My Wicked Marquess

by Gaelen Foley

  “How so?”

  “How?” She scoffed. “You frequent brothels! You associate with libertines! You treat your own family like strangers, and if you can treat your own sister that way, then I’m sure it would only be a matter of time before I would suffer the same indifference from you, for some unwitting transgression.”

  “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “I asked! You would not tell me! You ask for my hand, but you don’t even want me to know you. What am I to make of a man who claims to appreciate my heart but won’t share his own with me?”

  Emboldened by his attentive, though angry stare, she forged on.

  “Perhaps you can be satisfied with a match based on advantage, but I told you, I need more than that—and I don’t mean rank or riches. You must excuse me if I fail to be dazzled by your wealth and power.”

  “That you are not dazzled only makes me want you more,” he uttered quietly. His stare intensified; he took a step closer. “Come on, Daphne,” he urged, his deep voice taut. “What the hell is it going to take?”

  “You think I have a price? A bigger necklace, a larger house? Is that how you measure everything? Because that’s just sad. Or is that merely what you think of me? Does this house look like another brothel to you?” Her voice climbed in pitch and volume with her building anger. “For your information, Lord Rotherstone, I am not for sale—no matter what my father said. But if you conspire with him to find some way to force me into this, then let me warn you in advance that I’ve learned from Penelope how to make a husband’s daily life a living hell,” she finished with a chilly smile.

  He just stared at her. “Well, well, well,” he said at length. “It seems I’ve found myself a little spitfire. The perfect lady, eh? I knew there was more to you than meets the eye.” Pacing restlessly across the parlor, he ran a knuckle along the crisp line of his jaw as he sauntered past her.

  “Please go,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait. “You have my answer.”

  “No.”

  “No?” she echoed, furrowing her brow in astonishment. “Will you make me send for the constable?”

  He was peering at a picture on the wall, then he looked askance at her. “Why would you do that?” he murmured. “Are you so afraid of me?”

  She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin a notch. “Of course not.”

  “I know,” he countered softly. “That’s another reason I want you, Daphne.”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “It’s true.”

  “Why are you so fixed on me?” she cried. “You don’t really want a wife, you want another piece of art for your collection! So, keep looking, by all means! There are plenty of other girls out there who are prettier than I.”

  “I don’t care about their looks any more than you care about my riches. I want you,” he added, even more decisively as he began prowling toward her.

  “For what purpose?” she exclaimed. “Oh, but of course—as a broodmare! Well, if you are so keen to restore your family name, then you should go and find a wife who hasn’t already been the target of ton gossip.”

  “I don’t care about any of that anymore.” He stepped closer. “I just want you, Daphne.”

  “Why?” She had to hear him say it, say the words. Because I love you. If that was true.

  “Because I do,” he growled, refusing to say it.

  She shook her head at him. “You want to gain me only to hold me at arm’s length. Yesterday I got a taste of how you shut people out. I did not enjoy it, Max.”

  “Well, I got a taste of something yesterday, too. Something I want more of.” He reached for her, but she pulled away.

  “You want, you want! Is that all you can care about?”

  Unable to get through to him, she saw it was time to resort to her last secret weapon. “I’m sorry, Max. My father should’ve told you. There is someone else I care for.” She willed her face to look convincing. It was true, after all, though it suddenly felt like a lie. “Someone very dear to me, whom I love, and who loves me in return. I cannot marry you,” she said, “for another holds my heart.”

  He studied her for a second, then he began laughing softly. “You are so amusing.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “I take it that you are referring to young Mr. Jonathon White.”

  Her eyes widened. “You know about him?” she breathed, and then immediately wondered if she had just made a horrible mistake. Dear God! “You will not hurt him?” she cried.

  He just looked at her.

  “Promise me you won’t touch him!”

  He gave her an irritated frown. “You probably think I drown puppies in my spare time, as well.” He paused. “You don’t love him, Daphne.”

  “I just told you I do! I do love Jonathon—dearly!”

  “As a brother, yes. A friend. I can live with that.”

  “And—as a man.”

  “No.” He sent her a heated, knowing smile.

  She was flustered as he drew closer. “What do you know of it? Nothing! Why don’t you believe me?”

  “I have just one question,” he murmured softly, staring into her eyes. “Do you want him like you want me?” She quivered when he touched her.

  “I always get what I want, my love, eventually,” he whispered.

  “Oh, don’t do that. Please. You mustn’t. Oh, Max, no.”

  “Yes,” he breathed as he ran his fingers down the side of her neck.

  She swallowed hard and turned away. I must be strong. “It isn’t going to work.”

  “No?” Standing behind her, he laid his hands on her waist and kissed her nape beneath her upswept hair. “I have another present for you, Daphne. Since you don’t want the necklace…”

  She shivered, casting about feebly for her ability to resist him. “In the strongest…possible terms…I must object.”

  “You go right ahead,” he breathed, his warm whisper fraught with wicked seduction. He continued kissing her neck again, teasing her senses into glorious awakening for him. She laid her hands atop his where they rested on her waist, but her power to push him away was fading fast.

