The man beside her, huge and oafish, was all but dragging her through the dance, his big hands on her waist as they turned together. She tried not to imagine him as a lover. On her, over her, in her, labouring over the act as he was over the movements. And the room spun in a way that had nothing to do with the pattern of the dance, tipping uneasily, as though it could throw her off. Suddenly, she was sure that if she stayed here one moment longer, she would be known as the odd girl who became sick in the middle of a crowded ballroom.
She pulled out of his grasp, touching her hand to her face, and glanced up into his shocked eyes, whispering frantically, ‘Air.’ Then she pulled away from him and ran for the terrace doors, not caring the embarrassment it would bring and the latest on dit that would be floating through the ton tomorrow. Lady Priscilla Roleston had left the Duke of Reighland standing open mouthed on the dance floor.
* * *
Damn.
He had been so eager to see her tonight, surprised to feel such pleasant anticipation at a second chance to speak to her in a single day. He had watched as she entered the room, then reminded himself that this was not meant to be a love match and that he did not exactly wish for one. The Duke of Reighland could not afford the highs and lows of hope and despair that mere mortals experienced. It was difficult to keep track of the doings in the House and at Court, and with his many tenants and properties, without wandering after some girl like a mooncalf.
There might be passion, of course. She was a damn fine-looking girl, just as he’d been told. And she was wearing the gloves he’d bought her on her slender pink arms. He could imagine himself, peeling them off again, kissing every inch of exposed skin. But that feeling could not possibly last. She was at least interesting to talk to, although she had some very odd ideas.
She did not ride, he told himself firmly, trying to quell the eagerness. He could change that in time, he hoped. But if her aversion to horses proved deeper than her aversion to him, he would have to accept failure and withdraw his offer.
But after what he had just done, she would have to hate horses near to death to equal what she must feel for him. Why had he been foolish enough to bring up the matter of the dancing master yet again? He had meant it as a joke. It was a year in the past and truly insignificant to him.
But for her it was a fresh hurt and each outing in society a foray into enemy territory. She would have to grow used to the comments, if she was ever to overcome them, just as he had. To let the taunts roll off her back, to make a joke of herself when no other way would work, and to grow tall, to grow strong…
And that advice would be quite useless. Ladies did not solve their problems on the fields of Eton, but then neither had he. He’d run for the country the first chance he’d had. If he had been a disappointment to his father, that good man had never said so, but he had been a scholar and had encouraged circumspection over foolish displays of bravado.
There would be no running from trouble now and no father to advise him. He and Priss would both have to stick it out and ignore the sidelong glances and harsh words. If the aloof Benbridge was any indication, she must have been bred to believe that others did not matter. Why could she not behave so now?
He went to the refreshment table to fetch her a lemonade. Then he thought the better of it and stepped behind a potted palm to dump half the cup away and top it off with brandy from his flask.
Next he went to the verandah, where she waited, staring morosely off into the darkness.
He pressed the cup into her hands. ‘Drink.’
She took the first sip and choked. ‘Whatever did you do to this? It is foul.’
‘That is at least half spirits. You seemed in need of more fortification than lemonade would give.’
She took a deep breath and drank half of it down in a gulp. ‘Do you mean to take advantage of me, then? For I believe we’ve established that alcohol will not be necessary.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Between my loose morals, my stupidity and my father’s desire that I entrap you, you might do just as you wished with me and I would welcome the indignity.’
Had other men tried? he wondered. Or had her father encouraged it? She seemed bitter and fragile, and very much alone. He chose his next words carefully. ‘Do I mean to take advantage of you? You are a tempting morsel, I must admit. If the opportunity presents itself I would not turn it down. But it will not be tonight. Let us sit for a moment, then we will return to the ballroom, the best of friends.’
‘Why do you bother,’ she asked, ‘if you think so little of me?’
‘I do not think less of you. But I fear you think less of yourself. I spoke poorly, just now. But it frustrates me that you worry so about what others say, now that it is too late to change things. You are who you are. Others may take that, or leave it alone.’
‘That is an utterly male way to think,’ she said, as though it were some kind of fault. ‘And a rich and titled male at that. They are the only sort that could walk away from past mistakes and let the world be damned for caring.’
‘Perhaps,’ he admitted, wishing it were true. ‘I have a vague knowledge of the rules of female society. But I cannot say I care much about them. Am I being far too obtuse if I suggest that you limit your concern to the opinions of those people that truly matter?’ As though she would ever count him in that category.
He took a breath and reminded himself that, since his accession to the title, he had no reason to worry. ‘My opinion should matter, for instance. I think well of you. The others are unimportant.’
‘And that is exactly what I do not understand,’ she said, staring up at him. ‘I need to know…why.’
