The Regency Season: Dangerous Dukes: Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure / Zachary Black: Duke of Debauchery
Carole Mortimer
Men about town…Marcus Wilding: Duke of PleasureMarcus Wilding is the most accomplished lover in England and Lady Julianna Armitage needs him to teach her the art of love. Julianna is determined to maintain control, but as Marcus unleashes a sensual siege that awakens every sense, it is clear that losing control can be the most delicious thing of all!Zachary Black: Duke of DebaucheryWhen Zachary Black comes face to face with beautiful Lady Georgianna Lancaster – his former fiancée – he’s disturbed. Maybe the best way to restore his equilibrium is to hold her captive… and turn the secrets of the past into the sins of the present!Darian Hunter: Duke of DesireDarian Hunter is a legendary rake and notorious bachelor. Mariah Beecham, Countess of Carlisle is society’s scandalous widow and secret agent of the crown. What will happen when, posing as lovers to stop an assassination, the temptation to indulge their every desire becomes overwhelming…
CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written more than 200 books. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, “I’m happily married to Peter Sr; we’re best friends, as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.”
Table of Contents
Cover (#u099a5da1-87eb-540c-bca3-62f68fd37280)
Title Page (#u7b2e5d40-cb71-5890-8387-0c921ad11aae)
About the Author (#ud2836d6c-446c-5c6f-9e50-3609344908fc)
Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure (#ud3deaf1c-5ed5-550d-9dd8-a734360373da)
Back Cover Text (#ubef4dfa3-39b5-562b-a2f0-12e6b0caa52a)
Dedication (#ue0f86bf8-2309-5159-abe5-de2e90b08ff1)
Chapter One (#u0c762952-f201-5835-9dc3-714ceb1e6043)
Chapter Two (#u33682f9e-dae2-5c63-a25a-61522cb53e91)
Chapter Three (#ua6d52867-3c44-5e03-a4da-bc762180b20c)
Chapter Four (#udfbf7931-5ec0-5039-a311-5d1b24adcd10)
Chapter Five (#uddff2644-a17f-5b70-8094-93e7021ab600)
Chapter Six (#u400876a4-adf6-52c1-a339-a8faf69f3dc6)
Chapter Seven (#u64b0f67d-4be9-5220-9d42-c9c02c64ce64)
Chapter Eight (#ue3469a36-53ea-5d00-83a5-c4d00b1cddd7)
Chapter Nine (#u990d15d1-6cd4-5f8f-ad51-c0b2b3951e91)
Zachary Black: Duke of Debauchery (#u408874b8-bcba-5f94-a2b4-13003708f5b6)
Back Cover Text (#u10d2a7fb-0578-5452-ab12-d2540f8520ed)
Dedication (#uf1ac67fa-ded7-5342-a0cf-a4706c1567af)
Chapter One (#ua69a4563-6c83-5a55-bcd4-3ad95715a90e)
Chapter Two (#uc9200597-822c-5dbc-abf6-59a578d5c5d0)
Chapter Three (#u59703463-13aa-5617-af7c-488bf32040c6)
Chapter Four (#uf47b0393-7604-516e-9c77-16891c5a681f)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire (#litres_trial_promo)
Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Carole Mortimer
In this scintillating prequel novella to her Dangerous Dukes miniseries, USA TODAY bestselling historical author Carole Mortimer delivers a feast for the senses!
England, 1815
He’s the most accomplished lover in England, and the finest tutor in pleasure that ever lived!
Lady Julianna Armitage is on a mission:
The goal: Discover passion and learn the true art of lovemaking, something she never experienced in her short, loveless marriage.
The teacher: The devastatingly handsome Marcus Wilding, Duke of Worthing; the one man she could never have...until now.
The outcome: Pure, decadent, indulgent satisfaction!
Julianna is determined to maintain control, but as Marcus unleashes a sensual siege that awakens her every sense, it soon becomes clear that losing control can be the most delicious thing of all!
Don’t miss the first title in this shockingly seductive new series from legendary bestselling author Carole Mortimer:
ZACHARY BLACK: DUKE OF DEBAUCHERY
Coming October 2014 from Harlequin Historical
Dangerous Dukes Rakes about town
Peter, my forever hero.
Chapter One (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
February 1815 Worthing House, London
‘Forgive me, Lady Armitage, but for a brief moment I was sure I heard you request that I tutor you in the art of making love to and with a man before you take a lover!’
Julianna remained unmoved by the hard and derisive smile that accompanied Marcus Wilding’s drawled dismissal of such a notion ever being possible. ‘There is nothing wrong with your hearing, Your Grace. Except perhaps for me to add that I made a statement of intent, rather than a request,’ she added with the same determination she knew to be evident in the sharp tilt of her chin.
The Duke of Worthing’s brows rose up beneath the rakish fall of his ebony hair as he now regarded her with icy and pale green eyes through narrowed lids. ‘“A statement of intent”?’
Julianna was not fooled for a moment by the mildness of the duke’s tone, or the relaxed way in which his long and elegant length lay sprawled in the chair opposite her own in the blue salon of his London home. She was only too aware that this particular gentleman was at his most threatening when he appeared to be at his most reasonable.
He and her own brother, and three of their closest friends, were not known in society as The Dangerous Dukes because of their pleasing and easygoing natures. Nor were they named such solely on the basis of their reputation on the battlefield. Their exploits in the bedchamber were equally as scandalous. Enough so that most of society’s marriage-minded mamas knew better than to allow their daughters anywhere near the rakish bachelors. And Julianna had good reason to suspect Marcus Wilding was the most dangerous of them all.
Not that she cared a whit about his reputation; remarrying was the very last thing on her mind where Worthing, or any other gentleman, was concerned.
Nevertheless, she was still glad that she had refused to relinquish her black cloak to the duke’s butler on her arrival. That garment was succeeding not only in covering her completely from shoulders to ankles, but also in hiding the trembling of her gloved hands beneath its voluminous folds. Her pale grey bonnet, unfortunately, only concealed the vibrant red of her hair, and not the pallor of the face beneath its brim.
A face that Julianna now forced to appear calm and composed as she looked across at Marcus with unflinching dark grey eyes. He had been a friend of her brother, Christian, and so she knew this gentleman well enough to know he was perfectly capable of exploiting any sign of weakness. ‘A statement of intent,’ she confirmed evenly.
‘Indeed.’ He continued to look at her with those pale green eyes between dark lashes that were wickedly long and thick, his face having the grace and beauty of a fallen angel—or was that devil? ‘Might one ask why, having been a married lady and now a widowed one, and so yes, perfectly at liberty to take a lover rather than remarry, if that is your choice—’
‘It is,’ she stated firmly.
He nodded. ‘And do you have any specific gentleman in mind to become this...lover?’
‘Not as yet, no.’
He frowned. ‘Then my question must be why have you chosen to come to me, and invited me to be the one to undertake the scandalous enterprise of becoming your sexual instructor?’
Julianna was caught off-guard by the mild query in his tone. Indeed, she had been prepared for Worthing’s scorn rather than the easy tolerance he now displayed. This man was one of the most eligible gentlemen in England, and she had, as Worthing had already stated, been a wife and was now a widow, both of which had taken their toll on her appearance as well as her spirit.
She had been a young lady of only eighteen summers on her wedding day four years ago, her heart full of optimism for what the future might hold. But three years of that cold marriage to the adulterous Lord John Armitage and almost a year of widowhood following his death, had resulted in Julianna vowing not to remarry when her year of widowhood came to an end in just two weeks’ time. No, better by far to take a lover, she had decided. One of her own choosing and on her own terms.
As such, who better to tutor her in the art of lovemaking than the gentleman reputed to be the most accomplished lover in England?
It had seemed the perfect solution to Julianna, until she now found herself face-to-face with the man. Seated only feet away from the dangerously mesmerizing Duke of Worthing, she now had serious cause to doubt the wisdom of her actions.
For not only was Worthing an accomplished lover, but also he was, at age two and thirty, surely the handsomest gentleman of the ton, with his dark and overlong curls arranged into a rakishly careless style on his brow and about his ears and nape. Long, dark lashes surrounded eyes of palest green, sculptured cheekbones framed an aristocratic nose and his mouth—oh lord, that wicked mouth was far and away his most dangerous feature, his lips both full and seductive.
Added to all of that, it was obvious that the width of Worthing’s shoulders, his narrow waist, and his muscled thighs and long legs in a black evening jacket, grey waistcoat, snowy white linen, and black breeches owed nothing to the expertise of his tailor and boot-maker, and everything to the hours she knew he spent with his closest friends in both the boxing ring and at sword practice.
Nor had Worthing shown even the slightest interest in her since her marriage to John Armitage, other than the necessary politeness shown to her as the young sister of his friend.
‘Surely my choice is obvious, when your prowess in the bedchamber is legendary?’ she said, trying to appear uninterested.
Those dark brows rose a second time. ‘Indeed?’
‘Oh yes,’ Julianna confirmed coolly.
‘Your husband did not...introduce you to sexual pleasure?’
Julianna’s mouth tightened even as she felt the warmth of humiliation colour her cheeks. ‘My husband was too busy occupying the beds of other, more experienced women to spare but the minimum of his valuable time in occupying mine, and then only in an effort to secure his heir. A task at which he obviously failed.’ She straightened determinedly at the mention of her childless state. ‘I have accepted that love and happiness in marriage is the exception rather than the rule. But hopefully a lover is a different matter. As such, before embarking on such an enterprise, I fully intend to learn to give and receive physical pleasure to the best of my abilities.’
Whether he was meant to do so or not, Marcus heard a wealth of pain beneath the bitterness of that statement. And humiliation. And it was his opinion that no woman should ever be made to suffer either of those things at the hands of a man. Especially to the point that she would be intent on taking a lover at the end of her year of mourning rather than so much as considering the idea of marrying again.
Julianna had been but five years old, and something of a hellion, the first time Marcus had been invited to spend several weeks of the summer holidays at the home of his friend Christian Seaton, the two boys having met at Eton two years earlier. There had been five new boys in the cavernous hallways of Eton that day almost twenty years ago, and surprisingly each of them heir to a dukedom, an unusual occurrence which had resulted in a lifelong bond of friendship.
Christian’s parents, the previous Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, were indulgent and loving parents, but also often absent ones, leaving their two children in the care of the servants at their country seat during the summer months. And so it had been during most of the times Marcus and the other three boys stayed at Sutherland Park during the next ten years or so, visits when Christian’s little sister had insisted upon following the boys as well as joining in on every adventure, from climbing trees to fishing. She hadn’t cared if she suffered a scraped knee or a dunking in the stream, as long as she could be with them rather than in the nursery with her nanny.
Looking at her now, Marcus could see that the hellion, whilst not exactly tamed, was at least subdued beneath her widow’s weeds. But he was only too aware of the slenderness hidden beneath that voluptuous cloak, her face a beautiful ivory cameo beneath her grey bonnet—her pale cheeks slightly hollow, adding emphasis to the magnificent grey of her eyes, which sat above full, unsmiling lips.
It was not difficult to realize that her unhappy marriage to Armitage was the cause of these changes in Julianna. An unhappiness that Marcus had guessed at before, having once overheard a private conversation at a gambling club, when Armitage had quietly boasted to his disreputable group of companions of his preferences in the bedchamber. But the past could not be changed, no matter how Marcus might have wished it so, and he could not help but feel responsible for some of her unhappiness.
Marcus had spoken to no one four years ago of the feelings he had for his oldest and closest friend Christian’s sister Julianna. Or the blow Marcus had suffered upon learning, after his return to England following yet another bloody battle against Napoleon’s army, of her marriage to Lord John Armitage some weeks earlier.
Marcus had continued to suffer the inner demons of hell during the years that followed, just thinking of Julianna in the arms, the bed, of another man, especially when that man was the adulterous and perverted Armitage.
Now, with only a few weeks of her widowhood left to pass, Marcus had fully intended to approach Julianna, as he should have done four years ago, with a marriage proposal of his own.
Never in Marcus’s wildest dreams, in his wildest fantasies—and some of them had been very wild indeed!—had Marcus ever expected to arrive home after a long night’s gambling to be informed that Julianna was awaiting his presence in the blue salon, unaccompanied by so much as a maid. Or to hear now that she had come to him with a proposal of her own, not of love and marriage, but for him to become her sexual instructor for the benefit of her future lovers.
Chapter Two (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Marcus rose to his feet, moving restlessly across the room to stand beside the fire, but feeling none of its warmth as he stared down at the leaping flames, and wondered how best to proceed with this delicate situation.
From what he already knew of Julianna’s marriage, and the little she had revealed today, it was clear that she was now cynical toward even the idea of remarrying, and that a quest for the knowledge of physical pleasure, so far denied her, was her only reason for approaching him. The only reason she would ever have contemplated coming to Marcus at all.
Marcus found himself seriously considering becoming her sexual instructor, tutoring Julianna in all the ways of pleasuring a man as well as herself. But he had no intention of letting another man ever become recipient of that knowledge—something he didn’t believe she was ready to hear. Yet.
Was he capable of doing that? Was he strong enough? Could he remain aloof enough, removed enough, in order to instruct Julianna in the art of lovemaking, in the hopes that she might love him as he had loved her for so long?
He didn’t have any other choice, when just the thought of Julianna presenting some other man with the same proposition made him feel sick to his stomach, as well as violently disposed to that nameless, faceless other man.
Julianna had no idea what thoughts were going through Worthing’s handsome head as he stared down at the flickering flames of the fire, but she did not think they could be pleasant ones from the bleakness of his expression. His eyes remained a pale and icy green, lips thin, jaw tense.
She rose abruptly to her just over five feet in height, a proud tilt to her chin. ‘Perhaps I made a mistake in coming to you—’
‘Then why did you?’ Worthing straightened as he looked at her with those unreadable eyes. ‘What possible reason did you have for thinking you might be able to persuade me into becoming your sexual tutor?’
The length of Julianna’s throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. ‘I thought—I have known you for many years ... You are a friend of my brother!’
‘Reason enough not to approach me rather than the reverse, I should have thought,’ Worthing rasped harshly.
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed. ‘But I believed that connection might, at least, ensure your silence on the matter should you choose to refuse.’
‘And are you not afraid, if I do refuse your request, that I might relay the details of this conversation back to your brother, Christian, at least?’
‘No.’
Those green eyes narrowed at her certainty. ‘Why not?’
She gave a shrug of her shoulders beneath her cloak.
