No, Boadicea. You must not harbor such thoughts.
What had he said? Oh, yes. The book.
“I thought you’d burned it,” she reminded him, her lips curving with a knowing smile.
His confiscation of her book still nettled her, and she couldn’t resist the urge to needle him in turn. Of course he hadn’t burned it. Indeed, she’d wager he was reading it just as she’d accused. His flush had said enough.
The flippancy fled from his expression, and he was once more his customary self, all angles and irreproachable lines. He glowered. “Of course I did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t suspect you of infiltrating my library again with the hopes of proving me wrong.”
She pursed her lips, noting that his gaze lowered and clung to her mouth for a beat before raising once more. “Do you think me a fool, Your Grace?”
He appeared to consider her words. “I think you impulsive, obstinate, and improper. But not a fool, I don’t believe.”
“How gratifying.” Her eyes narrowed. Irksome man. “Why should I imagine you would hide my stolen book in plain sight? Or are you truly that lacking in imagination? One does wonder.”
His brows snapped together in an eloquent illustration of hauteur. “What else would explain your presence here when you’ve already been informed you are most unwelcome?”
“Was I meant to think myself unwelcome?” She favored him with her most winsome smile. “I confess, your conduct yesterday left me with a distinctly different impression, Your Grace.”
His expression remained impassive. Cold and superior. The vulnerability he’d shown her that morning was nowhere to be found. “You’re the most forward bit of baggage I’ve ever met.”
She raised a brow. “Touché, for you’re the most insufferable lout I have ever met.”
“Indeed.” Somehow, he could infuse even a mere word with condescending scorn.
Truly, it made no sense that a man so unyielding could also be capable of kissing her senseless. That a man imbued with such ice was also filled with fire. She found herself staring at his mouth, recalling how those sensual, defined lips had melded perfectly to hers, coaxing and possessing all at once.
She shouldn’t wish to kiss him now, particularly when he was being such a beast. Particularly when every scrap of common sense told her to flee from a marriage with him and from Boswell Manor altogether. But somehow, when she imagined kissing him, absconding was the last thing on her mind.
How could she be so drawn to a man she also wanted to clout over the head?
Her fingers busied themselves, twisting in her silken skirts to cool her agitation. Unfortunately, the distraction did little for her peace of mind. “My sister spoke with Her Grace,” she said at last, addressing the subject they’d managed to dance around thus far.
“I am aware.” His jaw clenched as he clasped his hands behind his back, almost as if he didn’t dare trust where they would land if free.
She knew the feeling, and it left her disgruntled. Rather as she imagined a bear might feel upon being rudely stirred from her hibernation. “And?” Her limited store of patience for him ran thin. “Do stop being so loquacious, Your Grace. My ears cannot possibly stand it.”
He stared, his gaze as flinty as his tone. “Have you any manners at all, my lady?”
She refused to flinch. “I do have comportment enough to keep me from filching other people’s reading material, regardless of whether or not I agree with the subject matter.”
“There is disagreeing and there is obscenity, Lady Boadicea.” His curt tone mocked her. “You are aware of the laws in place against such filth, surely.”
Of course she was. The publisher of the book he’d taken from her had already been sent to gaol for his efforts. But she remained undeterred. Bo was not like other ladies her age, and she never had been. Once upon a time, she had wished she’d been a Lydia Trulle, all golden and lovely, simpering and petite.
Lydia Trulles were always surrounded by admirers. They were perennially thought of as pleasant and lovely. They never dumped ink on the heads of their enemies at finishing school or read wicked books or dared to consider that the world into which they’d been born was meant to be defied and questioned.
But she was no longer a naïf in short skirts, and she’d learned some time ago that being clever was of far more use than being perfect.
It was that reassurance that guided her now as she tilted her head back and considered the handsome, surly duke before her. “Do you mean to see me thrown into the nearest dank prison cell for daring to read the word ‘cockstand’?”
