Occasionally—as now!—a gentlemen would attempt to breach those walls she had placed about herself and her private life, but to date she had managed to thwart that interest without offence being taken on either side.
Even on such brief closer acquaintance, she knew that Darian Hunter, the powerful Duke of Wolfingham, was not a man to be gainsaid by flirtatious cajolery or, failing that, the cut direct.
And he was currently standing far too close to Mariah for her comfort.
‘I have already told you that you must speak with your brother further on that subject, Wolfingham.’ Mariah tilted her chin challengingly. ‘Now if you would kindly step aside? As I have said, it is now my wish to return to my other guests.’
Instead of stepping away Darian took another step forward, at once assailed by the warmth of Mariah Beecham’s closer proximity and the aroma of that exotic and unique perfume. ‘And do you always get what you wish for, Mariah?’ he prompted huskily.
The nerve fluttered, pulsed, in the slender length of her neck, as the only outward sign of her disquiet at his persistence. ‘Rarely what I wish for,’ she bit out tersely, ‘but invariably what I want!’
‘And what is it that you want now, I wonder?’ Darian mused as he continued to breathe in, and be affected by, her heady perfume. ‘Can it be that your air of uninterest and detachment is but a ruse? And that secretly, inwardly, you long for a man who will take the initiative, take control of the situation? To take control of you?’
‘No!’ the countess gasped, her face having paled in the moonlight.
His brow rose. ‘Perhaps you protest too much?’
‘I protest because it is how I genuinely feel,’ she assured vehemently. ‘I am no gentleman’s plaything, to be controlled.’
‘No?’ One of Darian’s hands moved up of its own volition, with the intention of cupping the smooth curve of her cheek.
‘Do not touch me!’ She flinched back, her eyes huge turquoise pools now in the pallor of her face.
Darian frowned at her vehemence. ‘But I should very much like to touch you, Mariah.’
‘I said, do not touch me!’ Her expression was one of grim determination as she reached up and attempted to physically push Darian away from her.
It was now Darian’s turn to gasp, to lose his breath completely, as one of her tiny hands connected with his recently injured and painfully aching shoulder, causing pain such as he had never known before to burst, to course hotly, piercingly, through the whole length and breadth of his body.
He clasped his shoulder as he staggered back, his knees in danger of buckling beneath him at the depth of that pain, black spots appearing in front of his eyes even as his vision began to blur and darken.
‘Wolfingham? Tell me what is wrong.’
Mariah Beecham’s voice seemed to come from a long distance away as the darkness about Darian first thickened, then became absolute.
Chapter Two
Darian felt totally disorientated as the waves of darkness began to lift and he slowly awakened.
Quite where it was he had awakened to, he had no idea, as he turned from where he lay on the bed to look about the unfamiliar bedchamber.
It was most certainly a feminine room, decorated in pale lavenders and creams, with delicate white furnishings and lavender brocade curtains at the windows and about the four-poster bed on which he currently reclined, the pillows and bedclothes beneath him of pale lilac satin and lace.
It was Darian’s idea of a feminine hell!
Certainly he felt ridiculous lying amongst such frills and fancies. Nor did he remember how he came to be here in the first place.
He recalled attending the Countess of Carlisle’s ball, dancing with her, and then that heated conversation with her on the terrace. Followed by the excruciating pain, and then—nothing. He remembered absolutely nothing of what had happened beyond that.
Either he was still at Mariah Beecham’s home, which, considering their argument, he doubted very much, or he had gone on to a club or gaming hell, where he had drunk too much, before spending the night with some woman. Both would be uncharacteristic; Darian never drank too much when he was out and about in the evening, nor did he bed random women.
As such, neither of those explanations seemed likely for his current disorientation.
He struggled to sit up, with the intention of removing himself from his hellish surroundings. All to no avail, as he found it impossible to move his left arm.
