She was a rare one.No fear to be seen in that beautiful façade of hers, but there were cracks in her armor.He’d recognized them, because he too had cracks.
Deciding that it was indeed a terrible idea to come barging into a lady’s dressing room, Tavish was pivoting on his feet when suddenly she shocked the hell out of him and rose.
Fecking hell.
She stood, naked as the day she was born.Hard pink nipples greeted him, a firm, yet soft stomach led down to a thatch of blonde curls.The warrior princess was proud, her body on display like she was a grand statue in Italy or Paris.
Tavish balled his hands into fist, fighting the urge to march over to her and take her like the savage beast he felt like in her presence.
This was fecking madness.
“I don’t care if you were the bloody king himself.I need to get dressed.Please leave.”She carefully stepped out of the large copper tub.
Wrapping herself in a silk dressing gown, she officially covered her sinful body from his desperate eyes.Disappointment filled him, a shocking revelation as he never found himself disappointed about anything, except perhaps his da’s opinion of him.
She faced him, green eyes dark as a forest, surveying him, sizing him up, as if inspecting him, like any worthy opponent would.
And Tavish established in that brief meeting that she indeed was a worthy opponent.
He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d been trying to leave for minutes, but she kept provoking him.“Since you said please,” he said as he winked at her, loving the furious blush that tinted her cheeks, “meet me downstairs, my brother and Hughes are waiting.”
She stiffened like he’d attacked her.In their entire meeting, the duchess had not blinked as she sat naked and vulnerable in front of him, but one command and she was ready to flee.
Headstrong woman.
He forced himself to leave the bathing chamber before he did something mad, like kiss his late cousin’s widow.That would be a disaster.
Perhaps it had been too long since he’d had a woman.The last was right before his fight with The Butcher.A quick tussle that left him more wanting than anything.No woman had ever stirred such a violent hunger in Tavish like the current Duchess of Summerset.
Walking through the opulent duke’s chambers, he passed the stern-faced maid, who still clutched a brush like a dueling pistol.He laughed at the older woman before he left his new chambers.He jogged through the large mansion, remembering the path he’d taken to reach the duke’s rooms, where the butler had informed him the duchess had been in residence since the old duke perished nearly a year ago.
“Your Grace,” one servant said to Tavish as he passed down the long hall toward the grand staircase.
He kept walking, before stopping suddenly, realizing that the woman was speaking to him.
“Welcome, Your Grace,” a footman said with a bow, as he reached the top of the staircase.
Jotting down the stairs, servants greeted him as he passed, and he’d nearly tumbled to the marble floor from the shock of it.
He was the bloody duke, and word had quickly traveled around the mansion that he’d arrived to claim the dukedom.The weight of it all threatened to disarm him like a punch to the gut.
Reaching the parlor where he’d left Declan and the over eager solicitor, Mr.Hughes, Tavish examined the luxury of his surroundings.Paintings from God knew where and furniture that looked more like it belonged in Windsor Palace than a regular home decorated the space.
“Where is she?”Declan asked, standing from a gold-plated chair.
He loved his brother, but five days in a carriage alone with him was enough brotherly bonding to last him years.
“She’ll be down shortly,” Tavish said, perching himself on the arm of the green and gold upholstered sofa.
“Good, once the widow is gone, we can move Ma, Adara, and Caitrin in with you.”His brother spoke more like he was the duke and Tavish was the younger brother.
Looking over his shoulder, he eyed his younger brother, having had enough of his superior attitude.“Do you have any other fecking plans I need to know about?”
Declan stood, coming to stand in front of Tavish.“I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t need your fecking help, Declan.As you’ve told me repeatedly on the ride to London, I’m the Duke of Summerset now, and I’ll decide who moves into my house and who leaves it, not you,deartháir beag,” he said, calling him the Gaelic word for little brother.
Declan had long hated the term little brother since they were children.
