Chapter 8

I have done my duty by the Argyll line. I've provided my dearest love, Wallace, his heir. A more beautiful boy there never was.

~The Duchess of A

H e'd been correct in his initial assessment of Lady Raina—she was going to be a problem. He'd just underestimated all the different kinds of trouble she'd be.

Women knew how to use their wiles on weak men. In Cadogan's case? His willpower had always proven greater than the greatest temptation.

Until now.

Now, with Lady Raina jumping up and down—and in her enthusiasm setting her big, poorly bound breasts bouncing—Cadogan was only just beginning to realize how much a threat she posed to him .

Lady Raina, thankfully, remained too heady from her win to notice either Cadogan or the enormous, and more enormously inconvenient, erection he'd sprung.

Between Raina's slim waist, wide hips, and supple arse, she would make a dead man cum. That lush body of hers made for sinning, in marked contrast to her big, innocent, blue eyes, and flushed cheeks was enough to have made a monk abandon his oath of celibacy.

As badly as he'd welcome the opportunity to claim her body and mark her as his, it wasn't her siren's figure that challenged Cadogan's willpower.

Still outraged and annoyed at being tricked by Lady Raina, now that he'd found the minx safe and had her under his watch once more, he found himself able to appreciate the bold, defiant, and clever way in which she'd outmaneuvered him.

And now, she not only watched a violent sport in action, she'd thrown herself into the revelries of London's most brutal fight club.

Simpering women were something Cadogan was all too accustomed to having dealings with. Those same coquettes who batted their eyelashes and turned away in revulsion at society outside their cultivated crystal palaces.

In contrast, Lady Raina made no attempt to minimize or conceal her enthusiasm or, for that matter, feelings. That much had been true when he'd interviewed her.

Oh, she'd put on quite the show during the day, but when she'd found herself confronted, she'd faced Cadogan and his displeasure head-on.

With her still engrossed in the action, Cadogan drank his fill of the sight of her. The lady's high, defined cheeks were flushed a rosy red and her full mouth—that lower lip slightly larger than her upper—trembled with feverish excitement.

With a squeal, Lady Raina brought her clasped hands to her chest, and sank backwards into the folds of her seat. "Did you see that?"

He certainly had.

"How magnificent!" she exclaimed happily, like they were the friends, she'd naively expected they'd become. "He was smaller and lighter, and it mattered not that he appeared in every way at a disadvantage. He won, Cadogan."

As she continued prattling, he flexed his jaw.

Her happy chatter snapped Cadogan out of his moment of insanity. With the words she spoke, she may as well have been talking about the two of them; it centered him on a detail he'd be wise to never forget—she'd proven herself a crafty opponent not to be trusted or underestimated.

The curtains parted and Cadogan spun to face Scar, who'd returned with the lady's winnings. As Cadogan took the money from him, Scar's gaze slipped an appreciative eye over to the still zealously jubilant beauty.

At some point, during her rejoicing, Lady Raina lost her hat. From within her previously tight plait, flyaway, ethereal white strands had become loose.

Cadogan knew precisely how the lady looked and how she looked to Scar.

His man passed an appreciative gaze over the lady's figure.

Something primal and raw and real reared to life inside Cadogan's chest; a sensation born only of the role he'd been hired to do Raina's protector.

As if feeling Cadogan's caustic stare, Scar bowed quick, and wisely took his leave.

Once gone Cadogan put his attention back on the vexatious hoyden. Raina, in her gaiety, still remained oblivious to the fact not only someone had come and gone, but a whole unspoken exchange occurred.

Rage filled him all over again at the danger she'd put herself in and the way she'd imperiled Cadogan's revenge.

"Do you have any idea…?"

The rebuke he intended to deliver withered on the vine from which it was born.

Lady Raina remained oblivious to his censure. Bouncing on her toes, she joined the crowd in, clapping and yelling the triumphant fighter's name.

Cadogan stared, transfixed.

Lady Raina chose that moment to recall his presence.

She spun about; her eyes sparkled like a thousand stars. "Did you see…?" Her joy-filled voice trailed off. That radiant light in her eyes went out.

"What is it?" she asked haltingly.

Madness on his part, was what it was.

Swallowing a curse, Cadogan stomped over, swiped her hat off the floor and set it atop her ethereal blonde hair.

"Let's get something straight, Princess. This will be the last time you defy me."

Spots of furious color entered her cheeks. "I did not defy you, Mr. Cadogan," she raged. "Furthermore, you aren't my nursemaid or gover—"

"If you aren't a child, then start acting like it."

She gasped. "You…you…"

"Yes?" He stared at her jeeringly. "What do you have for me, Princess?"

If her cheeks turned any redder, the lady was going to go up in flames.

"Smug, pompous, condescending, stodgy, old-fashioned man ," she exclaimed, those insults all rolling together as one great disparagement.