The breath hissed from his lungs, and suddenly, his hands clamped on her waist as he thrust her back against the bookshelves. She released her skirts to grip his upper arms, finding purchase after his sudden movement lest she tip to either side and upend herself before him. The knot of braids at her crown met with the resistance of half a dozen leather-bound books.
“Do you have no shame?” he demanded.
Perhaps she had pushed him too far. But if anyone needed pushing, it was the Duke of Bainbridge. “None,” she said blithely, gifting him with a serene smile that was all bravado, full stop.
His nostrils flared. Those vibrant, emerald eyes glittered with repressed emotion. “What are you to my brother?”
His question took her by surprise, and landed somewhere in the region of her heart with enough force to rekindle the niggling sense of guilt that had not left her since she’d lost her head with Bainbridge yesterday. She liked Lord Harry. He was handsome in a boyish manner, and quick to laugh but slow to anger. Even in appearance, he was the opposite of the duke, all golden-haired and blue-eyed in contrast to Bainbridge’s dark hair, exotic eyes, and beautiful yet severe face.
“Lord Harry is my friend,” she said, struggling to explain, for she’d suspected his feelings toward her ran in a deeper, far different vein than hers to him. But she’d been too caught up in wanting someone—anyone—to aid her and Clara with their Lady’s Suffrage Society that she hadn’t thought to discourage him.
The duke’s eyes settled on her mouth. “Have you kissed him?”
The notion filled her with unease. An awkward, unintentional laugh escaped, proof of how discomfited the duke rendered her. “That is hardly any business of yours.”
Bainbridge’s mouth tightened. “As your future husband, I would disagree.”
Future husband.
The words seemed to suspend between them.
Something foreign and warm slid through her, straight to her core where it pulsed like an ache. Only it wasn’t an ache, not precisely. Rather, it was a strange feeling. Overwhelming.
She exhaled slowly, rallying her wayward thoughts back into battle formation. “I have yet to agree to marry you, Your Grace.”
One of his hands left her waist to slide into the hair at her nape as though finding its home. “Answer the bloody question.”
She’d wrung a curse from his perfect lips, and that small victory left her gratified. “No. I have not kissed Lord Harry.”
Her answer made him roll his lips together for a moment before he sighed and tilted his head, considering her in that manner of his that was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. She couldn’t tell if he liked what he saw or if he inventoried her like a chemist taking stock of his wares, finding her lacking.
“He fancies himself in love with you,” Bainbridge said with cool, calm precision.
As though his tall, lean body wasn’t crowding against her. As if his mouth weren’t near enough to kiss. As though they discussed a banality such as the new electrical marvels in London rather than their combined futures.
She swallowed. “I am sorry if he feels an emotion which I cannot return. You may think what you like of me, Your Grace, but my sole intention in coming here to Boswell Manor was to win a champion for my cause. Your brother is progressive enough in his views, and his desire to ally himself politically with Thornton seemed the perfect foil.”
He stiffened. �
�You used your wiles upon him, then, intending to manipulate him into doing as you saw fit?”
This was a different sort of tête-à-tête. She wasn’t certain if he was angry, irate, jealous, or protective. Perhaps all of them at once? Bo blinked. “I daresay no one has ever before accused me of using wiles. It sounds inherently nefarious, almost as if I am some sort of villainess who beguiled your poor brother into spending time in my company. Tell me, is my conversation that boring, my mind so banal, that I could only cozen a man into speaking to me by using wiles upon him?”
“Damn you, is there nothing you take seriously?” he snapped, his fingers tunneling deeper into her hair, caressing over her skull with a gentleness that belied his tone and demeanor both.
“I take marriage seriously,” she said then, sobering. His warm breath teased over her lips in the precursor to a kiss that her body wanted more than her mind did. She forced herself to focus, to remain impervious. “What manner of husband will you be, Duke?”
