A Marquess' Forbidden Desire (Steamy Historical Regency)

by Lucinda Nelson

  When he’d been young and sickly, his collarbone had been horribly pronounced, on account of his slenderness. Though it was strong and well-formed now, it made him feel naked and vulnerable to have her touch him there. A place he’d always been shy of.

  He swallowed.

  Her touch went straight through his skin and to his bones. There was a new stiffness in his muscles that he couldn’t hide. Which made her peer up at him with a small frown. “Are you okay?”

  It was hard to speak, so he only nodded.

  She looked concerned for a moment longer, until it dawned on her. He watched her look down at her fingers and saw the recognition in her eyes. She knew what she was doing to him. Plucking feeling from him like music from a bow.

  She experimented with it.

  Lowered a single fingertip down his sternum.

  He shivered, which was all the approval she needed.

  Alexander couldn’t imagine a lady behaving this way. He only knew them to be reserved and – when they were not in the mood for reservation – cunning. He’d never imagined a woman being so brazen with him. So free with her touch.

  But why wouldn’t she? Perhaps this was the way life was for townsfolk. Freedom to do and feel what you wanted to.

  He swallowed when she felt the hollow at the center of his neck, which made the soft flesh push out against her finger. “You are shivering,” she whispered, in a voice raspy with power that he couldn’t begrudge her for without openly acknowledging what she was doing to him. Something a true gentleman would not have allowed himself to feel with a woman he had no intention of marrying.

  “It is cold,” he breathed, unsteadily.

  She tilted her head and traced the sharp edge of his jawline. “It’s rather warm actually.”

  Alexander looked down at her, at last, and saw those green eyes reflecting his feelings back at him. The want in them made him shiver even harder. His muscles tensed as if he meant to grab her, but he was frozen.

  They’d stopped dancing.

  He couldn’t hear the music anymore, but couldn’t be sure if it had stopped or if his senses were failing him. She was swallowing him up. Rising onto her tiptoes with a sudden intake of breath and sliding her hands onto his cheeks.

  He was going to kiss her. And damn the consequences, whatever they might be. His hands fisted the fabric at the small of her back and his head bore down towards hers.

  Their mouths were a mere breath away when a gentleman hurtled into Alexander’s back. The force of it knocked him, but he absorbed the shock to keep the woman he was holding from being toppled too. He whipped his head around and gawped over his shoulder at a horribly drunk man stumbling among the dancers.

  But nobody paid him any heed. A few men and women even smiled at him fondly. Just a drunk old man enjoying himself a little too much.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” He slurred and staggered again.

  Having decided that the man meant no harm, Alexander released his Fairy Queen and took the gentleman by the arm to steady him. “Are you alright, sir?”

  “Sir? Yes, me, quite the sir in fact, didn’t you know?”

  Alexander smiled at him and shook his head. “Perhaps you should call it a night and get some sleep.”

  The man tipped an invisible hat Alexander’s way and stumbled off, nodding and muttering to himself.

  “Are you hurt at all?” The Fairy Queen said. She put her hand on his forearm. “He ran into you quite hard.”

  “I am-” Anything but fine, given that their kiss had just been stopped in its tracks. “Fine,” he concluded, with a false smile.

  ***

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of Baron Westlake

  Marianne felt like she was coming out of a trance. When that man had barged into the Black Knight by accident, it had been a cold, hard smack in the face that she’d sorely needed.

  What had she been doing?

  When she’d heard his heartbeat racing and jumping as it was, she hadn’t been able to resist seeing how far her influence could go. She’d never experienced this before. This… sensual power over a man. All her life she’d been treated as the weak-willed, feeble-minded sister. Her opinions and thoughts were overlooked and she was given little to no regard by her mother more often than not.

  Yet here, with the Knight in this small town, she had a power she hadn’t ever known of. The power of a woman over a man’s body. A power that he had over her too, she was sure of it, if he’d only use it.

  And God, she wanted him to use it. More than anything she’d ever wanted before, she wanted this man to grasp at her, to kiss her, to make her heart flutter free of her body entirely.

  Touching his skin. Feeling his bones and the rise of his chest as he breathed. Smelling the sweetness of his breath and having his shivers move through her. It was an aphrodisiac as much as his manner, his handsomeness and his kindness was.

  When she’d risen onto her tiptoes to kiss him, she’d forgotten who she was. No more Lady Marianne, daughter of a Baron. She was a country girl with a desperate crush that needed gratifying. No games. No social politics. Just raw desire.

  And she’d thought he was going to kiss her too. He’d gripped her, but once they were parted by the drunken old man, she suddenly wondered if she’d imagined it.