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Why you are doing this?’ She shook her head in confusion. ‘The dancing and flirting, the attention to my needs. Why are you courting me?’ Her voice dropped on the last word, as though it was something shocking or scandalous.
‘Am I courting you?’ he asked, with mock innocence.
‘It appears that you are.’
‘So my behaviour cannot be construed as kindness or friendship.’
She gave him a tired look. ‘The last I checked, it is London at the height of the Season. You are an eligible duke. There is little kindness or friendship to go around.’
‘Perhaps I am attracted to your refreshingly honest nature.’
‘Or my father’s title. I understand the reasons for your offer. They are purely political and none of my concern.’
He thought for a moment. ‘No. I do not think that is it. As you have pointed out to me, I would hardly need to waste my time on you to curry favour with him. I have but to vote as he does and that should be enough. It is he who is attempting to curry favour with me.’
‘True,’ she said, making a sour face as she sipped at the cup he had given her.
‘And I am willing to allow it, as long as it does not impinge on my own goals or desires.’
‘Which makes you sound little better than my father. It gives me no reason to think that my life will be any better than it has been. It does not explain to me why, after all I have told you, that your goals or desires include me, particularly.’
‘I should think that would be obvious. You are attractive and good company.’
‘I am not trying to be,’ she admitted.
‘And that is why I enjoy being with you.’ He glanced back towards the ballroom. ‘The other girls I have met in recent months try far too hard. It is clear that they give no thought at all to whether we might suit in any way other than that I am Reighland. They are willing to bend themselves into knots if it will get my attention.’ He looked down at her again. ‘You, at least, have spine enough to speak the truth. Further investigation is necessary.’
‘So in trying to put you off, I have done the thing most likely to draw you in.’
<
br /> ‘Exactly.’
‘And I suppose I cannot suddenly turn agreeable.’
‘I would think it a double blind,’ he said. ‘And I would continue to press my suit. Or I would assume that my charm had finally won you over and it would increase my ardour.’
She could not help herself and laughed at the idea that he might possess anything like winning charm.
He stared past her, out into the garden, and smiled in relief. ‘You ask why I court you, Lady Priscilla. Then I will tell you. There are damn few people here with the courage to laugh in my presence. Even fewer who would dare to respond when I was joking at my own expense. In you? I see something. You will pretend it is not there. But you show hints of a most admirable courage. It may disappoint me that you cannot display it in your own defence, but I admire it all the same.’
‘Thank you.’ Her response was the barest of whispers.
‘It is a lovely night, is it not?’ He fell back on banal small talk to fill the awkward silence.
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
‘Stars,’ he said, making a vague gesture toward the sky.
‘Yes.’
‘A fresh breeze.’
She inhaled and nodded.
‘And a beautiful woman.’
She faltered. Then managed another, ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was a little stronger, but she continued to look straight forwards, out into the darkness.
‘A kiss would not be inappropriate,’ he suggested. ‘Between a couple on the verge of a commitment.’
‘Are we on such a precipice?’ she asked.
‘We could be,’ he admitted. He waited for the usual arguments. She did not wish to be married to anyone, least of all to him. But if they did marry, there was little point in pretending that this was anything other than inevitable. The Duke of Reighland wished it and her father had agreed. It would be done. Why must he dress it up as something that it was not: a normal courtship with moonlight, and soft sighing breezes?
If she did, he would answer that some part of him longed desperately for that pretence. He might have been an ordinary suitor, full of sweet words and flattery. He would have lured her here to steal what he was about to take by right. And she would be feeling the anticipatory fluttering inside, the excitement of a single, stolen kiss. There would be no dashed expectations, no fear, no disillusion. Just the sure belief that every moment would be as sweet as this one.
Next to him, she closed her eyes and turned towards him, waiting woodenly for the kiss that would break the spell and return them both to the truth.
He reached for her and ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth, wishing that it might be as soft as she was. He had never felt anything so delicate in his life. He brushed as lightly as he could against the firmly set lower lip, feeling it part from its mate ever so slightly. He caught his breath as he felt the tiny, almost accidental kiss on the tip of his finger. He slid it lower to rest against the line of her jaw. And then, at last, he leaned forwards and let his lips touch hers, soft, warm, just wet enough to show the life in them. Through his own barely open lips, he could taste the brandy he had given her and feel the gentlest touch of her tongue against his.
Time passed. He measured it by each breath they shared. But he dared not move. He rested against her mouth, not as an invader, but as though he were a sleeping part of her own body. It made him think of lying by her side, late at night, drifting into dream with the firm press of her against him, anchoring him like a ship that had come to harbour.
And then he drew away, slowly as he had come, closing his lips and pushing off from hers with the faintest increase of pressure, before his hand dropped away.
She opened her eyes, blinking once, as if she was trying to clear her mind of what had happened.
