The Reluctant Duke (16 page)

Lucan pushed away from the doorframe, eyes narrowed grimly at the inappropriateness of his arousal. ‘What just happened, Lexie?’

Her chin rose. ‘I told you—’

‘You don’t get food poisoning from eating fresh cheese and biscuits,’ he dismissed firmly.

Lexie wished that Lucan would put some more clothes on; it was very disconcerting trying to have a conversation with a man who looked as sexy as Lucan did right now. With a man whose arousal was unmistakably outlined against those close-fitting denims.

With a man Lexie had realised only minutes ago she was in love with.

She thrust trembling hands into the pockets of her robe. ‘I do,’ she answered firmly. ‘Obviously.’

He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘It wasn’t the cheese and biscuits that made you sick.’

‘Then what did, Dr St Claire?’ She eyed him scathingly.

His mouth thinned at the taunt. ‘I was hoping you could tell me that.’

‘Oh, no.’ Lexie shook her head scornfully. ‘You’re the one who seems to think he has all the answers!’

Lucan breathed deeply through his nose, having no intention of allowing Lexie to goad him into losing his temper. As she seemed so set on doing. ‘Maybe you regret what just happened?’

She frowned. ‘I already said I didn’t.’

‘Before you were violently ill!’ Lucan bit out harshly, positive that Lexie was lying to him—that the honesty he had remarked upon earlier was completely lacking at this moment. He just had no idea why that was.

‘Obviously eating cheese at midnight doesn’t agree with me.’

‘I have already discounted that as the cause, Lexie.’

‘But I haven’t!’ Those blue eyes flashed angrily. ‘Would you just
go,
Lucan?’ She grimaced. ‘I’m feeling pretty awful and I’d like to go to bed.’

‘Alone?’

‘Well, of course alone! Unless you’re feeling a perverted desire to make love to a sick woman?’

Lucan’s desire for Lexie’s wasn’t in the least perverted—just continuous, it seemed. A never-ending ache that hadn’t been in the least assuaged by their lovemaking earlier. It would perhaps never be completely satisfied, no matter how deeply or how often he made love with and to this particular woman.

His jaw tightened. ‘Perhaps I should sleep in here, in case you’re ill again in the night.’

‘Haven’t I just made it obvious how much I hate having an audience when I’m ill?’ she snapped.

Lucan gave an abrupt inclination of his head. ‘You made it just as obvious earlier that you couldn’t wait for us to make love again.’

Lexie drew in a sharp breath. She had said that, hadn’t she? Before she had realised her feelings for this man. Before she had realised she was in love with Lucan St Claire, fifteenth Duke of Stourbridge, a man she had always considered her bitterest enemy. As she and the whole of her family were his.

‘Post-coital euphoria,’ she dismissed tersely, before turning away. Just looking at Lucan was enough to make her
long for pre-coital, coital and post-coital pleasure all over again! ‘You know—a little like enjoying a delicious slice of gooey chocolate cake and anticipating having another slice but just knowing that it really wouldn’t be good for you.’

Lucan gave a humourless smile. ‘Interesting euphemism.’

Lexie returned that smile with a bright, meaningless one of her own. ‘I thought so.’

‘Did you know that chocolate can be addictive?’

‘Only in its true form,’ Lexie came back pertly.

Lucan’s mouth tightened. ‘Lexie, we just made love together, and it was really good, so why are we arguing?’

It
had
been really good, Lexie acknowledged heavily. More than good for her. It had been magical—so much more than anything Lexie could ever have imagined. Until she had realised that the reason it had been so magical, so wonderful, was because she was in love with Lucan.

‘I told you earlier—we always argue when we bother to talk to each other. This time let’s just put it down to the fact that I’m a grouch when I’ve been ill.’ She shrugged.

Lucan studied her for long, tense seconds. Seconds when Lexie’s defiant gaze didn’t so much as waver from his. ‘I don’t accept that as an excuse.’

‘Newsflash, Lucan—I really don’t give a damn what you do or don’t accept,’ she told him wearily. ‘I’m not denying we both had a good time earlier. The point is that we aren’t now. That being the case, would you please just accept that I want you to go?’

Lucan eyed her frustratedly, knowing by the defiant way she continued to meet his gaze that they really weren’t going to solve anything tonight by continuing their present conversation.

