Her Missing Marquess (Wicked Husbands #5) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,85
which pointed to the indisputable fact that everyone loved Jack—including her. Including a cursed duck.
“I would not be surprised if I were to find that duck roosting in the library next,” she said curtly, vexed equally with both man and duck.
She had been feeding those dratted fowls whenever she was in residence these last three years. He had been exploring Paris and Egypt and Greece. He had been learning how to cure his sunburn with aloe and finding herbal tinctures to ease the aches of his blistered feet.
Yes, she had finished reading all of his books.
Each one had been dedicated to her.
And reading them had only heightened her inner misery.
His books were insightful and interesting and witty. He had been away, conquering the world and learning about himself whilst she had been precisely where he had left her: drinking too much, hosting wicked parties, and wishing she could have her old life back, the one before her husband had betrayed her.
She resented him for the disparity in their situations. Resented him for leaving her, for allowing Lady Billingsley into his bed, for winning over the servants and the duck, for picking her flowers, for making her body a slave to her desire for him…
For everything. She resented him for everything.
Elsa finished her snack, looked at Nell, and quacked as if in reproach.
But Nell refused to believe a duck could read minds.
“Elsa is telling you that she has no wish to roost in the library,” Jack said, cutting through Nell’s whirling thoughts. “She said she could never bear to leave the lake.”
She rolled her lips inward to keep from smiling at his foolishness. “You speak duck now?”
His levity fled. “It would seem the only language at which I excel.”
She held his stare, refusing to accept all the blame for their impasse. “I would not be so certain the problem is the language you speak. Your English and your flattery and charm are all more than proficient.”
“But not my groveling, it would seem,” he said, cocking his head at her. “How else can I say it, Nellie? How many other ways can I prove to you how bloody sorry I am and how much I love you?”
The dratted duck quacked. Twice.
“Go to the devil, you little featherbrain,” she told Elsa.
“Are you arguing with my duck?” he asked, the laughter back in his voice.
“I am arguing with that feathered menace who thinks she cannot leave your side,” she corrected, glaring at Elsa.
“Jealous, Nellie?” His grin was back, so deep it made grooves at the corners of his eyes.
That smile of his hit her like a wallop.
“She may have you all to herself in eight days,” she said with a sniff.
His smile died, and something inside her heart withered as well at the sight.
She was hurting him. And the more time they spent together, the more she hated his every somber look, the shadows in his eyes, the distance between them.
The more she never wanted to leave.
And that was the biggest problem of all.
“I still have eight days to change your mind,” he reminded her.
“You will not,” she promised him, passing him and the duck on the path, making certain to give Elsa a wide berth.
She would not put it past the duck to chase her.
“I would not be so certain if I were you,” Jack countered from behind her. “I do believe I am wearing on you, Nellie love.”
He was wearing on her more than he knew.
But she would never admit that to him. Because she knew him, and he would only exploit this newfound weakness until she could not bear to resist him. All whilst she knew, deep within her heart, that she did not dare trust him again.
She had trusted him and he had ruined that trust in most cruel fashion.
Only a fool would give him a second chance.
And she was beginning to fear she was very much a fool. That she was Jack’s fool.
“The rest of the ducks are hungry,” she called over her shoulder, ignoring his taunting words. “I am going to feed them their breakfast. You and your little friend can do as you like.”
Elsa quacked.
Nell did not think she imagined the sound was triumphant.
Nell was just ahead of Jack in the lake. Her back was to him, her hair unbound and floating around her like a silken serpent. Just as the night he had caught her swimming beneath the full roundness of the moon, she was naked. Swimming away from him. Always away.