The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,22

chaperone, a maid of longstanding tenure with Viscount Beauchamp by the name of Minnie, whom I’m paying double for the joyful task of watching over you, is hiding around the corner.” Criticism remitted, he presented his back to arrange the sheet music on the stand at his side.

Delaney moistened her lips and gathered her thoughts. Closed her eyes for what she planned as two seconds of research, but in the end, when she opened them, realized it had been longer. “Actually, an oubliette is accessible only from a hatch in the ceiling.”

“Good to know.” Sebastian danced the bow across the strings once before placing the violin in its case. “What book in your attic did you take that from?”

She circled the room to keep from showing how shocked she was to hear the word attic leave his lips, stopping to pick at the cord wrapped around a velvet curtain attached to a wall that, because the room was underground, had no windows. The dungeon had been outfitted with a scuffed desk, sun-bleached rug and nothing else, someone’s rudimentary idea of a study.

A place to hide.

Glancing over her shoulder, only then, did she note the duke’s state of dress. Or undress. Shirt untucked, open and giving her ample sight of his muscular chest, the scars crisscrossing his skin, the narrow strip of hair, darker than the hair on his head, angling into his waistband. She’d seen much of him during his illness, but witnessing the man standing upright, his skin healthy in color, his smile a mix of frustration and bemusement, unnerved her.

Yearning too strong a word, curiosity too weak.

Buttoning his shirt, he avoided her eyes, looking charmingly undone. His expression stating, taunt me, and I’ll make you suffer. Their eyes, in accord, went to the violin case then met in the middle. Delaney knew, even if the very male, very exasperated ‘duke of no one’s heart’ standing a dungeon’s-span away didn’t, that he’d removed a brick in the wall between them with his adorably boyish acceptance of her procurement of another piece of his life.

She suspected a gentle soul lay beneath the rugged armor of a soldier.

She moved in, a private dare, close enough to see his eyes weren’t entirely amber but a mix of gold, green and brown. His eyelashes longer than hers—and dark as soot. And so tall, she had to tip her chin to catch his gaze. “Does the earl’s daughter know about the violin?”

After a charged second, he threw back his head and laughed, dragging the hand not holding the bow up and through his hair. It was a calculated move on his part, as if he realized the dense, auburn strands transfixed her.

“Stop laughing,” she hissed, unaccountably annoyed, when she was the one who’d started the game.

He tugged his wrist across his mouth, trying to erase the grin. “I’d hate to be at the end of a noose, and you, the judge charged with making sure I hang. You ask the lone question able to strike, like a dart, to the heart of the matter. Well done, Temple. I can see why Scotland Yard makes use of your skills from time to time.”

“That’s a handy way of saying your intended knows nothing about you.”

“Indeed,” he murmured. “In-damned-deed. However, she’s not my intended, not yet.” Giving her one of his probing looks, he rocked back on his heels, an action she’d noticed he did when he was trying to pick a lock.

Her lock.

Oh, no, you don’t. Avoiding his gaze, she kneeled to inspect the darkened hearth. The rock was cracked from centuries of fires. Riveting. She traced a jagged split in the stone with her pinkie. “How about a miniature blaze to impress a girl.”

“Would you be impressed?”

She backed up, as she’d practically crawled inside the massive fireplace, the creaks and rumbles of an ancient dwelling settling in the for the night a dull echo around them. “Adey Castle is magnificent. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, instead of answering truthfully, because admitting appreciation for an almost-betrothed duke who started fires and was beginning to understand her in a way few ever had was going to lead her down a path she didn’t need to travel.

Sebastian’s boots slapped the floor as he strolled the space. She turned to see him tucking his violin case and bow behind the desk he’d placed in a dungeon. “It’s a wreck. A way for me to squander vast sums of money and get little in return. Only 70