‘Because if you did, I should then have to inform Lord Standish exactly where, and with whom, his wife spent the night before their wedding four years ago.’
Marcus stilled at the obvious threat beneath her statement. A threat he may well have deserved if he had not come to his senses in time.
It was the same night he had learnt of Julianna’s marriage to Armitage, and Marcus had been heartsick and ever so slightly drunk. Enough so that he had initially been receptive to Emily Proctor’s proposition that they make love before she married the elderly Randolph Standish the following day.
To his credit, Marcus had put a stop to things and managed not to totally disgrace himself, but it was especially ironic that Julianna was now attempting to use his behaviour that night against him, behaviour brought about by his desire for her.
He raised dark brows. ‘And might I inquire how you could possibly know where, and with whom, Lady Standish spent the night before her wedding?’
Julianna gave a triumphantly scornful smile. ‘Because she told me so, of course.’
Marcus eyed her dubiously. ‘She did?’
‘Oh yes.’ Julianna nodded with satisfaction. ‘Men are not the only ones to boast of their sexual conquests, you know,’ she assured him mockingly. ‘And I have it on Emily Standish’s knowledgeable authority that you more than live up to your reputation of being “the most accomplished lover in all of England”.’
If the deceitful Emily Standish had been within Marcus’s reach at that moment then he believed he would have enjoyed nothing more than to strangle the woman with his bare hands. Except...
It would seem that Emily Standish’s personal, if unknowledgeable, recommendation, along with his reputation as a lover, was the reason Julianna had chosen to come to him now.
He clenched his jaw. ‘And why should you assume it would bother me if you were to go to Standish with this information?’
Julianna gave a challenging smile. ‘Because I know that you and Christian have recently entered into a business partnership with him.’
Marcus frowned. ‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded confidently. ‘Something to do with shipping, if you doubt my knowledge.’
Marcus had no reason to doubt her word. He did, however, curse Christian for discussing business matters with his sister.
‘I am sure, under the circumstances, you would rather avoid the scandal that your having bedded Standish’s wife before he did might cause,’ Julianna added triumphantly at his continued silence.
That Julianna would dare to use such knowledge against him, without so much as asking him if it were true, filled Marcus with a cold anger. It was true that Julianna could have no idea that Emily Standish had lied, but even so, Marcus believed Julianna deserved to be punished, if only a little, for not so much as asking him if it were the truth, and for having attempted to blackmail him into acquiescing to her request. ‘Remove your cloak,’ he instructed softly.
Julianna gave a nervous blink of her long lashes as she eyed Marcus warily, sweeping the moistness of her tongue across the stiffness of her lips before speaking. ‘Why?’
‘So that I might gaze upon your physical attributes before making my decision.’
‘I do not see that it is at all necessary for me to—’
‘How do you expect me to be able to instruct you in how to pleasure a man if I do not find you physically attractive enough to be able to attain an erection for you to pleasure?’ Marcus pointed out testily.
Julianna felt the blaze of colour in her cheeks as she once again acknowledged that she had not thought this situation through properly before coming to the duke’s home so early in the morning. That nowhere in those plans had she considered the... the intimacy of having Marcus Wilding talk to her of such things, let alone—let alone...
‘I only wish for you to instruct me, not—not—’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘It is my intention the instruction shall take a verbal form rather than a physical one.’
‘And it is my “intention” it shall not,’ Marcus assured her dryly, hands clenched at his sides as he resisted the impulse to put Julianna across his knee, before throwing her gown up to her waist and administering several slaps to her bottom until those rounded cheeks glowed a delicious red.
The thoughts of which caused his cock to engorge instantly and pulse hotly inside his breeches—making a mockery of his suggestion that he may not find Julianna attractive enough to attain an erection.
Everything about her aroused him, from the rich red-gold of her hair to the beauty of her face dominated by those full and sensuous lips, the creamy swell of her breasts to the slenderness of her waist and the fiery thatch of curls that he was sure protected those other equally as full and sensuous lips between her thighs.
And she dared ... she dared come to him and attempt to blackmail him into teaching her of physical pleasure. ‘Take off your cloak,’ he repeated uncompromisingly.
Julianna’s fingers trembled slightly as she reached up to her throat and unfastened her cloak before easing it from her shoulders to stand before him in her plain grey silk gown.
‘Place it upon the chair,’ Marcus instructed gruffly, waiting until she had done so before adding, ‘And now take off that ugly bonnet and release your hair.’
Once again, Julianna faltered, this time in the act of placing her bonnet on the chair beside her cloak. ‘Release my hair?’
His mouth twisted derisively. ‘Your first lesson shall be to learn that a gentleman considers the only reason for a woman to pin up her hair to be so that same man might enjoy the pleasure of watching her unpin it.’
She gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘I do not recall my husband ever—’
‘The inadequacies of your dead husband have no place here and now between the two of us!’ Marcus Wilding’s eyes glittered in warning.
‘But—’
‘If I agree to your request then here, in my home, there will be only the two of us, Julianna,’ he continued determinedly. ‘No past, no future, only the now.’
‘The now?’
‘Indeed.’ His mouth twisted as she remained as still as a statue. ‘Lovemaking is a feast for all the senses, Julianna. First sight, then scent, followed by taste and sound, and lastly touch. I have decided we shall begin today with sight, after which we shall add another sense with each successive day that follows. I have already seen that you are beautiful enough, curvaceous enough, your breasts full enough, to have caught the imagination of your lover. Now that lover would have you release your hair for his delectation.’
The trembling that had begun in Julianna’s fingers now coursed through the whole of her body, sensitizing her skin. Her breasts felt full and heavy, the red berries at their tips becoming engorged against the fabric of her gown. The place between her thighs was hot and aching, as she knew herself to be the complete and intense focus of Marcus’s green gaze. A determined gaze that did not ask but demanded that she obey him.
Chapter Three (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Her hands dropped back to her sides in protest of that demand. ‘It was not my intention for our lessons to begin today.’
Marcus gave a humourless smile as he saw the nervousness in those deep grey eyes, despite that determined tilt to her stubborn little chin. ‘The sooner we begin then the sooner this will be over, yes?’
A frown marred her ivory brow. ‘I did not come prepared to—to begin our lessons today.’
‘The most enjoyable and exciting lovemaking has nothing to do with being “prepared,”’ Marcus dismissed her impatiently. ‘The passion, desire, between a man and a woman should always be spontaneous. This is not your marriage bed, Julianna,’ he continued as she made no move to comply with his instruction. ‘There will be no snuffing of the candle, a rustle of the sheets, and then a hasty rutting between your thighs for the two of us.’
Julianna’s face paled with shock, at both the bluntness of his speech and how accurate his description was of those humiliating occasions when John had deigned to visit her bed, before just as hastily leaving again. Occasions when Julianna had been left feeling both soiled and used as she’d risen quickly and attempted to wash away all trace of John’s invasion, before stripping and remaking her bed with clean sheets and then crawling back beneath them to cry herself to sleep.
Marcus instantly had cause to regret the force of his anger as he saw the way Julianna’s face had paled, proving that the scorn he had cast upon her marriage bed was correct. And if that was so then it was no wonder that Julianna wished to learn if there was a more tender side to lovemaking.
But it was a tenderness that Marcus knew he was in no mood to give her today.
‘Why did you never tell your brother of your husband’s brutality?’ Marcus had no doubts that Christian would have taken action if he had known the full extent of Armitage’s cruelty to his beloved sister.
She gave a humourless smile. ‘Tell my brother what, exactly? That John had only pretended to love me before we were married? That he wanted me only because of my name, and my wealth and position as the sister of a duke? That, and for me to give him his heir?’ She gave a scathing shake of her head. ‘There are dozens, hundreds of such marriages like that in society, so what right did I have to complain once I learned that mine was to be no different from so many others?’
She was right, of course; society married for prestige and fortune rather than love. So it was, so it had always been, with the very rare exception of a love match. Marcus’s own parents had married because of their names and fortune, and then been lucky enough to fall in love with each other after they were married. In marrying Armitage, Julianna had not been so lucky.
‘He did not beat me, was never cruel to me in public,’ Julianna continued flatly. ‘He did not deny me my friends, gave me a generous allowance—’
‘Of your own money!’
‘And the law decreed that money become his upon our marriage,’ she reminded Marcus with a sigh.
‘Then it is a law which should be changed!’
‘Perhaps you and my brother might turn your attention to it when you are not both too busy with other business?’ she returned sharply. ‘As the law stands, a woman’s money becomes the property of her husband upon their marriage. As does the woman herself.’ She shrugged slender shoulders. ‘I had a husband, beautiful homes both here and in the country, servants to care for my every need, what more can a woman ask for from marriage than that?’
Marcus believed a woman could, should, also ask for tenderness, pleasure, laughter, love from her husband. Damn it, if only Julianna had married him four years ago.
But she had not married him, Marcus reminded himself heavily. Would she have done so if he had offered for her before going off to continue the fight against Napoleon? Would she have flowered, blossomed, become all she could be beneath the shower of love and lovemaking he had wished to bestow upon her following the evening when he had danced with her at Almack’s on her eighteenth birthday and realized that the little hellion had grown into a beautiful and desirable woman? A beautiful and desirable woman he wanted for his own.
Marcus would never know the answer to that, because he had not offered for her, had believed he was being gallant by keeping his distance from her, from not declaring himself. Once the war with Napoleon was over, and he was sure he would not as quickly make a widow of her as a wife, there would be time enough for him to go to Julianna and tell her how he felt about her. Instead of this, when he returned to London just months later it was to find Julianna married to another.
And the Julianna who had come to him today was not the same Julianna he had fallen in love with four years ago. That Julianna had still believed in loving and being loved. It was now up to Marcus to show Julianna that tenderness and pleasure did exist, and he had to hope that when he had done so the laughter and the love might follow.
It was a foolish hope, no doubt, but it was better than the past four years he had suffered having no hope at all where she was concerned.
Marcus straightened abruptly. ‘Very well, Julianna, I will agree to become your sexual tutor.’ He almost smiled as he saw her brief look of triumph quickly replaced by uncertainty of exactly what she was embarking upon. ‘We will begin your first tutelage here tomorrow morning at six o’clock. You cannot be seen arriving or leaving here any later than that,’ he advised as her beautiful grey eyes widened. ‘In fact, you cannot be seen arriving unaccompanied, or leaving my home again, at any time of the day or night, as you have today. Not without causing scandal. Which I am sure you have no wish to do?’ He arched dark brows.
No, of course Julianna did not wish to be involved in any sort of scandal, least of all with the dangerous Duke of Worthing. Indeed, she was no longer certain that she wished to come to his home again at all!
It had seemed such a practical solution to her dilemma when she’d come up with this outrageous scheme. A scheme she had believed to have been forced upon her, by the baying of the eligible gentlemen simply waiting for her time of mourning to be over so that they might pursue her. But here and now, in the presence of the disturbing—the dangerous?—Marcus Wilding, she no longer felt as confident in having chosen him, of all men, as the man to instruct her in sexual knowledge.
Oh she had no doubts that this man would more than live up to his reputation as ‘the most accomplished lover in England’; it was her own ability to withstand Marcus’s mesmerizing attraction, the man himself, that she now doubted.
Her deceased husband may have cared nothing for her pleasure in their marriage bed, but that did not mean Julianna had never experienced, never felt, the emotions of lust and desire. And she had felt them all for the man now standing across the room from her.
As a young child she had hero-worshipped Marcus Wilding, and as a young lady newly entering her teen years, she’d had what was commonly called a ‘crush’ on her brother’s closest friend.
That crush had deepened into lustful thoughts once Julianna had been introduced into society, and was able to gaze upon the wickedly handsome Marcus several times a week as they attended the same social functions.
On the occasion of her eighteenth birthday Marcus had gone so far as to invite her to stand up for the first waltz of the evening with him at Almack’s. That he had no doubt done so at the behest of her brother, in order to ensure her success in society, had made absolutely no difference to the love that had burgeoned in her heart for him that evening. Or the desire that had heated Julianna’s body the moment the handsome duke had taken her in his arms, that heat deepening, intensifying, as he held her, his chest and those long elegant legs brushing temptingly against hers as they danced together.
Just a few minutes in Marcus Wilding’s company today had shown Julianna that she still felt at least that unrequited desire for him. Her breasts were so full and aching beneath the bodice of her gown, the nipples sensitively engorged, and there was that uncomfortable heat between her thighs.
Sight.
Marcus had told her that it was the first sense to awaken in sexual desire, and these past few minutes of gazing upon his wicked handsomeness had been enough to show her how true that claim was.
Just to look at this man’s face was enough to cause Julianna’s fingers to itch with the desire to touch the rakish curls that fell dark and thick onto his brow and curled so temptingly about his ears. And the pale, knowing glitter of his eyes as he looked at her was enough to cause a trembling deep within her.
As for Marcus’s mouth—no man should ever have been blessed with such a decadently sinful mouth; he had lips she could all too easily imagine feasting on her body, caressing her skin along with those long and elegant hands.
‘Time is passing, Julianna, and I still require an answer. Will you return here tomorrow morning to begin your lessons, yes or no?’ he pressed.
Yes or no....
Chapter Four (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
‘Ah, I am pleased to see you have acted upon the instructions I gave before you left yesterday morning and have worn something less funereal for me to gaze upon, for our second encounter,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction at six o’clock the following morning once his butler, having brought Julianna to him, had removed himself and closed the door behind him.
Julianna had thought long and hard about returning to Worthing House today, and in the end had only done so because she refused to suffer the mockery she knew would be in those pale green eyes the next time they met if she did not.
And she was now more than a little unnerved at finding herself alone with Marcus in the confines of what was obviously his private study. Even more so by the fact that Marcus’s hair was slightly damp from where he must have bathed earlier, that he wore no jacket or cravat over or above his waistcoat, and that his white shirt was unfastened at the throat as he sat behind the heavy leather-topped desk.
As Marcus had informed her yesterday, sight was usually the first of the senses to be pleased by a lover. Julianna had no doubts of that as she found it hard to do so much as breathe, totally unable to look away from the temptation of that open V as it revealed the silkiness of dark curls that no doubt covered the whole of Marcus’s chest. And lower.
‘Do you like what you see?’
It took every ounce of willpower that she possessed for Julianna to slowly drag the heaviness of her gaze back up to meet Marcus’s piercing green eyes, to sweep the moisture of her tongue across lips gone dry before answering him. ‘You should have had your butler inform me on my arrival if the time is inconvenient for you, after all.’
