The Reluctant Suitor

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  His eyes gleamed tauntingly into hers as she chanced another glance. In spite of her snide retort, his smile remained undiminished, his hand on her back unrelenting. “You’re welcome, my dear, but it took no mean mental feat on my part to recognize the difference. None of my men ever looked even remotely appealing to me, especially while soaking in a bathtub.”

  “Shush!” Adriana scolded, flushing scarlet again as she looked about to see who was near. “Someone will hear you!”

  “Not while the music and chatter of the busybodies are causing such a din. If you’re not aware of it yet, the gossips have now noticed that you’re with me instead of Roger.”

  Adriana cast a surreptitious glance about and realized what he said was true. Another rippling wave of excitement was making its way through the elderly matrons.

  When they reached the dance floor, Colton faced her as he swept his gaze over the heads of the majority of guests, searching for the one he had earlier defamed. “Frankly, considering the lad’s eagerness to assault me and challenge my right even to come near you, I shall enjoy staking my claim on you.”

  Adriana had cause to wonder if Colton was genuinely interested in her or merely eager to thwart Roger’s aspirations. The idea was enough to cause the back of her neck to prickle. “Just to spite the lad, as you call him?”

  Folding his hands behind his back again as if he were standing in a library with a roomful of men rather than on a ballroom floor with her, Colton grinned down at her, undeterred by the fact that dancing couples were forced to halter their steps in order to go around them. “Why, if needs be, my dear, I’d even be tempted to marry you just to frustrate that young whelp’s ambitions.”

  The dark eyes flared, evidencing Adriana’s heightening irritation. “You needn’t worry that I will accept your proposal, my lord. My father did allow me some choice in the matter.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched with amusement. “Singed your pretty feathers a mite, did I?”

  Her icy glare pierced him. “Your pardon, my lord, but the last time I looked, I wasn’t wearing any.”

  “Crystals, then,” he corrected as his sparkling eyes swept her from head to toe in a way that made her blood race. Stepping near, he slid an arm behind her waist and captured her slender hand within his. “Even without such ornamentations, my pet, you’d still be a rare beauty,” he murmured softly and waltzed her around the dance floor before offering another conjecture. “I’m sure your friend, Lord Harcourt, thinks so; he seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes off you this evening. But then, he was having difficulty with that very same thing when I first met him, even more so at Melora’s wedding. I believe he fancies himself in love with you.”

  “Have you grown annoyed with Lord Harcourt because he asked me to dance? Is that also why you’re upset with the lad?”

  “I’m not annoyed with Lord Harcourt. He’s a very sensible man, and a gentleman of honor. ‘Tis also apparent he has incredibly good taste, especially in women. As for the lad, you already know my feelings toward Roger.” He shrugged. “As for myself, I’d be satisfied if you were to smile merely for my pleasure.”

  “What can you expect from me?” Adriana retorted. “Not knowing what these next three months will bring, I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I can only wonder why you’re even considering courting me. I know how much you value your freedom.”

  For a lengthy moment, his translucent gray eyes probed the dark depths of hers. Did he indeed want his freedom more than he wanted her? That had been the question haunting him in recent weeks, yet even now he was wont to dismiss his growing enthrallment with the lady. “I came back to do my duty to my father and my family by assuming the marquessate, Adriana, and if I find that that also entails marrying you, I shall do so.”

  “You needn’t go to such extremes,” she stated, wounded by his callous commitment to the existing contract. “I’m quite willing to accept another if you’re truly averse to the idea of marrying me.”

  Colton couldn’t explain away the nettling sense of irritation that came swiftly upon him. “By that, I suppose you mean Lord Harcourt.”

  Adriana raised her dainty chin a notch. “As you said, my lord, he is a gentleman. I could do far worse for myself.”

  “Would you prefer him over me?” Colton asked, sharply elevating a brow. His growing annoyance gave him cause to wonder if he would be as dedicated to rejecting their betrothal if it meant losing her to another man. Previously he had only considered his determination to get through the courtship without making concessions to commitments that would likely lead people to think he was merely kowtowing to his father’s decree, yet he hadn’t really considered she wouldn’t be there for him to court on his own after the three-month tenure.

