Sarah MacLean - No Good Duke Goes Unpunished

“Take it off,” Temple said, the words menacing in the darkness as he removed his own greatcoat and relaxed onto a nearby settee, placing one ankle on the opposite knee and draping the massive grey cloak across his lap. His face was cast in the room’s shadows.

Mara laughed, a short, humorless sound. “I suppose you think it is that simple? You command and women simply jump to do your bidding?”

“When it comes to the removal of ladies’ clothing, it often works that way, yes.” The words oozed from him, and Mara wanted to stomp her foot.

Instead, she took a deep breath and attempted to regain control. She extracted a little black book and a pencil from the deep pocket of her skirts and said, “How much does disrobing typically cost you?”

He looked as though he’d swallowed a great big insect. She would have laughed, if she weren’t so infuriated. Once he collected himself he said, “Fewer than ten pounds.”

She smiled. “Oh, was I unclear? That was the starting price of the evening.”

She opened the book, pretending to consider the blank page there. “I should think that dress fittings are another . . . five, shall we say?”

He barked his laughter. “You’re getting a selection of the most coveted gowns in London and I’m to pay you for it?”

“One cannot eat dresses, Your Grace,” she pointed out, using her very best governess voice.

It worked. “One pound.”

She smiled. “Four.”

“Two.”

“Three and ten.”

“ Two and ten.”

“Two and sixteen.”

“You are a professional fleecer.”

She smiled and turned to her book, light with excitement. She’d expected no more than two. “Two and sixteen it is.” The coal bill was paid.

“Go on then,” he said. “Off with the coat.”

She returned the book to her pocket. “You are a prince among men, truly.” She removed her coat, marching it over to where he sat and draping it over the arm of the settee. “Shall I dispense with my dress as well?”

“Yes.” The answer came from the dressmaker, feet behind them, and Mara could have sworn she saw surprise flash through Temple’s gaze before it turned to humor.

She stuck one of her fingers out to hover around the tip of his nose. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

One black brow rose. “And if I did?”

“If I’m to measure you, miss, I need you wearing as little as possible. Perhaps if it were summer and the dress were cotton, but now . . .” She did not have to finish. It was late November and bitterly cold already. And Mara was wearing both a wool chemise and a wool dress.

She placed her hands on her hips, facing Temple. “Turn around.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“I did not give you permission to humiliate me.”

“Nevertheless, I purchased it,” he said, easing back onto the settee. “Relax. Hebert has impeccable taste. Let her drape you in silks and satins, and let me pay for it.”

“You think three pounds makes me malleable?”

“I do not pretend to think you shall ever be malleable. But I expect you to honor our arrangement. Your word.” He paused. “And think—when all is said and done, you’ll have a dozen new frocks.”

“A gentleman would allow me my modesty.”

“I have been labeled a scoundrel more often than not.”

It was her turn to raise a brow. “I do believe that over the course of our acquaintance, I shall call you much, much worse.”

He did laugh then. A warm, rich promise in the dim light. A sound she should not have liked so much. “No doubt.” His voice lowered. “Surely you’re strong enough to suffer my presence while you’re in your underclothes. You’ve a chaperone, even.”

The man was infuriating. Utterly, completely infuriating. And she wanted to hit him. No. That was too easy. She wanted to addle him. To best him in this battle of wits . . . in this game of words that he no doubt won any time he played. Because it wasn’t enough that Temple was strong in the ring. He had to be strong out of the ring as well—not agile simply with bones and sinew, but with thought and word.

She’d spent a lifetime under men’s control. When she was a child, her father had made it impossible for her to live as she liked, dictating her every deed with his army of spying servants and cloying nannies and treasonous governesses. He’d been ready to sell her off to a man three times her age who would have no doubt been just as domineering, and so she’d run.

But even when she’d run, even as she’d found a life in the wilds of Yorkshire and then in the sullied streets of London, she’d never escaped the specter of those men. She’d never been able to shake off their control—and they did control her, even as they didn’t know it. They overpowered her with fear—fear of being discovered and forced back into that life she’d so desperately wanted to escape. Fear of losing herself. Fear of losing everything for which she had worked.

Everything for which she had fought.

Everything she had risked.

And now, even as she promised herself she would get what it was she wanted, she could not escape the feeling that this man was another in a long line of men who wielded power like a weapon. Yes, he wished retribution, and perhaps it was his due. And yes, she might have agreed to his demands and turned herself over to him, and yes, she would honor her word and their agreement, but she would have to face herself when all was said and done.

And she would be damned if she would fear him, too.

He was smug, and self-important, and she badly wished to give him a dressing-down.

Even if it meant she would be the one dressing down.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have said the words. Perhaps she should have held them back. Perhaps, if she hadn’t been so very irritated with him, she would have. Perhaps if she had known what would come once he heard the words . . . she would have held her tongue.

But it didn’t matter. Because instead of not saying them, she turned away, marched back to that golden pool of light, and took her place on the platform there before facing him once more, and allowing the modiste access to the buttons and fastenings on her dress.

She stared, unblinking, into the darkness, where she imagined a look of arrogant triumph spread across his face, and said them anyway.

“I suppose it shouldn’t matter. After all, it is not the first time you’ve seen my underclothes.”

Everything froze. She couldn’t have said what he thought she’d said. She couldn’t have meant what he thought she meant.

Except she clearly did, for the smug look on her face, the dancing sparkle in her knowing gaze, as though she had been waiting a lifetime to set him on his heels.

And perhaps she had.

He snapped forward in his seat, both feet firmly on the ground, the residual glow from the candles casting him in light. “What did you say?”

She raised a brow, and he knew she was mocking him. “Is there a problem with your hearing, Your Grace?”

She was the most disastrous, damaging, difficult woman he’d ever know. She made him want to upturn the dainty, velvet furniture in this utterly feminine place, and tear the clothes from his back in irritation.

He was about to stand and intimidate her into repeating herself—into explaining herself—when the fastenings of her dress came loose, and the frock fell to her feet in a remarkable, fluid swoosh, leaving her standing there in her pale wool chemise, unadorned corset, and little else.

And then he couldn’t move at all.

Goddammit.

The Frenchwoman circled Mara, considering her for a long moment while Temple attempted to find his speech.

Hebert found hers first. “She will require lingerie as well.”