Dark brows rose. ‘The time is perfectly convenient for me.’
‘I—but—you have not finished dressing after bathing.’ It was nervousness that made Julianna point out the obvious.
‘Deliberately so, for your own delectation,’ he assured her huskily. ‘I thought you said yesterday that you also wished for your own senses to be aroused, as much as the man’s? Does the informality of my clothing arouse you, Julianna? Answer me, pet,’ he ordered as she remained silent.
‘I—yes!’ She had been married to John for three long years, and never in all that time had she seen her husband without so much as his jacket during their waking hours, and he had always worn a nightshirt fastened tightly at his throat on those increasingly rare occasions he had briefly visited her darkened bedchamber, before returning instantly to his own adjoining room once he had spilt his seed.
To now find herself gazing upon Marcus’s muscled shoulders and chest, covered only by that thin layer of the finest linen and silk waistcoat, with those tantalizing glimpses of the olive skin at his throat, was—
Julianna took a step back as Marcus rose to his towering and suddenly predatory height behind the desk. He stepped around it to stand before her, causing her to arch her throat as she tilted her head back to look up into the sinfully handsome face just inches above her own.
Marcus had been aware of the trembling of Julianna’s body and the tightness of her clenched hands the moment she entered his study wearing a gown of pale russet, the colour a perfect foil for the richness of the red-gold curls secured loosely upon her bared head. A trembling that testified to her nervousness, despite the challenge in those deep grey eyes that spoke to her stubborn determination not to turn tail and run.
He felt gratified for that stubborn determination, knowing it was, in all probability, the only thing that had brought Julianna back to him. She had certainly looked less than sure she would return yesterday morning once he had issued his list of dos and don’ts for their meeting this morning. Do not wear those widow’s weeds in my presence again, do not wear the unnecessary—and damned annoying—corset beneath your gown, soften the style of your hair, and so it went on, until Marcus felt sure that Julianna had been tempted to tell him to go to the devil with his instructions.
Instead, she had clamped her lips together before departing Worthing House as anonymously as she had arrived, that black cloak once again covering her from head to toe as she stepped into the equally anonymous carriage.
But here she was, after all, Marcus’s cock instantly leaping to attention as he gazed upon that red-gold hair loosely secured at her crown. Unless he was mistaken, and he was sure he was not, she was wearing no corset beneath the becoming russet gown that revealed the swell of the tops of her ivory breasts. Their proximity also allowed Marcus to detect the faint and tantalizing smell of roses upon that luminescent flesh.
‘I—is your study not a strange place in which to—to carry out our second meeting?’ Julianna now asked nervously.
Marcus smiled slightly. ‘The location of lovemaking, even the danger of discovery, can often be an arousing introduction to the act. Do you not find it more exciting being here, in my study, an obviously masculine room that you would normally never have reason to enter?’
She did, Julianna acknowledged wonderingly. There was something so—so forbidden about being in Marcus’s study with him, the only furniture being that huge mahogany desk and the chair behind it, and an ornate Japanese screen beside the bay window. How delicious it was to imagine sitting upon Marcus’s thighs as he sat in the chair, or having him drape her across the width of that desk—
‘You do.’ Marcus nodded his satisfaction as he obviously saw the flush to Julianna’s cheeks and the fevered glitter in the grey of her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she breathed softly, forcing herself to remain unmoving as Marcus lifted one long and elegant hand to begin removing the pins from her hair, the wideness of her gaze fixed upon his bared throat. She could see the way Marcus’s pulse leapt as he removed the last pin and the cascade of her hair fell loosely onto her shoulders and down the length of her spine.
Marcus certainly seemed to enjoy the sight of a woman’s unbound hair, his expression completely distracted as he gazed appreciatively at the silky length of her curls. ‘I believe I shall one day very soon enjoy the painful anticipation of having the feel of this silky flame draped across the bareness of my thighs.’
Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as she tried to imagine under what circumstances her hair might come into contact with Marcus’s bared thighs. Was Marcus saying—was he implying that? Surely there was no reason for her hair to ever be anywhere near the vicinity of his...
‘Have I succeeded in shocking you, Julianna?’ he asked as he heard the softness of her gasp.
Her gaze flew up to meet his. ‘I was merely wondering, considering, attempting to imagine—’ She broke off awkwardly.
‘If one is to truly enjoy lovemaking then not a single inch of a lover’s body should remain untouched, uncaressed, by the other,’ Marcus explained throatily. ‘Every single inch, Julianna.’
Julianna felt completely flustered now as she imagined touching, fondling, caressing the most intimate parts of Marcus’s body. As she thought of exactly where her mouth might be for the silkiness of her hair to lie caressingly across his thighs.
‘You said your anticipation would be “painful,”’ she said abruptly. ‘Why should such thoughts cause you pain?’
‘It would pain a certain part of my anatomy,’ he corrected softly. ‘A part of my anatomy that has been erect with that same anticipation since the moment you walked into my study today,’ he added as she continued to look up at him blankly.
Julianna’s gaze dropped instantly to the front of his pantaloons, her cheeks aflame with heat as she saw the long length of that erection beneath the material. Marcus gripped her chin and tilted her face up, leaving Julianna no choice but to look into those pale green eyes glittering down at her with such displeasure. His cheekbones were taut, his mouth a thin angry line. ‘Whatever you may have suffered at the hands of the man who had no right to call himself any woman’s husband, it will not be any part of what the two of us will share together. Do you understand me, Julianna?’ he pressed gruffly.
She did understand. In that instant, looking up into those beautiful pale green eyes, Julianna understood exactly what Marcus was offering her. Gifting her. It was the gift of appreciation. For her own femininity. For her beauty. And perhaps even tenderness, for her inexperience. Gifts never bestowed upon her by the man who had been her husband for three long years.
Julianna straightened her shoulders, and she stood several inches taller as she looked up unflinchingly into Marcus’s eyes before answering him. ‘I understand, Marcus.’
He continued to look down at her searchingly for several long seconds before giving a satisfied nod of his head. ‘Good.’
‘I—do you intend to kiss me?’ she prompted as he made no effort to release her.
Marcus drew in a sharp breath even as he felt a nerve pulse in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Touch does not enter into your instruction for several more days yet.’
‘But did you not say that lovemaking should always be spontaneous?’
He smiled inwardly as he heard the teasing beneath her challenge. ‘I have also heard it said that anticipation is good for the soul!’ he drawled self-derisively.
‘But painful,’ Julianna reminded, the definite light of mischief now in the dark grey of her eyes as she looked up at him.
It was teasing and mischief that gratified Marcus, as he acknowledged he had not seen that playful light in her eyes for some time now, and realized how much he had missed it. How much he had missed Julianna the hellion.
And how much he wished to do exactly as she challenged and kiss her. A capitulation guaranteed to reveal to her that it was in fact the pupil who controlled the tutor.
A knowledge he could not yet give her.
Marcus released her abruptly before stepping back to resume his seat behind the mahogany desk. ‘I believe that to be enough instruction for today.’ Any more of this and he was seriously in danger of revealing how his love for her ruled him.
‘But I have been here but a few minutes—’
‘I have said today’s lesson is over!’
Just when Julianna had felt herself on the precipice of a discovery, she knew herself dismissed. Quite what that discovery might have been she had no idea, only that she had felt something in the gentling of Marcus’s fingers against her chin, seen an elusive something in his eyes, some nuance of emotion she had not quite been able to grasp before a shutter had come down over his gaze, and Marcus had abruptly released her before moving away and dismissing her.
An elusive something that Julianna, aware of this man in every particle of her being, longed to see and to feel again.
Chapter Five (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
She hesitated. ‘Shall I return tomorrow morning at the same time?’
Marcus looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘That is our agreement, is it not?’
‘And tomorrow is smell?’ Julianna wrinkled her nose delicately at the thought of what form that smell might take.
Marcus’s tension eased slightly and he gave a grin as he leaned back in his chair to watch as Julianna refastened her hair in preparation for leaving. ‘Somehow I do not believe we are thinking of the same thing at all.’
‘Smell is smell, surely?’ she dismissed as she straightened.
‘One might imagine so.’ Marcus nodded slowly, eyes hooded by heavy lids. ‘Have you ever smelt yourself, Julianna?’
Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘I will have you know that I bathe at least once a day, sometimes twice!’
‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he drawled, all too aware of how many of the ton chose to try to hide their unwashed bodies beneath strong perfumes. Try. Because they never quite succeeded. ‘That is not the sort of smell I am referring to, Julianna. Everyone has a subtle, natural perfume, one that a lover inevitably finds themselves drawn to.’
Such as lemon and sandalwood, and clean healthy male, and an underlying musk Julianna was sure was all Marcus, and which had drawn her to him when he had stood so close to her just a few minutes ago.
‘Your own perfume is that of roses, with an underlying scent of desirable woman—’ He broke off as Julianna’s cheeks flushed a fiery red. ‘You know, of course, of the fluid a man emits during lovemaking? Obviously you do,’ Marcus answered his own question grimly. ‘But have you never smelt the perfume of your own unique arousal? Touched, and perhaps breathed in the scent of the arousal which dampens your thighs?’
Julianna was too shocked now to even gasp. ‘Certainly not!’ But she had, Julianna acknowledged wonderingly, as she recalled the dampness she had noticed when she’d returned home yesterday after being with Marcus, something she had never ever experienced in John’s company, in bed or out of it.
Because she was aroused? Because just looking at Marcus, smelling that lemon and sandalwood she would now always associate with him, and discussing such intimacies with him, had caused a desire she’d never experienced before? If that was so, then what would happen if he should touch her with that same intimacy?
‘Sound,’ Marcus murmured appreciatively.
Oh dear Lord, had she really just groaned out loud just thinking of having Marcus’s hands upon her? She had, Julianna acknowledged restlessly, knowing she had given a low and husky groan of longing as heat flared between her thighs.
She gave an agitated shake of her head. ‘You are right, it grows late and I should leave.’
And, much as he might wish it otherwise, for the moment Marcus knew he must let her go.
But his thoughts were grim as he recalled the look of disgust on Julianna’s face moments ago, when he’d talked of the result of a man’s arousal. Even worse, her pained expression, her surprise, her curiosity, when he’d talked of a woman’s physical reaction to lovemaking made it evident that she had never experienced that arousal with John Armitage.
Damn it, had the man shown no consideration at all for Julianna’s innocence? Was it really possible, that even on their wedding night, Armitage had taken Julianna’s virginity without caressing her, reassuring her, loving her, without giving her any preparation at all? That the other man—damn and blast Armitage to hell!—had just parted her thighs, climbed on top of her, taken his own pleasure, and then left her shaken and disillusioned? And that each subsequent taking had been equally as inconsiderate and brutal?
The possibility of that having been the case filled Marcus with a blaze of hot fury, and caused his eyes to gleam with unholy vengeance toward a man who was no longer accessible to him.
‘Yes, you should go now, Julianna,’ Marcus agreed as he rang for his butler; and she must go now, quickly, if she was not to bear witness to Marcus punching his fist through one of the walls of his own study.
The last thing he wished to do was frighten Julianna with the force of his present turmoil of emotions. Emotions that he needed time, and space, in order to control. An hour or two in the boxing ring might suffice to cool the blast of fury he felt toward the deceased Armitage. No doubt Christian would be only too happy to spar with him. And it would also allow Marcus to question his friend as to what he had known of his sister’s marriage, and why he had done nothing to stop her suffering.
Julianna hesitated. ‘Tomorrow is smell, the day after, taste?’
‘You seem in something of a hurry to complete our lessons’ he mocked.
‘I am merely...curious.’
‘Then yes, the day after tomorrow we shall build upon the sight and smell we will explore more deeply tomorrow. Taste, but also sound—I do not believe it will be possible for either of us to have one without the other, Julianna,’ Marcus drawled as she frowned. ‘I certainly doubt I will be able to taste your flesh without also making murmurs of appreciation.’
Julianna’s eyes widened, her pulse pounding loudly, palms becoming damp, at the thought of Marcus ‘tasting’ her flesh. As she would taste his?
Her gaze was drawn immediately to the flesh visible at his throat, to that tantalizing glimpse of the start of the black hair that no doubt covered his entire chest. What would it feel like to touch that hard and bared flesh, to allow her fingertips to caress and learn the dark contours of his body, not just of that magnificent chest but lower as well?
‘Exactly,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction as Julianna gave a second, breathy groan, a groan to which his cock instantly leapt in response. A loss of control that was unprecedented. ‘Be prepared for a deepening of intimacy as we add each successive sense upon the other, Julianna,’ he warned huskily, still far from sure he would be able to retain control once it came to tasting her.
It was going to be absolute torture for him to taste that bared ivory flesh, with his tongue as well as his lips, and for her to taste him in the same way. So much so that Marcus was not sure he would be able to stop himself from taking that ultimate step of possessing her completely. Something Marcus had promised himself he would not—could not—do unless it was clearly what Julianna wanted too.
She may have asked—demanded—that he teach her, tutor her, in an appreciation of the pleasures of the flesh, but she had not specified whether or not there would be a natural conclusion to all of that lovemaking.
‘Do you have any dos and don’ts for tomorrow, Marcus?’
His gaze felt heavy with desire as it was drawn back to Julianna’s face. She stood across the room looking so vulnerable, and yet so proudly courageous, too. He wished to do nothing more at that moment than go to her and beg her to stay.
Instead, aware that he had to be patient, to tempt and cajole Julianna into loving him, he remained seated behind his desk, his expression deliberately impassive. ‘Do not wear drawers tomorrow, Julianna,’ he instructed coolly. ‘Leaving your thighs naked will aid in my enjoyment,’ he added as her face paled slightly, making those dark grey eyes seem larger than ever.
Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. ‘I—I thought touch was for the day after?’
‘It is my intention for you to touch yourself there,’ he stated evenly. ‘How else can you fully appreciate the unique scent of your own arousal unless you bathe your fingers in it?’
‘I—is that really necessary?’
‘Unless you would prefer that I be the one to touch you?’ Marcus questioned boldly.
Even the suggestion of that caused Julianna’s alarm to deepen, as she once again acknowledged the hornet’s nest of emotions and embarrassment she appeared to have opened up for herself by blackmailing Marcus into tutoring her.
Unless he was just deliberately punishing her for having blackmailed him in the first place?
‘And will you also leave off your own undergarments and touch yourself, Marcus?’ she challenged.
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Yes.’