‘Okay, I’ll go,’ he agreed abruptly. ‘We’ll talk again in the morning.’

‘In the morning I’m out of here. With or without you!’ she stated firmly.

Lucan’s impatience intensified. ‘I’m the one with the car, Lexie, and I’m no longer sure I’ll be ready to leave in the morning.’ He had no intention of going anywhere until he and Lexie had stopped arguing enough to make some sense out of what had just happened.

‘Then I’ll get a train home.’

‘And if there aren’t any?’

‘There are,’ she assured him with satisfaction.

Lucan’s eyes narrowed. ‘And you know this how…?’

Too late Lexie realised she had once again fallen into the trap of revealing too much. Of saying too much. Of knowing too much. ‘I checked on the running of the trains before coming here.’ Her chin rose as she told the lie. Visiting her grandmother, as she did regularly, Lexie had been conversant with the running times of the trains to Stourbridge for several years now. ‘Just in case I decided to leave,’ she added.

Lucan gave a humourless smile as he shook his head. ‘You really are something else!’

Lexie was starting to feel ill again. ‘Goodnight, Lucan,’ she said firmly.

His nostrils flared as he breathed out his frustration. ‘I’m really not that easily dismissed!’

Lexie felt a shiver down her spine at the warning she heard in his tone. ‘As we aren’t likely to meet again after tomorrow, there’s really no need for me to know that, is there?’

He shrugged those broad and magnificently bare shoulders. ‘As I said, I’m not that easily dismissed.’

‘You just were!’

He gave a tight smile. ‘Goodnight, Lexie.’ He grabbed his jumper from the floor before strolling unhurriedly to the door. ‘We will talk again in the morning,’ he repeated firmly.

‘Maybe I won’t be here in the morning.’

Lucan turned at the door. ‘Then I’ll hunt you down when I get back to London,’ he informed her calmly.

Too calmly. And with too much of a sense of purpose for Lexie’s comfort… ‘The arrogant and elusive Lucan St Claire, chasing after a woman?’ she taunted. ‘Whatever next?’

His eyes narrowed to glittering onyx slits. ‘Believe me, Lexie, if you put me to the trouble of coming after then you won’t like what happens next.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Just stating a fact.’

She gave an impatient sigh. ‘Can’t we just leave things the way they are?’

His jaw tightened. ‘No.’

She grimaced. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that.’

‘Then you weren’t disappointed, were you?’ Lucan drawled unsympathetically. ‘Sweet dreams, Lexie,’ he added huskily, before closing the door softly behind him.

Lexie’s fingernails dug painfully into the palms of her hands where they clenched in the pockets of her robe as painful resistance to the urge she felt to run after him. To ask Lucan to stay. To beg him to hold her and never let her go…

But how ridiculous was it to expect that Lucan, a man who had never wanted to stay with any woman, let alone the granddaughter of Sian Thomas, would ever want to do that?

Almost as ridiculous as Lexie having allowed herself to fall in love with him.…

‘It’s midday, sleepyhead. Time to wake up.’

Lexie kept her eyes firmly closed. She’d guessed from the nearness of Lucan’s voice that he was standing beside the bed, where she lay with her face partly buried in the pillows.

She didn’t care what time it was. She didn’t want Lucan to know she was awake. Didn’t want to look at him again. Didn’t want to start last night’s argument with him all over again.

She hadn’t been able to sleep at all after Lucan had left her bedroom the night before—too upset, too emotionally raw to be able to turn off her thoughts and relax into sleep. How could she possibly relax when she had been stupid enough to fall in love with Lucan?

Just thinking about it now was enough to make her feel ill all over again!

Lucan stared down at Lexie frustratedly. He was pretty sure that she was awake and choosing to ignore him. And after the virtually sleepless night he’d had he wasn’t in the mood to humour her. Instead he strode over to the window and pulled the curtains back, instantly letting in the bright sunlight.

‘Ooh! Ow! That is
so
mean!’ Lexie sat up abruptly, her eyes screwed up against the brightness, her hair standing up in tangled tufts. She looked so much like an indignant hedgehog that Lucan had trouble holding back a smile. ‘That had better be coffee you have in that mug, otherwise you’re a dead man!’ she warned him fiercely.

‘It’s coffee, with milk and two sugars, just the way you like it,’ Lucan confirmed mockingly as he strode back to the bedside and handed her the steaming mug of coffee he
had brought with him as a peace offering. ‘Not a morning person, I see?’

