She made the same gesture and nodded. “I assure you, I am very discreet, sir.”
“Miss Radley, I had no idea you were so sympathetic. I would have begged an introduction days ago. Would you accept my escort to the dining room for some refreshments?”
Elijah Tewkberry should be elated to agree to that escort and the resulting half hour of conversation. Miss Radley, however, did not want to go at all.
“I hear there is a wonderful cake,” Mr. Peterson cajoled.
“She does not want cake, Peterson,” a voice interrupted. “She promised me a dance, and I am claiming it now.”
Aylesbury loomed at Mr. Peterson’s shoulder. Without another word, the duke held out his hand to escort Marianne back to the dancing.
“It is a good thing I spied you over in that corner,” he said as they waited for others to take their places. “Peterson is bad for one’s health, he so lacks vitality.”
“No one could accuse you of that, Your Grace.”
“Aylesbury. I told you. Did you not believe me?”
“I noticed your rescue deprived me of the opportunity to decline this honor, Aylesbury.”
“If you had truly wanted to decline, you would have found a way, even if it meant eating cake with a man much less interesting than I am.”
Marianne tried to pretend she did not notice the attention they garnered as they joined the line. In order to avoid the eyes aimed her way, she had to look at the duke, however. He, on the other hand, smiled left and right to whomever he saw watching.
He asked after Nora as they danced. He complimented her dress. He admired her mother’s impressive presence. Soon enough the dance ended, and he escorted her back.
Peterson was gone. Nor did the duke stop in that spot. Rather, with her hand still resting on his, he kept walking, right through the doors to the upper veranda.
Their dance ceased to interest people as soon as it began. Marianne trusted not too many eyes saw them leave. Nor was the veranda deserted. Two women chatted at one end, and three men enjoyed cigars not far from the doors.
“You might have asked me if I wanted some air,” she said.
“And risk having you decide you did not? That is not the way I do things.”
They stood near a lamp. It sent amber light up onto his face. A handsome face, remarkably so, but the scar appeared harsher and deeper in that abrupt chiaroscuro.
He noticed her looking at it. He touched it lightly with his fingertips. “Do you find it repulsive?”
“Not at all.”
“Some people do.”
“It cannot be ignored, but when someone notices it, that does not mean they are repulsed.”
“For many years, when I was younger, that was all I saw in their eyes.”
“And now?”
“I learned not to give a damn what people think.”
“Then why did you ask me what I thought?”
He smiled. “You are not supposed to be more clever than a duke when you talk to him. It isn’t done.”
“Since you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you, you will not be offended when I say that I do not care if you are a duke.”
“Far too clever now.”
“Then I will leave you, and return to my seat by the wall reserved for women on the shelf.”
She turned to leave. He stepped away from the lamp and stopped her with a hold on her arm. “Do not go. If you stay, I will tell you how it happened. Almost no one knows.”
She looked at his hand on her, and then at where those women had been talking. They were gone now, as were the men. They were alone on the terrace.
“Did you tell everyone to go inside?”
“Did you hear me do that?” He looked around. “Perhaps they were cold. Or maybe they preferred to give me wide berth. Or wanted me to have privacy with you. It does not seem fair, does it? For the whole county to be deprived of the terrace because a duke has use of it. Let us remedy that.” He crooked his finger, beckoning her to follow him.
Her sense of caution at high mast, she followed him to a set of stone stairs that led down to the lower terrace. “I am not such a fool as to go down there with you. I do care what is thought of me, and you play fast with my reputation now.”
“It is in clear view of anyone up there, but out of hearing. I daresay others will venture down if we do.”
She looked up, then down. The upper terrace was a shallow balcony overlooking the larger lower one. Although only the full moon illuminated that terrace, anyone up here could see it.
Swallowing her misgivings, she ventured down. He brought her to the terrace wall near the garden, the part most visible from above.
“So now you will tell me the secret of that scar? Is it from a duel?”
He did not appear inclined to speak. She glared at him boldly, daring him to renege on his promise.
He lounged against the wall, with his arm and elbow resting on its top. “Since your return, what have you heard about my brother?”
“That he was not as bad as you, and perhaps even good.”
He laughed at that. “I would not go so far as to damn him with goodness. He could be very careless at times.” He touched his cheek. “He did this, for example.”
“Were you practicing with swords?”
“Percy ceased being serious competition at swordplay by the time I was twelve. No, this was a game gone awry. Two boys up to no good. I matured before him, and began to sport hairs on my chin and face. Just a few, but enough to annoy him.”
“I expect he did not like that at all, to have a younger brother becoming a man first.”
“One day, when we were together, having fun for the first time in memory—he and I had long before begun avoiding each other—we found ourselves in a servant’s chamber where we should not be. Percy liked to snoop on people. So there we were, and we opened the box with that man’s shaving materials. The razor fascinated my brother. He suggested he play valet, and shave off those hairs.”
She suddenly knew where the story would end. She held up her hand. “Please. Do not describe it. Such an accident must have been horrible.”