So much for Julianna’s childish attempt to beat this man at his own game; she should have known better! ‘Very well.’ She nodded, that nod turning to a curtsey as Marcus’s butler opened the door beside her. ‘Until tomorrow, Your Grace,’ she drawled before following the butler out into the cavernous hallway of Worthing House.
Marcus waited only long enough for Wilkins to close the door behind himself and Julianna before standing up and punching his first through the Japanese screen beside the window.
Chapter Six (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
‘What have you done to your hand, Marcus?’
Exactly what Christian had asked him when the two men met at Jackson’s Boxing Salon yesterday afternoon, when Marcus had also refused any suggestion that the bandage upon his hand prevented him from participating in the sport. Indeed, his turmoil of emotions had still been such that he had felt no pain at all from his bruised hand as he’d bested Christian over the agreed three rounds.
Marcus had removed the bandage earlier for his morning meeting with Julianna, but there was still a certain amount of obvious bruising to his knuckles from his dispute yesterday with the Japanese screen. ‘I assure you, my opponent looks much worse than I do,’ he dismissed unconcernedly, the broken screen having been removed from his study and replaced by a rich, red velvet chaise, which Marcus had yesterday instructed servants to bring in here from his own private parlour.
‘I dined with my brother yesterday evening,’ Julianna came back accusingly. ‘By which time his bruised eye had gone several shades of purple!’
‘Oh?’ Christian had not reacted yesterday to Marcus’s discreet questioning in regard to Julianna’s marriage, but could that only have been for Marcus’s benefit? Had Christian saved his own questions for his sister for later that evening?
‘We always dine together on Tuesday evenings,’ Julianna immediately answered the unspoken question dismissively as she moved farther into his study. Her gown was emerald green today, and perfectly complimented her ivory skin and red-gold curls.
‘Did you do as I instructed and leave off your drawers?’ he asked harshly.
The aching hardness of his arousal, which seemed to have been with Marcus constantly for these past two days and nights, and which now surged up thick and heavy beneath his pantaloons without the benefit of his own restricting drawers, gave an increasingly familiar throb of appreciation for even the idea of Julianna being almost naked beneath her gown.
‘I did. And you?’
‘Yes.’
Julianna felt that now-familiar heat course through her body just thinking of what lay beneath the fine material of his pantaloons. Marcus’s gaze was just as intent upon her, as if he might see through her gown to her nakedness beneath.
A nakedness Julianna had been completely aware of since dressing earlier, her lack of drawers resulting in a sensitivity between her thighs, and a total awareness of the silky abrasion of her chemise against that bared flesh.
A sensitivity that had deepened the moment she’d entered the study and looked at Marcus, and seen that today he had dispensed with his waistcoat as well as his jacket and cravat, enabling her to fully appreciate the muscled width of his shoulders in the loosely flowing white shirt. The fastening at his throat was once again laid bare, revealing even more of his olive-skinned chest than it had yesterday.
Would he dispense with the shirt, too, by tomorrow, the day they were to explore taste and sound together? For surely they would not be able to do so if they both remained fully dressed.
But she was moving ahead of herself again, had yet to get through the ordeal of today’s lesson. For an ordeal it must surely be, if Marcus intended to go through with his instruction of having her touch herself. As she had touched herself yesterday evening after bathing.
Julianna had gazed at herself often in a mirror before her marriage to John Armitage, youthfully pleased with the image reflected back at her, and hoping that her husband would be pleased, too, once she was married. The years of being John’s wife, of his complete indifference to her body or physical pleasure, had resulted in Julianna slowly but surely avoiding looking at her nakedness in a mirror again.
Until yesterday evening.
Marcus’s arousal that morning had shown an appreciation for her body as well as her looks, and had caused Julianna to feel curious enough to see for herself what it was he had found to appreciate.
The reflection in the mirror had shown she was far more slender than she had been at eighteen, but that slenderness only served to emphasize the fullness of sloping breasts tipped with rosy nipples, her waist dipping inwards, with red-gold curls nestled between curvaceous thighs.
Julianna had skimmed her hands along those red-gold curls and up the slenderness of her waist before cupping beneath the fullness of her sensitive breasts. Her eyes had widened at the sensitivity of the rosy nipples at their tips, her knees almost buckling beneath her when she touched them out of curiosity and felt the pleasure of that caress course through the whole of her body before it settled intensely between her thighs. A pleasure Julianna had then touched wonderingly with her fingertips, trembling as she briefly felt the sensitive folds beneath and breathed in her own musky perfume.
Just the thought of having to do that again today, in front of Marcus this time, was enough to weaken her knees all over again.
‘Shall we begin?’ she prompted. ‘I have an appointment with the dressmaker later this morning, the last fitting for the new gowns necessary for my return into society next month following my year of mourning.’
Marcus scowled at thoughts of the man she had supposedly been in mourning for, and at the idea of other gentlemen very soon being able to fully appreciate Julianna’s alluring beauty in a no-doubt delicious array of coloured gowns. Men, he knew, would be intent upon winning Julianna for their own.
He stood up abruptly. ‘Take down your hair and then we shall sit on the chaise together.’
Julianna turned in surprise to look at the red velvet chaise in the window. ‘Was there not a beautiful Japanese screen here yesterday?’ she asked uncertainly as she removed the pins from her hair and allowed it to fall silkily about her shoulders.
‘It was damaged,’ Marcus dismissed.
‘That is a pity.’
‘Yes,’ he acknowledged as he took her hand in his uninjured one to accompany her over to the chaise, waiting until she was primly seated upon its edge, her back defensively straight, before lowering his long length to sit beside her, their thighs almost touching.
Almost.
Because, much as it physically pained him to be in this continuous state of arousal, Marcus was enjoying these private times with Julianna too much to wish them over too soon. He intended to use every advantage he had, in the short time she had allotted to him, not only to instruct her in an appreciation of the pleasures of the flesh but also to try to captivate Julianna himself.
He lowered his head toward her throat, breathing deeply. ‘Your perfume is of roses again today,’ he murmured huskily. ‘And something else,’ he added curiously.
Julianna trembled slightly even as she felt the bloom of warmth in her cheeks as she easily guessed that other perfume to be the arousal deepening between her thighs. An arousal she knew was caused not only by Marcus’s close proximity but also by thoughts of having to touch herself in front of him.
‘Julianna?’ Marcus prompted huskily as he saw the fevered glitter that had appeared in those dark grey eyes.
She avoided meeting his gaze. ‘I—could we please hurry? As I said, I have another appointment. Marcus?’ she said sharply as he placed a hand beneath her chin and turned her flushed face toward his.
‘Something has happened.’ Marcus looked down at her searchingly, noting those fevered eyes, the flush to her cheeks, the redness of her pouting lips. ‘Tell me, Julianna.’ His hands lightly grasped the tops of her arms as he refused to allow her to turn away from him. ‘Tell me, damn it!’ He shook her slightly.
‘I—I cannot!’ she said on a sob, head bowed. ‘I—it is too shameful. Too embarrassing! I should not have—I cannot say it!’ she gasped on another sob.
What on earth?
Marcus stilled as he contemplated those over-bright eyes for several more seconds, the flush to her cheeks, the pouting and aroused lips, and the way the fullness of the tops of her breasts pressed up and over her gown, as if bursting to be free. ‘Ah,’ he finally murmured with satisfaction. ‘Perhaps part of our lesson today is superfluous?’
She raised startled eyes. ‘What?’
Marcus smiled slightly. ‘Tell me, Julianna, did you perhaps touch between your thighs last night, breathe in the perfume of your arousal, as I had suggested you would do for me today?’
‘No!’ Her face paled slightly as she pushed against his chest in an attempt to pull away, breathing heavily as she failed to free herself. ‘I—yes! Yes, I—I touched myself!’ she admitted as she glared up at him heatedly, challengingly. ‘It was your fault!’ she continued defensively. ‘All your talk of arousal and... Yesterday evening, after I had bathed, I looked at myself in a mirror, at my nakedness, and then—then I touched my breasts, and the moisture you spoke of gathered between my thighs, and ... and ...’
‘And?’ Marcus encouraged her.
‘And I am ashamed of what I did! So ashamed!’ She broke off with a wail as she collapsed against his chest and cried in earnest.
Marcus took her into his arms, allowing her tears. While he stroked the length of her spine, he enjoyed the sensation of having Julianna cling to him, of knowing that he had been responsible for Julianna’s arousal yesterday evening. ‘And did you like it, pet?’
‘Too much!’ She trembled at the admission.
‘One can never like physical pleasure too much, Julianna,’ Marcus chuckled huskily.
‘No?’ She sounded uncertain.
‘No,’ he assured her softly. ‘Did you breathe in your own unique perfume?’
‘Yes!’
‘And did that arouse you even more? Enough so that you stroked yourself there?’
‘S-stroked myself?’ Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he could hear her shock nevertheless.
‘Did your pleasure increase as you touched yourself? Did you climax?’
‘Yes. Yes. I don’t—’ She burrowed her hot face closer against his chest. ‘No, I do not think I climaxed.’
Marcus chuckled again. ‘You would remember it if you had. Are you wet now, Julianna? The truth now,’ he warned as he felt her hesitation.
Julianna groaned softly in her throat as she felt her desire grow just talking to Marcus in this way, having him so close to her, breathing in the warmth of lemon and sandalwood that was so uniquely him. ‘Are you not shocked?’ She frowned as she looked up to find him looking at her with curiosity rather than condemnation. ‘Disgusted, at least, at my having behaved so—so shamefully?’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘I believe I feel pride more than anything, in knowing that our short time together has broken down your previous inhibitions so readily. I am not in the least shocked or disgusted by your behaviour, Julianna,’ he assured her huskily. ‘Rather, I should like to have been there, to have been allowed to watch you.’
She blinked. ‘You would?’
He nodded. ‘It would have aroused me to do so.’
‘Sight...’ she breathed softly, wonderingly.
‘Yes. That you now know some of the pleasure of your own body is a natural process, pet,’ he explained as she still frowned her uncertainty. ‘And a necessary one, too, if you are to help guide a partner into also learning what pleases you.’
It was all too much for Julianna to take in. Far too much, after the things she had already revealed to Marcus today, and when her body trembled and ached with heated arousal just being close to him in this way, able to feel his hard strength beneath her cheek and against her sensitive breasts, to breathe him in.
‘You said my—my actions yesterday only rendered part of our lesson today superfluous?’ she reminded softly.
He nodded. ‘You have still to learn of a man’s...musk.’
Julianna’s gaze instantly moved lower, the lengthy throb so clearly visible between Marcus’s thighs telling her of his arousal. ‘Now?’ she breathed softly. Curiously. Eagerly.
Marcus released her to lean back against the chaise, giving her easier access to the buttons fastening the sides of his pantaloons. ‘Right now,’ he said throatily.
Chapter Seven (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Marcus’s erection surged up thick and long, and his heart began to beat a loud and wild tattoo in his chest as Julianna’s hands moved tentatively, and then more surely, to unfasten the buttons of his pantaloons.
And again he worried that, after wanting her, desiring her, loving her for so long, he wouldn’t be able to retain control over the increasingly desperate need he felt to make love to her completely.
The last thing Marcus wanted to do was hurt Julianna, frighten her with the depth of the passion he felt for her, as that bastard Armitage had so obviously hurt and frightened her in their marriage with his coldness and brutality.
‘Marcus?’
Damn it, he could see by the uncertainty of Julianna’s expression, as she hesitated about folding down the flap of his pantaloons that would bare him to her completely, that she was already doubting the wisdom of her actions, that if he did not do something, say something soon to alleviate that uncertainty, she might cut and run. Perhaps, this time, forever.
Her next words confirmed it. ‘If you would rather we put an end to our bargain now, I believe I have learnt enough to—’
‘I have no intention of putting an end to our bargain!’ he bit out, instantly regretting that hardness as he saw the way in which she flinched. ‘We made an agreement, Julianna,’ he reminded evenly. ‘And I am not about to renege on that. I hesitate only because—I know you have been married, Julianna, but the things you have said of that marriage have not... Have you even seen a man naked?’
‘Not John, certainly.’ She raised her chin determinedly at the enormity of her admission, at what it must tell Marcus of that loveless marriage. ‘But I saw my brother, Christian, in his drawers often when we swam together as children—’
‘I said a man, Julianna. Nor was I referring to his chest,’ Marcus added dryly.
Colour blazed in her cheeks. ‘I—then no, no, I have never seen a man naked.’
Marcus breathed deeply. ‘Or aroused?’
‘No.’ Her eyes were now wide grey pools of anticipation.
‘But you would like to?’
‘I—’ She moistened her lips with that little pink tip of her tongue.
A tongue Marcus longed, ached, to feel against his aroused flesh. Just to think of it, imagine it, was enough to cause his cock to throb.
‘Yes,’ she breathed softly. ‘I believe I should very much like to see you aroused, Marcus....’
His breath left him in a shaky sigh of relief. ‘Then do so, Julianna,’ he encouraged. ‘Fold back the flap of my pantaloons and look your fill,’ he invited gruffly.
Julianna’s breath caught in her throat as she slowly did as he instructed. Her eyes widened as she looked at the length of his arousal, which jutted up thick and strong from the thatch of dark curls between his thighs, engorged veins running along the length of the pulsing shaft, the bulbous tip glistening with moisture.
She found it impossible to look away from the beauty and the power of Marcus’s arousal. ‘I—will you touch it or shall I?’ she breathed longingly.
‘You do it,’ he encouraged hoarsely, hands clenching into fists at his sides.
It was not exactly what they had decided upon yesterday, but Julianna was only too eager to reach out and touch that burgeoning length, instantly surprised by how silky the skin over that hard and pulsing flesh was, only vaguely aware of the way Marcus’s breath hitched in his throat as she wrapped the fingers of both hands around his length, a length that seemed to grow even longer and thicker in her encircling fingers. A bead of moisture escaped from the slit at the top, before it was joined by another, and then another, until it dribbled down that length to dampen the back of her hand.
Fascinated, Julianna was too enthralled to feel embarrassed by this depth of intimacy as she brought that hand beneath her nose, breathing in deeply, the scent a pleasing and arousing mixture of earthiness and an underlying sweetness. Was this the ‘musk’ Marcus had spoken of?
‘It is the lubrication that is needed, along with your own, in order to make penetration easier,’ Marcus murmured gruffly.
And not the painful business it had always been with John, Julianna instantly recognized. Because her husband had not taken the time to prepare her. Even on their wedding night he had just climbed into bed beside her, pushed up her night rail and pushed himself inside her, ripping through the thin barrier of her virginity, and eventually grunting his release, before leaving her.