  “Good,” she said, with a nod. “I’m glad you’re well.”

  Their closeness was shattered and nervousness descended upon her. What if someone had seen? What was she doing? What good could come of this?

  She didn’t know the answers to those questions and they were plaguing her, until the Knight touched her hand softly. “I…” he began, but nothing came of his attempt to speak for several moments. He tried again. “It’s late,” he said. “But I… I want to see you again.”

  Thank the Lord.

  “Tomorrow,” she resolved, as anxiety was once again overwhelmed by helpless want. “Same time, same place?”

  She watched him smile.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 10

  Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale

  “How did it go?”

  “That’s funny,” Julius answered.

  Alexander frowned. “Funny how?”

  “That’s a funny question, considering the shrew I was dealing with.”

  “That well, then?” Alexander smiled, amused, but his friend looked about ready to rip his own hair out. “Did she run away again?”

  “Oh no. She didn’t run away. She stayed put, but didn’t say a single word to me for the first hour. I swear, by the time she actually spoke, my throat was so sore from speaking that all I wanted was to take a vow of silence.”

  A remarkable notion for Julius, who never stopped talking. In fact, it was so remarkable that Alexander was starting to feel like a privileged observer of something extremely rare. “So you are quite over your dogged determination to win her over?”

  Julius looked shocked by this presumption. “What makes you think that?”

  “She has denied you at every turn.”

  “I do not give up that easily, my friend. Besides, as far as I can see it, I have made progress.”

  Alexander laughed outright this time and made no effort to disguise it. “Do enlighten me. How have you made progress?”

  “It is very simple. The first night she ran from me. Then she would not speak to me, but then she would.”

  “And what did you speak of?”

  “I asked her about herself.”

  “And what did she say?”

  Julius grimaced. “Does that matter? She was speaking and that is progress.”

  “What did she say, Julius?”

  He sighed before speaking, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. “At first, she would simply say, ‘I do not like that question’. But then after some time she started to say, ‘I do not like that question, but you may ask another’.”

  This bemused him. “And did you ever get a true answer?”

  “Yes! In
fact, I did!” Julius exclaimed, as if he recognized himself as the victor over some unjust but formidable foe.

  “And what was that?”

  “I asked her if she’d like some wine.”

  Alexander quirked a brow… waiting for more.

  Julius lifted his shoulder, as if he didn’t understand what Alexander was waiting for.

  “And?” He pressed.

  “And she said yes.”

  “And you think that’s progress?”

  “I will take anything I can get at this point,” Julius admitted, with another shrug. They were in the drawing room again, recovering from another mild hangover.

  “Why are you so obsessed with this girl anyway? Because she is the first to say no to you?”

  “Is that not a good enough reason?” Julius answered, so dismissively that Alexander didn’t quite believe him. For a moment, he just watched his friend. Scrutinizing his expression in the hopes of finding the truth.

  “I should not be the victim of interrogation today. I saw you with your royal Fairy, Alexander.” He was deflecting and he appeared uncomfortable, which gave Alexander all the more reason to believe that Julius felt something a little more for Becky than sport. He must like her at least a bit to continue pursuing her in the face of absolute rejection.

  “Well,” Julius pressed. “What of your night with the Queen?”

  “There is very little to say. We danced. It was nice.”

  “We danced? It was nice?” Julius mimicked. He sat up and leaned forwards with his elbows on his knees, meeting Alexander’s eye intently. “Is that all you have to say? I saw you dancing, Alexander. I saw you almost kiss.”

  Alexander didn’t want to have this conversation and his posture, as he stood, made that quite clear. “That isn’t really any of your business.”

  “It will be my business if my friend finds himself hurt.”

  “I won’t be hurt. It’s just fun. It means nothing.”

  “No?” Julius put up his hand. He was holding something. “Then I suppose you won’t mind this letter in the slightest.”

  “Who is that from?” Alexander crossed the room and snatched the letter from Julius’ hand. He knew his father’s writing the instant he saw it.

  And Julius was right. His stomach did sink. His father wanted him to come home the day after tomorrow and would not afford him anymore time in Bath. Of course, it had always been the plan to stay for just three days, but the longer he’d spent with the Fairy Queen the more he’d convinced himself that he might be able to stay a little longer. It wasn’t a conscious decision. But he hadn’t entirely accepted that they would only have one more night.

  That they would have to say goodbye tomorrow. For good. Whether Alexander had realized it or not, some part of him had been deluding itself. Had been pretending that he could continue saying, ‘I want to see you again’ to her, every night. He’d been living in a fantasy and lost touch with reality moments after he’d seen her on that first night.

