No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean Page A

been required to work. She could have been a duchess.
    He wanted answers. Itched for them.
    “All the governesses I’ve ever known have worn them.” He tracked the movement of her hands, knowing that they were well-hewn, the skin rough in places, the knuckles red with cold. They were hands that knew work.
    He knew, because his hands looked the same.
    As though she could hear his thoughts, she unclasped the hands in question, holding them straight and still at her sides. “I am not an ordinary governess.”
    No doubt. “I never imagined you an ordinary anything.”
    Madame Hebert stood then, excusing herself and leaving them alone in the room. For long moments, Mara stood silent before saying, “I feel a bit like a sacrificial offering up here.”
    He could see why. The platform was cast in a warm golden glow, the rest of the room in utter darkness. In her awkward, pale underclothes, she could have easily played the part of the unsuspecting virgin, about to be tossed into a volcano.
    Virgin.
    The word gave him pause.
    Had they—
    The question dissolved into a vision of her spread across crisp linen sheets, long, lithe limbs spread wide, perfect and nude. His mouth went dry at the thought, at the image of her splayed open to him, then watered as he considered where he would start with her . . . the long column of her neck, the slope of her breasts, the swell of her belly, the secrets nestled between what he knew would be long, perfect thighs.
    He would start there.
    He stood, coming toward her, unable to keep himself from it, as though reeled in on a long, sturdy fishing line. She wrapped her arms about her midsection as he approached, and he noticed the gooseflesh on them.
    He could warm her.
    “Are you cold?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said, smartly, “I’m half naked.”
    It was a lie. She wasn’t cold. She was nervous. “I don’t think so.”
    She cut him a look. “Why don’t you take off your clothes and see how you feel?”
    The words were out before she had a chance to think on them. Before she—or he, if he were honest—realized what they might evoke. Curiosity. Frustration. More. He stopped just short of the pool of light where she stood, unable to hide her face. “Have I done that before?” he asked, the words coming harsher than he intended. Filled with more meaning than he expected.
    She looked down at her feet. He followed the gaze, taking in her stockinged toes. When she did not answer, he pressed further. “I woke naked that morning. Naked and covered in someone else’s blood. A damn lot of it,” he said, though the blood didn’t seem to matter so very much. He stepped into the light. “Not your blood.”
    She shook her head, finally looking up at him. “Not mine.”
    “Whose?”
    “Pig’s blood.”
    “Why?”
    “I didn’t mean—”
    Dammit. He didn’t want apologies. He wanted the truth. “Enough. Where were my clothes?”
    She shook her head again. “I don’t know. I gave them to—”
    “To your brother, no doubt. But why?”
    “We—I—” She hesitated. “I thought that if you were naked, it would postpone your looking for me. It would give me more time to get away.”
    “Is that it?” He was horrified to discover that the explanation disappointed him. What had he been expecting? That she’d confess a deep, abiding attraction to him?
    Perhaps.
    No. Goddammit. She was trouble.
    He didn’t know what he wanted from this woman any longer. “I was naked, Mara. I remember your hair, down. Your body above me.” She blushed in the candlelight, and then he knew precisely what he wanted. He stepped up, crowding her on the little round platform, but somehow—by the grace of something far more divine than either of them deserved—not touching her. “Did we—”
    “ Excusez moi , Your Grace.”
    He did not hesitate, did not move. Did not look back. “A moment, Hebert.”
    The Frenchwoman knew better than to linger.
    He snaked an arm around Mara’s waist, hating