Darian continued to look down at her searchingly. Hardly daring to believe—to hope that— ‘You love me? How can you possibly love me?’ He frowned darkly. ‘When I have been nothing but judgemental of you from the first. So disapproving. Scornful. Critical—’
‘And kind, caring, protective and passionate,’ Mariah spoke huskily. ‘Would you prefer it if I did not love you, Darian?’ she added teasingly as he still looked down at her in disbelief. ‘I suppose I might try,’ she continued conversationally. ‘But it is so very difficult, when I believe you to be so much all of those things I mentioned in regard to how you are with me. I could try not to love you but— Darian!’ She gave a strangled cry as his mouth finally claimed hers, his arms gathering her in so close against him it felt as if he was trying to make her a part of himself.
And perhaps he was, because for the next several minutes there was nothing else between them but those passionate kisses interspersed with words of love and adoration.
‘I intend that we shall be married as soon as is possible,’ Darian finally warned as he continued to hold Mariah tightly in his arms, as if afraid, if he let her go, she might disappear in a puff of smoke. ‘I believe the least we are owed, for helping to foil this plot against the Prince Regent, is the granting of a Special Licence. Unless, of course, you would prefer to have a big grand wedding, with all of the ton in attendance?’ he added uncertainly as the idea occurred to him that Mariah had never really had a happy wedding day. ‘I suppose I might be persuaded into waiting for a few weeks longer, as long as you will allow me to spend all of my days and nights before the wedding by your side.’
‘A Special Licence sounds perfect,’ Mariah assured him happily. ‘I have already had the big white wedding attended by the ton,’ she dismissed huskily. ‘Neither it, nor that marriage, brought me any happiness.’
‘Apart from Christina.’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘I have always seen Christina as somehow being apart from that marriage. As if she were only ever mine, to love and to cherish. Does that sound ridiculous, in the circumstances?’
Darian’s arms tightened about her. ‘Nothing you say ever sounds ridiculous to me. But I hope— I sincerely hope, would deem it an honour, if you would allow me to become another father to Christina once the two of us are married?’
Mariah’s heart was already full to bursting with the love she felt for Darian, but in that moment she believed it truly overflowed with the emotion. ‘I should like that very much,’ she accepted emotionally. ‘As, I am sure, would Christina. Martin was never a proper father to her anyway.’ She frowned. ‘He took as little interest in her as he did in me.’
‘Carlisle was a fool.’ Darian scowled. ‘But his loss is my gain,’ he dismissed firmly. ‘I assure you that I intend telling and showing both of you, each and every day, how much you are both loved and cherished.’
‘I know you will.’ Mariah smiled up at him gratefully, before biting her bottom lip worriedly. ‘There are still some things we need to discuss, before we make any more of these wonderful plans. Things you need to know about me—’
‘No,’ Darian bit out harshly.
‘But—’
‘I do not need to know anything more about you, Mariah, than that I love you and you love me. Nothing else matters but that,’ he stated firmly.
‘You have no idea how happy that makes me, Darian.’ Mariah smiled tremulously. ‘But these are things you really do need to know, if you are to become my husband.’
‘I most assuredly am!’
‘Then you must listen to me, Darian,’ she insisted as he seemed about to deny her once again.
His jaw was tightly clenched. ‘Not if you are about to tell me about the other men who have been in your life. I do not want to know, Mariah. They are unimportant, irrelevant—’
‘Non-existent,’ Mariah put in softly, although it inwardly thrilled her to hear Darian dismiss the existence of those lovers as being irrelevant to the two of them.
Darian’s voice trailed off as he seemed to hear what she had just said, a frown between his eyes now as he looked down at her searchingly.
A searching look that Mariah returned with a steady gaze as she began to talk again. ‘Seven years ago I discovered, quite by chance, that my husband was a traitor to the Crown. Let me tell all, before I lose my nerve, and then you may speak, Darian,’ she pleaded as he would have interrupted once again.
‘Very well.’ Darian nodded slowly; in truth he was still completely stunned at Mariah’s claim that she had taken no other lovers.
And so he listened. As Mariah told him of her husband’s treachery to his country. Of how she had gone to London, and Aubrey Maystone, with the information. And how Aubrey Maystone had used that knowledge, and Mariah, to garner even more information from Carlisle during the last two years of that man’s life. Of how she had continued her own work for the Crown for these seven years, and the sense of self and self-worth it had given her. The first she had known in her life, apart from being mother to Christina.
Darian was finally left speechless when Mariah confided in him that there had been no lovers in her life. That she had flirted, cajoled, teased information from certain gentlemen, but that she had never bedded a single one of them. That the rumour and speculation of scandal about her had grown over the years, because pride had dictated that none of those gentleman had ever wished to own to the fact that they had not been, nor ever would be, a lover to the Countess of Carlisle.
The conclusion this final revelation gave Darian was simply mind-numbing. ‘Then that single, awful occasion with Carlisle, the evening Christina was conceived, was the only occasion—’
‘Yes,’ Mariah confirmed flatly.