  When his wandering lips skimmed her earlobe, she was overcome with the need for his kiss. She turned her head and offered him her mouth. He claimed her lips immediately. She moaned at the welcome pleasure of his now clean-shaved face caressing hers. The absence of his scratchy beard made it easier to kiss him with all the passion seething inside her. She lifted her hand and caressed his cheek, savoring the warm, smooth male skin beneath her trembling fingertips.

  Slowly, he turned her around to face him. Reveling in his embrace despite her earlier determination not to let this happen, she could not stop herself from feeding on his kisses. At length, however, he stopped her. Ending the kiss, he held her fevered stare as he lowered himself slowly to his knees before her.

  Daphne watched him in hazy-eyed silence as he gathered her hands to his lips and began kissing them tenderly, with the utmost care; her palms, each finger, her wrists. When he had lavished these with his attentions, he kissed her midriff through her gown. He grasped her hips gently and continued pressing fervent kisses to her stomach and lower, his hot breath permeating the light cotton layers of her gown and petticoat.

  Her heart was slamming in her chest as she wondered with a building sense of thrill what he was about.

  She rested her hands on his wide shoulders as he reached down and caressed her legs, again, through her skirts, until he came to her ankles. She shivered eagerly as his fingers played over her anklebones; her eyes flared with rising desire, but she made no effort whatsoever to stop him as his light touch began traveling northward under her skirts. She swallowed hard, but could not have uttered a word of protest if she had wanted to. All she could do was stare helplessly into his eyes, her pulse pounding.

  She felt the precise moment that his hands roamed above the tissue-thin layer of her stockings and ventured above her garters, meeting bare skin.

  He closed h
is eyes, visibly savoring the contact.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” she breathed at last as he began raising the hem of her skirts.

  “I want to please you,” he whispered, then bent his head and kissed her thigh. “Let me adore you.” He pressed her backward a small space to lean her hips against the sturdy secretaire behind her.

  All thoughts beyond this room, this moment, this man soon fled. Forbidden pleasure turned to bliss as he lavished the same scrupulous care on kissing her thighs as he had her neck and hands. She watched him avidly, already aroused to full willingness by the time he parted her legs and drove his openmouthed kiss against her mound.

  She melted, moaning, as his tongue stroked and swirled over the tautened bud of her center. Gliding a hand up her leg, he slipped a warm, gentle finger inside her; he deepened his kiss, lapping up the dewy evidence of her desire with a moan of pleasure at the taste.

  He was, she realized, as totally aroused as she, lost in his giving; she was so overwhelmed by his intense, inspired passion that she could do nothing but receive.

  In that moment, she was his instrument, to do with what he willed. Her body and, more alarmingly, her soul were fully open to him; he could have taken her, and he surely knew it, being a man of the world.

  But instead, he used his mouth and hands to beguile her, until suddenly—the delicious tension coiled so tightly in her core broke loose with a vengeance, sending riotous waves of pleasure undulating through her. Her back arched, her hips reached for his kiss; a soft, ragged cry tore from her lips. He lapped at her body in feverish thirst, moaning against her flesh even as the uncontrollable spasms of delight still racked her.

  When all her strength had ebbed away, Lord Rotherstone lifted his head. She closed her eyes, still reeling with bewildered bliss; she rested her head weakly on the upper part of the secretaire behind her, and felt him press a damp kiss to her knee.

  Enervated, her heart still pounding, she found the power at last to open her eyes. She gazed at him like a woman foxed on some secret wine that only he could give.

  He passed his fingers slowly over his lips to dry them, and then he rose, brushing her skirts back down politely, satisfaction in his eyes, discretion in his faint, worldly smile. He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to her brow. “You are a feast for all the senses, Daphne.”

  “Oh, Max,” she uttered.

  “I will see you at the End of Summer Ball. You owe me a dance and I intend to collect.” He laid his fingertip softly over her lips before she could summon up the strength to contradict him. He looked deeply into her eyes, and ran a stray lock of her hair lovingly between his fingers. “No more foolish talk of refusing me,” he whispered. “You belong with me. I want you. And I will not be denied.”

  He was gone after branding her lips with one last, searing kiss, slipping out quietly, leaving her spent and breathless, and even more confused than she had been before.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to regain her wits. When she opened them again, her dazed glance happened upon the sparkling sapphire necklace.

  She stared at it with a kind of shock; how had she ended up with it again?

  The second she saw it, a cold trickle of anger began to drip its way back into her warm, physical satisfaction.

  The sight of it there, glittering in the afternoon light, seemed like a silent reproach for her weakness to his temptation.

  She had accused him in so many words of treating her like a harlot, thinking he could buy her at the cost of all the luxury he could bestow. Now he had done this incredible, wanton thing to her, and Daphne was left feeling rather literally like some sort of scarlet woman.

  How wicked of her. But what wouldn’t this man do to get what he wanted?

  First, he had tried to tempt her with the chance to share his wealth and power, and when that had failed, he had resorted to an even more powerful weapon: sexual pleasure.

