To Deceive a Duke

A glossy black horse, much like the ones that had probably drawn Hades’ chariot as he had born down on hapless Persephone, galloped along the road where it skirted around the farm site. And riding it was the very man she believed, or hoped, to be hundreds of miles away. Averton. It could be no other. His bright, Viking hair was loose in the breeze, even longer than when she had last seen him in Yorkshire, falling to his shoulders. His black riding clothes and high leather boots stood in stark contrast to its glow, making him seem one with the horse.

A marauding centaur, then, as well as Hades. A dangerously handsome lord who took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences.

He drew up the horse just beyond the rim of the foundation, so near she could see the sheen of his bronzed skin, shining with rain and sweat. His face, all hard, sharp angles, was expressionless as he gazed around the site. She could feel the fire of his eyes, even across the distance.

White-hot anger burned away her icy poise, her calm wariness. How dare he come here, after all that had happened in England! How dare he invade her farmhouse, her one special place? All her old feelings—her fright, her fury, her fascination—boiled over, and she could be silent no longer.

She threw back the tarpaulin, rushing up the last of the old steps with her blade in hand, as if charging into battle.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded. ‘You, Averton, are on private property, and I will thank you to depart immediately!’

He gazed down at her. His expression did not change—it so seldom did, remaining in its cool lines of ducal contempt even when he confronted thieves in his house. Only a very few times had she seen it alter, that veil of handsome privilege falling away to reveal seething passions and needs that were fearsome to behold.

But his eyes widened a bit as he saw her, the green as bright as sea glass, and she noticed the jagged white scar on his forehead.

‘Oh, so you are suddenly the protector of private property, are you now, Clio Chase?’ he said mockingly. ‘That makes a fascinating change.’

‘What do you want?’ Clio said. She planted her booted feet solidly in the dirt, tightening her fingers on the dagger hilt even as she longed to flee back to her safe, hidden cellar. Back to an hour ago, when she thought him so far away.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said, in a soft, steady voice. A coaxing voice. ‘That is all, I swear.’

‘So talk.’

His horse pawed at the ground, restless at standing still, and Averton’s black-gloved hands tightened on the reins. ‘If I dismount, will I be in danger of being disembowelled by that rather efficient-looking blade in your hand?’

Clio studied him carefully, eye to eye for one long, tense moment. She had seldom met anyone in her life quite as determined as she was herself. That stubbornness meant she usually got her own way, even in a big family. But she knew, just by looking at him now, just by remembering their past encounters, that here was someone of determination to match her own. He wouldn’t go away easily, and if she tried to run he would just mow her down with his fearsome steed.

She gave a brusque nod. ‘Very well. But stay over there. Don’t come near my house.’

His brow arched sardonically. ‘Your house, is it?’ But he followed her instructions, swinging down from his horse yet staying several feet away, holding loosely to the reins as his horse began to crop at the clover. ‘Is this far enough?’

Clio nodded again. ‘You said you wanted to talk, Averton. It must be something important indeed to bring you all this way.’

‘It is,’ he answered. Yet then he fell silent, just watching her as if he had never seen her before in his life. As if she were some strange creature, a unicorn or phoenix, maybe, that he could not understand.

Clio shifted on her feet. ‘Did someone snatch away your precious Alabaster Goddess? It was not me, I vow. I have been in Sicily for weeks. Or perhaps it was—’

‘Clio,’ he said, in a voice that was quiet, soft, but full of steely command. ‘I have come here because you are in danger.’

Chapter Four

Clio could scarcely understand what she was hearing. Could this just be a dream after all? Every moment she had ever spent with Averton had been bizarre, to be sure, but this…

‘Did you just say I am in danger?’ she asked, studying his face for signs of—what? Joking? Subterfuge? It was not the Duke’s way to make jests, nor hers.

There was no hint of humour or deception in his face, though. No change in those Viking-warrior features at all, except for a tiny tic in the muscle along his jaw as he stared at her.

Clio stared back, hardly daring to move, to breathe. The thunderstorm had left the air heavy and thick, the breeze practically crackling around her. Around them. It was as if snapping tendrils snaked out from the grey sky, wrapping ever tighter around her, binding her closer and closer to him.

It was like a myth, a tale of jealous gods and enchanted spells that bound mortals to them against their every sensible inclination. Every shred of sense.

