She Kissed Him In Front Of Everyone To Save Him — Not Knowing That She Had Just Saved The Richest Duke
Chapter 2
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Lydia didn’t think. If she had thought, she would have stayed against the wall. She would have finished her lemonade. She would have gone home to a cramped townhouse and a quiet life.Instead, she moved.She shoved her glass onto a passing waiter’s tray, nearly overturning it, and cut across the polished oak floor. She moved with the singular, terrifying momentum of a woman with nothing to lose. The heat of the room pressed against her, but she felt only ice in her veins.Lady Rutledge’s mouth opened. The scream was forming.Lydia reached the alcove. She didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the stranger’s forearm, her grip tight enough to bruise through the heavy wool of his sleeve, and yanked him away from Agatha with a violent jerk.The man spun toward her, startled, his dark eyes wide with sudden confusion."There you are!" Lydia said.Her voice was too loud; it cut through the murmurs of the crowd like a cracked bell. Before he could speak, before Agatha could recover her footing, before Lady Rutledge could loose her scream, Lydia grabbed the heavy lapels of his coat, pulled herself up on her toes, and crashed her mouth against his.It wasn’t a romantic kiss. It was an assault.Their noses bumped—a sharp, ungraceful crack of cartilage that made Lydia’s eyes water. She tasted surprise, the metallic tang of fear, and the undeniable heat of another human being. He was solid, like a wall of granite draped in expensive fabric.For one agonizing second, the man was rigid, completely, terrifyingly still. He was a statue she was clinging to in the middle of a hurricane. Lydia clamped her eyes shut, pressing harder, willing him to understand: Play along. For God’s sake, play along.The scent of him filled her senses—not the heavy, cloying cologne of the ballroom, but something grounding: rain on hot stones, cedarwood, clean soap.Then his body shifted.The stiffness melted into something entirely different. A large, warm hand settled flat against the small of her back. The touch burned through the layers of her silk gown and corset. He didn’t push her away. He stepped into the kiss, angling his head to correct the clumsy collision of their noses, his mouth softening, taking control of the desperate press of her lips.Lydia’s breath hitched in her throat. Her heart, which had been hammering with panic, suddenly missed a beat. He wasn’t just playing along; he was answering.The noise of the ballroom evaporated: the scrape of the violins, the hum of gossip, the clinking of glasses—it all dropped away into a heavy, ringing silence.Lydia pulled back, gasping softly, her chest heaving.The man looked down at her. His eyes were not brown, as she had thought from a distance, but a dark, turbulent gray. They were sharp—intensely, frighteningly sharp—and deep within them, a flicker of dark amusement danced."My apologies," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated in his chest beneath her hands. "I lost my way."