  “If you have no regard for me, then ‘twould be in my best interest to marry a man who wants me. . . .”

  “Are you saying that Kendrick asked you to marry him?”

  “Yes, I believe he said something to that effect.” Adriana tilted her elegantly coiffed head as if trying to recall Riordan’s precise words. “In fact, he urged me to abscond with him this very night.”

  Something strangely vexing roiled within Colton. It was an experience he had only had some inkling of once before, but this time he recognized it for what it was. Bluntly he asked, “Have I reason to be jealous?”

  Adriana laughed rather skeptically. “Why should you be? I was under the impression that for a man to experience jealousy he must consider himself in danger of losing a cherished love to a rival. ‘Tis apparent you don’t care a whit about me, so why would you be envious?”

  “You could be mistaken.” A meager smile was the best he could manage.

  Adriana tossed her head with a scoffing laugh. “What is that very old adage, my lord? Seeing is believing?”

  The darkly translucent eyes gleamed back at her. “Father said you had backbone. In fact, he said a lot of things about you that I couldn’t believe at the time. When I left home, you seemed like such a wee little mouse, afraid of your shadow, except when you got angry with me for pestering you and Samantha. I think during our courtship I shall enjoy searching for all those assets Father claimed you had.”

  Adriana wondered if he was deliberately discounting what she had said or if he was merely dense. The latter seemed highly unlikely. “Don’t you understand that I’m giving you leave to dispense with this whole thing, not only the betrothal, but the courtship as well.”

  Colton lifted his chin thoughtfully. Losing her was the last thing he wanted, of that he was confident. “Lord Harcourt seems to be a man of excellent taste and character. He fought valiantly during the wars and was also in line to make general if he had stayed in, but he chose not to. I would be willing to wager you’re the main reason he came home. Admiring the man as I do, I think ‘twould behoove me to probe the matter of our betrothal in much greater depth. My father thought you were special; obviously Riordan is of the same conviction. Before I can make a fair and prudent judgment for myself, I must come to know everything about you. The only way I’ll be able to accomplish that is by courting you as the contract demands.”

  “You’re intentionally dismissing the importance of what I’m trying to tell you,” Adriana accused, thoroughly frustrated.

  Capturing her gaze, Colton plumbed the dark depths as he stated with conviction, “I mean to accomplish my part of the agreement, Adriana. If you have no intention of honoring your father’s word, then please tell me now, and I won’t trouble you further.”

  Adriana bristled. “That has always been my purpose, my lord. I merely offered to withdraw whatever claims I have on you because I thought you wished to be free of the agreement.”

  “Now you know better.”

  “I have difficulty discerning your thoughts, my lord. Your actions seemed to suggest the converse.”

  “Your actions, my dear Adriana, suggest to me that you are the most contrary young lady I’ve ever met,” he countered. “I should hope in all truth
that is not the case.”

  Adriana felt properly put in her place, knowing she had been brusque with him almost without exception since his return.

  Colton swept his gaze over the top of her head as he considered the sea of dancers moving in time with the music. Perhaps she didn’t realize her deepening effect on him and was actually trying to do the honorable thing by releasing him from his commitment, but as much as his pride might have rallied at his freedom to choose his future bride, the idea of losing his firm grasp upon Adriana Sutton went sorely against his grain. He supposed in that respect he was no different from Roger, except that he had an advantage his father had arranged for him. “I can’t blame Lord Harcourt for wanting to marry you. You could brighten any man’s life.”

  Not sure how she should take that particular statement, Adriana peered up at him suspiciously. “Do you have a fever, my lord?”

  A soft chuckle escaped Colton’s lips as he glanced down at her. “How many compliments must a man bestow upon you, Adriana, before you recognize them for what they are?”

  “Compliment, you say?” she asked in a doubtful tone as she probed the dark gray orbs for what they would reveal. If she had expected him to offer confirmation under closer scrutiny, then in that she was to be disappointed.

