First Comes Marriage

by Mary Balogh

  “Why either of you?” he asked her. “Would you not prefer your freedom if I assure you that I will not then pay my addresses to your sister?”

  She stared at him again.

  “Oh,” she said, “you really do not want me, do you?”

  Of course he did not want her. Good lord! She was surely the last woman on earth he could possibly ever want. She had nothing—nothing.—to commend her.

  He opened his mouth to confirm her suspicion.

  Except one thing—she had one thing to commend her. How had his mother phrased it yesterday? Loyalty and devotion. That was two things. But she had them both—directed not toward him, but toward her family.

  She had realized yesterday from something his mother had said that he was considering offering marriage to her elder sister—and Miss Huxtable had realized it too. Mrs. Dew knew that her sister would accept his offer even though doing so would shatter her already bruised heart. So she had thought desperately of how she might prevent such a disaster. And she had concocted her scheme—instead of taking the easy and obvious course of coming to him today and simply explaining the situation to him. Perhaps she had thought him too much of a monster—or too arrogant!—to listen to reason. However it was, she had decided to offer herself as the family sacrificial lamb. And she had done so even though she had never made a secret of the fact that she disliked and disapproved of him.

  And now he was about to humiliate her in perhaps the worst way imaginable. She had offered herself and he was about to spurn the gift—eloquently and brutally.

  And serve her right too, he thought nastily, frowning at her.

  But he closed his mouth.

  “I am not even pretty, am I?” she said. “And I have been married before. It was terribly foolish of me to think that my plan might work and you would be willing to take me. Will you promise not to offer for Meg, though? Or Kate either. She needs someone different from you.”

  “Someone more human?” he asked. His eyes narrowed again.

  She closed her eyes briefly.

  “I did not mean that the way it sounded,” she said. “I merely meant that she needs someone younger and … and…”

  “With a sense of humor?” he suggested.

  She looked at him and smiled unexpectedly—a smile full of laughter and mischief.

  “Do you keep hoping you will wake up and find it is still last night?” she asked him. “ I do. I have never in my life made such an idiot of myself. And I cannot even ask you to forget this ever happened. It would be impossible to forget.”

  Yes, it would. He was suddenly angry again.

  He leaned forward and set his lips to hers.

  She jerked her head back like a frightened rabbit and he raised his eyebrows.

  “It is just that I would like a little proof,” he said, “that your twice-made boast was not entirely idle.”

  She looked at him in incomprehension for a moment.

  “That I know how to please a man?” Her eyes were huge again, her cheeks aflame.

  “Yes,” he said softly “That boast.”

  “It was not a boast.”

  When he did not move, she lifted her gloved hands to frame his face, raised her puckered lips to his, and kissed him very softly and gently on the lips.

  It was the saddest apology for a kiss he had ever been given by any woman who was not either his mother or one of his sisters.

  But that, he thought as she released him and looked anxiously into his eyes, was definitely a frisson of sexual awareness he felt tightening his groin area. More than a frisson, in fact.

  Good Lord!

  “Hats and gloves are an impediment, are they not?” he said, removing his own and dropping them to the grass, and then pulling free the ribbon beneath her chin and sending her bonnet to the ground behind her.

  She slid off her gloves, biting her lip as she did so.

  “Now,” he said, “you can make a less inhibited demonstration.”

  She framed his face with her hands again—they were warm and soft—and gazed into his eyes until she kissed him.

  Her mouth was still softly puckered, but this time she moved it over his lips, parting her own slightly so that he could feel the moist heat within. And her fingers crept up into his hair. She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyelids, his temples, very softly, very gently And then his mouth again, touching the tip of her tongue to his lips, running it slowly along the seam.

  No other part of her body touched him.

  He stood very still, his arms at his sides, his fingers slowly curling into his palms.

  And then she was done with her demonstration. She stepped back, and her hands fell to her sides.

  “You must understand,” she said, “that Hedley had no experience at all before I married him. And I did not either, of course. And he was very, very ill through most of our marriage. I do not… I am sorry. It was a boast.”

  He looked downward, stooped to pick up a flat pebble, and turned toward the lake to send it bouncing across the water, leaving tiny whirlpools in its wake.

  He had suddenly realized something. It was too late simply to dismiss her preposterous suggestion with the contempt it deserved. He had invited her to kiss him, and she had done so. If he had not exactly compromised her, he had at least toyed with her sensibilities.

  There was the small matter of honor to be addressed now.

  “Yes, it was a boast,” he said, turning back to her, speaking almost viciously. “I am experienced, you see, Mrs. Dew, and I would make far more demands on a wife than a sick man ever did. I daresay you would retract your kind offer to marry me in a moment if I made you a demonstration.”

  “I would not” she said, her eyes flashing back at him. “I am not a child. And there is no cause for you to be angry I have made a perfectly civil offer and you are quite at liberty to say no—though I do hope you would not then offer for Meg after all. Make your demonstration and I shall tell you if I wish to retract my offer.”