  Alexander put the letter down. “Well that settles it then,” he said. And though he tried to look as if he didn’t care, his face was like cold steel. Disguising a vulnerable centrer.

  Having seen his reaction, Julius stopped teasing him after that. But he did continue to encourage him to make the most of the final night. In the only way a man could make the most of a woman.

  His words. Not Alexander’s.

  But Alexander spent the afternoon feeling desolate. Sometimes he thought that Julius pretended to be a cad. He didn’t know why. But he had experienced firsthand that, beneath all that show, Julius could be extremely selfless and kind. Yes, he loved his friend, but he could have done with kind and gentle Julius right now.

  They made their way to the fair early, on Alexander’s insistence. He wanted to cherish every moment he could.

  ***

  Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of Baron Westlake

  “We can’t go to the fair tonight, Becky.”

  Becky seemed entirely on board with this idea. “Well, my Lady, if that is what you think-”

  “Oh, but we must go! How can you say we will not!” Marianne replied. She was pacing and wringing her hands. They’d just woken up and suddenly Marianne felt torn in half by two opposing forces.

  Becky blinked. “But, my Lady, it was you who just said-”

  Again, Marianne cut her off. “It is almost as if they know, Becky! Do you think they know?”

  “How could they? We have been masked the entire time.”

  “But the letter.” She’d received that morning. It hadn’t said anything about the fair, but Marianne had felt so frantic upon reading it that she wondered if it was one of her mother’s nasty tricks. If she was giving her the opportunity to come clean, before she exposed her.

  “I didn’t expect them to write,” Marianne said. “I thought they’d be too busy with the season. All this time I’ve been able to pretend that I am another person. That they don’t exist, for a short time, and this has shattered that illusion, Becky. What do I do?”

  Becky did not answer, because there was no obvious answer available to them. Predominantly because the problem existed in Marianne’s head and heart. “How am I to pretend to be someone else when I myself am not convinced of it anymore? I am Lady Marianne Purcell. Daughter of the Baron of Westlake. I am not a country girl. That is the truth.”

  “If you do not want to go,” Becky said, with a soft voice. “Then we do not have to, my Lady. This can all end now if you want it to.”

  “But do I want it to? Will I sacrifice my last night with him because I am afraid?”

  “What frightens you so?”

  She squeezed her lips together as if she meant to answer, but nothing came. Because she wasn’t sure what she was afraid of. Or, rather, she was afraid of so many things. Her family learning the truth. The Black Knight learning the truth. Falling in love when nothing could come of it. Yes… that, more than anything.

  “I…”

  “My Lady?”

  “Becky, I’ve never felt this way before. It frightens me.”

  “Your feelings for the gentleman…” Becky deduced.

  Marianne nodded. “I feel such strong things for him. And I know that they will only grow stronger tonight. That is dangerous, is it not?”

  Becky’s sad countenance was answer enough.

  “There’s no hope for him and I, is there?”

  “Is that what you want, my Lady? All of him?”

  She gnawed her lip, considering this weighted question. Then she nodded, slowly. “I think it is.”

  Becky took her hands and squeezed them. Before this trip away, she never would have touched her without permission. Not as a maid. But they’d been brought closer by this experience and Marianne gripped her hands in turn. “I am so sorry, my Lady.”

  “Have you ever been in love, Becky?”

  She shook her head. “I have not been so lucky.”

  Marianne laughed sadly. “I do not feel very lucky now.”

  “Do you truly think that you are in love?”

  “I can’t be sure. At the very least, I may be falling in love. Surely the clever thing to do would be to leave tonight and try to forget about the Knight.”

  “But could you forget? Because if you are already in too deep, you might as well cherish your final moments.”

  Marianne didn’t answer. Her eyes were shining and she was staring at Becky.

  “My Lady,” she squeezed her hands as she spoke. “You have been clever all your life. You have done everything that is expected of you. And it has not made you happy. Take these precious moments of happiness.”

  Marianne offered her a wobbly smile. “I thought you did not want to see the White Knight again.”

  She smiled. “I will suffer him for your sake.”

  Marianne leaned closer, suddenly taken by such a fierce feeling of affection. “Oh I do adore you, Becky. That is another reason I don’t want to go back. I feel that you and I are true friends
now. That we can be free with one another in a way that we couldn’t be as lady and maid.”

  This made Becky’s eyes twinkle with watery feeling. “I feel the same way, my Lady,” she whispered. “But perhaps, in private, we can still have this friendship between us?”

  Marianne nodded. “I would like that very much. If I am to miss the Knight, I cannot bear to miss you too.”