My Dangerous Duke by Gaelen Foley Page A

evoked by his nearness.
    As they pressed on, desperate male faces began to appear behind the rusted bars of these godforsaken cells.
    “Yer Grace!” The first was a tall, lumpy mountain of a young man with a sweaty face. “For the love o’ God, let us out of ’ere, sir!”
    “The prisoner will not speak unless spoken to,” the head guard clipped out, his warning rolling down the dark corridor to the men in the other cells.
    The imprisoned smugglers began to stir, leaving the stone slabs that served as their cots and coming to the bars to see what was happening.
    Knowing she could come face-to-face with her kidnappers at any second, Kate felt her heart begin to pound. Instinct had her edging closer to Rohan for safety in the dark. He gave her his arm, then laid his hand over hers where she had tucked it in the crook of his elbow.
    The man in the next cell was a thick-necked smuggler with a bald head and a small hoop earring. She did not recognize him, but he stared at her in her footman’s garb in unwelcome curiosity.
    “Eyes down! ” Warrington snarled at him. “Don’t you look at her. Give me that.” He commandeered the torch from one of the guards and, from there, took over her guided tour of this hellish place personally.
    Giving Kate his other arm, he raised the flame so she could inspect the man in the next cell.
    Her blood ran cold at the sight of a shifty-looking man in his early twenties with greasy black hair and a scruffy jaw. “Him.” She held on to his arm more tightly.
    “Denny Doyle,” he said softly. “I should have known.”
    The prisoner offered no sign of respect, merely sent them a sullen glance over his shoulder. “What are you lookin’ at?”
    “I hear you’ve added more than just shipwrecking to your list of accomplishments, Denny.”
    “I don’t know nothin’ about it,” he replied with a shrug and a ready sarcasm, both learned, no doubt, at his smuggler mama’s knee.
    The guards made a disapproving move toward him. Denny Doyle jumped up and whipped around in a fighter’s stance with his back to the wall, but Rohan held up his hand, calling off his men.
    “In due time,” he cautioned them. “You and I will talk soon,” he added, pinning the miscreant with a foreboding stare. He glanced at Kate, then nodded toward the pitch-black corridor ahead. “Let’s continue, shall we?”
    She swallowed hard and managed a nod.
    “W-what’s going on, sir, please?” pleaded the skinny fellow in the next cell. “Has the Coast Guard come to take us away now?”
    Spectacles perched atop his nose, but beneath it sat a scraggly attempt at a mustache, like a smudge of coal soot dirtying his upper lip. “Your Grace? Will you let me out, sir? I’ll cooperate, I promise. I don’t want to die!”
    “Shut up!” One of the guards banged the bars with the butt of his musket.
    The little man jumped back with a yelp, but when Kate shook her head to let Rohan know that this was not one of her kidnappers, the prisoner began to cry, seeing them moving on and leaving him behind.
    “God! Let me out of here! There’s something down here, I tell you! Somethin’ unnatural!”
    “Shut it, Fitch, you cockless worm,” Denny Doyle ordered from farther down the row in a tone of great disgust.
    One of the guards scowled and marched back to tell him to pipe down, in turn, but Rohan merely sent Kate a dubious glance. “How are you holding up?”
    “Well enough,” she answered grimly.
    “Good. Charming fellows, aren’t they?”
    She mustered a wry smile in answer.
    He put his arm around her shoulders gently. “Come, we’re almost through. What about this one?” He nodded at the cell ahead.
    It held a tall, lanky fellow with long, carrot red hair tied back in a queue. He unfolded his gangly limbs, shot up from his cot with a quick-tempered scowl, and glared at them.
    She shook her head. “No.”
    “One more, then,” Rohan murmured. “Another Doyle. This one is a cousin to the other. They’re