  Her nostrils had flared. She was angry.

  He reached out and unbuttoned her cloak at the neck. He opened back the garment and sent it to the grass to join her bonnet and gloves.

  “You will not be cold for long,” he promised her angrily as he unbuttoned his greatcoat—though he did not take it off.

  He set his arms about her—one about her shoulders, the other about her waist—and drew her against him. He wrapped his coat about her while lowering one hand to her buttocks and drawing her closer.

  “Oh,” she said, looking up at him, her eyes wide and startled.

  “Oh, indeed,” he agreed.

  She was very slender. She had little shape—and yet strangely she felt very feminine.

  He lowered his head to hers and kissed her. He encountered the soft pucker but would have none of it. He opened his mouth, pressed his tongue firmly against the seam of her lips, and invaded her mouth before she could think of clamping her teeth together.

  She made a guttural sound in her throat.

  But he was by no means finished with her. He explored the inside of her mouth, stroking against those parts that would inflame her, one hand spread over the back of her head so that she could not pull away.

  With his free hand he opened the buttons down the back of her dress until he could nudge the fabric off her shoulders and run both hands along her back and then bring them forward to cup her small, firm breasts, pushed high by her stays. With a finger and thumb of each hand he rolled her nipples until they puckered and hardened.

  He kissed her chin and her throat, moving his hands down her body to cradle her buttocks and hold her firm while he rubbed against her with his erection.

  And he kissed her mouth again, simulating copulation with his tongue while he felt her fingers twine tightly in his hair.

  It had been intended as a sort of lordly demonstration to an impertinent innocent who had played with fire. It had turned into something rather different. He had not expected to become sexually arous
ed. And if he did not soon put an end to what was happening, he would be laying her down on the grass, late February chill and dampness notwithstanding, and demonstrating something quite different again.

  She was doing nothing to stop it, dangerous innocent that she was.

  Good Lord! This was Mrs. Nessie Dew! And it could not possibly be night and just a bizarre dream. It had gone on too long.

  He moved both hands to her waist and lifted his head.

  She gazed into his eyes, her own darker and deeper than usual. They were really quite blue, he decided. And by far her best feature.

  “Your face should always look like this,” she said.

  “Like what?” He frowned.

  “Filled with passion,” she said. “You have strong features. They were meant to be passionate, not proud and disdainful as they so often are.”

  “Ah,” he said, “we are back to that, are we?”

  “I still do not wish to retract my offer,” she said. “You have not frightened me. You are but a man.”

  She stooped to retrieve her garments and drew her cloak about her shoulders. She shivered, though he was not sure it was from the cold.

  “But I know you do not wish it,” she said. “And it is hardly surprising. I ought to have looked at myself in a mirror when I first thought of it. It does not matter, though. I do not think you will now offer for Meg after all, and that is all that really matters.”

  She pulled on her bonnet and tied the ribbons beneath her chin.

  He turned to face the lake again.

  “I am going back to the house,” she said. “I am sorry if I have offended you. It is not that Meg dislikes you. It is just that she loves Crispin. I am sure you will have no trouble finding someone eager to marry you when you go to London for the Season.”

  He raised his eyebrows and turned his head to look over his shoulder. She was still standing there, pulling on her gloves, flushed and slightly disheveled from their embrace.

  He wondered suddenly if she knew a pertinent point about him.

  “You had ambitions to be a duchess, did you?” he asked her.

  She looked blankly at him. “Not really,” she said. “Not at all actually. Whatever would I do with a duke? Besides, I do not know any.”

  “You know a duke’s heir” he said.

  “Do I?”

  He continued to look at her over his shoulder until he saw comprehension begin to dawn.

  “Mine is a courtesy title,” he said. “It is my grandfather’s junior title and was given first to my father and then to me on his death. If I survive my grandfather, I will be Duke of Moreland one day.”

  “O.” Her lips formed the letter though he heard no sound. She had turned suddenly pale.

  No, she had not known.

  “Now have I frightened you?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she said after gazing at him in silence for a few moments. “You are still just a man. But I am going.”

  She turned to walk away.

  “Wait!” he said. “If you are to marry twice in your lifetime, you really ought to have the memory of one proposal that was made by the man. And I am a proud man, Mrs. Dew, as you have observed. I cannot go through life with a wife who proposed to me.”

  She turned again, an arrested look on her face.

  And if it was to be done, it might as well be done properly, he supposed, though he would have done no such thing for Miss Huxtable. He went down on one knee before her and looked up into her eyes.

  “Mrs. Dew,” he said, “would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  She stared at him for a moment and then—

  And then color, animation, and laughter rushed back into her face all at once so that for a startled moment he was dazzled.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, how absolutely splendid of you! You look very romantic. But are you quite sure?”

  “If I were not,” he said irritably, “would I be making such a thorough ass of myself? And would I not be in fear and trembling lest you say yes? Do I look as if I am trembling?”