Clio shook her head, trying to clear it of such dark fancies. It was just this place making her feel so, that web of myth and fantasy that had been woven around her ever since she was a child. And being faced with Averton, of all people, when she least expected him! Was least prepared for him, and the effect he always had on her.

As if she ever could be prepared for him. Every single time she saw him, it was like a lightning storm all over again. Beautiful, treacherous and so completely disorienting.

She took a step back. ‘I know of no dangers here except you. You needn’t have gone to all this trouble to warn me of that.’

His brow creased, as if in a flash of pain, yet that spasm was gone in an instant, banished under a mocking smile. ‘Did I not prove to you in Yorkshire that you are never in danger from me? I sent you and your friend—Marco, was it?—on your merry way, with scarcely a scolding word. Even though you were in the midst of stealing from me. I am the last person you need fear, Clio.’

She swallowed hard, remembering another night, that gallery at Acropolis House. ‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed. I want to be your friend, if you will let me.’

‘My friend, is it?’ she said, nearly choking on a humourless laugh. ‘So, that is why you are here? To offer friendship, along with cryptic warnings of danger? I think it more likely you are here to see what my father has found in his Greek villa. To see what you can snatch to add to your vaunted collections, hidden away in the darkness so no one else can ever see them.’

‘Clio!’ he growled, his icy calm cracking at last. He dropped the reins, his hands curling into fists.

And Clio felt a stirring of some strange satisfaction.

‘You are the most obstinate woman I have ever met,’ he muttered. ‘Why can you not just listen to me for once in your life?’

‘Just listen to you? Quietly do what you want, just as everyone does with the exalted duke? Well, I’m sorry, your Grace, but I am too busy to stand here arguing with you any longer.’ She strode past him, not sure where she was going, only knowing that she had to get away. Had to escape from those crackling bonds before she exploded!

She gave Averton a wide berth, yet not quite wide enough. Before she had even seen him move, he had caught her by the wrists, pulling her close to him. Startled, she dropped her dagger. It landed mere inches from his booted foot, yet he did not glance at it at all. He only watched her.

As she stared up into his face, into the glow of his eyes, those bonds grew tighter and tighter. She could not breathe, could not move at all. She flexed her wrists in his grasp, the fingers of her right hand splayed out until she touched the very edge of his sleeve. The hot, smooth skin of his wrist. She felt the thrum of his pulse there, the tumbling rush of his life’s blood, and his heartbeat seemed to meld with her own.

She heard the quick rush of his breath in her ear, smelled the clean, spicy scent of his skin. He was all around her, a part of her she could not escape, for truly he was not something outside, not a separate being she could run from, deny. He was inside her, part of her very breath and blood.

She arched in his grasp, her head thrown back like Persephone’s as she tried to escape, tried to leap from the speeding chariot to safety. Escape, even as she longed to stay.

‘Then tell me what it is you want here,’ she whispered. ‘Why you came here to find me.’

‘Will you listen, then?’ he said hoarsely. ‘For once?’

‘I…’ she answered. ‘It depends on what you say, I suppose.’

He gave a bark of laughter, his clasp loosening on her wrists. ‘Of course. Always conditions. Always wanting things your own way.’

‘Muses are as spoiled as dukes when it comes to that,’ she said. She raised her hand, still caught in that dream where she was not herself. She lightly touched the white scar with her fingertips, feeling the uneven ridge of it under her touch.

He tensed, as taut as a bowstring, but he did not move away. Perhaps he was as enchanted as she was. She trailed her touch over his temple, the pulse that thrummed there; over his sharp cheekbone, the crooked nose Cam de Vere had once broken in some unspecified brawl. A loose strand of his hair, bright silk, brushed against her hand, clinging. She traced its wave until she found the curve of his lips.

Her fingers hovered over them as they parted, and she felt his very life’s breath. How close, how very close…

‘Clio,’ he groaned. His arms came around her waist, dragging her against him until there was not even a whisper between them. She was a tall woman, nearly as tall as he, but she felt fragile as his hot strength wrapped around her and she was surrounded by only him. She looped her arms about his neck, making him her captive just as she was his.

Their lips met, and there was nothing tentative or shy about the caress. It was quick, hot, desperate. A fervent need to be as one, to fall down into the dark myth and be lost for ever. That was what it was like when she kissed him—like being lost in the corridors of the underworld among all the shades, the misty illusions. She was a fool, an utter fool, to give in again. To reach for something that could only do her ill in the end.