A cold and painful introduction to the marriage bed.
And John’s member had been nowhere near as—as long as Marcus’s, or as thick, meaning it would surely take more than just their mutual arousal in order for Marcus to penetrate her without causing that same pain.
But Marcus had not expressed a wish to penetrate her. By showing her these things, teaching her, he was merely fulfilling his part of the blackmail she had practiced upon him, nothing more. This blatant evidence of his arousal was how any man would react to having a young woman fondling him so intimately.
Julianna released him abruptly before sitting back, only to stare down in fascination as that hard shaft pulsed eagerly upward while more liquid escaped the glistening bulbous tip.
‘He is asking for more,’ Marcus drawled ruefully, reluctantly refastened his pantaloons as he realized, as far as Julianna was concerned, this particular ‘lesson’ was over and he would have to deal with the results of that lesson himself once Julianna had gone.
‘“He”?’ Julianna echoed curiously.
Marcus nodded. ‘Most men refer to their genitalia as a separate entity—probably because it has a will, a determination, completely separate from the logic of a man’s brain!’
Which meant it was only Marcus’s cock that had just reacted to her touch, Julianna accepted heavily, not Marcus himself. No doubt it could penetrate her, too, take its pleasure, and feel none of the regret in the act the man—Marcus—most assuredly would. Because, she reminded herself fiercely, Marcus was only doing these things, allowing these intimacies, because she had forced him into it. He did not care for her personally, had no real interest in making love to her. And he was probably longing to be rid of both her and her ridiculous demand to be taught how to make love to a man.
Julianna, on the other hand, had realized these past few days how much she desired Marcus in particular.
Not just desired him but loved him.
Had she always loved him?
Certainly since the night of her eighteenth birthday, when he had danced the waltz with her at Almack’s, flirted with her, flattered her, before returning to his regiment just days later to resume fighting against Napoleon’s army. Julianna had mooned about for weeks afterwards, foolishly hoping that night had meant something to Marcus, too. That he might have fallen in love with her.
Foolish, foolish hopes that had ended in heartbreak and hurt pride once she’d learnt that Marcus had rejoined his regiment without so much as speaking with her again. It was that same injured pride that had caused her to then accept Lord John Armitage’s marriage proposal; at least there was a man who wanted her, she had consoled herself. Her brother had been home on leave recovering from an injury at the time, and it had seemed the ideal thing for her to marry before he had to return to his regiment.
It was only now, during these past few days of being with Marcus so intimately, that Julianna had realized her insistence on an immediate wedding four years ago had been because she had hated the thought of Marcus returning to England and perhaps guessing that she was pining away with unrequited love for him.
She had hoped by marrying John that she would get over her love for Marcus. Instead, she had merely buried her love for him in the deep recesses of her heart. She had never loved John—how could she when it had been Marcus, the man who had unknowingly held her heart in his elegant hands, whom she loved?
Whom she still loved.
What a fool she had been not to recognize this before now!
Because Marcus must surely despise her now, after she had blackmailed him into sharing such shocking intimacies with her these past three days, in order to prepare her for a future with other men.
Chapter Eight (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
‘Julianna?’ Marcus prompted with increasing unease for her silence and the faraway look in those grey, unfocused eyes.
He didn’t feel the least reassured as she stood up abruptly before crossing the room to stand beside the fireplace, the soft curtain of her hair hiding her face as she turned away from him. ‘I should never ... This is wrong. I was wrong to force you to do this,’ she added firmly, shoulders stiff above the rigidity of her spine. ‘I apologize for—for... You should know I would never have gone to Lord Standish and told him of your—your involvement with his wife, before their marriage.’
‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he murmured softly.
Tears glistened in those beautiful grey eyes as she lifted her head to face him, her cheeks pale. ‘I sincerely apologize, Marcus, beg your forgiveness for having forced you—’ She gave a shake of her head, her hair like a living flame as it flowed down about her shoulders and over the swell of her breasts. ‘I can only hope that my scandalous behaviour these past three days has not in any way affected your long-standing friendship with my brother.’
‘Not in the least,’ Marcus reassured her gruffly, wary of what she was going to say next.
‘But your poor hand—’
‘My “poor hand”, as you call it, was injured before Christian and I sparred together in the boxing ring yesterday,’ he assured her.
Her gaze sharpened. ‘It was?’
‘Yes.’ Marcus stood up, realizing that it was Julianna’s intention to call an end to their arrangement, and that the time for prevarication was over. ‘I put my fist through the Japanese screen after you left me yesterday, hence it becoming “damaged”.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Accidentally?’
‘No,’ he answered her honestly. ‘After our conversation yesterday I could not bear the thought—’ He broke off, choosing his next words carefully. ‘I was angry, furiously so, at thoughts of how you must have suffered all those years at Armitage’s hands.’
‘It was not all John’s fault—’
‘Yes, it was, damn it!’ he bit out fiercely.
‘No,’ she insisted quietly. ‘I did not love him any more than he loved me. I ... Perhaps if I had—’
‘John Armitage preferred the company of whores to that of a wife, and the looser their morals the better!’ Marcus bit out grimly, having no intention of allowing Julianna to take the blame for her unhappy marriage. ‘His tastes were...unusual.’
Her brows rose. ‘In what way?’
‘I would rather not—’
‘In what way, Marcus?’ Juliana persisted firmly.
‘In the way of his preferring to—to share his bed with more than one person.’ He scowled darkly.
Her face grew even paler. ‘I don’t understand.’
Marcus drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘Man, or woman, Armitage had no preference as to which as long as it added to his entertainment.’ His gaze sharpened. ‘He did not ever ask you to—’
‘No,’ Julianna assured hastily, feeling ill as she thought of those increasingly rare nights when John had come to her bed—perhaps straight from the arms of his lovers? Perhaps he had even needed that stimulation before he was able to come to her bed at all.
Her nausea deepened at the thought. ‘And I had thought his lack of interest in me to be because I was... because I was not desirable.’
Marcus almost laughed at such a nonsensical notion. Almost. Because he could see from Julianna’s pained expression, and the shadows in her eyes, how she had suffered because of Armitage’s indifference to her. ‘You were, and still are, a lady, Julianna, and a very desirable one. And Armitage’s sexual preferences were founded in the gutter.’
She blinked. ‘H—How do you know these things?’
‘I overheard him talking one night in a gaming club almost four years ago, not long after you were married,’ Marcus revealed reluctantly. ‘He was bragging of his sexual preferences. I—it disgusted me to the point that I—’ He broke off abruptly, hands clenched at his sides at the memory—the shameful memory—of what else had almost happened that night.
‘I—that is—almost four years ago, you say?’ Julianna realized softly. ‘Is it possible you heard this conversation the night before Emily Proctor was to marry Lord Standish?’
Marcus stilled. ‘Perhaps...’
‘Was it?’ Julianna persisted determinedly.
‘Yes!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
She looked up at him searchingly. ‘Marcus?’
He turned away to walk across and stare sightlessly out of his study window, unable to withstand that penetrating gaze a moment longer. ‘You should know, I did not...agree to our arrangement these past few days because you blackmailed me, Julianna.’
Julianna stared at the uncompromising set of Marcus’s shoulders, the stiffness of his spine beneath the flowing white shirt, wondering if she had misunderstood him, if it were not merely wishful thinking on her part that she thought he might care for her.
Whatever the outcome of this conversation, Julianna knew that there were things between them that needed to be said, and that if they were not said now they might never be.
Her pride dictated that she not open herself up for the same rejection she had suffered in her marriage. At the same time, the memory of the difficulties she had placed herself in the last time she let pride dictate her actions mocked that reluctance. There must be truth between the two of them now, even if that truth resulted in her humiliation. Surely, after these past three days, she owed Marcus that much, at least.
She drew in a deep breath before speaking softly. ‘And I have realized these past few days that I did not blackmail you, and only you, because of a sudden need for sexual knowledge.’
Marcus turned slowly, eyes searching the pale calm of Julianna’s face. ‘Then why did you?’ he finally asked.
She smiled ruefully. ‘Forgive me, but even I had not realized my true reasons until a few minutes ago.’ She closed her eyes briefly as she gave a shake of her head. ‘Do you even remember that night all those years ago when you danced a waltz with me at Almack’s?’
He nodded. ‘It was the night of your eighteenth birthday. You looked... you were so beautiful that night, Julianna, that just to look at you took my breath away.’
‘I fell in love that night,’ she revealed softly.
He scowled. ‘With Armitage? I do not remember seeing you with him—’
‘You were the one I fell in love with that night, Marcus,’ Julianna corrected him softly, having no intention, after the things she had learnt today, of so much as mentioning her deceased husband’s name ever again. He was the past, and it was only the future that concerned her now. With or without Marcus in it.
She could never love another as she now realized she loved Marcus, as she had always loved him, but if he did not want her then she would at least know that she had told him of the feelings she had for him, before she had to leave him to find what future she could without him.
She straightened her shoulders determinedly as she looked steadily across the room at Marcus. ‘I loved you then, I have loved you every day since, and I love you still. I say this not because I expect you to be able to say the same to me,’ she added hurriedly as Marcus looked stunned by her words. ‘But because I have wronged you these past three days, have made demands upon you which must have shocked and dismayed you—’
‘Did you listen to anything I said to you earlier, Julianna?’ Marcus demanded impatiently as he quickly crossed the room to her side, coming to a halt just inches in front of her as he looked down at her. ‘I am neither shocked nor dismayed. And I only allowed you to believe you had blackmailed me into teaching you of lovemaking, when in reality I never laid so much as a finger on Emily Proctor.’
Julianna started. ‘She lied?’
‘She lied.’ He nodded as he reached down to take both of Julianna’s hands in his. ‘I could not—I did not want her. Not even when the woman I really wanted, the woman I ached for, wanted, was in love with, was denied to me. You were denied to me, Julianna,’ he revealed.
She gasped softly, wonderingly. ‘Me?’
‘You,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I fell in love with you the night of your eighteenth birthday, possibly even before that, but that was the night I realized my true feelings for you. But in my arrogance I believed it best that I wait until the war with Napoleon was over before coming to you and declaring my love for you, that it was unfair to you to do otherwise, when I might make you a widow so soon after becoming a bride. You married Armitage in my absence.’ He gave a humourless smile at the irony of events.
Julianna could barely breathe as she listened to Marcus telling her of how he had realized his love for her on the very same night she had acknowledged to herself the deep love she felt for him. ‘I believed, when you went back to war without seeing me again, that you did not want me, and that I would never become a bride at all if I did not accept John’s offer when it was made. But all the time, all these years, it was you I loved, Marcus. You I wanted to be with. As I want to be with you now. Fully and completely,’ she added breathlessly. ‘As your lover—’
‘As my wife,’ he insisted.
Julianna looked up at him in shock. ‘You wish to marry me?’
‘More than anything! I know you were unhappy in marriage the first time, that you have decided not to marry again, but I assure you marriage to me would not be like that. Not ever! I love you, Julianna.’ Marcus swept her into his arms. ‘I will always love you.’
‘And I love you!’ she assured him fervently as she clung to him. ‘Make love with me, Marcus, please? Here, or in your bedchamber, I do not care where, as long as you allow me to make love with you as I have long wished to do. As you have so pleasurably taught me to do,’ she added huskily.
Marcus moved back slightly to look down at her wordlessly for several long seconds before laughing happily at the unwavering love he saw shining in those beautiful grey eyes. ‘Then I choose the privacy of my bedchamber.’ He swung her up completely into his arms, pausing only long enough to allow her to open the door. ‘In the knowledge that I will always love you, Julianna,’ he told her throatily.
‘Let us show each other our love.’ Julianna glowed up at Marcus as she allowed him to carry her up the stairs.
To heaven.
Chapter Nine (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
‘Sight,’ Julianna murmured longingly just minutes later as she looked at the muscled contours of Marcus’s bared chest.
‘Sight,’ he echoed huskily. Both of them were naked as they stood so close but not quite touching, having quickly undressed each other, their clothes scattered on the floor about them.
‘Scent.’ Julianna laid her cheek against that perfect chest as she breathed in the lemon and sandalwood, the musk that was so uniquely Marcus.
‘Scent.’ Marcus nuzzled against the delicate curve of her throat, breathing in her essence before slowly, oh-so-slowly, dropping to his knees in front of her. ‘Scent,’ he repeated hoarsely as he buried his face gently against the silky red-gold curls between her thighs.
Julianna’s breath hitched in her throat as she looked down at him. ‘Taste?’ she murmured curiously.
Marcus looked up at her, still concerned about shocking her, frightening her, with the depth of his need for her, and was instantly reassured by the longing in Julianna’s eyes and the fevered flush to her cheeks. ‘Taste,’ he groaned achingly as he now nudged her thighs gently apart, his hands on her hips to steady her as he moved closer.
Julianna gasped, her hands moving quickly to grasp Marcus’s shoulders as she felt the first pleasurably rasping caress of his tongue against her sensitized flesh.
The repeated rasp of that marauding tongue, the suckling of her centre between surprisingly soft lips, the gentle bite of teeth, was pleasure such as Julianna had never known, never realized existed. That wicked tongue moved lower still, thrusting into her heat at the same time the soft pad of Marcus’s thumb caressed the hardened nubbin above.
‘And sound,’ Marcus murmured with satisfaction as Julianna groaned with each prolonged thrust of his tongue.
‘It is too much, Marcus!’ she gasped long minutes later, fingers gripping his shoulders tightly as he felt her nubbin pulsing against his thumb, as evidence of her rapidly approaching climax.
‘It can never be too much between the two of us, Julianna. Never!’ he said raggedly, filled with the taste of her, the scent of her arousal as he laid siege to that ripe nubbin. He suckled deeply, again and again, as she mewled softly, desperately, and he knew she was poised on the edge of her release. His cock surged to bursting as he thrust a finger into her moist and welcoming sheath in the same rhythm in which he suckled her deeper, harder, into the heat of his mouth.
Julianna had never known that such pleasure as this existed. She wanted it to go on forever, though at the same time as she knew she was beyond control. Pleasure washed over her in ever-deepening waves as she moved her hips instinctively into Marcus’s complete possession. Until that pleasure soared free and all-consuming, wave after wave of earth-shattering pleasure exploding into a kaleidoscope of colour beneath her closed lids as she clung on to Marcus’s shoulders, her only point of contact with the earth.