  “No,” she said, “but you look as if you may have a wet knee. There was rain last night. Do get up.”

  “Not before I have my answer,” he said. “Will you?”

  “But of course I will,” she said. “Was not I the one to ask you? You will not be sorry. I promise you will not. I know how to—”

  “Make a man happy,” he said, interrupting her as he stood again and looked down ruefully at the dark circle of wetness about his right knee. “And what of yourself, Mrs. Dew? Do you believe I can make you happy?”

  “I do not see why not,” she said. “I am not difficult to please.”

  She blushed rosily.

  “Very well, then.” He bent to the grass to retrieve his discarded garments. “I suppose we ought to go up to the house and tell our news.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled at him again. But just before she took his offered arm, her eyes flickered and looked away from his own. Not, however, before he read something in them that looked very like fear.

  It could not be worse than what he was feeling. What the devil had he just done?

  Whatever it was, it was irrevocable now.

  He was affianced to Mrs. Nessie Dew, for the love of God.

  Who irritated him almost beyond endurance almost every time he was in company with her.

  Whose very name made him cringe.

  Who disapproved of almost everything about him— not that he did not return the compliment.

  It sounded like a match made in hell.

  He strode off with her in the direction of the house.

  10

  THEY walked back to the house in silence.

  It had seemed a good idea last night. She had not believed he would refrain from offering for Meg if she simply asked it of him. He would look at her with that hard-jawed, supercilious look of his, and proceed to business. And she knew Meg would not say no.

  Desperate measures had been necessary, and she had known just what measures they must be.

  Something his mother had said had hardened her resolve.

  But you have had your chance, Mrs. Dew. Your elder sister has not.

  It was true. She had had her chance. She had married Hedley It did not matter that he had lived only a year and had been very ill throughout it. She had had her chance.

  Meg must not be deprived of hers, even if that chance appeared to be slim to none.

  She would marry Viscount Lyngate instead of Meg and give him the wife he needed and give her sisters an easy entrée into society.

  She would be the sacrificial lamb—though she had not thought of what she was doing in those terms until he had said it.

  It did not really matter that neither of them particularly liked the other. That could be changed. If they were married, she would work on making him happy. She would work upon making herself happy too. She had done it before, after all—and in far more difficult circumstances.

  And she could not deny that physically she found him very appealing indeed. Peculiar, almost painful things happened to her insides at the very thought of being married to him.

  It would not be difficult…

  Last night it had seemed a good idea. Today she was not nearly so sure.

  She was not even marginally pretty, let alone beautiful.

  She had had her boast exposed for what it was. How very humiliating it was to compare her kiss with his.

  She knew he had kissed her only to prove a point, not because he had wanted to.

  She had been left with the feeling that she had unleashed something very dangerous indeed.

  Good heavens, she was still aching in places she had not known there were places.

  And then there had been the great shock of discovering that he was heir to a dukedom. She had proposed marriage to a future duke!

  That meant she was probably going to be a duchess one day.

  She was going to be a viscountess as soon as she married a
nd—though she had never until recently ventured more than a few miles beyond Throckbridge—she was going to be presented to the queen, and then she was going to introduce Meg and Kate to society.

  And this man was going to be her husband.

  If he kissed like that when standing beside a lake in broad daylight, what was he going to do to her when …

  Well.

  She stumbled over the merest tuft of grass, and he pressed her hand more tightly against his side and looked down at her briefly—with a very tight-lipped look as if to say he did not expect such awkwardness from his future duchess.

  What were Meg and Kate and Stephen going to say?

  What was his mother going to say?

  And his grandfather?

  Why had he turned the tables on her and offered for her? It was the last thing she had expected at that particular point. She had been about to crawl away in search of a deep, dark hole to hide in, preferably forever.

  “Mrs. Dew,” he said as they stepped onto the terrace. He stopped walking and looked down at her again. “There is still time to change your mind. I have sensed your agitation since we left the lake. Do you wish to marry me or do you not? You have my word of honor as a gentleman that regardless of your answer I will never marry either of your sisters.”

  The chance of reprieve!

  She gazed up into his eyes and thought quite irrelevantly that whoever had made them blue— God?—had been very clever indeed since one expected dark brown with his Mediterranean complexion.

  Yes, she did wish it despite everything. But…

  “Do you wish to marry me?” she asked him.

  His nostrils flared and his jaw set in a hard line.

  “It is not at all the thing, ma’am,” he said curtly, “to answer one question with another. I will answer nonetheless. I offered for you. Therefore I wish for a marriage with you. I am not a ditherer, Mrs. Dew Now I will hear your answer.”

  Ah. A man accustomed to command. He would have the right to command and bully her forever after she married him.

  If she allowed him to get away with it, that was.

  “Of course I wish to marry you,” she said. “I was the first to ask, remember?”

  “I doubt I will ever forget,” he retorted.