Who Wants to Marry a Duke

by Sabrina Jeffries

  “And I don’t know enough.” She sat down on the sofa. “I can’t believe you’re not excited about this.”

  “I can’t believe you are.” He shifted to face her, bringing one leg up so he could rest his knee on the sofa. “I mean, I recognize the implications your discovery has for doing the arsenic testing, but it . . . doesn’t thrill me as it seems to do you.”

  “That’s because you’re not a chemist.”

  “Thank God.” He stared at her. “I’d make a very bad chemist.”

  “But you make an excellent duke, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He sucked in a heavy breath.

  That reminded her . . . “I’m sorry, but I forgot you said you had to talk to me about something. What was it?”

  His lips tightened into a thin line. “I wanted to ask you about our first meeting.”

  She stifled a sigh. It was long past time they discussed it. She wished he hadn’t waited until when she was exhausted, but she had been avoiding him, and that wasn’t his fault. Perhaps it was better to deal with it and be done.

  “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’ve been wanting to ask you about that, too.” Her heart began pounding. “But you go first. I’ve already regaled you for too long with the intricacies of my favorite subject.”

  “Very well.” He rose and went over to the writing table. After refilling the glass he’d obviously been drinking from before, he took the other glass on the tray and waved it at her. “Would you like some brandy?”

  “You know ladies aren’t supposed to drink brandy neat.”

  “Yes, but chemists can drink whatever they please.”

  “Are you trying to ply me with strong drink so you can have your wicked way with me, Your Grace?” she asked, with a lift of one eyebrow.

  A lazy grin crossed his face. “Now, would I do something like that?”

  “You know you would.” And she wouldn’t mind it either.

  Oh, dear. Working so late had clearly muddled her brain.

  “Still, I should like to taste it,” she told him. A little bit couldn’t hurt, could it? And something about being recklessly alone with him made her wish to do other reckless things.

  He set down the empty glass and came toward her. “Then you can taste mine.” He handed her his glass. “Here you go.”

  Her first sip went down like fire, making her cough. But it was a warming drink in the chill of the room, so she sipped again. “It’s . . . um . . . strong.” And it made her feel thoroughly naughty, which was as heady a sensation as the drink itself. She handed the glass back to him. “Too strong for me.”

  He took a rather large swallow. “You get used to it.”

  “You’re stalling,” she said softly.

  “You caught me,” he said with a rueful laugh. Then he stared down into his glass. “That night at the Devonshires’ ball, did you intend for us to be caught kissing?”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “Grey warned me that night to be careful of matchmaking mamas and scheming daughters. And in the years since then, I’ve found his advice to be sound.” He lifted his gaze to bore into her. “But . . . I was never sure about you and what you’d intended.”

  The crushing pain in her chest was like how she’d felt when he’d made his cold offer the morning after the ball. “So you thought that I . . . that I . . .” She couldn’t breathe. “You thought I schemed to trap you into marriage.”

  “At the time, I did. You’re the one who got me alone. You’re the one who encouraged me to remove my coat and waistcoat.”

  Anger welled up in her, sudden and fierce. “You’re the one who kissed me.”

  “True. That’s one reason I’ve been rethinking my assumptions.”

  She jumped up. “If you had bothered to stop and talk to me on the way out of that library, I would have explained that I never intended that.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have believed you, anyway.”

  “But surely my rejection of your offer the next day must have told you I’d never meant to do anything so deceitful.”

  “It told me you had changed your mind after kissing me. Perhaps I was too forward or—”

  “Your kissing was fine,” she muttered. “But your proposal could have used improvement.”

  “Right.” He searched her face. “Because I was ‘obvious’ in showing I didn’t wish to make it in the first place. That’s what you said the other night, at any rate.”

  “It’s true. You clearly wanted to be anywhere but at my father’s town house, offering for my hand. I still don’t know why you came at all.” She stared at him. “That’s my question. You were a duke. You could have escaped any entanglement with just a word or two, and no one would have dared gainsay it.”