Glancing down at the source of the problem, Darian realised that he was wearing only his pantaloons. His jacket, waistcoat, his shirt and his boots had all been removed and his left shoulder was now tightly strapped up in a white bandage, his arm immobilised in a sling across the bareness of his chest.
‘And just what do you think you are doing?’
Darian, having finally managed to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, now turned sharply at the sound of that imperious voice, his eyes widening and then narrowing as Mariah Beecham stepped into the bedchamber and closed the door quietly behind her.
She was no longer dressed in the turquoise silk gown, but now wore a day-dress of sky blue, the style simpler, with just a touch of lace at the cap sleeves. Her hair was also less elaborately styled than at the ball, the blonde curls merely gathered up and secured at her crown and completely unadorned.
The reason for those changes in her appearance became apparent as she lightly crossed the room on slippered feet in order to pull back the lavender brocade curtains from across the windows, allowing the full light of day to shine into the bedchamber.
She turned to look across at him critically. ‘You are looking a little better this morning, Wolfingham. The doctor advised last night that you are not to attempt to get out of bed for several days,’ she continued firmly as Darian would have stood up. ‘You had burst several of the stitches on the wound on your shoulder and it was also in need of cleansing before new stitches and a bandage could be applied,’ she added reprovingly.
Darian knew his wounded shoulder had been paining him for several days now, but at this moment it throbbed and ached like the very devil!
‘Something, the doctor assured me yesterday evening as he reapplied those stitches, that you must have been aware of for some time before last night?’ the countess added sternly.
Of course Darian had been aware of it, but his brother’s future, and this unsuitable alliance, had been of more importance to him than his own painful shoulder. Nor was it the state of his own health that was now his main concern.
The reason for that was the how and why he came to still be in Mariah Beecham’s home on the morning following her ball, for he had no choice but to accept that was where he was.
Darian frowned as he recalled their unsatisfactory conversation on the terrace of Carlisle House the evening before. How he had been unable to resist moving closer to Mariah, drawn by her unique perfume and the temptation of the perfection of her skin in the moonlight.
He also had a vague memory of Mariah reaching up to physically push him away after he had ignored her instructions to step back from her. The pain that had followed that push had been excruciating. So intense that it had caused Darian’s breath to cease and his knees to buckle as the waves of blackness engulfed him. After that he remembered nothing.
Did that mean he had remained unconscious for the whole of the previous night?
That he had spent that night in Mariah Beecham’s home? Possibly in her own bedchamber?
If that was indeed the case, then Darian certainly had no memory of any of those events.
But neither did he recall having departed Carlisle House. Or having been attended by a doctor.
‘You are currently in one of my guest bedchambers,’ the countess supplied drily, as his horrified expression must have given away at least some of his thoughts. ‘My daughter’s choice rather than my own,’ she continued with a rueful glance at their feminine surroundings.
Darian licked the
dryness of his lips before speaking for the first time since he had awoken. ‘Lady Christina knows I spent the night here?’
‘Why, yes,’ Mariah drawled, Wolfingham’s obvious discomfort in his surroundings succeeding in dissipating some of her own irritation in having to accommodate him here for the night, following his faint the previous evening. ‘There was nothing else to be done once you had fainted dead away on my terrace. What else would you have me call it, Wolfingham?’ she added mockingly as he gave a grunt of protest.
He scowled his displeasure. ‘I was obviously overcome with pain—to call it a faint makes me sound like a complete ninny.’
‘It does rather.’ She arched mocking brows. ‘Very well, Wolfingham, when you were overcome with pain,’ she conceded drily as he continued to glower. ‘Whatever the cause, it left me with no choice but to have two of my footmen carry you up the servants’ stairs, before placing you in one of the bedchambers and sending for the doctor—much as the temptation was for me to just leave you unconscious upon my terrace, apparently inebriated, for one of my other guests to find!’ she added.
Green eyes narrowed. ‘I suppose I should thank you for having resisted that particular temptation,’ Wolfingham growled.