Marcus closed his arms about Julianna as she crumpled and fell to her knees in front of him. Her breath a rasping sob, she lay weakly against his chest. Marcus was full to bursting with the satisfaction of knowing he had been the one to give her this first taste of pleasure. And that there was more, so much more for them to explore.
Together.
It still seemed like something of a dream to him, an unexpected but oh-so-welcome dream, that Julianna loved him, as he loved her, and he vowed then and there to tell her so every day for the rest of their lives together.
She roused slightly in his arms to look up at him with satiated dark eyes. ‘My turn to taste you,’ she murmured longingly as she shifted out of his arms to kneel in front of him. ‘Ah,’ she murmured knowingly as her hair lay as a fiery caress across Marcus’s thighs.
Marcus’s breath caught at the back of his throat as her fingers closed possessively about his rock-hard arousal before she lowered her head and flicked the rasp of her tongue across the glistening tip. ‘Dear God!’ he groaned weakly as the pleasure surged through him, proving that, as he had suspected, the pupil had no more need of the teacher.
Julianna had never tasted anything as intoxicating as Marcus. She continued to lick his shaft from base to tip before daring to part her lips and draw that bulbous tip completely into her mouth, drawing, suckling on him in the way he had her just minutes ago, moving one of her hands to cup the sac beneath, and emboldened by the increased raggedness of Marcus’s breathing, which told her how much that pleasured him.
‘No more, Julianna!’ Marcus finally gasped as he pulled her gently away. He wanted nothing more than for her to continue that pleasurable suction with her hot little mouth, and the increasingly daring caress of her fingers, but he was also aware of the outcome if she did. He wanted to be buried inside Julianna when he came. Deep, deep inside her.
She looked up at him with dark, aroused eyes as she licked her lips. ‘You taste delicious.’
‘As do you,’ he said gruffly as he stood to lift her up into his arms and carry her over to the bed. He laid her there before he settled above and between her parted thighs, his weight on his elbows. ‘Will you allow me inside you now, darling Julianna?’
‘I long for it!’ she breathed, her hands caressing his back.
‘I do not ever want to hurt you—’
‘You couldn’t,’ she said with certainty. ‘I know without a doubt that you never could.’
As Marcus had hoped, their previous lovemaking had more than prepared Julianna, her sheath hot and so very moist. Even so, he took care with her, easing his cock inside her an inch at a time, until he filled her completely. He stilled above her, allowing her time to adjust to the fullness as he cupped a hand either side of her flushed and satiated face and looked down at her beautiful smile. ‘I love you so very much, Julianna. Will you please make me the happiest man alive and become my wife?’
‘Oh yes, Marcus.’ Her eyes glowed as she smiled up at him brightly, trustingly. ‘Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!’
‘Thank God,’ he murmured thankfully as he claimed her mouth with his and they both became lost—and, at the same time, found—in their mutual pleasure and love for each other.
* * * * *
Zachary Black: Duke of Debauchery (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Carole Mortimer
LONDON’S MOST DISSOLUTE BACHELOR
No one knows how to sin quite like Zachary Black, Duke of Hawksmere. So when he finds a mysterious veiled woman hiding in his carriage, there’s only one thing to do…carry her to his bedchamber and find out what she wants!
But coming face-to-face with beautiful Lady Georgianna Lancaster—his former fiancée—unnerves Zachary. Maybe the best way to restore his equilibrium is to hold her captive…and turn the secrets of the past into the sins of the present!
To all of you, thank you for reading my books.
Chapter One (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Late February, 1815, outside White’s Club, London.
‘What the—?’ Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere, came to an abrupt halt as he climbed into his carriage and noticed the shadowy figure already seated on the far side. The lantern inside was turned down low, preventing him from seeing if it was a man or woman who sat back in the shadows. ‘Lamb?’ He turned to look accusingly at his groom, silver eyes glittering in the soft glow of the flickering lamp.
The middle-aged man straightened to attention. ‘She said as ’ow you was expecting ’er, your Grace,’ he offered questioningly.
His intruder was a woman then, Zachary processed grimly. But certainly not one he had been expecting.
Unless...
He had just spent the evening and part of the night at his club with his four closest friends celebrating the forthcoming nuptials of one of them, Marcus Wilding, the Duke of Worthing, and his ladylove, Lady Julianna Armitage. Their wedding was due to take place later on today.
Zachary had briefly toyed with the idea of marriage himself the previous year, a decision forced upon him by the circumstances of his father’s will. But his attempt to secure a wife had gone so disastrously wrong he was reluctant to repeat the experience. However, his cynicism did not prevent him from wishing Worthing well in the venture. Indeed, he had done so until almost dawn.
Which now caused Zachary to wonder if perhaps the woman in his carriage was a part of those wedding celebrations? Possibly a gift from Worthing? And perhaps each of Zachary’s other three close friends would all find a similar present awaiting them in their own carriages?
Maybe so, but Zachary intended to remain cautious until convinced otherwise. The war with Napoleon might be over, and the Corsican currently incarcerated on Elba, but these were still dangerous times, and finding an unknown woman waiting for him in his carriage was certainly reason enough for him to stay on his guard.
‘Hawksmere House, Lamb,’ he instructed tersely as he climbed fully into the carriage and the door closed behind him. He took a seat across from the mysterious woman, placing his hat on the seat beside him as the carriage moved forward.
Zachary’s sight had now adjusted enough to the gloom for him to note that the woman wore a black veil, one that covered her from her bonneted head to her booted toe. Such an effective covering prevented Zachary from being able to tell if she was old or young, fat or thin.
Deliberately so?
No doubt.
Zachary maintained his silence. This woman had sought him out, and therefore it was incumbent upon her to state her reasons for having done so.
To state whether she was friend or foe.
* * *
Georgianna’s heart was beating wildly in her chest as she looked across the carriage at the silently watchful Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere. A man, should he discover her identity, who had every reason to dislike her intensely. And rumour had it that the hard and cynical Zachary Black was a dangerous man when he disliked, intensely or otherwise.
Georgianna repressed a shiver as she straightened her spine before greeting him huskily, ‘Your Grace.’
‘Madam.’ He gave a terse inclination of his head, his fashionably overlong hair appearing the blue-black of a raven’s wing in the dimmed lighting. His silver eyes were narrowed in his aquiline face; his brows were dark over those pale and shimmering eyes. He had sharp blades for cheekbones above an uncompromising and sculptured mouth and stern jaw.
Georgianna’s gaze was drawn down inexorably to the spot just beneath that arrogant jaw, to the livid scar visible above the white of his shirt collar. A wound so long and straight that it almost looked as if someone had attempted to cut his throat. Which had no doubt been the intention of the Frenchman wielding the sabre which had been responsible for the injury.
She repressed another shiver as she hastily returned her gaze to the dark and saturnine face above it. ‘I realise my presence in your coach might be considered as an...an unorthodox way of approaching you.’
‘That would surely depend upon your reason for being here,’ he drawled softly.
Georgianna’s gloved hands were clenched tightly together beneath the concealing shroud of her black veil. ‘There is... I have important news I need to...to impart to someone I believe is an acquaintance of yours.’
The man seated opposite her in the carriage did not appear to move, his expression remaining as mockingly indifferent as ever, yet Georgianna nevertheless sensed a sudden, watchful tension beneath that indifference.
‘Indeed?’ he murmured dismissively.
‘Yes.’
He raised those dark brows. ‘Then I may assume you did not intrude upon my carriage with the intention of sharing my bed for what is left of the night?’
‘Certainly not!’ Georgianna pressed back in shock against the comfortably upholstered seat.
He continued to look at her with those narrowed and merciless silver eyes for several long seconds. ‘Pity,’ he finally drawled. ‘A satisfying tumble would have been a fitting end to what has already been a most enjoyable evening. Pray tell, then, what is this important news you so urgently need me to impart to an acquaintance of mine? So important, it would seem, that you wilfully used subterfuge and lies with which to enter my carriage, rather than call upon my home during the daylight hours?’ he prompted mockingly.
Now that she was face-to-face with Zachary Black, albeit with her own face obscured beneath the black veil, Georgianna was asking herself the same question.
At two and thirty, the arrogantly disdainful Duke of Hawksmere was a man she believed few would ever approach readily.
Admittedly, his prowess on the battlefield, with both sword and pistol, was legendary. His prowess in the bedchamber equally so. But he was also a gentleman rumoured to deal with both in the same cold and ruthless manner.
A coldness and ruthlessness, as Georgianna knew better than most, said to be frighteningly decisive.
So much so that she had no doubt that were he to identify her he would not hesitate to halt the carriage and toss her unceremoniously out into the street.
That he might still do so, of course.
She drew in a deep breath. ‘It is rumoured, or more precisely I have reason to believe you have certain...connections? In government?’
Zachary remained lazily slouched on the plushly upholstered seat of his ducal carriage, his expression of mockery and boredom unchanging. But inwardly he was instantly on the alert, not caring for the way in which this woman had hesitated before questioning his connections.
It implied that she had some knowledge of his having worked as an agent for the Crown this past four years. Information which was certainly not public knowledge. Indeed, his endeavours in that area would be of little use if it were.
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I have many acquaintances in the House, if that is what you are referring to.’
‘We both know it is not.’
‘Indeed?’ Damn it, who was this woman?
A younger woman, from the light and breathless sound of her voice, and possibly unmarried if her shocked reaction to the suggestion she was here to share his bed was any indication. She also appeared educated from her accent and manner of speaking, although that veil still prevented him from knowing as to whether she was fair or dark, fat or thin.
Or what she knew of his connections in government.
‘Yes,’ she asserted firmly.
‘I am afraid that you have me at something of a disadvantage, madam. While you claim to know a lot about me, I do not even know your identity,’ Zachary dismissed coldly.
Georgianna doubted that the arrogantly assured Zachary Black had ever been at a disadvantage in his privileged life. Nor was he under one now, for this was his carriage, and their conversation one over which he ultimately held power. As he always held power over all who were allowed, or dared to, enter his privileged world.
A power, a proximity, that she frankly found overwhelming.
She had forgotten—chosen to forget?—that the duke was so immediate, and his personality so overwhelming, that he seemed to possess the very air about him. Air perfumed with the smell of good cigars and brandy, no doubt from the evening he had just spent at his club with his friends. There was an underlying hint of the sharp tang of lemons and an earthy, insidious aroma she could only assume to be that of the man himself.
Allowing her personal nervousness and dislike of the man to bedevil her now, after all she had gone through, was not going to help Georgianna’s cause in the slightest.
‘It is not necessary for you to know who I am for you to arrange for me to meet with one of those gentlemen,’ she continued determinedly.
‘That is for me to decide, surely?’ The duke leisurely picked a speck of lint from the sleeve of his black evening jacket before he looked up and pinned her once again with those coldly glittering eyes. ‘And why come to me on the matter? Why not simply make an appointment and impart this knowledge to one of those gentleman yourself?’
Georgianna’s gaze lowered. ‘Because I very much doubt any of them would agree to meet with a mere woman. Not without the recommendation of someone such as yourself.’
‘You underestimate the influence of your own sex, madam,’ Hawksmere drawled derisively.
‘Do I?’ Somehow Georgianna doubted that.
She had been barely nineteen ten months ago when her own father had accepted on her behalf the offer of marriage she had received from an influential and titled gentleman, all without giving any consideration as to whether or not Georgianna would be happy in such a marriage.
Her now-deceased father, she reminded herself dully, having learnt upon her return to England just yesterday that her father had died nine months ago, and in doing so making a nonsense of the anger she had felt towards him in regard to that betrothal.
‘I believe so, yes,’ Hawksmere dismissed harshly. ‘Either way, I am not in the habit of listening to news imparted to me by unknown women—most especially one who feels it necessary to lie her way into my presence—let alone recommending that anyone else should do so.’
Georgianna had expected this distrust and cynicism from a man whom she knew allowed very few people into his inner circle of intimates—the four friends from his schooldays, also dukes, being the exception. Those same four friends with whom she knew he had just spent the evening and most of the night.
‘Who I am does not have any bearing on the veracity of the information I wish to impart,’ she maintained stubbornly.
‘In your opinion.’
‘In the opinion of any patriot.’
Zachary Black raised a mocking brow at her vehemence. ‘A patriot of what, madam?’
‘Of England, of course.’ Georgianna glared beneath the veil.
‘Ah, yes, England,’ he drawled drily. ‘I trust you will forgive my ignorance, but I had thought England to currently be at peace? That we had held celebrations in honour of that peace just this past summer?’
‘That is the very reason—’ Georgianna broke off her outburst in order to draw in a deep and controlling breath. Being anything less than in control in this particular gentleman’s company was not wise when he was more like than not to take advantage of it. ‘I can trust in your discretion, I hope?’
He raised those mocking brows. ‘Should that not have been something you ascertained before you decided to invade the privacy of my carriage?’
Yes, it should, and Georgianna had believed that she had done so; she would not have approached the Duke of Hawksmere if she had not known he was exactly the gentleman she needed to speak with initially.
And yet, alone with him now in his carriage, and presented with the perfect, and wholly private, opportunity in which to convince him into speaking on her behalf, she found herself hesitating.
To the country at large the Duke of Hawksmere was nothing less than a war hero. He’d fought bravely and long in Wellington’s army and had been severely wounded for his trouble. That he had also worked secretly for the Crown was not so widely known, but just as heroic. It was Georgianna’s personal dislike of the man which now caused her hesitation.
Alone with Hawksmere in his carriage, so totally overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the man, Georgianna could not help but be aware that he was also a man known for his ruthlessness.
Once again she straightened her shoulders as if for battle. ‘You may pretend and posture all you like, your Grace, but I have no doubt that, once we have spoken a little longer, you will choose to speak on my behalf.’
Zachary would admit to being somewhat intrigued and not just by the information this young woman so urgently wished to impart. It was the woman herself who also interested him. Her voice might be young and educated, but it had also sounded slightly naïve when she stated her impassioned loyalty to England. Her claimed loyalty to England?
And Zachary still wondered what she looked like beneath that concealing veil.
Was she fair or dark? Beautiful or plain? Slender or rounded?
Zachary now found himself curious to know the answer to all of those questions. To see this young woman, if only so that he could look upon her face and judge for himself as to whether she spoke truthfully or otherwise. These last four years of working secretly for the Crown had shown him only too well not to trust anyone but his closest friends. How easily this could be an elaborate trap, a way of piquing his interest, before this mystery woman proceeded to feed the English government false information.
