The Duke Heist (The Wild Wynchesters #1) - Erica Ridley Page 0,36

her mouth. She sank her teeth into her lower lip to keep it from parting in anticipation.

He tucked the curl behind her ear. That should have been all. But then his knuckles grazed her cheek once, twice. She became light-headed. It took all of her strength not to sway into his touch, just as she’d imagined.

“Your skin is so soft. I could—” Faircliffe seemed to collect himself and dropped his hands in his lap before clearing his throat. “I don’t subscribe to Ackermann’s Repository, but you might find it in a lending library for a better idea of the current style.”

Chloe clenched her teeth to keep from retching. Of course she was not an irresistible siren. She was his project.

He was the overbearing, holier-than-thou nob who was helping.

She fiddled with her serviette and ignored the itch of embarrassment. This entire Show me how spoons work ruse depended on him continuing to believe her a lost little fawn, helpless without his guidance. She would flounder through every social encounter, eternally unsuccessful in her alleged matchmaking endeavor, until Puck & Family was home safe and sound. That was the plan. It was working.

So why did it make her want to overturn the table?

“The ton is governed by rules, just like the rest of England,” Faircliffe was saying. “One needn’t like these rules. One needn’t even believe them good rules. But one must follow them.”

Chloe contemplated him in silence.

She’d long believed the pomp and circumstance of which rank preceded which into a dining room, and who sat where, as blatant examples of the “betters” keeping the “lessers” in their place.

She hadn’t considered that those same strictures might feel like a prison, even to the betters.

“Why must you follow the rules?” she asked, her voice quiet but curious. “Cannot even a duke do as he pleases?”

He gazed at her as if there were very many things he wished to have but could not.

“Very little that I do is to please myself. I must think first and foremost of my position. The estate, the staff, the tenants, the upkeep. And I must ensure everything passes on in the best condition I can make it.”

She hesitated. “To…your son or to the next cousin in line? Do you want children?”

“I want dozens,” he said passionately, then colored. “That is, I would settle for one or two, of course. My role is to beget an heir, not to populate a circus.”

Chloe had a feeling he was repeating a quote someone else had oft cited.

“Let me guess,” she teased. “Circuses are against the rules?”

He stared at her without responding.

She took pity on him. He might always know what to say when giving speeches in Parliament, but that did not mean he would know how to talk about personal matters…with her.

“I like circuses,” she offered. “My brother used to live in one. Some say we still do.”

“Dukes don’t have circuses,” he said at last. “But the fortunate ones might start a family.”

The fortunate were born to a family, Chloe corrected in her head. Or welcomed into one with open arms. Waiting half one’s lifetime in the hopes of one day having a family seemed…

Lonely.

She tried to imagine being constantly surrounded by sycophants and the crème de la crème of high society without having a true connection with anyone—and then realized she didn’t have to imagine. She slipped into his world whenever she pleased, as easily as pulling on a bonnet, but it was never her world, her friends, her place.

The orphanage had been worse. She would never forget the exquisite torture of yearning for somewhere to belong. No…of longing for people to belong to. Craving someone to claim her, to want her, to miss her, to need her.

It had never occurred to her that someone like Faircliffe might feel the same way.

“I shall cross my fingers for you to be the most fortunate duke in all of England.”

His answering smile caused a strange flutter in her belly. “I wish as much good fortune to you.”

“I am lucky,” she said, “whether or not you believe it.”

The ladies and misses and wallflowers Chloe pretended to be were bound by society’s rules, just as Faircliffe was. But at the end of the day she could go home, toss the current alias aside, and just be Chloe.

The things Faircliffe pitied about her—lack of rank and her unusual family—were what gave her the most freedom. Bean’s Balcovian barony was sufficient status to gain access to certain people and places, but not so lofty as to