The Reluctant Duke (12 page)

‘And what if it is?’ Lexie tried unsuccessfully to release
the locket from his closed fingers. ‘I said let
go,
Lucan,’ she grated between clenched teeth.

‘Make me,’ he challenged softly.

Lexie tried, but Lucan’s fingers were closed about the locket like a steel trap, just as impenetrable. So much so that after several seconds of struggle the chain on the locket suddenly broke.

Lexie stared down disbelievingly at the broken chain as it dangled loosely over those lean but powerful fingers.

The antique gold locket and chain had been a sixteenth birthday gift from Nanna Sian and Grandpa Alex—the last they had ever given her together. Grandpa Alex had died only weeks later. And inside, together for ever, were smiling photographs of them both.

‘N
O!’
L
EXIE
choked. ‘What have you
done?’

What the hell had he been thinking? Lucan questioned self-disgustedly as he saw tears balancing on Lexie’s lashes as she stared down, disbelieving, at the broken chain, at the locket still firmly clasped in the palm of Lucan’s hand.

The simple truth was he hadn’t been thinking at all—only reacting. In a way he could never remember reacting before as he’d become lost in a rising black tide of—

Of what?

Lucan felt stunned by his actions and shied away from answering that question.

‘I’m sorry, Lexie—’

‘Sorry?’ she repeated, her voice high. ‘Sorry?’ she repeated disbelievingly. ‘You behave like a complete Neanderthal a few minutes ago, succeeding in breaking my necklace in the process, and all you can do is say you’re sorry? ‘ She gave an emotional shake of her head. ‘Give that to me!’ She snatched the locket out of Lucan’s hand the moment he relaxed his grip on it.

‘I’ll buy you a new chain as soon as—’

‘I don’t want a new chain!’ Her eyes flashed in warning as she glared up at him.

‘Then I’ll have that one repaired—’

‘I’ll get it repaired myself, thank you very much,’ she ground out icily.

Lucan hadn’t missed the way Lexie’s own fingers had tightened about the locket now. Protectively? Lovingly…? ‘I’m responsible for breaking it, so I should—’

‘You’ve already done enough, Lucan,’ she assured him flatly. ‘Now, I am going upstairs to my room, to read for a while before I go to bed, and you—you can do what the hell you please!’

Those tears on Lexie’s lashes were in complete contrast to the aggression of her words. Not that Lucan didn’t fully deserve her anger. He had behaved like an idiot a few minutes ago. An unthinking, mindless—what? Lexie had called him a Neanderthal, but what had he
really
been thinking, feeling, when he’d demanded to know whose photograph she carried in her locket?

Damn it—no wonder Lucan hadn’t immediately recognised the emotion for what it was! How could he, when it was an emotion he had never experienced before?

Jealousy
.

Pure, unadulterated, green-eyed, monstrous jealousy.

An emotion Lucan had always considered completely irrational. Certainly not one he had ever felt over any woman before.

And yet he was aware that he still felt it. Those tears glistening on Lexie’s lashes seemed to confirm that the locket did indeed contain a photograph of someone she’d loved. Was possibly still in love with.

So what? Why should it bother him when it was
him
Lexie responded to so passionately? Passion and desire were the only two emotions Lucan was prepared to accept. Love, he had decided long ago, was for fools, male and female, who allowed that emotion to rule their lives.

Including his brother Jordan and Stephanie?

Did Lucan feel
pity
for the two of them because they loved and were in love with each other?

No, of course he didn’t. But that was different. Jordan was different from Lucan—didn’t seem to remember the complete destruction of their family that had resulted when Alexander had fallen in love with another woman.

If that was what love did to you, the fool it made of you, then Lucan didn’t want any part of it.

He stepped back abruptly now. ‘Fine.’ He nodded grimly. ‘I’ll make your excuses to the Bartons.’

‘Do that,’ Lexie rasped, still shaken by the scene that had just occurred. A fraught and emotional scene that had culminated in the chain on her precious necklace being broken.

Almost as if Lucan had known who had given her the locket and had wanted to destroy it and all it represented.

Except there was no way that Lucan could know his father and her grandmother had given her the locket on her sixteenth birthday.

