Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons Book 6) by Christi Caldwell Page B

above. Rain pelted her face and blinded her. Well, that is certainly not how I’d intended for this to go. She grunted and shoved herself onto her elbows conceding there was nothing even slightly romantic about a lady being caught in the rain, on her buttocks with her skirts rucked about her knees.
    Oh, every last heroine she’d written who’d found herself thus was surely nodding their fictional heads in approval. A despairing laugh bubbled up past her lips.
    His curse split the tempestuous storm. “Are you hurt?”
    She didn’t think she’d been hurt. Then she registered the deep, mellifluous baritone. She located the owner of that husky question.
    The Duke of Mallen cut an impressive path toward her, his black cloak whipped wildly in the wind. The muscles of her throat worked with the force of her swallow as she revised her earlier, impulsive opinion of rainstorms and injured ladies.
    He dropped to one knee beside her and doffed his hat then tossed it aside. Concern lined the angular plains of his cheeks. “Have you been injured, miss…” He lifted his gaze to hers and the momentary flash of recognition sparked in the emerald irises of his eyes. “Miss Rogers,” he greeted as formally as if they were meeting in a drawing room and not in the empty Hyde Park with rivulets of rain running into his mouth.
    She bowed her head. “Your Grace.” His horse danced nervously along the riding path, whinnying its distress with the rumble of thunder.
    The duke narrowed his eyes.
    Was he displeased at that perfunctory greeting? He was a duke. Perhaps those peers a step below a prince expected more reserved greetings—even from ladies. In a park. During a storm. Without a chaperone.
    “It is a pleasure to see you again” he growled. How very odd. She’d never taken him as a powerful noble who’d do something as primitive as growl.
    Fury flared in his eyes. “What in bloody hell are you doing out in this weather, Miss Rogers?”
    An unexpected warmth unfurled in her belly. Why, he was worried about her. No one worried about her. Certainly not her father or siblings. Nor her aunt. She was the single, stable element within their broken family. But this man…
    “Miss Rogers?” he snapped.
    This man expected an answer. “Er…” But God help her. What was the reason for this planned “meeting”? Her mind raced as Mr. Werksman’s demand for a brooding duke, and her insistence on an affable duke faded with her awareness of him as a man.
    He folded his arms, drumming his fingertips along his drenched black cloak. “Has the rain addled your senses?”
    Oh, the lout. “I—I…”
    He thrust his face close, running a searching stare over her face. Hermione swallowed hard, her body thrilling with an awareness of him. She couldn’t very well say she’d orchestrated this incident, planned it out with the strictest intentions of making him her brooding duke. All words, actions and sensible thought fled. Her family’s circumstances, Father’s despondency, Elizabeth’s situation, all lifted when presented with his nearness.
    He cast his gaze about, wholly unfazed by her nearness. “And where is your chaperone? What manner of parents, aunt, guardian, or whomever is charged with supervising you allows a young woman to go off in this weather?” The furious rumble of his voice warred with the thunder for supremacy.
    Hermione bit back the truth on her tongue: deceased mothers and lax fathers made for poor guardians. “Er…I just sent her back to the carriage. I forgot something and came back for it.” Which wasn’t altogether untrue.
    He scoured her face, and the intelligent spark of his eyes bespoke a man different than any other she’d ever known. Hmm, an intelligent duke. Who knew those rare creatures existed? A thick blanket of silence stretched between them. The blistering sting of rain pelted her cheeks and pinged like a thousand pinpricks upon the river’s surface.
    If palpable outrage hadn’t stemmed from