The Duke (Victorian Rebels, #4)

by Kerrigan Byrne

“Fetch that lap robe and cover yourself, Nurse Pritchard,” he directed instead. “You’re showing enough flesh to send my feeble heart into conniptions. I’m dying, not dead. Good Lord.”

she’d chanced to see the painting of Venus by Henri Pierre Picou at a gallery, and had been so moved, she’d simply had to devour everything she could about the Roman goddess of love and, of course, her Grecian counterpart, Aphrodite.

Surging up to her toes, she slammed her lips against his with such force their teeth almost clattered together. Cole couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d taken a knife and stabbed him in the heart. Either way, that traitorous heart ceased beating. She not only stole his wits, she took his breath for good measure.

“You know some big words for such a small woman.” “And you have a small mind for such a big man,” she volleyed back,

“You haven’t any idea the strength it takes to be a woman. In my experience, it is men who are the weaker sex. Either too undisciplined to control their baser, primal instincts or, conversely, they are too fragile to endure the discomfort of honesty or integrity. Yet women endure and survive by whatever means we are able. And still we are either property or playthings. We have as much use in the eyes of the law as a cow or a fertile plot of land. It is not wrong to mistreat us. To objectify us. To shame and demand things of us and bend us to your will. That is your right as a man and our duty as a woman. Is it any wonder the world is in chaos?”

“Pity is not disgrace, it is compassion. And compassion is something that everyone deserves.”