He had already been a husband once, and the knowledge settled between them like a boulder, unwanted and hard. Dangerous, even. She didn’t like to think of his past, of whatever had happened between him and his dead wife. Had he been responsible? Were the gossips and his mother both right? Another emotion—sharp and stinging—cut into her when she thought of how her predecessor had seemed to break him.
She could recognize it for what it was: jealousy.
How foolish. How selfish. She resented a ghost.
A mocking smile flitted over his sensual mouth before disappearing. Lines grooved the skin bracketing his lips as they firmed into a forbidding frown. “I’m no bloody good at being a husband, Lady Boadicea. Just as I suspect you will be no bloody good at being a wife. All I ask is that you not embarrass me. I’ll not be made a cuckold.”
Her cheeks heated. Of course he would think her fast, given her freedom of speech and her propensity toward the improper, not to mention his cavalier treatment of her and her shameless inability to resist him. She would not be made to feel ashamed of who she was, however. The Lady Lydia Trulles and Duchess of Cartwrights of the world could still go hang for all she cared. But she rather found herself wishing that the Duke of Bainbridge hadn’t judged her. He was too intelligent, she was certain, not to realize that not everyone needed to endorse the same mores.
That different wasn’t necessarily a threat. That the act of judging others did not render one better than those being judged, but rather the opposite instead.
“I thank you for your confidence in my ability,” she said airily to veil her wounded pride. “If you are to be believed, we can both rest comfortably tonight in the knowledge that neither of us will make a decent helpmate to the other and that we will rue the day we married. I am certain we shall be gloriously happy in our shared misery. Tell me, Your Grace, have you a mistress?”
“That is none of your concern.”
“It is if you wish me to marry you.” On this, she would draw her battle lines. Lady Boadicea Harrington did not accept hypocrisy in any of its varied forms.
“No,” he bit out.
“That would explain a great deal,” she muttered, hoping that his reaction to her was not solely borne of his lack of bed chamber romping. After all, she had read a great deal of her brother’s naughty books. She liked to think she knew at least a bit about the complicated dealings between man and woman.
“Jesus Christ.” He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them once more. “Are you always this way?”
But as he asked the question, his voice so patently irritated, those adroit fingers of his teased her with long, slow strokes through her coif.
“This way?” She leaned into his touch, in spite of herself.
“You’re an aberration,” he accused, but without bite. “You are the most inappropriate, bold, insulting, insinuating lady I know.”
“I will accept your compliment,” she told him gravely. “As for the announcement this evening…I have not acquiesced.”
He made a sound of impatience deep within his throat. “This, at least, is a road we’ve traveled before. Do you wish to ruin Thornton and his marchioness?”
He had her there. She searched his handsome face, wishing she could read him, but he remained impenetrable as ever. At last, she gave in. “You know that I do not.”
He inclined his head. “Just as I do not wish to expose my family to further ruinous gossip after they’ve already been forced to endure so much. We are in agreement, then. For the sake of our families, it is in our best interest to announce our betrothal this evening during the course of the ball. We will dance together, act the part of a couple in love, and wait until the thing is well underway and everyone half in their cups before doing so.”
“I’m sure it isn’t in our best interest.” She forced herself to move. Three steps to the right, and she was removed from his touch and the charmed sphere of his heat. She could breathe again. No kisses had occurred. Her sanity, she fervently hoped, was restored. “But I will accept your offer of marriage just the same.”
pencer’s hand shook as he lifted a champagne flute to his lips and downed the entire contents of the glass in one swig. He detested balls. He deplored announcements. He bloody well loathed the institution of marriage. He no more wanted to entrap himself within its strangling confines again than to leap from the roof of Boswell Manor. His brother couldn’t stand to speak to him. His proper mother was horrified at what he’d done, so much so that she’d burst into tears when he’d sought her out yesterday evening. The unshakable dowager had been inconsolable.
He couldn’t blame her. Good God, everything about the events of the last two days left him reeling and ashamed.