Then why had he been so angry? So un-Lucan-like?

What had they been talking about immediately before he’d grabbed at her necklace?

‘Can I take it that all discussion of the possibility of the two of us “pursuing a relationship” is now at an end?’ she taunted bitterly.

‘I don’t believe it ever really started.’ Lucan looked down at her coldly.

‘No.’ Lexie’s mouth twisted ruefully; Lucan couldn’t possibly want to forget that conversation any more strongly than she did!

No doubt some women would have felt flattered by Lucan’s suggestion that the two of them stay on here for a few days and pursue an affair—and, no matter what word
Lucan might have chosen to describe it, that was exactly what it would have been. Lexie just felt insulted.

And maybe just a little flattered…?

Maybe just a little.

She might have only known Lucan for two days—was it
really
only two days since she had first met this forcefully arrogant and lethally attractive man?—but she already knew that he was a man who admitted to few, if any, weaknesses. Acknowledging desire for her was definitely a weakness coming from a man whose air of complete detachment proclaimed he didn’t need anyone or anything, and never had.

He didn’t need her, either, Lexie told herself ruefully; Lucan wanted her, desired her, wanted to go to bed with her, but he didn’t
need
her.

Her chin rose as she looked up at him defiantly. ‘Isn’t it time you were going to the Bartons?’

His mouth tightened at her obvious dismissal. ‘They aren’t expecting us for another hour.’

‘So you thought you might be able to fit in a quickie before you left? ‘ she scorned.

Lucan’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Someone should have washed your mouth out with soap when you were younger!’ he rasped. ‘And, just for the record, Lexie—if I ever take you to bed, then it won’t be for a quickie!’

The implication of it being the opposite made Lexie’s cheeks burn, her breasts tingle and that unfamiliar warmth build between her thighs. ‘Luckily for both of us that was always a very big if,’ she came back scathingly.

‘Luckily, yes.’ He nodded abruptly.

They were going nowhere with this conversation, Lexie realised heavily. ‘I’m going upstairs to put this away and then to read.’ She cradled her broken necklace tightly to
her chest. ‘I expect you’ll have gone if I come back downstairs.’

Lucan deeply regretted that he had ever suggested the two of them do anything about the desire that seemed to flare between them more and more often the longer they were together.

All he had to do now was convince his still raging arousal of how stupid that suggestion had been!

‘I expect I will,’ he agreed harshly. ‘If you change your mind about allowing me to have your necklace repaired—’

‘I won’t,’ she assured him quickly.

The way her fingers tightened instinctively about the piece of jewellery, almost as if she expected Lucan to try to wrench it out of her hand again at any moment, only served to convince him that the locket did have emotional significance to her. To the extent that Lexie didn’t even like the thought of Lucan touching it again, let alone allowing him to take it out of her possession.

His jaw tightened. ‘My business here is finished, and so, weather permitting, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know we’ll be able to leave first thing in the morning.’

‘Ecstatically pleased,’ she acknowledged tautly.

There was nothing more to be said, Lucan realised. Certainly nothing more he should do.

The fact that he had admitted his desire for Lexie to the extent that he had suggested they stay on here together for a few days and pursue that desire was already much more than he had ever intended to do where this woman was concerned.

Apart from the light that had been left on in the kitchen, the house was in complete darkness when Lucan returned after spending a couple of hours at the Bartons’ cottage,
assuring him that Lexie had gone to bed in his absence—as she had said she would.

Before or after she had eaten?

Why should it matter to Lucan whether or not Lexie had eaten any supper? She was a grown woman and quite capable of taking care of herself.

He
wasn’t responsible for Lexie having refused the Bartons’ dinner invitation. She had already done that before the conversation that had so angered her and resulted in him accidentally breaking the necklace that obviously meant so much to her.

Nevertheless, Lucan found himself striding past the bedroom he had opted to use for the duration of his stay to Lexie’s bedroom, farther down the darkened hallway, where he could see a shaft of light showing beneath the door. She was obviously still awake. But doing what? Reading, as she had suggested she might? Or perhaps sitting there plotting a way she could leave?