‘I suppose you should, yes,’ Mariah drawled dismissively. ‘But I doubt you intend doing so?’
‘Not at this moment, no,’ Wolfingham bit out from between gritted teeth.
She gave a mocking shake of her head. ‘Bad show, Wolfingham, when at considerable inconvenience to myself, I have undoubtedly helped you to maintain your reputation as being the stern and soberly respectable Duke of Wolfingham.’
His brow lowered darkly. ‘You have also put me in the position of now having to remove myself from your home, without detection by a third party, on the morning following your ball.’
‘And so tarnishing that sterling reputation anyway,’ she derided. ‘Poor Wolfingham!’
He remained disgruntled. ‘My reputation in society is one of sternness and sober respectability?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Mariah strolled across to where Wolfingham still sat on the side of the bed, the darkness of his hair, tousled and unkempt, succeeding in lessening his usual air of austerity and also taking years off his age of two, or possibly three, and thirty.
Nevertheless, it was far safer for Mariah to take in the tousled appearance of Wolfingham’s hair than to allow her gaze to move any lower. To where the removal of his top clothes had rendered Darian Hunter naked from the waist up, apart from the bandage and sling the doctor had placed about his left shoulder and arm the night before.
And a very masculine and muscled chest it was, too, with a light dusting of dark hair, which deepened to a vee down the firm and muscled length of his stomach, before disappearing into the loosened waistband of his black evening trousers.
None of which Mariah was at all happy to realise she had taken note of! ‘The doctor remarked that the original injury to your shoulder has all the appearance of being a bullet wound,’ she said challengingly. ‘And was possibly inflicted a week or so ago?’
‘Six days ago, to be precise,’ he conceded gruffly. ‘I would now have your word that you will not discuss this with anyone else,’ he added harshly.
Her eyebrows rose. ‘And will you trust my word if it is given?’
‘I will.’ Darian had little choice in the matter but to trust to Mariah Beecham’s discretion. Besides which, there might be plenty of gossip in society in regard to the countess, but he had never heard of her having discussed with anyone the gentlemen with whom she was known to have been intimately involved.
‘Then you have it.’ She nodded now. ‘Nevertheless, I should be interested to learn how you came to receive such a wound. Unless England is already once again at war and I am unaware of it?’ She arched mocking blonde brows.
Darian knew that for most women, this would have been her first question upon entering the bedchamber and finding her uninvited guest had finally awoken from his stupor!
But, as he had learnt yesterday evening, Mariah Beecham was not like most women. Indeed, he truly had no idea what manner of woman she was. Which only added to her mystique.
And attraction?
Yesterday evening Mariah Beecham had given the appearance of being the sophisticated and confident woman of society that she undoubtedly was. Today, free of adornment or artifice, Mariah Beecham looked no older than her seventeen-year-old daughter.
Her figure was that of a mature woman, of course, but her face was smooth and unlined in the sunlight, her eyes a clear Mediterranean turquoise, despite her having hosted a ball the previous evening and no doubt having retired very late to her own bedchamber.
Darian felt that stirring of his arousal, which was rapidly becoming a familiar reaction to being in this woman’s company, as he gazed upon her natural loveliness through narrowed lids. ‘I fear that peace will not last for too much longer, now that Napoleon has returned to France and is currently reported to be on his way to Paris,’ he rasped in an attempt to dampen his physical response to this woman.
‘I do not interest myself in such boring things as politics and intrigue,’ she drawled dismissively. ‘Nor does any of that explain how you came to receive such a wound.’ She continued to look at him pointedly, before a derisive smile slowly curved the fullness of her lips at his continued silence. ‘Can it be that the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham has recently fought a duel? Over a woman? Surely not?’ Mocking humour now gleamed in her eyes.
