Distracting the Duke
Elizabeth Keysian
Publication Date: February 20, 2017
Genres: Adult, Entangled: Select, Historical Romance
Devonshire, England, 1820
Determined to avoid the strife-filled marriage of his parents, Marcus, the Duke of Ulvercombe, wants an amenable, biddable wife, and has set his cap for a certain pretty miss. Unfortunately, her vastly opinionated, frustrating, and lamentably beautiful guardian, Lady Clara Tinniswood, keeps distracting him, tempting him to consider a far more tempestuous—and passionate—union.
Recently widowed Lady Clara Tinniswood wants only to organize a quiet new life for herself, beyond the control of any man. But one shockingly unguarded moment while confronted by Marcus’s gloriously naked body catapults her headlong into a forbidden passion and threatens to undermine all her well-laid plans.
Even if Marcus abandons his sweet ideal and surrenders to his growing desire for Clara, there’s one unalterable issue which could destroy their hopes forever…
Clara
crept softly across the carpet of pine needles until she came to where a
rivulet split the dunes on its way down to the sea, and halted. She caught
sight of Ulvercombe standing at the water's edge with his back to her, hands on
his hips.
She
stepped aside swiftly, her heart beating hard. She would have to hide behind
one of the dunes to avoid being seen, if he should turn round. Fortunately, the
tide was still some way out and he was thus a considerable distance away,
giving her time to make her escape if he spotted her.
Plucking
off the old shawl she was wearing, she spread it over the grass-matted dune,
then lay down on her stomach so only her head—with the telescope pressed to her
eye—might be seen. Hopefully, with the waving sea grasses fanning across in
front of her, she was well-hidden from any casual observer.
Eventually,
she managed to locate Ulvercombe with the glass, and when she did her mouth
dropped open in shock. In the time she'd taken to settle herself, he'd stripped
off boots, stockings, jacket, and breeches, and now stood in nothing but his
shirt, looking out to sea.
Clearly,
the man had every expectation of being alone, and had no idea he was being
covertly observed. It was early in the morning, it was his beach, his pine
forest, his sand. She should back away and return to the house as quickly as
possible.
A
small attempt to move was made, but then he pulled his shirt over his head and
she was transfixed.
The
muscles rippled across his shoulders and she recalled, far too quickly, the
feel of that hot body pressed against hers.
"Drat
it!" The glass lens against her face had misted.
Crossly,
she rubbed it with a corner of her shawl, and scanned the beach again until she
found the duke.
The
completely naked duke.
Her
breath hitched in her throat. "Sweet Lord in heaven..."
It
was not the splendid symmetry of his body, nor the very pleasing curve of his
buttocks, nor even the straightness and supple power of his legs that had
elicited her exclamation of shock.
It
was the scars.
She
hadn't seen the backs of his thighs when he'd disrobed that day in his
bedchamber. Now she could see them very clearly, and she could also see a
complex pattern of pale, crisscross lines etched across the skin. They were
scars, surely?
Had he received them in
battle or in some horrible accident? Had he been taken prisoner and tortured by
the French? Maybe he'd been involved in a fire and something hot had branded
him thus.
The
chance to observe the marks more closely was abruptly removed as the duke, who
had been walking straight out into the waves, suddenly dove in with a splash
and began swimming out to sea with deft, powerful strokes.
She
shuddered. The water must be absolutely freezing. How could he stand it?
"Good
morning, Lady Tinniswood. A very fine one, is it not?"
Elizabeth Keysian felt destined to write historical romance due to her Cornish descent, and an ancestral connection to the Norse god Odin. Being an only child gave her plenty of time to read, create imaginary worlds, produce her own comics, and write sketches and a deplorably bad musical for an amateur dramatics group.
Three decades spent working in museums and archaeology fired Elizabeth’s urge to write, as did living on a Knights Templar estate, with a garage full of skeletons, a resident ghost and a moat teeming with newts.
Elizabeth lives near Bath in England with her partner and cats.
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