Adrian could think of many other things they could have done, but he still waited. “You owe me nothing of the kind.”
“I appreciate your help. However, I do not assume that your offer had any validity. In time the story will die down, and people will forget.”
“What brought this on? Why do you insist on thinking that I’m not sincere?”
Her eyes widened as finally, she settled her gaze on his face. “Of course you are, but I put you in an untenable situation. Everyone knows you do not intend to marry. You are happy as you are. Or am I wrong?”
He allowed a small smile to curl the corners of his mouth. “You are not. Or you were not. However, I got to thinking. Why should we not go ahead with the match? What is stopping us?”
A single tear trickled from the corner of her left eye and began to meander down her cheek. Despite the jerk of her head as she turned away from him, he saw it clearly, gleaming in the bright light of the late-winter’s day.
No, she would not cry. That would not happen. Adrian urged her into his arms, although her body stiffened and at first she tried to pull away. But he did not attempt to kiss her.
His impulse took him by surprise. He despised women who used tears to manipulate men, and rarely indulged them, but Livia’s demonstration of distress only gave him the urge to hold her and soothe her troubles. These were genuine tears, rare items in his experience. She would not cry while he was there to calm her. “What is it, sweetheart? Why the tears?”
Giving up her attempt to pull away from him, she clutched his waistcoat, tucking two fingers between the buttons closest to his heart. “Because we can’t. I have to refuse you.”
Now it was Adrian’s turn to stiffen. “You have a reason?”
Of course she did. Who would want to marry him, barring an ambitious fortune-hunter?
“Yes, but I cannot tell you. It is impossible, that is all. The reason has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me!”
What on earth did she mean? “Livia there has always been honesty between us. Let that continue now. It is my reputation? Or the history of my family?”
“No!”
Her vehemence made him smile. “You don’t want to have anything to do with the Blackamoor Duke?”
She drew back, eyes sparkling with tears and anger. “No. What do you take me for?”
That was better. Her spirit had only disappeared temporarily. He preferred her like this, with anger heating her cheeks and adding sparks to her blue eyes. “A woman of sense,” he suggested, watching her closely. He still didn’t know her well enough to guess her reaction.
“Thank you.” She folded her hands in her lap again, her spine rigid, her appearance perfectly judged. He liked this austere look on her. “But my decision stands. I cannot marry you. I owe you a great deal.” She touched the gold brooch, which was pinned to her bodice. “You restored something to me that I hold precious. But I am not grateful enough to marry you for it.”
“Good.” He almost spat the world. “Gratitude is not what I’m looking for in a wife.”
“I didn’t think you were looking for anything in a wife.” She turned her head, her emotions already neatly tucked away. “You were married before. By all accounts the marriage was tempestuous.”
“Yes, it was. I was very young, but my grandfather wished to marry me off before I could blacken my reputation too much.” He used the provocative word deliberately, but he evoked no response. If she wanted to talk about Anna, he would indulge her. Nobody had more right. He’d never asked another woman to marry him since her death.
“But you were in love.”
A wry grin twisted his lips. “I thought I was, but I learned differently. Did you ever see her?”
“Of course. One could hardly miss her.”
He remembered. “Anna appreciated being the center of attention. She had risen from country miss to duchess and she enjoyed every moment of it. Her attitude attracted me.”
“It did?”
“Society called her a parvenu, an adventuress, a woman of little taste.” He gave a harsh laugh. “She held her head high through it all.”
“Because she had nothing to lose,” Livia pointed out.
Perspicacious woman. “She could have returned to the country. But why should she? Unfortunately, her attitude and beauty attracted me, and I looked no deeper. My reputation could hardly be worse. We deserved one another, people said, and indeed we did.” Perhaps he wouldn’t go into details about what they did. Besides, Livia had a cousin who did something similar, married a woman who’d set society on its ear. Except that Lord Winterton and his first wife had never evoked such condemnation or received the cut direct.
When Anna had done so, society’s response had made Adrian furious and vengeful. Perhaps a few less duels, a more circumspect arena of operations might have helped. Because after the fact, after she’d died, he’d realized she wanted acceptance all along. He genuinely didn’t care. She had.
“She was a rebellion against my grandfather, a symbol of my growing up. Except neither of us were completely grown up. We were children, playing games.” Games that had killed Anna.
“She was very beautiful,” Livia said.
Adrian tired of discussing what was gone. Dead and gone, he recalled bitterly. “So are you.” He laid his hand on top of hers, feeling how tightly she held them, how stiffly she retained her pose. “Livia, why are we discussing Anna?”
“Because you said you would never marry again. You’ve said it often.”
“Yes.” Because he never wanted to make the same mistakes again. But he would not, not with Livia. “I have changed since then.” Because of her.
He hadn’t known how much it mattered to him until just now, when the threat of losing her was presented to him. With Anna, he dared her to do something, and that was enough. Livia would laugh at him and refuse him anyway. Maturity, or just a different attitude? But Livia had more fear, and he didn’t know why.
He would find out.