Old-fashioned? Stodgy ? That'd been the first time in his miserable life those slights had been tossed his way.

He kept his features even and let Raina to her fury.

Raina shot back, jabbing a long, slender, finger against his chest. "From the moment we met, you set up terms. You expected my obedience and set demands like I'm a girl. I'd say doing precisely what I want and when I want, are the actions of a grown woman."

She took a breath.

But wasn't done.

"And if you think I'm going to allow you to bully me, you are certain to be disappointed, Mr. Cadogan."

God, with her pluck, Cadogan didn't know whether he wanted to kiss the lady mindless or turn her over his knee and spank the impertinence out of her.

Both prospects sent a bolt of lust through him.

He flashed a grim smile. "From this point forward, there'll be no escaping me. You can count on me being your shadow."

The long, graceful column of her throat moved rhythmically in a smooth glide. "Is that a threat?"

"No." It was about protecting her. "I don't go around making idle threats."

The air crackled.

Lady Raina darted her tongue out and as she trailed that delicate tip of flesh over her lush mouth, his gaze automatically followed those movements.

In his years of work, a large number of women attempted to break him of his secrets before he broke them of theirs. They'd been skilled, inventive, nubile beauties but he'd been a master of restraint.

Except, ironically, with that seductive glide of a virginal Lady Raina's tongue and imagining the endless uses he had for her mouth, all those taxing lessons and belief about his willpower were suddenly called into question.

"Here." Desire along with frustration at himself, made Cadogan's voice emerge gruff.

He stuffed the lady's winnings into her hand.

Raina dipped her gaze to those crumpled notes, but before she did, he caught more of that pious sadness creasing the corners of her eyes.

Good, she'd took his brusqueness for anger. Better that than were she to know the real truth—he wanted to fuck her senseless, here on the fringe of a bloodthirsty crowd.

Lust. That primal urge was the closest thing to emotion that Cadogan came.

His beautiful charge delicately folded her money and tucked it away inside the front of her snug-fitting jacket.

"Thank you," she murmured, and perched herself primly in her chair.

A duke's sister who expressed gratitude to her inferiors. This certainly marked a first among the nobility.

Cadogan remained standing. This intolerable awareness of his tempting charge required he have some physical distance from her.

He grunted. "Another wager, Princess?"

"I…" She tipped her neck back, at an awkward angle, that'd give her a hell of a crick. "Won't you sit, Mr. Cadogan?"

His shaft stirred, and at nothing more than Lady Raina's innocent, lilting invitation.

Evading her attempt to get him in that chair, Cadogan quirked his lips in a wry half-grin. "I'll stand."

Lady Raina ran her gaze over his face. "I see."

Cadogan waited.

"I'm well aware of how you view me," she said melancholily.

"Oh?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"You think me capricious, reckless."

Correct. Correct.

"Imperious," she added.

Also, correct, but not in the negative way her tone suggested.

The lady continued her enumeration. "Bothersome. Vexing."

Also, both accurate. In fairness, depending on a given moment, he varied between admiration and annoyance.

"And," Lady Raina's lower lip quivered, "you do not like me," she delivered that final one.

"Does that matter one way or another?" He didn't dislike her but let her think that.

The lady quickly averted her gaze, but not before he caught the glossy sheen in her eyes.

Over the years, countless women—and men—had employed that desperate weapon : Great, gasping sobs. Quiet weeping. Silently falling tears.

All efforts had proven futile. Cadogan couldn't be moved by small, salty drops of water.

He frowned. This woman, on the other hand, she carefully guarded her tears like they were the crown jewels.

Cadogan grunted. "I don't like anyone."

"That I believe," she said under her breath as he effectively killed her sadness and restored her spirit.

"I expect it matters very much to you whether you are revered."

"I don't need to be revered," she said tightly.

He ignored that. "Given you are the darling of the ton , I expect you become confused when receiving anything less than complete and total adoration, but not being the recipient of those sentiments, you've come to expect isn't necessarily the insults you take them for."

Her entire body jerked; her perfectly beautiful features spasmed.

Cadogan tacked on ‘uncomfortable with blunt truths' to the lady's personality. Though, invariably women of all stations were.

"It appears I was right about your opinion, after all," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Her earlier joy at being here now faded, stared not at the latest match unfolding, but at her lap.

Strange, she appeared to truly care what he thought.

As soon as the fantastical possibility slipped in, Cadogan frowned. An ethereal beauty such as Lady Raina didn't give two shites what a man such as him thought about her very-near-royal self.

This beauty dripped artlessness and innocence but had already proven herself to be a most cunning schemer.

As he waged a silent battle with the randy fellow inside his trousers bewitched by the spirited chit, he forcibly reminded himself—once a duper, always a duper.

And he'd never underestimate a soul, a second time. Not even if the minx possessed the body of Aphrodite and the spirit of a Spartan warrioress.