In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,38

walking. “I’d have you show me that, too, then.” The minx may as well have been picking out her choice of beef at the market.

She was no-nonsense. A woman who knew precisely what she wanted. A woman so very much in command of herself and her opinion, and it sent hunger rippling through him. A desire far greater than anything inspired by lust of the physical body, and more terrifying for it.

Hugh grunted. “Let’s get on with it.” He tossed a pair of breeches at Lila, and the pants hit her hard in the chest. “Here.” He started back for the middle of the ring.

“What are these?”

“They’re breeches. What’s the matter, Flittermouse? Do you have a problem donning an old pair of breeches that belonged to another?”

“No, it’s not that,” she said haltingly. God, the minx really was a plain speaker, unable to discern sarcasm. “And, of course, I see that they are breeches. What I’m asking is what do you expect me to do with them?”

“I think it should be fairly obvious.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

He paused in the middle of whatever task he was seeing to. “If that isn’t something you can figure out, Flittermouse, then I think we’re wasting both our time with lessons.”

The young woman clutched the garment close to her chest, her indecision tangible.

Folding his arms, he turned back. “Let me give you a hint . . . you put them on.”

“I know I put them on. What I’m asking is why. I cannot very well go about in . . . in . . .” She waved the brown trousers at him.

He shook his head. “Breeches?”

“Precisely. I’ve asked you to instruct me on how to defend myself.”

Chapter 9

As Lila reentered Hugh’s arena, there was a jaunt to her step she didn’t remember feeling in . . . more years than she could remember.

And yet, she’d felt that same surge of triumph when she managed to first bring herself to leave her family’s household after Peterloo, the kind that enlivened and filled one with a giddy restlessness. Where one’s emotions were a kaleidoscope of joy and nervousness, and they erupted into a state of awareness that reminded a person—she lived.

Not even that favor she’d put to Clara, the music lessons she’d managed to secure, had been as thrilling. There’d been a safety to the woman her brother had since married. She’d been a stranger to Lila, yet she’d also been the woman who’d saved Henry.

Hugh Savage was a stranger in every way.

A surly, snarling, snappish bear of a man who didn’t much like her . . . or, she suspected, anyone.

And she’d not only faced him head-on . . . she’d triumphed.

Her shoulders back, Lila closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, letting the smells of the room—bruised leather and the faint, lingering stench of sweat in the air—fill her lungs.

Tugging off her gloves, she stuffed them inside her cloak. As she unfastened the grommet at her throat, she registered the soft click as Hugh Savage shut the door behind them, locking them off from the world.

Startling, she spun to face him. How was it possible for any person of his sheer size and strength to move so silently? “Silent and quick feet,” he said, starting toward her. “We’ll get to that lesson.” He bent to retrieve the previously abandoned trousers. “Here.” This time, however, he didn’t hurl them but held them out.

Lila hesitated before reaching for the cotton breeches. Hugh’s fingers brushed hers, and a little electric current radiated up her arm. Heart racing, she pulled the ancient pair of breeches close.

She needn’t have worried that Hugh had noted that spark of awareness; he’d already started over to the row of hooks along the back wall, lined with various articles of clothing. He lifted up a lawn shirt and inspected the slightly tattered garment before returning it to the hook in exchange for another.

And then it occurred to her . . . he was searching for a shirt . . . for her.

Which, of course, only made sense, as he expected her to wear breeches.

But now the fact that she’d undress in the same room as Hugh Savage, and then don pants and a shirt, set off a different, riotous panic in her breast. “You never did explain why I’m going to be taught in breeches, Hugh.” She silently prayed he didn’t hear the pitched timbre to her voice.

“No, I didn’t.” Her mentor held up another shirt, this one smaller and of a length