Somewhere in him, he felt sadness that she would be eager to forget something so utterly perfect as that moment had been.
He had kissed before.
And this was different.
It lacked the sense that all of his other kisses had, of being an immediate prelude to something else. While that type of kiss was certainly exciting, it came with the knowledge that he must keep a bit of himself apart, revelling in the physical release while leaving his heart untouched. But with Priscilla, for the first time, he had opened himself totally to another person and revealed a vulnerability that no peer could admit to having.
And she was smiling at him, as though nothing had happened. How dare she dismiss him in this way?
He readied a retort.
Then he looked into her eyes and saw that she was as shaken as he by what had happened. She might not admit it, but he had won her with a single kiss. All the rest would be formality and pretence.
He returned a smile as false as the one she gave him, for it would anger her if he revealed the triumph he felt. ‘Shall we return to the ballroom, Lady Priscilla? If you allow me, I will escort you to supper. I understand that the food here is mediocre and my conversation is rumoured to be quite dull. It will be just the thing to settle your nerves.’
Chapter Seven
That night Priss awoke in a cold sweat. She had been dreaming about the night in the inn, when everything had gone wrong. She had to get hold of herself. It was clear that these little spells of unease were growing worse and not better with the possibility of a large and virile fiancé.
She owed Reighland more of an explanation than she was giving him, that was for certain. He had done nothing to deserve her distaste of him. Since he showed no sign of ceasing his pursuit of her, she might end by fainting dead away in front of the altar if she did not tell him the truth and put an end to this.
Until his arrival, she’d at least managed to banish any demons from the daylight. But in sleep her mind always seemed to turn a situation that had been merely unpleasant into an actual nightmare. It annoyed her. It was unfair to Gervaise to twist things around to make some sort of villain out of him, when it had been she who had orchestrated the events of their elopement. She was willing to pay the price for her recklessness with well-deserved social ostracism.
But Gervaise had been no better or worse than she’d expected and she would do well to reiterate the actual events to herself to banish any nonsense.
On the first night they’d stopped, after leaving London for Gretna Green, he had taken only one room for them. She had nervously suggested that two might be better. But he had said, quite bluntly, ‘You were the one who wished to run away and be married. You must have known what that would mean. Scotland is only a day or two off. In my mind, we are practically married now.’
Practically married was quite different than legally married. Still, if she wished to have any say in the matter of her own future, she must learn to stand by her decisions, even if she had begun to suspect that they were wrong. If she wanted to be stopped before the border, it would be better that they dawdled. She would be ruined no matter what went on in the bed tonight. She might as well satisfy her curiosity as to what actual ruination entailed.
‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘One room. And we shall share the bed.’ She thought it would make him smile. He had been quite free with his humour when they’d been still in London. But now he was smiling to please himself, making no effort to put her at her ease.
Once the door was closed, he wasted little time. He kissed her. It was not like the gentle little busses he had given, when they’d stolen time together in the ballroom. He simply put his tongue on her lips and pushed it into her mouth.
She withdrew. ‘What are you doing?’
‘That, Priss, is how married people kiss. I thought that you knew that, at least.’
‘Oh.’ She stood still and let him do it again. He was moving around in her mouth and she assumed that she was supposed to do something similar. She tried. He seemed to like
it, though she could not quite seem to understand what the bother was. It was nice, she supposed. But not much more than that.
And then, with no further preamble, he had thrust a hand down her bodice and squeezed her breast. She was used to the sly touches he managed sometimes, when they danced. There had been the gentlest brushes of his hands over her bodice, under the guise of adjusting her posture when teaching a new step. Then there had been hurried and false apologies, accompanied by the blinding smile, to make sure she noticed what he had done.
Those touches had left her trembling, almost too weak in the knees to go on with her lesson. She had been sure, no matter what was likely to happen on this trip, that there would be more exciting moments such as that.
But now he was kneading her, as though she were an insensate lump of dough, and grunting with pleasure.
‘Gervaise,’ she said, ‘more gently, please…’ Or at least she tried to say. For he could not seem to let her have the use of her own tongue to speak. When he did stop the kiss long enough for her to object, he hardly looked her in the eye.
‘Too rough? It’s because the gown is in the way. So let’s see them, then. Off with it.’ He seemed most annoyed that she fumbled with the closures, for she was not accustomed to dressing without the help of a maid. At last, tired of waiting, he spun her around and did the job himself with such speed that she feared he would split a seam.
But he lied. He was no more gentle with the gown hanging about her waist than he was before. Now, he could use his teeth on her. A few minutes after that, he had pushed up her skirts and dropped the front of his breeches…
She had lain in bed afterwards, with him snoring beside her, wondering about what had just happened was worthy of song or poetry. It had been short and painful; it had hardly seemed that she was involved in it at all.
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