Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After, #1)

by Tessa Dare

It started to rain. Fat, heavy drops of summer rain—the kind that always struck her as vaguely lewd and debauched. Little potbellied drunkards, those summer raindrops, chortling on their way to earth and crashing open with glee.

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women with radical ideas.” “No,” she returned. “I’m one of those women with nothing. There are a great many of us.”

There was exactly one reason his blood was pounding, and it had nothing to do with “please.” It had to do with “yes” and ”God, yes” and “just like that, but harder.”

Sometimes he wondered if women were all lawyers, with an extensive code of Romantic Law that they kept stubbornly hidden from men.

Ransom didn’t know if this Beware-My-Dangerous-Kisses ploy was having any effect whatsoever on Izzy Goodnight, but he knew this much. This kiss had him rattled to his boots.

Any self-respecting rake had two kinds of women in his life: those he took to bed at night and those who made him a pancake in the morning. If he suddenly wanted both from the same woman, it was a warning flag. One big and red enough for even a blind man to see. Get out now. The threat is coming from inside the castle.

And she was well-enough acquainted with loneliness to understand that the worst part wasn’t having nobody caring for you—it was having nobody to care for.

“It’s true. Every time you wake up, you let fly the most marvelous string of curses. It’s never the same twice, do you know that? It’s so intriguing. You’re like a rooster that crows blasphemy.”

His brow was stern. “Now listen to me. I don’t know who they are or what they want from you. But while there’s breath in my lungs and strength in my body, I swear this much: I won’t let you come to harm.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t kiss me like that was your first kiss.” “Of course not.” She turned and resumed walking. “I kissed you like it would be my last.” Her last?

She was so desperate to love and be loved, she could sprout tender feelings toward a rock.

“For God’s sake. Don’t do that.” “Don’t do what?” “Smile.” “How do you know I’m smiling?” “I can hear it. Hell, I can feel it. It’s all warm and sweet and . . .” He scowled. “Bah.”

If he wanted any chance of keeping her, Ransom would have to come up with some surprises.

Everything he did, from this point forward . . . It was all for her.

“You’re twenty-six years old,” he said. “How many other proposals were you expecting?” His cold words froze the breath in her lungs. “Perhaps none,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to rejoice in one so unfeeling.”

“Of course you don’t deserve her. No man deserves a woman like that. He mortgages his very soul to win her and spends his life paying off the debt.”

“You can’t know how much I love you right now.” “Then say you’ll marry me. I’ll go to London, sort out this legal business. And then I’ll come back with a ring. Diamonds or sapphires?” “I don’t need a ring at all. I just want you.”

“Look at him. The man’s not delusional. He’s in love.” Ransom’s lips quirked in that familiar half smile. “Well, that’s one charge I can’t argue.”