‘My darling!’ Darian gave a pained groan. ‘Then our own lovemaking—the things we did together—’
‘Were utterly beautiful,’ Mariah assured him firmly. ‘You could not have been a more gentle, more caring, a more passionate lover, even if you had known the truth, Darian.’
Darian begged to differ. If he had known, if he had once guessed at Mariah’s innocence in regard to physical love, then he would have taken things more slowly, more gently, been less physically demanding.
That Mariah had been able to respond so passionately as she had earlier today to his caresses, that she had attained her peak not once but three times, was a miracle!
Although Mariah’s revelations did help to explain those puzzling moments of innocence he had sensed in her, those blushes that had seemed so out of character with the experienced siren she was reputed to be.
‘I trust you are not having regrets about our lovemaking earlier today, Darian,’ Mariah now teased him reprovingly. ‘Because I am dearly hoping that we shall be continuing with my education, in that regard, as soon as we reach London. Christina is away until tomorrow evening,’ she reminded huskily. ‘And we shall have the house all to ourselves till then…’
Darian would like nothing more than to spend the night with Mariah, to make love to and with her for hours and hours without end. But he would also settle for just being in the same bed with her, of just holding her, as difficult as that might be, if she would rather wait until they were married for them to make love again.
‘I would not be at all happy to wait,’ Mariah answered decisively, Darian’s first indication that he had spoken his reservations out loud. ‘Darian, I am simply dying for us to make love again. I have so many years to make up for. So much I have missed. That I want to learn about and enjoy.’ She curved her body seductively against his. ‘You are not going to continue to deny me, are you, Darian?’
How could Darian ever deny this woman anything?
This woman whom he loved, and would always love, with every fibre of his being.
*
‘Do you know what I thought after we had made love at Eton Park earlier today—yesterday now?’ Mariah realised after a glance at the bedside clock revealed it was well after midnight, her fingers swirling in the darkn
ess of the hair on Darian’s naked chest as she leant up on her elbow beside him in the comfort of her dishevelled bed.
‘Earlier today?’ He arched his brows as he glanced down at their satiated and well-loved nakedness.
‘Earlier today,’ she insisted firmly. ‘I thought, so this is what poets all write about, singers croon over and lovers will risk anything to possess. But I was wrong, Darian, because this, the absolute joy we have just found in each other’s arms, is what poets write about, singers croon over and lovers will risk everything to possess!’ Their lovemaking had been a revelation to Mariah.
She had never dreamed such pleasure existed, had never realised how wonderful it was to literally become a part of another person. To be joined to them, body, soul and heart.
To be joined to Darian, body, soul and heart.
‘I love you, Darian,’ she told him achingly, emotionally. ‘I love you so very much, my darling.’
‘As I love you.’ His arms tightened about her once again. ‘And I will love you for the rest of our lives together.’
‘Promise?’
‘Without a doubt. You?’
‘Oh, yes!’
Mariah had absolutely no doubt it was a promise they would both cherish in their hearts and happily keep.
Epilogue
Two weeks later—Wolfingham House, London
‘Was that a very despondent-looking Anthony I saw leaving just now?’ Mariah prompted as she entered Darian’s study.
‘It was, yes.’ Darian smiled as she walked across the room and straight into his welcoming arms.
She looked up at him quizzically. ‘What on earth did you say to him to make him look so downhearted?’
His smile widened into a grin. ‘As we had already discussed, I told him that my duchess and I had decided to give him permission to pay court to our daughter, Christina.’
After only a week of marriage, Mariah still felt a thrill in her chest at hearing herself referred to as Darian’s duchess. For that was who she was now, Mariah Hunter, the Duchess of Wolfingham. How grand it sounded. And yet she knew she loved Darian so much, wanted to be with him so much, that she would have married him even if he had not been the top-lofty and wealthy Duke of Wolfingham.
Although she did not altogether trust that wicked grin upon her husband’s face right now.
‘If you told him that, why was Anthony looking less than happy?’
That wicked grin widened, green eyes glowing with laughter. ‘Because I told him that not only does he have to win Christina’s heart, but that as her stepfather, I will also expect him to prove himself as being sober and responsible, before we would agree to the match. And that even then we will not countenance there being a wedding until after Christina’s eighteenth birthday.’
‘What a wicked stepfather and brother you are, when you know full well that Christina has already admitted to us that she is smitten.’ Mariah chuckled reprovingly.
‘A little uncertainty will do my little brother good,’ Darian dismissed unrepentantly, his arms now tightening about her waist as a different sort of wickedness now gleamed in his eyes. ‘Have I told you yet this morning how beautiful you look?’
‘About an hour ago, I believe.’ She blushed as she remembered the way in which he had told her.
‘Have I shown you yet this morning how beautiful you are to me?’
‘Also about an hour ago,’ Mariah answered shyly.
‘And would my duchess be interested in my demonstrating the depths of those feelings for her again right this minute?’
Mariah felt the thrill in her chest at just how willing she was to allow Darian to do exactly that. A thrill of excitement that now coursed hotly through the whole of her body. ‘I should like to demonstrate the depth of my feelings for you first,’ she suggested huskily.