  Unfortunately, now that she’d had a taste of this forbidden sweetness, as intoxicating as it was, she realized it was a completely separate thing from what she really craved—an intimacy of the heart with him.

  Without a true bond between them, she discovered that such activities could leave a woman with a bad feeling inside, as if she’d had one too many glasses of wine the previous night and acted foolish.

  Clearly, with his skill as a lover, he could take her to the heights of desire, but just like his riches, this, too, was no substitute for love.

  Surely he knew that. He had merely done this as another means of gaining power over her, she thought. But it wasn’t going to work. Her face hardening with her anger at herself and at him, she went and snatched the necklace angrily in her grasp.

  She stepped toward the window and peered out in the direction of the drive, but he had already ridden off, leaving the jeweled monstrosity with her intentionally.

  As if it was her payment.

  So, he refused to take it back? He thought he’d won?

  Very well, you blackguard. I’ve got a better use for it, anyway. She was certainly not going to keep the thing and be forever reminded of him. She knew then what she was going to do with the necklace—and she also made a decision about how to handle him.

  At the End of Summer Ball, she would finish this thing between them one way or the other.

  He wanted to turn this into a high-stakes game? Very well. He was going to hate her for the public repudiation that she had in mind, but maybe then he’d finally get the message.

  This time, she thought grimly, the Demon Marquess had brought it on himself.

  Chapter 11

  Max trusted he had laid her fears to rest. At least that was what he wanted to believe a few days later as his ebony coach rumbled on behind the four black horses, speeding down to nearby Richmond-upon-Thames for the End of Summer Ball. Inside the coach, a jovial spirit reigned as Rohan and Jordan and he passed around a bottle of whisky, imbibing freely ahead of the night’s festivities.

  His friends were conversing irreverently on which women they might amuse themselves in pursuing tonight, but Max found himself yet again in a state of distraction over Daphne. Lord, what had this girl done to him? He glanced out the carriage window at the splendor of the evening’s sunset, unfurled over a wide expanse of countryside.

  Dramatic, billowing clouds filled the west, blazing pink and orange on their undersides, lit from below by the September sun slipping over the horizon. The tops and sides of the clouds were smoky lavender, with patches of the fading day’s light blue still visible between them. In the east, a full moon rose, wearing a misty gold halo, and the night it gathered round it like a cloak turned from royal blue to dark indigo, spangled with stars.

  The trees crowded out the view again as Jordan handed him the bottle. Max accepted it with a wry smile, thought of Daphne again, and took a hearty swig.

  Still, the liquor could not chase away the nagging feeling that instead of getting things under control with her in the parlor, maybe he had only made matters worse. Doubt was not the only ailment plaguing him tonight. Along with a high degree of sexual frustration, he was still secretly hurt by her attempt to get rid of him.

  He really did not understand her continued resistance.

  In what way did she find him lacking? Hell, he had started off barely caring whom he married, but now somehow she had him by the throat.

  He had no idea why he was trying so hard, or when he’d become so determined that only she would do. Which was why he was still shocked by her attempted rejection.

  He was used to getting what he wanted, and could in all modesty say that women did not usually turn their noses up at him. On those rare occasions when it did occur, he usually just laughed. He never particularly cared.

  But this was different somehow. Very, very different. This one got to him because it stirred long-buried fears deep in the core of him that maybe he was not worthy of love.

  All Max knew was that it was one thing to be rejected in chameleon mode. That,
he did not take personally. But to try, to start, by God, to offer her his real self, and have the inner man rejected, that struck a nerve. What in the hell was it going to take for her to accept him?

  When would he ever be enough?

  He was already as rich as a king and higher placed in the order of precedence than ninety-nine percent of the population. If that was still not good enough for somebody to find him worthy of love, then he might as well just give up now.

  Bloody hell. He viewed his own aching uncertainty and thought himself pathetic. Pathetic like the angry boy who’d been a punching bag for the local bullies, the lonely son who had not mattered enough to his own parents to stop them from selling him off to a secret government agency for gold, even though they’d known he could be killed.

  The bottle came around to him again, and Max tried to drown his disgust with another long swig.

  Perdition. If this girl could make him hurt like this before he had even bedded her, then how might she torment him throughout all their coming years as man and wife?

  God, if he were anywhere near as shrewd as his comrades in the Order generally thought him, he would wash his hands of her and choose somebody else. Some pretty-headed, agreeable nitwit that he could hold at arm’s length in benevolent indifference. Someone who would spend his gold and not dare question how he lived his life.

  But despite Miss Starling’s aggravating stubbornness, Max could not let go. You never give up, and you never back down, Virgil had once said. It was one of the things the Order valued about his nature, but sometimes his kind of stubbornness could be a curse.

  Life would’ve been so much easier if he could just tell Daphne who and what he really was. Instead, there was nothing he could do but wait for her to accept her fate—and hope that, in the meanwhile, his own deepening hunger for her did not drive him into lunacy. He was already feeling a little too close to the edge.

  Max noticed then that the carriage had grown silent, the mask of merriment slipping briefly to reveal three of the Order’s lost boys, men now, each left to battle private demons of his own.