NOT JUST A WALLFLOWER by Carole Mortimer

requirements of a prospective duchess. As such there was no place for her in his well-ordered life, other than the annoyance of being forced by circumstance into acting as her guardian. All was not lost, of course; any number of women here this evening could, and in the past had, assuaged his physical needs.
    ‘Who am I?’ Justin repeated in a suddenly steely voice. ‘I believe, for the moment at least, I am placed in the role of acting as your guardian and protector. Whether you feel you are in need of one or otherwise,’ he added as she parted her lips with the obvious intention of protesting. ‘As such, I have no intention of allowing you to embarrass me, or my grandmother, by behaving in an unsuitable manner through ignorance.’
    Ellie eyed him hotly. ‘You truly are the most insufferable man I have ever met!’
    ‘So you have remarked before, I believe.’
    ‘Then I must believe it to be true!’
    The duke gave a deliberately weary smile. ‘And I am fortunate in that I find your opinion of me to be of little interest.’
    Just as Ellie knew she herself was of little interest to him either, other than as an appeasement to his grandmother’s plans for her, the dowager the only woman whom he so obviously did care about; Ellie had heard a definite coldness in his tone when she had mentioned his mother to him.
    Unfortunately, she now had no choice but to curl her fingers painfully into the palms of her gloved hands, in order to prevent herself from giving in to the temptation she felt to slap that supercilious and arrogant smile from his perfect lips!
    She drew in a deep and controlling breath. ‘Is it any wonder, then, that I have come to prefer the company of such polite gentlemen as the Earl of Braxton?’
    Those blue eyes narrowed. ‘I should warn you that it would be unwise to challenge me, Eleanor.’
    Ellie’s throat moved as she swallowed nervously, once again aware of the sudden tension that had sprung up between them, of how the very air that surrounded them now seemed charged with—with she knew not what.
    The only thing she was sure of was the fluttering of excitement beneath her breasts, of the dampness to her palms inside her lace gloves, of the burn of colour blooming in her cheeks as his eyes continued to glitter down at her.
    She swallowed again before speaking. ‘I do not believe that is what I was doing.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘No,’ she said defiantly.
    A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘I disagree.’
    ‘That is your prerogative, of course—what are you doing?’ she squeaked as the duke took a firm grasp of her arm before pulling her down the shadowed hallway, away from the crowded public salons, to where the private family rooms were situated. ‘Justin?’ she prompted sharply as he threw open the library door and pushed her unceremoniously inside the darkened room.
    He followed her inside before closing the door firmly behind him. ‘Of all the times I have asked you to do so, you must choose now to decide to call me Justin?’ He towered over her in the darkness. ‘I do believe you are challenging me, after all, Eleanor,’ he murmured huskily.
    It took Ellie several moments to adjust her eyes to the gloom of the library, at which time she realised it was not as dark as she had at first imagined, that the moonlight shone in brightly through the windows, giving his overlong-blond hair a silvery rather than golden sheen, his eyes glittering a much paler blue, the light and shadows giving his hard, chiselled face a darker, more dangerous sharpness, than it usually had.
    Not that any of that was important, when placed alongside the scandal that would ensue if anyone were to discover them alone together in the darkness of the library! ‘We should not be in here, your Grace.’
    ‘Yes, you are most certainly challenging me, Eleanor,’ he remarked in reproof. ‘Did no one ever warn you that it is dangerous to wake the sleeping tiger?’
    ‘You are likening yourself to a