“You can find someone else. Despite your—reputation, you’re a duke and you’re wealthy. Look about you.” Getting up, she crossed to the window, arms folded across her waist. “Many women will welcome your advances.”
“Even from the Blackamoor Duke?”
She didn’t turn around but stared out of the window. “You rely on that epithet. Abandon it.”
“Why should I? It has served me well over the years.” He got to his feet and strode over to join her, standing behind her. “What has attracted you out there?”
The square had its usual appearance for this time of day; a few carriages, some pedestrians, one or two street sellers and a couple of chairmen waiting for custom, their sedan chair propped on the pavement before them, effectively blocking the passage of a nanny with her small charges. The woman made a fuss of walking around them, hustling the two children before her and glaring at the men, who leaned against the rails, hands in pockets, watching her.
Vaguely amusing but not enough to hold the kind of concentrated interest Livia was giving it. Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders, the warmth of her body giving him tacit encouragement.
“Served you well?” She didn’t turn around.
“Indeed. Importunate young women anxious to become my second duchess have reconsidered, once reminded of my story.” To Livia he could not bring himself to lie. “I am a walking scandal. I should never have inherited the title, people said.” Even though they were wrong. Once his father had acknowledged him as his son, nothing could dislodge Adrian short of death. “I can do anything I want, and nothing is as bad as that.”
To his shock, she covered one of his hands with hers. He had not expected sympathy, but her warmth soothed him. “How did you bear it when you were a child?”
Recalling times when people had shouted names at him in the street, told him to get to
the plantations where he belonged, or worst of all, turned their backs, Adrian closed his eyes. Anger had driven him then, and a sense of injustice that had never left him. Still drove him to perform his most outrageous acts. “I bore it,” he said briefly.
“It does you no good. Stop using it. Then other people will.”
“It’s a familiar stick to thrash me with.”
“Don’t let it hurt you.” The pressure on his hand warmed him far more than it should.
An opening. He wouldn’t be the man he was if he didn’t press his advantage. “Then stay with me and help me.”
“What?”
Releasing his hand, she spun around to face him, a frown between her delicate brows. “What do you mean? You know we cannot marry. I told you as much.”
“But if you refuse me after last night, you’ll be labeled a flirt and a jilt. And worse.”
Her shrug did not disguise the pain in her eyes. “Then that will happen. Since I do not intend to marry, that won’t matter.”
“That is foolishness. You aren’t even thirty yet. You will marry.”
She shook her head with a vehemence that told him more than he suspected she meant to. “No, I will not.”
“You can hardly hold men off for the rest of your life. You’re beautiful, Livia, accomplished and wealthy.”
Again, a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m used to fending them off. Besides, if I refuse them all, I won’t be trapped, will I?”
Something had happened to hurt her. Deeper than he’d suspected too, because that pain did not indicate the usual turmoil of youthful passion. He had assumed some disappointment had marked her, and she had dwelled on it. He’d assumed too much. She was not the spoiled beauty he had thought her on their first meeting. Though why she’d had such a reaction to the orphanage still eluded him. Violent and unreasonable. She could have waited for her carriage, but she’d run out into the street, endangering herself. From what she’d just said, she knew the dangers of an action. Her hair made her distinctive, easy to spot, as did the richness of her clothes. A fortune hunter could have swept her up in the street, and God knew that had happened more than once. The papers were full of the news, and a law had recently been enacted to prevent the spate of abductions.
Why would she lose her head? Before he left London, he would make more enquiries. Perhaps Mickey could help. It had something to do with that damned brooch, he was sure of it. He had not mentioned it since he’d returned it, but that lock of hair in the compartment at the back was the real treasure, not the brooch itself. Who had it belonged to?
To discover more, he had to keep her close, protect her.
“I have something to tell you,” she said hesitantly, fear shadowing her eyes. “Something you’ll find shocking. Unacceptable.”
What could this sweet woman tell him that would shock him? He doubted anything could. “I swear, anything you say will not deter me. Consider this, sweet Livia. Accept my proposal.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he touched her lips with his finger. The softness beguiled him, but he could not let her distract him until he’d had his say. “We know what this is. But for both our sakes, go ahead with it. Your father has invited me to your home for the Christmas season. We present ourselves to society, sign the contract and I will come to Derbyshire. We will let the betrothal continue. Society will see us together, and at the beginning of the season after Easter, we can consider the matter again.” If he had to wait for her, then so be it. At least he could gain some time to win her.
She swallowed. Was she thinking the same as him? That their proximity would make endurance harder? If it did, Adrian would not complain.
His cousin had bellyached again about his annual visit to the estate, and Adrian could not blame him. He had his own life and did not wish to inherit the dukedom. “Once the new crop of young ladies enters society and the flurry of come-out balls begins, new scandals will erupt and people will forget us.”
“I had not planned to come to town next season.”
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, smiling down at her. “Then we will not do so.”
Before she could protest, he gave in to temptation and kissed her. Her lips softened under his and she opened her mouth. Already she molded to him, bending her body into his, sighing into his mouth as he slipped his arm around her waist to bring her closer.