Lucan frowned as he heard the sound of movement inside the bedroom. A door closed softly—possibly the one to the adjoining bathroom—and then there was the soft pad of bare feet walking across the carpeted floor.

Was it just Lexie’s feet that were bare? Or had she just taken a bath or shower prior to going to bed and was now completely naked on the other side of this door?

Lucan’s hands clenched at his sides as he was instantly beset with an image of Lexie’s lithely compact body, completely naked, proud up-tilting breasts tipped with those rosy aureoles above a flat and toned stomach, the gentle slope of her hips above a silky triangle of curls nestling between her thighs, slender and graceful legs.

Dear God…!

Lucan shook his head to try and clear it of that erotically seductive image, hoping—needing—to stop the arousal that
had instantly gripped his own body. Knowing he had failed as his erection stirred and lengthened, pressing against the restraint of his denims, its hard throb becoming a burning ache.

He should go back to his own bedroom. Now. Away from the temptation of knowing that Lexie was just on the other side of this closed door. Possibly naked.

Lexie looked up with a start as a knock sounded briefly on her bedroom door only a second or so before it was opened, to reveal Lucan silhouetted in the darkness of the hallway outside.

Of course it was Lucan. How could it be anyone else when there were only the two of them in the house?

Besides, who else did Lexie know arrogant enough to walk into someone else’s bedroom as if he owned it?

He
did
own it, a little voice inside her head reminded her; Lucan owned the whole of Mulberry Hall!

Oh, shut up, Lexie told that mocking voice. The only thing that mattered was that Lucan had walked into her bedroom without being invited.

She straightened abruptly from where she had been packing the clothes she had worn today into her already full overnight bag, determined that Lucan wouldn’t know how vulnerable she felt, wearing only the white vest-top and loose-fitting grey pyjama bottoms that were her usual night attire. Not that she thought Lucan would be in the least disturbed by what she was wearing—no doubt the women who shared his bed usually wore silk and lace, and not much of it at that.

‘What do you want, Lucan? ‘ She deliberately held his gaze as she crossed the bedroom to sit on top of the gold brocade cover of the bed—she might be feeling vulnerable talking to him when only wearing her nightclothes, but she
wasn’t about to dive under the bedcovers as if she were a frightened virgin!

She could see in the softness of the lamplight that Lucan was still wearing the faded denims and grey sweater he’d changed into earlier to go to the Bartons. There was a dark frown between his eyes.

‘Lexie, do you think we could just stop the hostilities?’

Every part of Lexie, every alert—alarmed?—nerve, muscle and sinew of her body, told her that she and Lucan were incapable of talking politely to each other. That perhaps they always had been.

‘And why would we want to do that?’ she prompted warily.

‘Because, Lexie, I made a mistake earlier—for which I apologise.’ He spoke gruffly.

‘And that makes everything OK, does it?’

He breathed out exasperatedly. ‘I don’t know what else you want from me!’

What
did
Lexie want from Lucan? Something she knew she couldn’t have. Ever. Not only because Lucan had already shown himself to be a man who wouldn’t allow himself to feel deep emotion for anyone, but also because he was Lucan St Claire. And she was Lexie Hamilton. Granddaughter of the despised Sian Thomas.

She grimaced. ‘Which mistake are you apologising for, Lucan?’ she asked. ‘The suggestion we have an affair? Or the breaking of my necklace when I refused?’ Her voice hardened as she remembered the feel of the necklace snapping against her throat, and the shock of seeing it lying broken in Lucan’s hand.

His face darkened. ‘I didn’t—Damn it, you
can’t
believe I did that deliberately!’

‘No,’ she accepted heavily. ‘But the fact that it happened
is still… still indicative of how—how
destructive
this attraction between the two of us is.’ She shook her head.

‘Destructive…?’ he repeated slowly.

She nodded. ‘We hurt each other, Lucan. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes not, but one way or another we’ve been doing it since we first met.’

It was because Lucan had wanted to put things right between them that he had knocked on her bedroom door just now. Well… not the only reason, he admitted. But it had certainly entered into the equation. The rift that now existed between himself and Lexie had been at the back of his mind the whole of the time he had been at the Bartons’ cottage this evening.