other than the disconcerting knowledge that she now possessed.

Peregrine Butler smelled good. He tasted good. And he possessed the most intoxicating lips. So intoxicating that she knew she could never kiss them again. Never taste them again. One