If he had to marry anyone, this would be the woman he’d choose. Hell, he had chosen her. Now he had to persuade her to choose him. If she agreed to his plan, they were partway there.
He loved kissing her. Usually a kiss softened a woman enough to make her amenable in bed. That was all. But with Livia a kiss was an end in itself. Touching her, holding that slim body next to his tempted him almost beyond bearing. So did the way she’d bundled herself up today. But when he held her tight, her body wasn’t as tightly laced as he was used to in her. A delicious give that pressed her closer, her modest hoops bending under his insistent hold. Hunger took him, raging for more. He restrained himself, forcing an unaccustomed brake on his desires.
If he did that, he might tip the balance and she’d refuse his offer outright. Seduction, that was what he needed, not raw passion. This was a lady, a virgin, and he had to go slowly.
Adrian gave himself up to the lushness of her lips and the softness of her skin. He imagined himself in bed with her, stroking her skin, caressing her and talking to her.
Even that did not bring him up short. Fire surged through his veins and desire had its predictable result, hardening him, ready to take her. The thought of never having her, never touching her naked body, never making her his own, maddened him.
Separating their mouths was one of the most difficult tasks he’d ever accomplished.
Her eyes were dark, circled with ethereal blue, her lips reddened and slightly open. She was breathing heavily, her sweet breath touching his chin and the exposed part of his neck.
Smiling came naturally when he was looking at Livia. “So what do you say? Shall we agree to go along with society’s plans for us?” He kept his voice low, and any doubt out of his eyes.
“You want me.”
He had not expected her to say that, but he knew the answer. “Can you doubt it? Yes.”
“After all those women?”
“Yes.” Because she had something they did not, and damned if he knew what it was. But she fascinated him, and he hungered for more.
She bit her lip, and that proved enough for him to claim another kiss. This time she pushed her fingers into his hair and gripped his scalp as if holding on for her life as he kissed her. He guided her head to his shoulder, let her rest there while he took her.
Her cheek felt different. Chalkier. She’d worn powder. Alarm arced through him and he broke the kiss but kept her in his arms. “Promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“You will not wear ceruse. Ever.” That thick, white cream had done enough damage to him and his loved ones. “I have banned the stuff in my house.”
She gave him a slumberous smile. “Why is that?”
“Promise me.”
At his sharp tone, her smile faded and she blinked, the blue of her eyes returning. “Are you a tyrant, then?”
He shouldn’t have mentioned it. He’d made a mistake, letting emotion ride him. “I try not to be.” He stroked her cheek, watching her carefully. “I’m sorry.” The words choked him, but he had to remember always that Livia was not Anna. Thank God. He must never compare the two.
“I don’t wear the stuff anyway.” This time he felt rather than saw her shrug because they were entwined, as close as they could be while dressed. “None of my family do. It’s poisonous, you know.” She gasped and stiffened. “Of course. I’m so sorry, I should not have teased you. I didn’t remember—”
He touched his lips to her forehead. “Don’t. This is nothing, and I shouldn’t
have mentioned it.”
Ophelia d’Arblay had made copious use of ceruse, but Adrian hadn’t cared. The decision belonged to her, and if she believed she needed it, then he would let her. But he wouldn’t let the stuff come into contact with him, had always made her wash it off before he touched her. Because Livia was right. The stuff was poison. It had killed Anna.
Women became addicted to ceruse. It caused skin blemishes, so they used more to cover it up, then the blemishes festered. It discolored and destroyed teeth, and made the hair drop out. The notion of Livia using it made his body clench in pain. She would not, and he had yet another reason to hold her close and take care of her.
“Your wife was very beautiful,” she said softly. “Everyone remembers her that way.”
“She was.” He wouldn’t mention how hideous she had rendered herself at the end, so much that she retreated to her rooms and had all the mirrors covered. For the last six months she’d worn a veil. And more of the cream that was killing her, even though she knew it would. He’d raged and ripped up at her, but she’d told him not to hurt her so, pouted and cried. He’d withdrawn, vowing he would never care for anyone again.
Until now he’d kept that vow. “But you are here, and alive, and lovely. Let’s concentrate on that.”
A tremulous smile lit her face. “Very well. But this is a temporary arrangement, is it not? You’re doing this for me, which I appreciate.”
“It will save you from scandal.”
Livia had sense, experience and enough of a fortune of her own to assure him she was not after his wealth. Not to mention her beauty and the devastating sensuality he was sure hid under her demure appearance. He had tasted it and brought her there. And he wanted to be the man who gave her more, who introduced her to the world of sensual intimacy.
When their passion abated they would remain friends, and if fortune smiled on them, they would raise their children together.
Because love was out of the question. Lasting love, the kind the novelists liked to lie about, didn’t exist.
* * * *
Livia waited for the condemnation of her mother. Lady Strenshall had come upon her kissing her betrothed, and although they had broken apart, Adrian had kept hold of Livia’s hand, and presented her to her mother as his future wife.
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