Darian chuckled softly. ‘Then shall we retire to the ducal bedchamber?’
The ducal bedchamber that the two of them had shared every night before their wedding and again every night since, the two of them having decided there would be no separate bedchambers for them. Ever. That they would spend all of their nights, as well as all of their days, together.
Mariah had no idea what the future would bring. Another war to quell Napoleon was most certainly imminent. A wedding for her daughter and Anthony next year, she hoped. Perhaps a child or two of their own, for Darian and herself. A handsome boy who looked exactly like his father and a little girl, also with her father’s dark hair and green eyes, so that their parents might spoil and pet them both. Mariah certainly hoped it would be so.
But she had no doubt whatsoever, that whatever the future might hold for the two of them, that they would face it together.
Always, and for ever, together…
*
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE RAKE’S BARGAIN by Lucy Ashford.
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Chapter One
June 1803
Miss Deborah O’Hara pressed herself close to the ivy-covered mansion and tried not to flinch as the rain trickled off the brim of her cap and dripped steadily—coldly—down inside her jacket collar. She’d scrambled over the boundary wall and run here through the shrubbery, keeping her head low; but now she was able to look around. Now she was able to see that the acres of formal gardens stretching away on all sides were quite deserted—and as waterlogged as the overcast sky.
Hardgate Hall. The very name was enough to send shivers down her spine. Swiping fresh rain from her cheeks, she glanced up once more at the small window on the second floor that some servant must have carelessly left open. It was almost sixteen years since she’d last entered this house, a bewildered six-year-old clutching her mother’s hand; though a few minutes later they were being hustled out again and Deb’s mother was weeping.
‘You made your choices!’ Deb remembered Hugh Palfreyman declaring harshly. ‘You made your own bed, sister mine. And you can lie on it.’
Deb was twenty-two now and her mother had died long ago. But she’d never ever forgotten this place, and she always imagined it under grey skies, just as it was now.
She scanned the garden once more, trying to suppress her growing anxiety, and relaxed just a little when she saw two familiar figures hurrying towards her through the rain. ‘Luke. Francis. There you are. I was beginning to think…’
‘Think what, Miss Deb?’ Young Luke’s straggly blond hair was plastered to his face.
She was beginning to fear they might have been caught by Palfreyman’s men. Deb said instead, ‘You took your time. What news?’
‘We looked to see if there was anyone around. Just as you told us to, Deborah.’ This time it was the older one, Francis, who spoke. ‘Though we were careful to keep under cover, always. And we’ve good news—it looks as if all the groundsmen have been ordered to spend the afternoon tidying up Palfreyman’s glasshouses, on the far side of the south lawn.’
Deb nodded. ‘So they’ll not catch sight of us here. What about the guard dogs?’
Young Luke spoke up next. ‘We heard them barking in the distance and they sound big.’ He shivered. ‘But they’re kept in a yard close by the stables—though I’ve heard they’re let loose after nightfall, when they prowl around the grounds with teeth so sharp they’d take a great lump out of your thigh, and—’
‘Thank you, Luke,’ Deb interrupted. ‘That’s enough.’ More than e
nough, in fact. ‘So we’re safe for now?’
Francis tipped his black hat with the feather in it to gaze up at the vast house that loomed before them. ‘It depends,’ he said narrowly, ‘on what you mean by “safe”, Deborah.’
Deb sighed inwardly. Francis Calladine, almost twice Luke’s age, was a stalwart friend, but he’d been dubious about Deb’s plan from the start. Although it was Francis who’d spotted earlier, as they’d examined the house from the far side—the safe side—of the boundary wall, that the rooms to the north of the building looked dark and little used.
‘And if you’re really intent on breaking in,’ he’d added, ‘all that ivy growing up there is a burglar’s delight.’
Deb’s response had been instant. ‘I’m no burglar!’
‘You’re planning on getting inside,’ Francis had said quietly. ‘Though why you’re so intent on taking such a risk when the owner’s a Justice of the Peace and has already threatened us all with prison remains a mystery to me.’
If Francis had known that Hugh Palfreyman was her uncle, he’d have been quite speechless. But by Deb’s reckoning, desperate times called for desperate measures.
‘I’m not turning back now, Francis.’ Deb spoke with utter calmness, utter certainty. ‘I’m always grateful for your advice, believe me. But I hope you’ve not forgotten that you promised my stepfather you’d trust me.’
‘I also promised your stepfather that I’d keep you safe, Deborah,’ said Francis, who was distinguishable always by his wide-brimmed hat and his ancient, rust-red coat. ‘But I’ll do as you say. Young Luke and I will be here, waiting for you—’
‘No!’
‘What?’ This time Francis looked really outraged.
‘No.’ Deb shook her head decisively. ‘I’ve changed my mind about you waiting for me here. It’s just too risky.’ No one at all was around, but it was very possible their luck wouldn’t hold, especially if this rain eased off. And in that case—better for only her to be captured, rather than all three of them. ‘I’ve decided,’ she went on, ‘that it would be a good idea for you and Luke to return to the horses and wait for me there.’
Dangerous Dukes 02 - Darian Hunter - Duke of Desire Page 21