And in a perpetual state of arousal. There was the crux of it. He wanted Lady Boadicea in a way that defied logic, for he abhorred her cavalier manner, her insouciance, the bloody bold way she walked into a room crowded with a hundred other guests and drowned out the sight of anyone else.
His eyes lit on her, and he couldn’t tear them away. Drinking in her beauty made a strange, heavy sensation settle in his gut. His future wife had dressed for his mother’s Welcoming Ball as though she’d gone into mourning, and perhaps indeed she had. Her entire gown was fashioned of silk and lace the same hue as a raven’s wing. Its exacting style—emphasizing her narrow waist, clinging to her luscious bosom, and glittering with a lace and jet bead overskirt—would have rendered any other woman wan and severe.
Not Lady Boadicea.
Rather, the black magnified her beauty, providing the perfect contrast to her creamy skin and fiery locks, which had been piled high atop her head in loops, showing her elegant throat to advantage. Three-quarter length sleeves capped her delicately rounded shoulders, leaving her supple upper arms bare. She was vibrant enough not to require any ornamentation at all, whether it be color or gem.
A fringe of small curls kissed the sides of her face, forcing his gaze inevitably to her berry-red lips and that taunting beauty mark hovering at the corner. She was ten paces away and he could still make it out, though whether from memory or acute vision, he couldn’t be sure.
He should have kissed her earlier that afternoon in his library, should have taken that soft mouth and owned it until she fed him the honey-sweet sighs that had been driving him mad since he’d first heard them the day before. But he had not, and now here he stood, empty champagne glass in hand, mouth dry, cock straining against his trousers as the most vaunted families of the peerage tittered and conversed around him.
Before he could move across the crush to her, the familiar, lanky form of his brother appeared at her side, standing too near. Harry took her hand, raised it to his lips for a kiss that lingered.
Something within him that he hadn’t known existed clanged shut, like a trap manacling an unsuspecting animal’s paw. Spencer was dimly aware of a passing servant accepting his flute before he stalked forward. A sea of bustles and trains parted for him. Several pairs of eyes looked at him askance as he
jostled his way to Lady Boadicea. He ignored them all. He didn’t want this farce of a union any more than she did, but he would not, damn it all, allow his brother to flirt with her just prior to the announcement of their betrothal.
He reached the cozy pair, stopping only when he was shoulder to shoulder with Harry. Her exotic fragrance hit him, and before he could stop himself, he inhaled deeply. Lady Boadicea’s forehead crinkled with a pensive frown as her brilliant eyes swept from Harry to Spencer, and then back to Harry again.
Spencer didn’t like that order. Not one bloody bit. “Lady Boadicea,” he greeted her with a formal bow that would put anyone else’s to shame. Halfway mad and hunted by demons that kept him from sleep he may be, but he was the Duke of Bainbridge. Proper form had been beaten into him from the time he was a lad in leading strings. His inner beast was firmly under control tonight.
She extended her hand with flawless formality. “Your Grace.”
He accepted it. Was it his imagination, or did her tone contain a hint of censure? He favored her frown with a matching one of his own, unable to resist baiting her even if that made him an unmitigated bastard. “You are looking exceptionally saturnine this evening, my lady.”
She stiffened, her grip tightening on his as he raised her fingers to his lips at last for a slow kiss. “I’ve dressed in proper mourning attire for the loss of my freedom.”
“Bloody hell,” Harry gritted with such violence that Spencer would not have recognized his voice had not he been standing at his side. The resentment emanating from him was undeniable. “Marry me, Bo. It isn’t too late. I don’t give a damn about a scandal.”
Spencer went stiff, his body feeling as if it were drawn on a rack that would pull from every angle until he’d be torn asunder at last. Deep conflict, even after three years, still had the power to completely unravel him. It was why he had withdrawn from his seat in the House of Lords, why he never went to London, why he no longer spoke to any of his old friends. He had changed, forever. He hadn’t died that day with Millicent, but in some ways, he may as well have.
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