Griffin Stone: Duke of Decadence. Кэрол Мортимер
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have important estate business in need of my urgent attention this morning, so perhaps you might find some way of amusing yourself until luncheon?’ He moved to once again sit behind his desk.
He put a necessary distance between the two of them, while the desk now hid the physical evidence of his arousal.
Hell’s teeth, he was an experienced man of two and thirty, and far from being a callow youth to be so easily aroused by a woman he had just met. He was also a man who would never again allow himself to fall prey to the vulnerabilities of any woman.
That particular lesson had also been taught to him only too well. His softness of heart had been one of the reasons he had allowed Felicity to charm him into taking her as his wife. Unbeknown to him, Felicity’s father, an earl, had been in serious financial difficulties, and a duke could hardly allow his father-in-law to be carried off to debtors’ prison!
Bella felt utterly bewildered by Griffin’s sudden rejection of her.
Had she done something wrong to cause him to react in this way?
Been too clinging? Too needy of his comfort?
If she was guilty of those things then surely it had been for good reason?
She felt totally lost in a world that she did not recognise and that did not appear to recognise her. Could she be blamed for feeling that Griffin Stone, the aloof and arrogant Duke of Rotherham, was her only stability in her present state of turmoil?
Blame or otherwise, Bella now discovered that she had resources of pride that this austere Duke’s dismissal, the ugliness of her gown, or her otherwise bedraggled and bruised appearance, had not succeeded in diminishing.
Her chin rose. ‘I believe I do like books, Your Grace.’ Stiltedly she answered his earlier question. ‘Perhaps I might borrow one from this library and find somewhere quiet so that I might sit and read it?’
Griffin was feeling a little ashamed of the abruptness of his behaviour now. The more so because he had seen Bella’s brief expression of bewilderment at his harsh treatment of her.
Before it was replaced with one of proud determination.
Even wearing that overlarge and unflattering pale blue gown, her feet bare but for her stockings, and with her hair styled so unbecomingly, Bella now bore an expression of haughty disdain worthy of his severe and opinionated grandmother.
The tension eased from his shoulders at that expression, and he settled back against his leather chair. ‘If you wish it you might ask Pelham for a blanket, and then go outside and sit beneath one of the trees in the garden. Although I advise that you walk on the safety of the grass until your new footwear arrives,’ he added dryly.
Her look of hauteur wavered slightly as she now eyed him uncertainly. ‘I might go outside?’
‘You are not a prisoner here, Bella,’ Griffin answered irritably. ‘Any restrictions placed on your movements, while you are here, will only be for your own safety and never as a way of confining you,’ he added with a frown.
The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed before answering. ‘And what if we were never to discover who I really am?’
Then he would keep her.
And buy her dozens of pretty gowns of a fit and colour that flattered her, and the slippers to match. Then he would feed her until she burst out of those gowns and needed new ones, her cheeks rosy with—
Griffin’s mouth firmed as he brought an abrupt halt to the unsuitability of his thoughts. He could not keep Bella, even if she were foolish enough to want to stay with him. She was not a dog or a horse, and a duke did not keep a young woman, unless she was his mistress, and Bella was far too young and beautiful to be interested in such a relationship with a gentleman so much older than herself.
Nor did Griffin have any interest in taking a mistress. A few hours of enjoyment here and there with the ladies of the demi-monde was one thing, the setting up of a mistress something else entirely.
Even if his physical response to Bella was undeniable.
‘People do not just disappear, Bella,’ he now bit out grimly. ‘Someone, somewhere, knows exactly who you are.’
Bella supposed that had to be true; after all, she could not have just suddenly appeared in the world as if by magic.
Oh, but it had been so wonderful, just for those few brief seconds, to imagine being allowed to stay here. To remain at Stonehurst Park for ever, with this proud and arrogant Duke, who she was sure had a kind heart, despite the impression he might wish to give to the contrary. After all, he had not hesitated to care for her, despite the circumstances under which he had found her.
She felt sure that a less kind man would have handed her over to the local magistrate by now, in fear she might be a criminal of some sort, rather than allowing her to remain in his household. For if it transpired she was a thief, then he could not be sure she might not steal all the family silver before escaping into the night. And she might do so much more if she were more than a thief...
No, despite his haughty aloofness, his moments of harshness, and that air of proud and ducal disdain, Bella could not believe Griffin to be anything other than a kind man.
Besides which, she had not imagined the physical evidence of his desire for her a few minutes ago.
She looked at him shyly from beneath her lashes. ‘Then I can only hope, whoever they might be, that they do not find me too quickly.’
Exactly what did she mean by that? Griffin wondered darkly.
He had come to Stonehurst Park for the sole purpose of finding Harker; the last thing he needed was the distraction of a mysterious woman he found far too physically disturbing for his own comfort!
A conclusion he was perhaps a little late in arriving at, when that young woman currently stood before him, barefoot, and a guest in his home...
The mysteries of her circumstances aside, Bella was something of an unusual young woman. The slight redness to her eyes was testament to the fact that she had been recently crying, which he was sure any woman would have done given her current situation. But most women would also have been having a fit of the vapours at the precariousness, the danger, of their present dilemma. Bella appeared calm, almost accepting.
As evidence that she did not, as he suspected, suffer from amnesia at all?
He looked at her coldly from between narrowed lids. ‘The sooner the better as far as I am concerned.’
Bella frowned at the coldness of his tone. Just when she had concluded that Stone must be a kind man he did or said something to force her to decide the opposite. As if in self-defence?
She turned away to look at the shelves of books so that he should not see the hurt in her eyes, glad when the heaviness of her heart lightened somewhat just at the sight of those books. As proof that she did indeed like to read?
She took a novel down from the shelf. ‘I believe I shall read Sense and Sensibility. I have read it before, but it has long been a favourite of—’ Bella broke off, her expression one of open-mouthed disbelief as she realised what she had just done. ‘Oh, my! Did you hear what I said?’ she prompted eagerly.
The Duke’s mouth twisted without humour. ‘I believe that happens sometimes with people who have lost their memory. They recall certain likes and dislikes, such as a foodstuff, or a book they have read, but not specifics about themselves.’
‘Oh.’ Bella’s face dropped in disappointment. ‘I had thought for a moment that I might be recovering my memory, and so relieving you of my presence quite soon, after all.’
Griffin knew that he deserved her sharpness, after speaking to her so abruptly and dampening her enthusiasm