  “I might point out that if I had used my rank for that purpose, you would have been ruined. Because I made the offer and you refused it, you were only considered a jilt. Especially after your stepmother worked so hard to blacken my reputation.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “She merely said what everyone else was saying.”

  “Actually, no. Until then, I hadn’t had much of a reputation for anything except being more German than English in my habits. Your stepmother had to figure out a way to keep you from being blamed for jilting a duke, so she told people you refused me because of my rakehell ways. Thus our . . . indiscretion was seen in a different light.”

  His tone turned sarcastic. “I became the wicked whorehound taking advantage of a naive young woman, and you became the virtuous virgin who stood up to me. It was a brilliant strategy on her part.” He sipped his brandy. “And in a way, it worked in my favor, too, since society loves the wicked. The rumormongers have to have someone to talk about, after all. Your stepmother made sure they weren’t gossiping about you.”

  Olivia stood there, stunned. “What? I—I had no idea.” She stared hard at him. “Wait, I know I’ve read tales of you and your conquests of opera singers and merry widows, of wives you seduced and brothels you frequented. Just yesterday, you mentioned having a mistress, for goodness’ sake. Not only that, but you wanted us to . . . indulge in such activities without fear of the consequences. So your reputation wasn’t all created out of whole cloth by my stepmother.”

  “I never said it was. But once she invented the role for me, I didn’t see any reason not to step into the character. I figured if I had to endure her spurious gossip, I might as well enjoy myself while doing it. That way I could choose my own adventures.” His tone flattened. “But I would have preferred being myself instead and not the character in someone else’s play.”

  What an odd way to put it. Then again, he did enjoy the theater. And she could see how it would feel like that to him, poor man.

  Her skeptical side reasserted itself. Poor man, ha! He might have told himself he hadn’t enjoyed his reputation as a rakehell, but obviously he’d had his fun all the same. Mama hadn’t needed to push so very hard to get him playing that role. “I didn’t know Mama’s gossip had such an effect on you. All I ever saw of that night was her anger at me for refusing you and your hurt pride over it. Which, quite honestly, didn’t make sense to me. And still doesn’t. I was only doing what you and I both wanted.”

  “Being refused wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted not to be forced into offering for you in the first place. I wanted your stepmother and I to smooth things over, so that no one’s reputation was . . . harmed. Unfortunately, she could only see one way out. So she forced my hand.”

  “But how? You still haven’t told me that.”

  He narrowed his gaze on her. “You really didn’t know your stepmother was blackmailing me with a secret about my family?”

  Blackmail! A chill skittered down her spine. “Of course I didn’t. How could you even think it? Besides, what could Mama have possibly known about you that you felt was worth hiding?”

  “Not about me. About my mother.”

  Her heart dropped into h
er stomach. “Y-Your mother? The lovely woman I met at your sister’s ball?”

  “Yes. That lovely woman had her debut at the same time as your stepmother, remember? And according to your ‘Mama,’ they were good friends back then. It’s why she knew what to blackmail me with.”

  Her knees wobbled at that. She lowered herself to the sofa. “I felt sure there was something more to your offer. I heard you mention a bargain there at the end, but—”

  “You were listening at doors, were you?”

  “Not on purpose. I just happened to drop into a chair near the door.” She steadied her shoulders. “I had too much to absorb all at once and had to . . . to sit down.”

  His voice softened. “Exactly as you’re doing now.” He took a seat next to her on the sofa. “Here. Have another sip of this.”

  When he tried to press the glass into her hand, she shook her head no. “Tell me about the blackmail.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to drink it . . .” He sipped the brandy, his eyes dark in the candlelight. “If I tell you, you must swear not to say a word to anyone about it. I haven’t even told my siblings. Mother would be terribly hurt if she ever got wind of it, and I don’t want that.”