‘Don’t start on me, Lucan!’ She scowled as she pushed some of that dark hair away from her face. ‘And according to you it isn’t still morning.’ She had both hands wrapped about the warmth of the mug as she took a reviving sip.

A
cute
indignant hedgehog, Lucan revised. Even with her hair tangled, her face bare of make-up and little creases in one of her cheeks from where she had been in deep sleep on the pillow, Lexie still managed to arouse him. Damn it!

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘Do you want to go to the bathroom first, or shall we finish our conversation now?’

She looked up at him from beneath lowered brows. ‘Persistent, aren’t you!’

Lucan shrugged. ‘I prefer to think of it as single-minded.’

‘Hmm…’

‘Was that,
Yes, Lucan, I would like to use the bathroom first,
or was it,
Okay, we can talk now…?’

‘Neither.’ Lexie shook her head. ‘It was please go away until I’ve woken up properly!’

‘That isn’t very polite when I’ve brought you coffee,’ Lucan admonished.

She looked more disgruntled than ever. ‘How long have you been up?’

‘Five hours or so.’ He shrugged. ‘I managed to get a lot of the work that I brought with me done while you slept the morning away.’ Working had also succeeded in keeping Lucan occupied while he waited for Lexie to get up. Until he had finally got tired of waiting and decided to wake her himself.

‘That’s good.’ She nodded unconcernedly. ‘I’m really
pleased for you. Now, would you just go away and leave me to enjoy my coffee in peace?’

Lucan had no idea—when this woman irritated him, annoyed him, frustrated him—why it was that she could still manage to make him laugh, too.

‘Don’t tell me.’ Lexie looked up at Lucan wearily as she heard him chuckle. The few hours’ sleep she had managed had not been in the least restful when she’d known she still had to face Lucan again this morning. ‘People don’t talk to you in this disrespectful way.’

‘No, they don’t.’ He still smiled. ‘But I could probably get used to it.’ he added enigmatically.

Lexie straightened, more unnerved by having Lucan standing beside her bed than she wanted him to realize. Her pulse was racing, every part of her completely aware of how dark and powerful he looked in another black sweater and black denims. ‘Luckily for you, you don’t have to.’

‘No?’

‘No—
Damn!’
Lexie swore irritably as, having turned to place her empty mug on the bedside table, she heard something fall onto the carpeted floor. ‘What—?’

She froze as she bent over the side of the bed and looked down at exactly what had fallen to the floor.

Everything stopped for Lexie in that moment. Movement. Breathing. Even her heart felt as if it had stopped beating as she stared down at the broken chain and the locket, where they had fallen onto the green carpet.

‘Don’t! ‘ she protested when Lucan instantly went down on his haunches to retrieve them.

‘What the hell
is
it with you and this damned locket?’ Lucan rasped. He scooped the locket and chain up in his hand, taking a step back out of Lexie’s reach as he straightened. ‘Maybe you really
do
keep a photograph of a secret
lover in here? ‘ He frowned darkly. ‘Maybe I should take a look…’

‘No!’
Even as she protested Lexie desperately threw back the bedclothes and tried to stand up.

Too late.

Far, far too late!

Lucan had already flicked the clasp open and was looking down at the two photographs inside the locket, a perplexed frown darkening his brow.

Long seconds, a minute passed, with no other sound in the room but the two of them breathing. Lexie’s was laboured; Lucan barely breathed at all.

Finally he looked up. His face was deathly pale, his cheekbones raw beneath the tautness of his skin. His mouth was a thin, uncompromising line. A pulse pounded in his tightly clenched jaw. And eyes that had been dark and teasing a few minutes ago were now as cold and hard as the onyx they resembled.

Those black eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Who the hell
are
you?’

‘G
IVE
me the locket, Lucan,’ Lexie demanded shakily as she held out her hand.

Instead of complying, Lucan tightened his fingers instinctively about the piece of jewellery, uncaring of the open clasp digging painfully into his palm. The contents of the locket were firmly branded—seared—into his brain as he took a step away from that questing hand.

There were two photographs inside the locket. One of a grey-haired man, obviously in his sixties, although his face was still handsome as he smiled warmly at the person taking the photograph. A hard and aristocratic face that Lucan had instantly recognised as belonging to his father, Alexander.