She stuck her mobile in the pocket of the black trousers she wore and moved over to the windows. The gallery was set up over the back of the house and looked out over the tangle of the back gardens that led straight into the brooding moors. There was a full moon tonight, tossing a spooky sort of silvery light here and there, silently moving in and out of the clouds, and making the whole of Yorkshire seem to gleam.
If gloomily.
Maybe it was because she was tucked away in this desolate old house. Maybe it was because the halls were always empty, the locals were unfriendly, and the nights were already starting to seem as if they lasted three times as long as the day. Maybe it was because she felt a bit too much like a gothic waiting to happen, locked away in here.
But when had she decided that she was so all right with being alone? Her goal had always been Vivi’s great marriage. She’d never thought about what she would do once that happened.
She shivered as she thought about the Duke’s mouth on hers, firm and commanding. And if the highlights of her circumscribed life were the potent, powerful dreams that shook through her every night, all featuring Hugo in searing detail, well. That was more than some people ever had. Maybe it was enough.
Eleanor took a deep breath and vowed it would be. It would have to be.
“Dare I hope that your unexpected appearance outside my private rooms is an invitation, Miss Andrews?”
Eleanor told herself she was hallucinating. Auditory hallucinations, which were really just another part of a regular old haunting, according to all the scary films she’d seen in her time.
She took her time turning to check. And it was worse than any run-of-the-mill haunting.
Hugo stood there at the other end of the long gallery. And this time, he looked exactly like a duke. Exactly like every fantasy Eleanor had ever had of a man that powerful, for that matter. He was dressed all in black and looked vaguely historical. It took her a shattering beat of her heart or two to realize it was because he wore a top hat that should have looked absurd over a long black cloak that did. Or anyway, should have. Would have, even, had another man worn it.
But Eleanor was very much afraid, as her throat went dry and her stomach twisted into something that wasn’t quite anxiety, that there was nothing Hugo could do that was truly absurd. Now when he looked the way he did.
And certainly not when he was looking at her.
“You appear to be dressed as if you’ve been off visiting Regency England,” she said dryly. And only she had to know that the dryness in her mouth was more physical response to him than any attempt on her part to sound indifferent.
“Naturally,” Hugo said, as if an agreement. “I’ve been out terrifying the tenants and topping barmaids in my stagecoach.” He raised a brow. “Or possibly I was attending a Halloween party, complete with fancy dress. You must be aware that it’s the end of October.”
She was aware of almost nothing but him. That was the terrifying truth that seared its way through her then, making her entire body feel...different. As if there was a fire in her bones, and it was changing her. Or had already done so, dream by dream, without her realizing it.
Hugo moved toward her in that graceful way of his, as if he was half liquid. When he drew too close, Eleanor desperately wanted to think of something appropriately boring and dampening to say—but instead found that she still couldn’t seem to think of anything at all but the sensation of his mouth on hers.
His gaze darkened, as if her thoughts were written all over her face, but if they were he didn’t say a word. He only kept moving, brushing past her and indicating that she should follow him with nothing more than a supremely arrogant tilt of his chin. And yet Eleanor found herself obeying.
As if this was as close to happy as she was likely to get.
Hugo stopped at the door at the far end of the gallery and looked back over his shoulder.
“Come,” he said, and Eleanor didn’t know if she was tempted or terrified. Or some far more potent combination of both.
All she knew was that she picked up her pace, on command.
And Hugo’s dangerous mouth curved. “Perhaps it’s time I conducted that interview, after all.”
* * *
Hugo felt like the big, bad wolf.
It was not exactly unpleasant. God knew he’d had nothing to do these past years save sharpen his fangs.
And the distance he’d put between him and this governess who shouldn’t have tempted him hadn’t dulled a thing. Not the impossible lushness of her curves or that tiny waist that mesmerized him. Not her apparent inability to cower before him like almost every other person he encountered in this house.
Above all, it had failed to dull his reaction to her.
He was hard and needy in an instant, and inviting her into his private library was only going to make it worse. He knew he shouldn’t do it. He knew better than to tempt himself—because when had he ever resisted temptation?
But when his hand was on the door, she stopped, and she looked at him as if she was fighting her way out of a magic spell.
“I can’t... Is that your bedroom?”
Hugo was merely a man. And not a good one. It took everything he had not to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off to his actual bedroom.
“That tone of voice would be so much more effective if you were clutching a strand of pearls, I think,” he said instead, like a bloody saint. Maybe that was why he sounded so gruff. “As it is, the offended virgin act needs a little bit of work.”
Eleanor blinked, and straightened. “So I should take that as a yes, this is in fact your bedchamber.”
There was no earthly reason why Hugo should be baring his teeth in a poor semblance of a smile, far too much wolf and very, very little of him—even that less than stellar man he usually was.
“If you are so eager to take to my bed, you need only ask. These games are so unbecoming, Miss Andrews. Do you not think?”
“Your Grace...”
But she didn’t turn tail and run.
Hugo smirked at her, because it was that or touch her, and once he started he doubted he’d stop for at least a week. Maybe three. She’d haunted him across the planet, with her defiant gaze and her unimpressed mouth and all of her mouthwatering curves. He’d decided that if she was going to torture him, she might as well do it in person.
“Relax. This is my library. Not a den of iniquity.” His lips twitched. “Depending, I suppose, on what books you choose to read.”
He threw the door open and strode through. He did not look behind him to see if she followed because that, too, was tempting fate.
If she was walking away from him, he didn’t know what he’d do.
The very thought appalled him. Who hadn’t walked away from England’s most reviled man? He welcomed it. He thrived on it. He certainly shouldn’t care in the least what this governess did.
But once again, she followed him, and he was forced to admit he liked it. And that there was something else simmering in him when she shut the door behind her. It felt a bit too much like relief, though Hugo knew that couldn’t be it. True villains felt nothing, through and through. They were made of stone and had no regrets.
Everybody said so.
He waved his hand at the comfortable leather chair before the crackling fire, and allowed himself a small, triumphant smile when she sat. Obediently. Despite that look in her dark eyes that suggested that at any moment, she might break for it.
Hugo told himself he wouldn’t