And his interest was most assuredly piqued.
To the extent that he no longer felt the least effect from the wine and brandy he had enjoyed with his friends earlier on.
So much so that he had no intentions of allowing this young woman to leave his carriage without first ascertaining exactly who she was and how she came to know things about him she should not have known.
He glanced out of the window to see that dawn was just starting to break over London’s rooftops.
‘Then might I suggest...’ he turned back to the young woman, just able to discern the pale oval of her face beneath that veil now ‘...as we will reach my home in just a few minutes, that now might be as good a time as any for you to confide at least a little of that information?’
Her hands twisted together beneath that veil. ‘I— It concerns the movements of a...a notable personage, currently residing on an island in the Mediterranean.’
It took every ounce of Zachary’s considerable self-control not to react to this statement. Not to show, by so much as the twitch of an eyelid, that her information might be of interest him.
Who in hell was this woman?
And what exactly did she know?
He turned once again to look out of the window, as if bored by the conversation. ‘As far as I am aware I do not have any acquaintances currently residing on a Mediterranean island.’
‘I did not say he was a personal acquaintance of yours—’
‘Then I cannot see what possible interest any of this can be to me,’ Zachary cut her off harshly; even mentioning that the noble personage in question was a he could be dangerous.
Having chosen his servants himself, Zachary trusted them implicitly. But that did not mean he wished to test that trust by allowing any of them to overhear the details of his conversation with this woman and her implication that he was an agent for the Crown.
A young woman whose eyes now glittered across the width of the carriage at him from beneath that veil. Dark eyes. Brown or possibly a deep blue, he could not tell.
‘I assure you, it will be of great interest to...’
‘You have run out of time, I am afraid.’ Zachary returned her gaze coldly as the carriage came to a stop outside Hawksmere House. ‘Perhaps you would care to come inside and finish the conversation there?’
Said the spider to the fly, Georgianna mentally added as she gave another shiver of apprehension. Being alone in this man’s carriage with him had been more than a test for her nerves. Entering Zachary Black’s home with him would push her well beyond her limits of daring.
Although many might think otherwise, she acknowledged heavily, knowing her reputation was beyond repair as far as society was concerned. And most assuredly so in Hawksmere’s cold and condemning gaze.
What would he say or do if he were to learn exactly who she was? Would he shun her, as all of society now shunned her? Or would he exact the revenge she had long been waiting for? That Sword of Damocles which she had felt balanced above her head for so many months now.
Zachary Black, with his reputation as the coldly ruthless Duke of Hawksmere, was not an enemy any sane person would voluntarily wish upon themselves.
And yet Georgianna had done so.
And done so willingly at the time, in the belief that she had no other choice in the matter. It had only been in the months since that she’d had time to reflect, as well as deeply regret, her previous actions. To appreciate exactly what manner of man it was she had chosen to make her mortal enemy.
After just a few minutes spent in the company of Hawksmere, and being made totally aware of the dangerous edge beneath his smooth urbanity, was enough to confirm that he was the type of man who would never forget a slight or an insult.
And Georgianna had insulted him most grievously.
‘I think not, thank you,’ she now answered him coolly.
‘I really wish you had answered differently.’
Georgianna was not fooled for a moment into thinking that Hawksmere’s words of regret were because he was still under the misapprehension she was a lady of the night and he wished to bed her. His tone had been too unemotional, too calmly conversational, for that to be true.
She pressed back against the shadows of the carriage as the groom opened the door and the duke rose to his feet before stepping down on to the cobbled road, placing his hat upon his head before turning to hold out a hand to her.
‘Our conversation is far from over,’ he murmured pointedly as she made no attempt to take that hand.
‘If you will just agree to speak to—speak on my behalf, your Grace,’ she corrected as he frowned darkly, ‘then I will return in a day or so for your answer. For now I choose to wait here a few minutes longer, before quietly leaving. I believe it preferable if we were not seen leaving the Hawksmere ducal carriage together.’
He raised one dark and mocking brow as he turned from dismissing the listening groom. ‘Are you perhaps under the misapprehension that your preferences are of any interest to me?’
‘On the contrary, I am sure they are not.’ Georgianna continued to press back into the shadows. ‘I was thinking of your own reputation rather than my own.’
Hawksmere gave a humourless smile. ‘I am informed by my closest friends that my reputation is that of a gambler and an irredeemable rake.’
And Georgianna now believed that to be a reputation this man had deliberately fostered, as a way of diverting attention from the fact that he worked secretly as a spy for the Crown.
Oh, he was also undoubtedly both a gambler and a womaniser. He had more than enough funds to accommodate a liking for the former and both the arrogance and dangerous attraction to ensure he could satisfy the latter. He could surely have any woman who might come to the attention of those piercing silver eyes.
Well, almost any woman, Georgianna reminded herself, knowing that one woman, at least, had escaped the attentions of both that silver gaze and the man himself.
‘No doubt you are,’ she conceded softly. ‘I would nevertheless still prefer to remain in the carriage until you are safely inside the house.’
Zachary was not a man known for his patience. Or his forbearance. Or, indeed, any of those admirable qualities that made certain gentlemen of the ton so acceptable to both the young débutantes and their marriage-minded mamas. The opposite, in fact; he and his four closest friends had earned the sobriquet The Dangerous Dukes amongst the ton this past ten years or more, and one of the reasons for that had been because they were none of them amiable or obliging. Or in the least interested in marrying any of those irritatingly twittering young women who appeared year after boring year on the marriage mart.
Zachary’s brief flirtation with the idea of marriage had been out of necessity rather than inclination, his father’s will demanding that he be married and have an heir by the time he reached the age of thirty-five, or forfeit the bulk of the Hawksmere fortune. The scandalous end to that betrothal meant that Zachary had delayed repeating the experience as yet. Although, now aged two and thirty, he appreciated that his time was assuredly running out, and he would soon be forced to once again take his pick of the Season’s beauties.
Worthing was to marry later on today, of course, but as he was to marry the younger sister of another of The Dangerous Dukes, it did not signify; the beautiful Julianna Armitage was neither twittering nor irritating.
So far in their acquaintance, Zachary had not found the earnest young woman behind the black veil to be either of those things either, though.
‘You consider I am in some danger, then?’ he enquired mildly. ‘From yourself, perhaps?’
‘Certainly not,’ she gasped. ‘I assure you, I did not come here to cause you any more harm—’ She broke off abruptly even as she seemed to cringe even further back against the carriage seat.
‘More harm?’ Zachary’s eyes narrowed even as he leant forward until his shoulders filled the doorway of the carriage, his gaze searching on that veiled figure. ‘Who are you?’ he prompted harshly.
‘I am no one, your Grace.’
‘On the contrary, you are most certainly someone.’ He reached into the ever-lightening gloom of the carriage to grasp one of her arms before pulling her along the seat towards him. A soft and slender arm that answered at least one of his earlier questions; the young woman beneath the veil was slender, very much so.
‘Let me go.’ She struggled against his hold, her gloved hand moving up in an effort to try to prise his fingers from about her arm. ‘You must release me, your Grace.’ There was now a distressed sob in her voice as her attempts failed to secure her release.
‘I think not,’ Zachary said slowly.
It had never been his intention to just allow this young woman to leave. Not since she had mentioned having information on Bonaparte, not by name but by implication.
Besides which, his curiosity to know more about this woman had only deepened with her comment about inflicting more harm.
The implication surely being that she had caused him some personal harm in the past?
If that was the case, then Zachary intended to know exactly who she was and in what way she might have caused him harm.
To that end he leant inside the carriage and pulled her easily towards him, until she fell forward across his shoulder despite her struggles.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I should have thought that was obvious.’ Zachary backed out of the carriage before straightening to heft his feather-light burden more comfortably on to his shoulder, his arm tight about the backs of the young woman’s thighs. He shot the curiously observing Lamb a grimly satisfied grin as he stood beside the horses’ heads, holding the reins to keep them steady. ‘The lady has expressed a fancy to pretend she is being kidnapped by a lusty pirate and carried off to his lair.’
Georgianna gave an indignant squeak at the deliberate and mortifying fabrication, before turning appealingly to the stoic-faced groom. ‘Do not believe a word of it,’ she pleaded desperately, the blood having rushed to her head and now causing her to feel slightly dizzy. ‘I am certainly being kidnapped, but not by any lusty pirate.’
‘Quiet, wench.’ The Duke of Hawksmere gave her a hearty slap on her backside to accompany the piratical instruction. ‘Wish me luck with my plundering, Lamb,’ he added drily, ‘for I am certain I shall need it.’
‘Not you, your Grace.’ The groom grinned his enjoyment of the entertainment. ‘Women are much like feisty mares and I’ve never known of one of ’em as you couldn’t tame to the bridle.’
Georgianna’s cheeks were aflame with colour, her light-headedness giving the whole situation a dreamlike quality. One in which she felt like the spectator at a theatre farce.
What other explanation could there possibly be for the way she now dangled over one of the wide and muscled shoulders of Zachary Black, the dangerous Duke of Hawksmere?
To now be jostled and bounced as he carried her up the steps of his town house, through the open doorway, before taking the three-pronged and lit candelabrum from the surprised and haughty-faced butler into his other hand?
The duke continued on through the entrance hall before taking the steps two at a time as he carried Georgianna easily up the wide staircase to the bedchambers above.
Chapter Two (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
‘Remove the veil.’ Zachary looked down grimly at the young woman he had just seconds ago dropped unceremoniously on top of the covers on his four-poster bed. The lit candelabrum he had placed on the bedside table allowed him to see the way her petticoat and the skirt of her black gown rode up and revealed slender and shapely ankles. Catching him looking, she hastily pulled the garments down again. Unfortunately that concealing veil had remained irritatingly in place. ‘Now,’ he ordered uncompromisingly.
Georgianna looked up warily through her long lashes at her towering adversary as she scrabbled further up the bed, as far away from the ominously threatening Duke of Hawksmere as it was possible for her to be. ‘I have no intentions of removing my veil.’
‘Are you in mourning?’
Was she? Her father had certainly died in the past year, but even so that was not her reason for wearing the veil.
‘If you have to think about it, then obviously not,’ the duke dismissed coldly. ‘Remove the veil. Now. Before I lose what little patience I have left,’ he added warningly.
Georgianna’s response to Hawksmere’s dangerously soft voice was to sit up straighter in the lush pile of snowy white pillows at the head of the four-poster bed. ‘You cannot treat me in this high-handed manner.’
‘No?’ His tone was low and menacing. ‘I do not see anyone rushing to your rescue.’
Her cheeks flamed with heat as she continued to look at him from beneath lowered lashes. ‘That is because you told your groom... Because your servants now think...’
‘That I am continuing to play my part in your erotic fantasy and am now ravishing you?’ Hawksmere completed derisively.
‘Yes.’
The duke gave a grimly satisfied smile. ‘And can you tell me truthfully that you have never had such a fantasy? That you have never dreamed,’ he added, sensually soft, ‘of a swashbuckling pirate carrying you off to his ship before having his wicked way with you?’
Of course Georgianna had once had such fantasies. What young and romantic girl had not dreamed of being carried off and ravished by a wicked pirate, or perhaps a dashing knight, who would then fall instantly in love with her and keep her for ever?
But she was now twenty years of age and felt much older than that in her heart. Nor did she have any faith left in romance and love. She knew only too well that the reality did not match up to the fantasy, that the wicked pirate or the dashing knight invariably had feet of clay.
‘Those are the daydreams of silly young girls who do not know any better,’ she dismissed flatly.
‘And you do?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured with feeling.
Hawksmere’s lids lay heavy over his eyes as he smiled down at her mockingly. ‘In that case, might I suggest you stop behaving like the ridiculous heroine in a lurid novel and remove your veil?’
Georgianna did not see that she had any choice in the matter when the duke was so much bigger than she was and could so obviously force her to his will if he so chose. And his mocking assertions earlier as to his reason for bringing her to his bedchamber meant she could not expect to receive any assistance from Hawksmere’s servants, either.
She had, Georgianna now realised, placed herself completely at the duke’s mercy.
And those cold silver eyes, and the uncompromising set of his arrogant jaw, confirmed that this man gave no quarter, to man or woman.
She slowly raised her shaking hands to where the pins held the veil in place. ‘You will not like what you see,’ she warned as she slowly began to remove those pins.
Hawksmere raised dark brows. ‘Are you disfigured in some way? From the pox, perhaps?’
‘No.’ She sighed as she placed the pins on the night table beside the candelabrum of three flickering candles.
‘Ugly, then?’ he dismissed uninterestedly. ‘Something my bedchamber has certainly not seen before.’
And such a richly ornate bedchamber it was, too, and entirely fitting for a duke as wealthy and powerful as Hawksmere. The curtains at the windows and about the four-poster bed were of a rich blue velvet and the furniture was heavy and dark and at the height of fashion. A thick, predominantly blue Aubusson carpet almost entirely covered the floor while a cheery fire burned in the large, ornate fireplace.
The room was almost as magnificent as the duke himself, attired as he was in tailored evening clothes of black jacket and breeches, and waistcoat of fine silver brocade, his linen snowy white, a diamond pin glinting in the neckcloth at his throat.
The same magnificent duke whose mistresses were rumoured to be some of the most beautiful women in the land.
‘I am neither ugly nor beautiful, I am merely a woman.’ Georgianna’s hands trembled even more as she began to remove the concealing black veil.
‘Then I fail to see what it is you believe I shall dis—’ Zachary stopped talking as the veil came off completely and he was able to look at the woman’s face for the first time.
She had lied to him because she was most certainly beautiful. Very much so. Her hair was raven-black beneath her bonnet, equally black and shapely above eyes hidden by the lowering of the longest, darkest lashes he had ever seen, her nose short and straight. Best of all was her magnificent mouth, the lips full and pouting, and surely meant for a man to kiss and devour? And other, much more carnal delights.
That was Zachary’s first thought. His second was something else entirely as he eyed that pale face, that delicious mouth, in frowning concentration. ‘Do I know you?’
Georgianna almost choked over the hysterical laughter that rose in her throat, at having Zachary Black, of all men, ask if he knew her.
If he knew her?
Not only was it highly insulting to have him look at her with such quizzical half recognition, but it also made a complete mockery of her having bothered to wear the black veil as a disguise in the first place; she had fully expected this man to take one look at her and remember exactly how, and why, he knew her.
‘Perhaps if you were to cast your mind back to last April, your Grace, it might help to jolt your memory?’ she prompted sarcastically.
