But Seraphina, she wanted him. Not the title.
He guided her into his private study—the only room in the house where he felt truly comfortable—where a fire burned in the hearth. “Rat catcher?” he asked, turning her to face him as the door closed behind them, her nearness relaxing him, warming him.
She smiled. “They can be terribly useful.”
“And what of you?” He pulled her close.
Her hands came up, around his neck, her fingers sliding into his hair, and he fought the urge to close his eyes and bask in the touch.
“What would you like me to be?” she asked, her beautiful blue eyes meeting his, seeing into him.
He didn’t want some fantasy version of her. He didn’t need it. She was the fantasy. Heart pounding, he shook his head. “Whatever you wish to be,” he whispered. “Whatever makes you happy.”
“A seamstress then,” she whispered, her gaze falling to the weave of his topcoat, one hand sliding down to stroke the fabric. “Mending clothes by candlelight, singing in the window, waiting for you to come home.”
He’d take that life. Trade everything for it. For any life she would give him. But he wouldn’t have to.
“What would you sing?”
She smiled. Then, God help him, she sang. Like heaven. “Here lies the heart and the smile and the love, here lies the wolf, the angel, the dove. She put aside dreaming and she put aside toys, and she was born that day, in the heart of a boy.”
He pulled her close, unable to do anything else. Unable to look anywhere but into her beautiful blue eyes, unable to think of anything but the sound of her. The smell of her. The feel of her. “I didn’t know you could sing.”
She blushed. “All well-bred young ladies are required to do so.”
Not like that. His arms tightened around her. “But you’re not a lady. You’re a seamstress in the window. With the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
She sighed at the thought. “Only in my dreams.”
He shook his head. “Try another dream.”
She laughed, the sound filling him with light, as it always did. “I’m rubbish at this game, it seems.”
“No,” he said, setting his hand to her chin, tilting her face up to his. “You are quite good at it. But I’ve a better picture to paint.”
Her brows rose. “Do you?”
“You’re a duchess.” Her eyes went wide at the words, and he saw the desire there. Not for the title. For him.
She wanted him.
He continued. “You’re perfect and so far beyond my reach that I daren’t even look at you.” He did look at her, of course. “I daren’t even think of you.” The flush returned, and he ran his thumb across the pink skin of her cheeks. “I certainly shouldn’t touch you.” Her lips parted, and he couldn’t resist leaning in, closer, thanking heaven that they were alone. “Most definitely shouldn’t kiss you.”
“Nonsense,” she said, coming up on her toes. “What is the point of being duchess if I cannot insist upon kissing?” She closed the distance between them, and he groaned his pleasure as she gave herself up to him, soft and sweet and perfect, tasting of mint. She always tasted of mint, as though she were in a constant state of readiness for him.
He licked past her lips, delving into her mouth, sliding and stroking and tasting until she gave herself to him, to the moment, to the illicitness of it. And then she was matching him, stroke for stroke, and his hands were at the fastening of her cloak, making quick work of it, pushing it over her shoulders and down her arms. She didn’t hesitate to help him, and he considered it something of a miracle when he pulled away, leaving them both panting.
She blinked up at him. “Malcolm?”
He closed his eyes at the name, at the pleasure that rioted through him when she spoke it. Shook his head. “I didn’t intend for this—”
She smiled. “I did.”
The bold, brash words were too much. Who was this woman? How was she so brave? So sure? How did she control him so well? How did he want it so much?
And then she whispered, “We haven’t much time.”
She was right. She had to return to London in scant hours. He’d brought her here to have a moment with her, without prying eyes and clamoring gossip. Not to take her, but to ask for her.
He should have gone to her father. Asked properly. He was a duke, dammit. There was a process for the asking of a hand in marriage.
But he didn’t want others in this. He wanted her, alone. Honest. His, not because of titles or business or finances or land or because her father decreed it. It did not matter what an old man wanted. It mattered only what she wanted. What she chose.
And she was choosing him. She was the only person who had ever truly chosen him.
There was time enough to ask her father. He wouldn’t say no. No one turned away a dukedom.
But what if she did?
His heart pounded even as she smiled, curious, and reached for him, one red-gloved hand sliding down his arm, leaving fire in its wake. “Malcolm?”
He captured it. “What did you tell your mother? Your sisters? How did you escape them?”
Later, her hesitation would consume him. But in the moment, he barely noticed it. “I told them I was visiting an ill friend. That I would be gone for the afternoon.”
He nodded. As excuses went, it was not perfect, but it was not horrendous. It bought them an hour. Two, perhaps. Enough time for him to ask her. Enough time for him to make her say yes.
What if she didn’t say yes?
He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly unsettled. Doubt was not an emotion with which he was familiar.
“You’ve never been to my home,” she said, pulling him from his thoughts.
“I—” He stopped, not knowing what to say.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Mal had the distinct impression that it did. He didn’t want to sit on an uncomfortable settee and suffer the smirks and stares of her mother and sisters, the ones that marked him as nothing more than a title. The ones he suffered whenever he was in public—a bachelor duke, like a bull to market. He met Sera’s eyes and told her the truth. “I’m too greedy for you,” he said. “I want you for me, alone. I want to be yours, alone.”
A pause, silent and thoughtful as she considered him. It felt as though she could see into him. She took a deep breath then, letting it out, as though she’d made a decision.
And she had.
“Well,” she said soft, serious. “I am here. Sans chaperone. As requested.”
He had no right to make such a request. She should never have agreed. But she wanted him just as he wanted her. He knew it every time he looked into her eyes, every time he caught her gaze across a ballroom, hundreds of people keeping them from each other.
He knew it now, when she reached for his face with her free hand, the kidskin there blocking her touch—making him wish she weren’t wearing the gloves. “I am yours,” she whispered. “Shepherd, duke, rat catcher . . .” She shook her head with a smile. “Whatever you wish.”
He lowered his forehead to hers.
“Yours to do with as you wish,” she whispered.
His breath came on a tide of pleasure.