Darian had not cared for the disparaging way in which Mariah Beecham had earlier said his reputation was one of sober respectability. Or that she now referred to him as the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham. Nor did Darian like the implication that she doubted he had ever felt so emotional about any woman that he would have fought a duel over her.
Admittedly, he was, by nature, a private man. One who had long preferred his own company or that of his few close friends. But he’d had no idea, until now, that this privacy of nature had resulted in society, in Mariah Beecham, believing him to be sober—boring?—as well as cold and haughty—arrogant?
As the elder son of the sixth Duke of Wolfingham, and Marquis of Durham from birth, Darian had been brought up to know he would one day inherit the title of Duke from his father, along with the management of all the estates entailed with the title. An onerous and unenviable responsibility, which had become his at the age of only five and twenty; much earlier than might have been expected, but his father had been but sixty years of age when he died.
With the title of Duke and its other onerous responsibilities had also come the guardianship of his younger brother, Anthony.
All of these things had made it impossible for Darian to continue with the hedonistic pursuits he had previously enjoyed with his close friends and that, along with his soldiering, had hitherto occupied much of his time.
He had not realised until now that it had also rendered him as being thought stern and sober, as well as haughty. By society as a whole, it would appear, and by this woman in particular.
Nor did he care to be thought so now, for it made him sound as old as Methuselah and just as uninteresting! A circumstance Darian did not enjoy, when he considered his own undoubted physical response to Mariah Beecham.
His mouth tightened. ‘I am sure you are as aware as I that the fighting of duels is forbidden.’
She arched blonde brows. ‘And do you always follow the rules, Wolfingham?’
Darian gave a humourless smile. ‘Your opinion of my reputation would seem to imply as much.’
‘But we are all so much more than our reputations, are we not?’ Mariah Beecham replied enigmatically.
‘Do you include yourself in that statement?’ Darian studied her through narrowed lids, taking note of that curling golden hair, the smoothness of her brow, those clear and untroubled blue eyes and the light blush that now coloured her alabaster cheeks, her lips both full and succulent.
A face that appeared utterly with
out guilt or guile.
Misleadingly so? Or could that air of innocence, so unusual in a woman of four and thirty, possibly be the real Mariah Beecham?
In view of this woman’s reputation, Darian found that impossible to believe; the countess could no doubt add ‘accomplished actress’ to her list of other questionable attributes!
*
Mariah did not at all care for the way in which Wolfingham was now studying her so intently.
Having Wolfingham point out, the previous evening, that his younger brother had shown a marked interest in her these past weeks was irritating enough. But to have the far too astute, and equally as intelligent, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, show an interest in her, for whatever reason, was not only disturbing, but could also be dangerous.
For Mariah was most certainly not all that her reputation implied. Indeed, she did not believe, after Wolfingham’s revelations the night before regarding that reputation, that she was much of any of what society, or this man, believed her to be.
Deliberately so. For who would suspect that the scandalous Mariah Beecham, the widowed Countess of Carlisle, was also an agent for the Crown, and that she had been so these past seven years and more?
She had not set out for it to be so. She had become embroiled in the intrigues of the English court quite by accident, after discovering that her own husband was a traitor to both his country and his king.
Having no idea what to do with that knowledge, it had taken Mariah some weeks to find a member of the government to whom she might pass along that information.
Only to discover that once she had done so the first time, there was no going back. That her position in society could, and did, open many doors, as it invited confidences from both ladies and gentlemen of the ton.
And so, from that time on Mariah had made a point of forming her friendships only with those ladies and gentlemen who might have knowledge that would be of benefit to, or was opposed to, the English monarchy or government.
She had been brought up in the knowledge that her parents’ only expectation of her was that she become the wife of a titled gentleman, even if she did not love that gentleman. Her father was himself extremely wealthy, but not completely acceptable to all of society. Indeed, greater acquaintance with society had shown her that love was not a requirement of any of the ton’s marriages.
Dangerous Dukes 02 - Darian Hunter - Duke of Desire Page 3