“It was very dramatic. Blood everywhere. I staggered out of there screaming, blind from it. It took a surgeon to stitch it up, and I almost died from an infection before it was over.”
“How terrible for you. For both of you. He must have experienced terrible guilt.”
He gazed over at her. “Such guilt you have never seen. He cried until my mother insisted we never speak of it to him again. Poor Percy. All that grief. All those apologies. Begging my father’s forgiveness. Such a sorry lad.”
“It is understandable that you did not feel bad for him.”
“I knew him very well, better than my father or mother ever would. I did not see guilt or sorrow in his eyes when he looked at me and no one watched. As I relived that afternoon over the years, I realized he had done it on purpose. He would look at my face when we were alone, look at that scar, and smile.”
“Surely you misunderstood.”
He stood straight. “I misunderstood nothing, pretty flower. I may be bad, but he was evil.”
He was not joking. Her demand for the story of the scar had changed him. Altered his presence. Darkened him.
“That is a strong word.”
“One that I avoided using for a very long time too. As a boy, I merely thought him mean. He was the heir, and he loved using that in any way he could. To get his own way. To separate us from our mother by requiring all her attention. As I got older, I realized he hated me, and Ives, too, although Ives was young enough to miss the worst of it.”
“Why should he hate you? As you said, he was the heir.”
“He was smaller than us. He took after Mother in that, and in his frailty, and even in his features, which did not flatter him. He did
not look much like our father, as we do. By the time I was ten I could beat him at any physical sport or game. When I put my mind to it, I could beat him in schoolwork too. So he set about getting back at us. There were many accidents such as the one with the razor, you see. And Percy was always involved.”
She wished she had not encouraged this topic. The mood between them had turned serious. Also intimate. His darkness and her sympathy met in the space between them, each trying to absorb the other.
He looked to the upper terrace. “Now you have to share one of your secrets.”
“I have no secrets.” She had one, but if she revealed her correspondence, she would commit social suicide. No one could ever know about Elijah Tewkberry.
“Everyone has things they do not want to admit. Failings, or sins, or regrets.” He looked over at her and smiled. “Private yearnings, or forbidden plans.”
She shook her head, but each of his words called forth her inner thoughts and emotions. He was correct. Everyone had secrets in their hearts.
“Then I will have to guess.” He cocked his head and examined her. “I think in your heart there are many reasons you preferred that cottage to coming back here. I do not deny you your kindness in being concerned for your cousin’s welfare. However, I think you came to enjoy your lack of expectations.”
“What nonsense. Who prefers no expectations?”
“I speak of the ones others lay on your shoulders. People like your mother. Like them.” He gestured toward the ballroom’s door. “Marriage, for example. My guess is in Wiltshire there were no assemblies and balls where you sat on the wall reserved for ladies on the shelf. Nor did such as Mr. Peterson dare familiarity, all the while thinking you would never do since you lack a fortune.”
She felt her face getting hot. And her head. “Thank you for articulating my situation with such precision. I might have missed its full implications without your help.”
He touched her left cheek with his right hand. No one on the upper terrace would see.
“I have hurt you. I can be careless that way.”
“No. Fair is fair.” She turned her head enough for his fingertips to fall away. “After how I pressed you, I cannot complain if you try to bare my soul.”
“I also think that there is a memory that sustains your heart,” he said quietly. “A tendre from when you were a girl, for a man you could not have. Whatever the pain, you are content you were not deprived of that emotion. Better to have loved and lost than . . .”
She refused to react. She would be damned before she let him know he had been right twice.
“I also think—”
“You are not done? You will owe me more secrets if you tip the accounts.”
“I also think that you enjoy where fate has placed your life. You must have learned the benefits of independence while away. You may not like sitting on the shelf for all of society to note and pity, but if it means keeping that freedom, you will do it.”
She had a scold all ready, so as to end this when he finished this additional intrusion on her private life. She could not speak it. She could only look at him, both astonished and touched that with so little knowledge of her, he had surmised so much.
He stepped closer and took her hand in his. The ones not visible from the balcony. “I also think—no, I know—that you secretly like that I am bad, pretty flower. You enjoy my stolen kisses more than you are supposed to. The pleasure enthralls you.”
He stood so closely she had to angle her head back to see his face. His expression sent excitement dancing through her. His intentions showed in his eyes. She looked up to the balcony. Not a person could be seen. She could not be sure they had complete privacy, however. She dare not allow another of those stolen kisses.
He moved, keeping her hand firmly in his. He pulled and coaxed at the same time, taking her toward the end of the wall where the building blocked the moonlight and created a black patch of shadow.
She went with him willingly. She could never claim she did not. She tripped after him. Surprise, not resistance, made her unsteady.
He tugged her and she fell against the hardness of his body, into his encompassing embrace. She could see nothing but felt everything—the strength in his arms and chest, the fine wool of his coats, finally his warm palm on her cheek, holding her face. She allowed it because he had been right. The pleasure enthralled her.
