The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,89
she urged, patting the seat.
Stepping back, he grinned. Brought his hand to his lips and pressed his knuckles to them. “Delaney Temple, you knock me from my socks every time I touch you.”
She glanced down at the bulge beneath his trouser close. “What can I do to knock the rest off?”
“Down girl,” he admonished, but he was smiling. Then guiding her from the carriage, tucking her against him beneath the intimate shelter of the umbrella and continuing down a gravel path cutting diagonally across the neat, lush university quadrangle. The library—she realized where he was taking her—loomed before them. They entered through an imposing gatehouse, strolling through a tunneled expanse. Students passed, but no one gave them a second look, which was liberating, after the pointed scrutiny she’d faced on London’s streets.
Free of the misting shower, Sebastian angled the umbrella aside as they crossed the portico. She leaned into him, his heat warming her chilled skin. Part of his magic was that he created fires inside her. And the ones he created around her, she could accept.
“You realize you chose what is considered the ugliest set of buildings at Oxford as inspiration for your attic. This particular college is impossibly new, only opening two years ago, and the brick the architect selected is universally loathed. Very gothic. Black stripes mixed in to cap off the design.” He gazed up as they stepped into the courtyard. “We’d never have constructed anything like this at Cambridge.”
She laughed, charmed by his smugness, the return of the rain against her face invigorating. Letting go of his hand, she spun in a circle, taking it in. This man, this day, this life. Her heart was light, buoyant, hopeful. The tiara wobbled on her head, and she reached to adjust it. “It’s beautiful. Different. Bold. Unique. That’s the kick in the teeth. I chose it because it doesn’t look like the others. Why must it look like the others?”
Closing the umbrella, Sebastian angled it into a corner nook and turned to her. “Bold, different, unique.” Lifting his hand, he caressed her cheek, a tender touch that made desire rage, a wild flame in her belly. “I quite like those things. In fact, I want them desperately.”
A moment later, when he moved to guide her through the library’s massive doors, she halted in place, yanking on his arm. “We can’t go inside. I expected to only see the building. This is for students.”
With a derisive sigh, Sebastian entered the building like he owned it. Reclaiming her hand, he dragged her across the foyer and down the central aisle, the stained-glass windows, replicas of those in her attic, glimmering in the distance. The scent of leather and aged vellum lit her nose, academia and knowledge, things she had, as a woman, been denied.
He was striving to give her what the world would not.
“I know you think this title business is rubbish, Temple, and maybe it is. I’m halfway to believing that myself, but I have it, so I may as well use it. And a duke is allowed to go anywhere he wants in this country, inexcusable as that is. I spoke to Keble’s chancellor and had the place vacated. It’s ours for one hour. That’s how impressive having a duke suggest he needs your library to change his life is. Plus a minor endowment. Cambridge will be suitably appalled.”
She stopped to trail her finger along a marble bust of a portly gentleman in period attire resting atop a bookcase. “I assume a duchess would have this freedom as well? To do as she pleases? Race her horse along Rotten Row and tell society to sod off? Does that sound reasonable?”
Sebastian stumbled on a wrinkle in the carpet, his amber eyes wide when they met hers. His long lashes dusted his cheeks when he blinked, hiding his flash of happiness. He was impossibly, unfairly handsome, and her love for him abundant. “You’re going to say yes this time.”
Crowding into him, she went to her tiptoes, brushing her mouth across his. “Maybe I was always going to say yes.”
“Were you?” he whispered against her lips. There was no heat in the statement, only wonder.
“I don’t care about being a duchess. I only care about you. I had to figure it out, this not wanting one but being unable to live without the other.” A floral scent swirled, and she glanced around to locate its source. Her merriment rang through the library. “Are those rose petals scattered across the floor?”