  “Find anything?” he teased, his eyes glinting with amusement.

  “No, I didn’t,” she admitted. “Probably because you’re very adept at hiding the true import of your words behind that wayward grin of yours.”

  Laughing softly, he whirled her around the ballroom in ever-widening circles, moving with an easy strength that readily compensated for the slight limp that still lingered. “And you, my dear Adriana, have a very suspicious nature. Have you really no idea how beautiful you have become?”

  Even more wary now, she reminded him, “You once called me a scrawny little gamine, remember?”

  His darkly shining eyes dipped briefly into her bodice for another glimpse of the womanly fullness scantily adorned by creamy lace. “I can easily attest that that statement is no longer true, Adriana. If you must know, I can barely refrain from ogling you.”

  His probing inspection proved puissant in its knee-weakening ability to dismantle her composure. It left her nigh breathless, reminding Adriana of his leisured perusal from the vicinity of the tree weeks earlier. If anything, that singular memory was far more heady in retrospect than any of the other encounters she had had with him, and that rather mystified her, considering how he had perused her in the bathing chamber. Yet in that cubicle she had not been cognizant of the almost tangible yearning that she had seen in his eyes outside the church. Nor had he, then, seemed as cocksure of himself or his appeal. If anything, his desire for her had seemed vulnerable, as if he were indeed afraid of losing her. “Is that what you were doing outside the chapel after Melora’s wedding?”

  Colton accepted her inquiry in stride. “I was simply admiring your assets, my dear. A man would have to be blind not to appreciate everything about you. I might have done so at closer range, but your army of suitors had you well barricaded. When you stormed out of your parents’ drawing room, I came to the conclusion that you didn’t want me anywhere near you until our courtship began. As much as I yearned to whisk you away from all your admirers that day outside the church, I was certain you’d resent it.”

  Adriana lowered her gaze to the dark sheen of his silk waistcoat, wondering why she should be even remotely susceptible to his antics. “You were unusually bold about it. The way you looked at me made me feel . . .”

  After a lengthy silence during which she failed to finish her statement, Colton peered down at her curiously. “Yes?”

  “Never mind, it isn’t important,” she mumbled, looking elsewhere in an effort to hide her burning cheeks.

  “You’re blushing again, which means you’re embarrassed by what you almost said,” he murmured warmly. “When you were a child, you’d turn the brightest red imaginable when I’d catch you and Samantha sneaking animals up to her room. Obviously you’re hiding something positively wicked . . . in relationship to your virginal innocence, that is.”

  Adriana’s head snapped up, and though she made several attempts to protest, she managed nothing more than, “I never . . . !”

  Smiling down at her, he raised a querying brow. “Made you feel naked? Is that what you were about to say?”

  Fully aware of the flaming heat in her cheeks, she groaned aloud. “Nooo! I would never say such a thing!”

  “No, but you were thinking it,” he accused, his eyes dancing with delight. Unable to resist her evocative fragrance, he leaned his face near her temple once again, letting the scent waft through his senses.

  “What if I were?” she snapped, brushing a hand upward over the mass of soft ringlets cascading from her crown and in so doing forcing him to straighten. “It seemed your intent to make me feel that way!”

  “I was just remembering how beautiful you looked in the bathtub,” Colton acknowledged, wrenching a shocked gasp from her.

  “A gentleman would never remind a lady of such an encounter!” she scolded, blushing furiously. “Nor would he have remained there one second after realizing the tub was occupied by someone of the opposite gender, especially when he was in such a shockingly shameless state himself!”

  “You must forgive my vulnerability as a man, Adriana,” he replied smoothly, seeming totally indifferent to her attempt to make him feel ashamed. “Such sights as I saw before me then are far too rarely glimpsed by those restricted to military encampments for weeks or months on end, which accurately described my state just prior to that point in time. To be sure, I was overtaken by a hope that your presence in my bath was actually an invitation.” Another shocked gasp brought his one-sided grin into play again. “But then I realized you were quite distressed to find me there and, in all likelihood, had never in your life seen a naked man before, especially one who had been caught up in his lust for you.”