Dangerous. So perilous. She did not care. She closed her eyes and accepted how this newly discovered excitement compelled her. The sensations created a vitality in her body and an obscuring euphoria in her mind. Kisses to her mouth, neck, and body demanded she surrender all her senses to his command.
She wanted to. She ignored misgivings that quietly scolded. The changes in her body were too wonderful to reject. If this stopped, she would weep.
More movement. More stairs. He guided her, the kisses never stopping, holding her so she would not fall.
The scent of earth and damp. Stones beneath her shoes, then grass. Patches of moonlight, then more shadows, deep and hidden. Her wrap caught on a bush, stopping them both.
He released the fabric from the branch, then swept her up in his arms and carried her the last few yards. She watched the barren trees overhead give way to stones. Curving stones. She raised her head and looked around. They were in a tiny round garden folly with a domed vault. A circle of evenly spaced columns framed rectangles of moonlit woods.
A little sense returned. The misgivings spoke louder. Dangerous. Reckless. Ruinous.
“You are determined to prove how bad you can be, aren’t you?” Her voice sounded distant and dreamy, just as the thought had been.
He paused and looked down at her. “Yes.”
He sat on a bench and pulled her onto his lap. He kissed her again. Her conscience proved unable to compete with the sweet pleasure that coursed through her, rising higher like an incoming tide.
And when she was submerged, floating in need and bliss, he revealed just how bad he intended to be.
* * *
Lance assumed Miss Radley would frighten easily. A few aggressive kisses and embraces in dangerous proximity to the assembly should be enough. Instead she did not react with fear. Rather she permitted his boldness, and made good on his observation that pleasure enthralled her.
Had it been nothing but a gambit, that would not have mattered. Instead he lost sight of the why and where of it, and even the reason for the who. He blamed her innocence on that, and her ignorance. Both charmed him. Ensuring she was very enthralled indeed became his goal.
He pulled her wrap away while he kissed her. She did not notice its absence. He lowered his mouth to the exposed soft skin of her décolletage. Her head lolled back. He paused and looked at her face in the moonlight. Eyes closed, lips parted, she had become a picture of sensual ecstasy.
He kissed her flesh again, then lower. While he nuzzled the velvet of her body, he cupped her breast with his hand.
She did not startle or scream. The only sound from those lips was an ah, part of a sharp intake of breath. A little surprised and a lot joyful, that ah hardly discouraged him.
He should stop now. She was an innocent. And yet . . . clearly it would take much more to shock Miss Radley.
He caressed her breast. Her body flexed. Her deep arousal shuddered through that movement. He kissed the crook of her neck while his hand moved. He inhaled the scent of her. Images formed in his head. Erotic images, of Marianne naked and waiting, inviting him to be as bad as he could imagine.
His own fire crackled until he burned. He sought her nipple through her garments. He inwardly cursed at the tactile evidence she wore stays. He found the hard nub from the way gentle whimpers rode her quickening breaths when his caress passed over it.
His last lucid thought before the fire scorched his mind was that the plan was to buy time with her uncle by luring her along. Too much shockin
g behavior, and she might refuse his attention too early.
That thought disappeared in the blaze, before he had half the fastenings of her dress undone.
When she realized how his hand worked, she broke their kiss and looked, glassy-eyed, over her shoulder, perplexed. “What—?”
“I do not want to ruin your dress’s lovely silk.” He kissed her neck’s pulse.
“I do not think . . . ”
“Good. Do not think.” He teased her breast ruthlessly. She lost interest in his other hand.
The dress loosened. He slipped his hand under the sagging neck of the bodice.
Damnable stays. At least these laced in the front. Impatient and more aroused than he had been in years, he urged some slack into the top of the laces with his finger. He managed just enough to allow him to caress the true softness of her breast.
“Oh.” She looked down, wide-eyed, at his hand thrust beneath the top of the stays. He rubbed the hard tip. She closed her eyes. “Ohh.”
He would ensure there were many more melodic ohhs. He would undress her properly and lie her down in a bed and take great care and time to teach her how her body could take her to another world, one where she would taste eternity. He would—
Only he would not. There was no bed here, only damp ground and hard stone. He could not take his time, because they were at an assembly. He could not undress her more either.
Those realities did not cool him. If anything his desire turned hard. Savage. He wanted her, damn it. She wanted him too.
Convinced of that, sure of it within the truths known by a brain deranged by lust, he sought a caress from his new lover, in return for those he gave. He took the hand already resting between them and on her thigh, and moved it a few inches, onto his lap.
Had he thrown her into a bath of ice water, she could not have reacted more strongly. One second she was limp on his lap, being pleasured to the point of moaning. The next she was on her feet, a human exclamation mark, staring at him.
Mouth agape and breathing deeply, for a five count she just stood there, her eyes reflecting confusion, as if she still sorted out what had just happened.
The Wicked Duke Page 11