  “Nor do I.” Without thinking, she covered his hand with hers. “You must believe me.”

  “I do.” When she started to withdraw her hand, he caught it in his. “You may not be aware of this, but just before Gwyn and I were born our father died in a carriage accident on his way to London from Rosethorn, our family seat. That was all we’d ever known about it until your stepmother claimed he’d been on his way to meet his mistress. She didn’t say how she knew, but she threatened to tell the world about it if I didn’t offer for you.”

  The enormity of that sank in, and she stiffened. “You must have misunderstood. She wouldn’t . . . she couldn’t possibly have . . .”

  “She did. Ask her.”

  “I did! Well, I asked her what you meant when you said she’d threatened you. And she . . . she said she had threatened to ruin you in society.” Her gaze shot to him. “Though I wondered—”

  “How she could manage that feat when I was a duke and the half brother of another duke? She couldn’t have. But if I’d allowed her to spread tales about Mother, it wouldn’t have hurt only me, but the whole family. At the time, my stepfather was an ambassador and considered above reproach. Hell, he used to lecture me about how I should behave. And Gwyn . . . well . . .”

  He squeezed Olivia’s hand. “Mother had always told us that our father was the love of her life. Gwyn believed it. I believed it. And I truly think Mother believed it. So if my father had kept a mistress, it meant their entire marriage was a lie. I couldn’t let my mother suffer such gossip when it might have been false. I certainly couldn’t let Gwyn suffer it.”

  “Of course not. But . . . but you were willing to marry a woman you barely knew just to prevent it?”

  After setting his glass on the carved wooden stool, he twisted a bit to face her, so he could hold her hand in both of his. “I liked you well enough before your stepmother discovered us together. I thought I could learn to tolerate marriage to you, if only because you and I had a clear attraction to each other. At least we were honest about that.”

  “But then I refused your offer.” She caught her breath as his thumb began to trace circles on her hand. “You must have thought us all quite mad.”

  Forcing a smile, he pulled his near hand free, only to stretch his arm out along the top of the sofa behind her. “Your stepmother said you just needed courting. And perhaps she was right.”

  His fingers were now very close to her neck.

  She tried not to notice. “I didn’t want to be courted; I wanted to be a chemist.” Something he’d said earlier sank in. “If you had ‘ruined’ me by refusing to propose, I would actually have been delighted. It would have enabled me to do nothing but chemistry for the rest of my life.”

  He eyed her askance. “You wouldn’t have been the least bit insulted by my refusal to save you from ruin?”

  “Perhaps for a day or two.” When he leaned closer, her breath quickened in spite of herself. “I—I would have forgotten about it once my first . . . significant article on chemistry was published.”

  “Would you have? Truly?” When he ran his finger lightly over the nape of her neck, her heart thundered in her chest. As if he could tell, his voice dropped to a husky murmur. “Chemistry and courtship don’t have to be mutually exclusive, you know. Take your Mrs. Fulhame. Unless the ‘Mrs.’ is just for show, she clearly manages both chemistry and marriage.”

  Olivia fought the thrill that his words—and his intimate gestures—were sending through her. “Her husband is a physician. In rank and situation, they’re equal.” And he doesn’t spend his nights with a mistress or at his club gambling. When Thorn brought his devilish finger around to tip up her chin and keep her from looking away, she added shakily, “It’s hardly . . . the same situation as you and I.”

  “And yet, you aren’t slapping me. Or storming from the room. Or crying out for my sister-in-law.”

  He was right, curse him. “Because you promised to behave,” she pointed out.

  “I break my promises all the time,” he said with a thin smile. “I’m a whorehound, remember?”

  “But I’m not a whore.” And she was no longer sure about his wicked persona either. What he’d said about Mama’s blackmailing him made Olivia question everything she’d thought she knew about him.

  “No, you’re not,” he said. “More’s the pity.”

  “Is that what you want? A whore?”