  Adriana would have bolted right then and made good her escape, but Colton chuckled softly and swirled her about in widely turning circles until she was nigh giddy. Lowering his head, he indulged himself once again in the tantalizing bouquet of roses as he breathed above her ear, “Would you tear yourself away from me merely because I’m being honest?”

  “Stop turning, please,” she begged, her head reeling. “I’m feeling faint.”

  “I will . . . if you promise not to fly away,” he bargained, easing the intensity of his circling rotations.

  She gripped his sleeve in an effort to keep herself upright, wondering what discomfited her more, his uncompromising honesty or the fact that he said he desired her. “You leave me little choice.”

  Ceasing his lazy whirling, Colton led her in a fairly simple dance, allowing her to settle herself. After a moment, he peered down at her. “Feeling better?”

  Had she run a long and difficult race, Adriana would have felt no less winded, but that breathlessness had nothing to do with her actual physical state, but rather the emotions that had begun racing through her womanly being. This man, who had once been so adamant in his refusal to consider their future together, had just said he desired her. Had he swept the floor out from under her, he could not have astonished her more. “I would if you’d allow me to sit down.”

  His soft chuckle seemed to entangle her mind. “Roger is waiting for you, and I don’t want to lose you, least of all to him of all people. Besides, we must talk seriously about our courtship.”

  “I don’t intend to demand more than what you’re willing to give, my lord, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” she answered, hoping to lay hold of her sanity once more. The fact that she was still in his arms after what he had said to her seemed viable proof of her lunacy.

  Colton sighed heavily, as if thoroughly frustrated. “Adriana, if we’re going to be together as a couple for at least three solid months, I insist you call me Colton.”

  “Colton it is, then,” she complied, with a single nod affirmin
g her concurrence.

  A sigh of exaggerated relief wafted from his lips. “I’m delighted we have finally vaulted over that hurdle. Now we can get on to more important details.”

  Adriana readily offered her opinion. “ ‘Tis now my understanding that we’re both committed to seeing this agreement through to the end, whatever that may be . . . if only for the sake of our parents. Do you concur?”

  Again he responded with a lazy shrug. “It could be the end . . . or possibly even the beginning. Who knows what will come of it?”

  “You needn’t try to assuage my feelings. As long as the contract has been signed, I’ve realized the limited possibility of a wedding actually taking place even if a betrothal follows our courtship. So, please spare me your pretenses. There is no need for them.”

  He pondered her answer for a moment before offering an undeniable truth. “Our parents hope otherwise.”

  “Yes, I know they do,” Adriana conceded in a small voice. Disappointing her mother and father would be the last thing she wanted to do.

  “We should at least make some sort of pretense for them.”

  “I guess we should, at least a nominal one. If they see more than that, they’ll likely be encouraged.”

  “We can’t have that, now can we?”

  Did she really see his lips twitch? “They don’t expect much now; to give them hope would only cause them greater hurt when we part.”

  Colton’s brows gathered thoughtfully. “I’ve never courted a woman halfheartedly before. I’m not sure I’m capable of restraining myself in that area. In fact, my dear Adriana, this chicanery you propose will probably prove more difficult than you can imagine.”

  She lifted her own slender shoulders nonchalantly, only to remember too late that his consuming eyes were ever watchful for invitations of that sort. “Marriage with me or your freedom, sir. That is the choice you’ll be facing. ‘Tis as simple as that.”

  “Not quite as simple as that,” he countered after peering into her bodice again. Perusing her creamy breasts was a temptation he couldn’t seem to resist. He was fascinated by the way the fullness seemed to flow with almost fluid grace into the shallow lace undergarment. From a distance he had casually noted how tightly other women’s breasts had been pressed above their fashionably low décolletages, and he had been led to wonder if there had been any small degree of roundness left underneath those mounds. “Nevertheless, we shall see the way of it as our courtship progresses. I do think, however, that we should proceed with all possible haste.”