  “Hardly.” One corner of his lips crooked up. “As usual, I want what I can’t have.”

  The words heated her through and through. Indeed, if her blood ran any hotter, she would erupt into fire. “You’re not alone in that. Except that I want what isn’t good for me.”

  “Is that so?” His eyes were the molten blue of copper chloride burning. “Then we’d be equally culpable if we should happen just to finish where we left off yesterday.”

  At last he kissed her, in that slow, sensuous way he had of making a woman feel needed, wanted . . . desired. And even though she still feared it was an illusion created by a man used to getting what he wanted from women, she couldn’t help hoping she was wrong.

  While he continued to kiss her, he laid her hand on the hard bulge in his trousers and then used his hand to start sliding her skirts up her legs.

  She tore her mouth free to whisper, “The door is still open.”

  He chuckled. “Leave it to you, sweeting, to notice that. No one is on this floor at this time of night. I dismissed my valet for the evening, your maid is probably dozing while she waits for you in your bedchamber upstairs, and Grey and Beatrice are in their bedchamber upstairs, also. So you need not worry.”

  “I’d still feel less uneasy if the door were closed, given our propensity to be caught.” She rose. “I’ll do it.”

  She hurried over to look out in the hall, and seeing no one there, shut the door. But when she turned back toward the sofa, she found he was already right there in front of her.

  “Now, where were we?” he rasped.

  Backing her against the door, he kissed her with such passion that it melted her very bones. As she felt his thick flesh press into hers, she remembered what he’d wanted and covered his prominent bulge with her hand.

  “Oh, God, yes,” he whispered. “Stroke me there. Please, sweeting.”

  When she began to do so, he returned to kissing her but with a savagery he’d never shown before. It should have alarmed her, but all it did was make her want him more. Then he dragged up her skirts so he could slide his hand up under them to between her thighs where she was utterly naked. She gasped, not in outrage but in anticipation of what he might do. And when he cupped her there and began to rub her slowly and sensually, she thought for sure she would disintegrate beneath his hand.

  It felt so good. Impossibly pleasurable. She undul
ated against his hand in a frank request for more, and he chuckled against her lips.

  What he fondled down there felt slick and wet, though how her body had come to be in that state was anyone’s guess. But his caresses stoked the flames already searing her, and made her crave satisfaction, though she knew not what kind.

  Apparently he knew what kind, for he parted her curls with one finger and then delved inside her. Inside her!

  And it was delicious. Maddening. The most exotic sensation she’d ever experienced.

  “Hold on,” he muttered, and reached down with his free hand to undo the fall of his trousers and unbutton his drawers. Then taking the hand she’d been caressing him with, he pulled it inside so she could stroke his bare flesh as he was stroking hers. “Grab it, I beg you.”

  So she did. And his aroused member became even stiffer in her hand.

  He groaned, and she let go, sure that she’d caused him pain. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Putting her hand back, he said, “You’re not . . . hurting me, I swear. Just keep pulling on it. Not too hard. Yes, yes! Exactly . . . like that.” He pressed a kiss to her ear. “That feels incredible, sweeting. So bloody . . . incredible. You have no idea.”

  “I have . . . some,” she gasped because his finger had grown bolder, having found a hard little spot to fondle that drove her out of her mind.

  “You like that . . . do you?” His breathing was erratic now, too, and growing more so by the moment.

  “You can’t tell?” she choked out. She thought she might explode any minute, though she didn’t know exactly how. “It’s . . . you’re . . .” She had no words for it. “Yes, I like it.”

  With a strangled laugh, he nuzzled her neck.

  Suddenly a boom sounded, so loud it shook the room.

  He jerked back, dropping his hand from between her legs. “What the hell was that?”

  For half a second, she thought perhaps she had exploded. But of course that was absurd. Struggling to regain control over her wayward impulses, she pulled her hand out of his drawers. “No one is setting off fireworks around here, are they?”