‘Last April?’ Zachary’s lids narrowed as he studied her more closely. ‘Take off your bonnet,’ he ordered harshly.
Her brows lowered as she looked up at him for the first time without that concealing veil and revealing deep blue eyes, the colour of violets in springtime.
Unforgettably beautiful eyes, even if the rest of this woman’s appearance, apart from that tempting mouth, had changed beyond all recognition.
If this young woman was indeed whom Zachary suspected she might be, then the last time he had seen her she had been plump as a pigeon and stood only an inch or two over five feet in height. She’d rosy, rounded cheeks, ample breasts spilling over the top of her gown, and curvaceous hips a man would enjoy grasping on to as he parted those plump thighs and thrust deep inside her.
She now appeared so slender that a puff of wind might blow her away. Indeed, Zachary knew from carrying her up the stairs that she weighed no more than a child of ten. Her skin was very pale against the black gown buttoned up to her throat, her breasts small, waist and thighs slender, as were the shapely calves and ankles he had glimpsed earlier.
She sighed. ‘I am growing a little tired of your instructions, Hawksmere.’
‘And I am beyond tired of your delay,’ he returned angrily.
‘Perhaps if you were to consider using the word please occasionally, especially when addressing a woman, you might meet with more co-operation to your requests?’ She reached up slender hands to untie the ribbon beneath her pointed chin.
Zachary’s hands were now clenched so tightly into fists at his sides that he knew he was in danger of the short fingernails piercing the skin. ‘I reserve such politeness for women who have not invaded my carriage by the use of falsehood and lies. Now, remove the damned bonnet.’
Georgianna knew from the violence in Hawksmere’s tone that she had now pushed him to the limit of his patience. Perhaps beyond that limit, for those silver eyes glittered dangerously in that harshly handsome face, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he were resisting the urge to reach out and place them about her throat before squeezing tightly.
If he had finally recognised her, then she had no doubt that was exactly how he felt.
Georgianna glared up at him defiantly as she finally removed the offending bonnet, revealing thick, ebony curls secured at her crown, a shorter cluster of curls at her temple, and the slender nape of her neck.
‘Well, well, well.’ Hawksmere gave a predatory smile, that silver gaze remaining on Georgianna’s face as he began to pace slowly at the foot of the bed. His sleek and muscled body seemed to flow with the dangerous grace of the predator he now resembled. ‘If it is not Lady Georgianna Lancaster come to call. Or perhaps I should now be addressing you as Madame Rousseau?’ he added scornfully.
Leaving Georgianna in no doubt that this man, Zachary Black, the arrogant Duke of Hawksmere, now knew exactly who she was.
She felt the colour leach from her cheeks, her heart once again beating erratically in her chest, as she saw how the duke’s silver eyes glittered with a cold, remorseless, and utterly unforgiving anger.
An anger that turned to scathing satisfaction as he saw the answer to his question in her now-ravaged expression. ‘So your gallant Frenchman did not marry you, after all, but merely settled for having you warm his bed,’ he stated mockingly as he ceased his pacing and suddenly lowered his lean and muscled length into the chair beside the ornate fireplace, those devil’s eyes never leaving Georgianna’s deathly pale face for a moment.
An icy coldness settled in Georgianna’s chest. Her limbs felt heavy with fatigue, her lips so numb she doubted she would be able to speak even if she tried.
But she did not try; she knew that she deserved whatever scorn Hawksmere now chose to shower upon her head.
However, being carried so unceremoniously up to the duke’s bedchamber and forced to reveal her identity was not supposed to have happened.
She had intended to meet Hawksmere in the darkness of his carriage, under the guise of anonymity, making her request for him to arrange for her to speak to someone in government, before fading into shadowed obscurity as she awaited an answer to that request. Fully aware it was all she could expect from Hawksmere, following the events of ten months ago.
‘And is your French gallant here in England with you?’ Hawksmere now prompted softly.
Georgianna drew in a steadying breath. ‘You must know that he is not.’
He raised dark brows. ‘Must I?’
She blinked back the sting of tears in her eyes. ‘Do not play cat-and-mouse games with me, your Grace, when I have no defences left with which to withstand your cruelty.’
Zachary felt cruel. More than cruel. Despite his outward calm, he had an inner longing to punch something. Someone. To take out his anger, his frustration with this situation, on living, breathing flesh.
Oh, not Georgianna Lancaster’s tender flesh, of course; he had never hit a woman in his life, and as deserved as the anger he felt towards her might be, he was not about to start now by so much as placing a finger upon that smooth alabaster skin.
For, unlikely as it might seem, it truly was her, Zachary acknowledged incredulously as he continued to study her through narrowed lids. And he could surely be forgiven for not having recognised her immediately, when she was so much paler and more slender than she had been a year ago. When those beautiful eyes no longer brimmed over with a love of life.
With love for her erstwhile French lover?
If that was true, then, she had got exactly what she deserved, Zachary dismissed coldly. Disillusionment. Betrayal.
Unless...
‘When did it become obvious to you that your lover was not the French émigré he claimed to be when he came to take up residence in England, but was actually a spy sent here by Napoleon himself?’ Zachary channelled his anger into biting words rather than physical retribution. ‘That his name was not Duval at all, but Rousseau?’
She bowed her head. ‘Not soon enough.’ The tears spilt unchecked over those long dark lashes before falling down her pale and hollow cheeks.
Not soon enough.
Zachary knew exactly what that meant. ‘Did he ever have any intention or marrying you, do you think?’ he scorned. ‘Or was it his plan all along to just use you to hide his true identity?’
‘What a truly hateful man you are.’ Georgianna buried her face in her hands as the hot tears fell in earnest, sobbing brokenly at the same time as she knew that she wholly deserved Hawksmere’s anger and his scorn. His disgust.
For she truly was a disgrace. That romantic fool whom Hawksmere had described earlier.
A young and romantic fool who had believed André loved her, that they were running away together, eloping, in order to be married. That he’d acted as her saviour, rescuing her from the prospect of a loveless marriage. Only for her to discover, once they reached a chaotic Paris, the city still in turmoil following Napoleon’s surrender, that her lover had never had any intentions of marrying her.
Something André had wasted no time in revealing once he was safely back in France. Their elopement, he had told her, had acted only as a foil; as a way of hiding his real reason for fleeing England so suddenly and returning to his native France.
Something she felt sure that Hawksmere, as a spy for the Crown, must surely now be aware of. Not because he had any interest in learning what had become of her, but because André and his fellow conspirators—Bonapartists—were men whom England needed to watch.
‘How you personally feel towards me has no bearing on the importance of the information I have brought back with me from France,’ she now assured the duke dully.
‘France?’
‘Yes.’
Hawksmere shrugged those wide shoulders, elbows on the arms of the chair in which he sat, his fingers steepled together in front of his devilishly handsome face.
‘Information which must surely be tainted by the mere fact that your word is not to be trusted. That you might now be a spy yourself, come to give the English government false information on your lover’s behalf.’
Geogianna’s eyes widened at the accusation. ‘I told you I am a loyal subject of England.’
‘One who has willingly been living in France with her lover this past ten months.’
‘I have not seen or spoken to André Rousseau for many of those months,’ Georgianna denied heatedly.
At first she had been too ill to leave France; once recovered, there had been no money to enable her to leave, even if she had wanted to. Which in reality she had not, knowing herself to be unwelcome in England after disgracing her whole family, as well as herself, in the eyes of society.
A family she was sure must have disowned her completely following her elopement with André.
So, yes, she had remained in France, all the time keeping her ears and eyes open to the plots and plans that so abounded in the streets, the shops, and the taverns of the city. Plots to liberate Napoleon from the Mediterranean island of Elba, where he now reigned as emperor of just twelve thousand souls.
Which, she reminded herself determinedly, was the only reason why she would ever have deliberately sought the company of the Duke of Hawksmere.
‘No?’ The duke eyed her mockingly.
‘I gave you my word.’
‘And I, of all people, have good reason to doubt your every word, Georgianna.’
She sighed. ‘Your distrust of me is understandable.’
‘It is kind of you to say so,’ Hawksmere drawled with obvious sarcasm.
A flush warmed her cheeks at the deserved rebuke. ‘I am well aware that I wronged you.’
‘You wronged and disgraced yourself, madam, not me.’ Zachary stood up restlessly to stride over to the window and look out into the park below as he wondered if such a strange and ridiculous situation as this had ever existed before.
Here he was, the powerful Duke of Hawksmere, fêted and fawned upon by the elite of the ton and society as a whole, alone in his bedchamber with Lady Georgianna Lancaster, a woman who had behaved so disgracefully in the past that if it were publically known, he doubted society would ever open its doors to her again.
A young woman whom Zachary had good reason to believe would never enter his bedchamber, under any circumstances.
And she had not come willingly this time, either, he reminded himself, but she’d been carried up here, thrown over his shoulder with no more concern than if she had been a sack of coal, her indignant protests at his actions completely ignored.
Because Zachary had not known who she was at the time, could have no idea that it was Georgianna Lancaster hiding beneath that veil and bonnet.
And if he had?
Would he have behaved any differently if he had known of her identity?
That identity, her history and association with André Rousseau, would have made it impossible for Zachary to simply ignore her. Or the information she said she had come here to impart.
‘I apologise for my past wrongs to you.’
‘I have absolutely no interest in your apologies, Georgianna, in the past or now,’ Zachary assured her scathingly as he turned back to face her, his cool expression masking the shock he once again felt at the changes these past ten months had wrought in her.
Georgianna Lancaster’s face was now ghostly pale rather than rosy as a freshly picked apple. Her violet eyes now dark and haunted, her alabaster skin stretching tautly over the delicacy of the bones at her cheeks and throat and her figure wraith-thin.
Because, as she claimed, she had been seduced, before then being abandoned by her French lover?
Or because of the nervousness of possibly days or weeks spent considering the enormity of the deception she was about to practise on her lover’s behalf?
Zachary was wary and cynical enough to know that the rift that apparently now existed between Georgianna Lancaster and André Rousseau could all just be a ruse. And that she might have only returned to England to carry out her lover’s instructions of passing along false information to the English government.
Until Georgianna revealed the full details of that information, Zachary had no way of knowing what was true and what was not.
Georgianna raised her chin, determined that Zachary Black should hear her out. Whether he wished it or not. The cold mockery in those glittering silver eyes, which now looked down at her so disdainfully, conveyed that he did not.
Her own eyes lowered so that she no longer had to look at that disdain. ‘I have information.’
‘Well?’ he prompted hardly as she hesitated.
‘It is Bonaparte’s intention to leave Elba shortly and return to France as emperor.’
He shrugged wide shoulders. ‘There have been rumours of his escaping Elba since he was first exiled there.’
‘Oh,’ Georgianna murmured flatly before rallying. ‘But this time it is true.’
‘So you say.’
Her eyes widened in alarm at the boredom of his tone. ‘You have to believe me.’
‘My dear Lady Georgianna, I do not have to do anything where you are concerned,’ the duke assured softly as he crossed the bedchamber on stealthy feet, until he once again stood beside the bed on which she still sat. ‘What were your lover’s instructions regarding what you should do next, I wonder?’ he prompted conversationally as he sat down on the bed beside her. ‘If met with resistance from me, were you to then attempt to seduce me in order to gain my trust?’
Georgianna could only stare at him with wide and apprehensive eyes as he now sat so dangerously close to her his muscled thighs were just inches from her own. Close enough she could feel the heat of his immense body, smell the clean scent of lemon and sandalwood and that hint of the brandy and cigars he had enjoyed during the hours spent at his club earlier tonight.
So close that she could now see the black circle that rimmed those silver irises looking down at her so disdainfully. She noted the tautness of the flesh across aristocratic cheekbones. The top one of those sculptured lips curled back with the haughty disgust he so obviously felt towards her. That livid scar upon his throat a warning to all of how dangerous this gentleman could be.
As if to confirm that danger he gave a slow and sensuous smile.
‘Feel free to begin any time you wish, Georgianna.’
Her alarm deepened at the cold mockery she saw in those hard silver eyes looking at her so contemptuously. ‘I have no intention of attempting to seduce you.’
‘No?’ he drawled. ‘Pity. It might at least have proved amusing to see just how much your French lover has taught you this past year.’
‘I told you, I have not so much as spoken to André in months.’
‘And I am expected to believe that claim?’ the duke drawled. ‘To accept your word?’ His jaw tightened, a nerve pulsing beside that livid scar at his throat. ‘I am to accept the word of a woman whom I am only too well aware does not know the meaning of the word honour, let alone trust?’
Georgianna flinched at the icy dismissal of his tone. ‘I was very young and foolish when you knew me last.’
‘It was only ten months ago,’ he cut in harshly. ‘Am I now to accept that you have changed so much in that short time? That your word can now be trusted? The word of a woman who did not hesitate to cause disgrace to her family and herself just months ago in her desperation to elope with her French lover?’
Each deserved and hurtful word was like a whip lashing across Georgianna’s flesh. Her eyes flooded anew with stinging tears, her body quivering at the landing of each successive and precise blow to her sensitised flesh.
She gave a weary shake of her head, unheeding of the tears still falling hotly down her cheeks. ‘I am asking you to accept that the information I bring is completely removed from my own behaviour. That it is most urgent, even imperative, that you believe me when I tell you it is Bonaparte’s intention to leave Elba soon and take up arms once again.’
‘When, precisely?’
Her gaze dropped from meeting his. ‘If you could arrange for me to speak with someone...’
‘You do not trust me with this information?’ He raised incredulous brows.
‘Forgive me, but I have learnt this past ten months not to trust anyone completely,’ she answered dully.
Zachary studied her between narrowed lids, hardening his heart to the tears that still lay upon those pale and hollowed cheeks. He reminded himself that this was the woman who had thought nothing of deceiving her own father, and the man who was to have been her husband, in order to run away with the Frenchman who was her younger brother’s tutor.
It might be true that she had not seen André Rousseau for some months. Just as it might also be true that Georgianna Lancaster’s unmarried state meant that she had reason to regret ever having eloped with the Frenchman in the first place.
But it might be just as true that this was all just a ruse and that she had been sent here by that lover to deceive and mislead the English government.
If the first of those things was true, then it was of no personal concern to Zachary; the woman had made her choices and must now live with them. No, it was the little information Georgianna Lancaster had already imparted, in regard to Napoleon’s intention to soon leave Elba, which interested him.
For no matter what he might have said to Georgianna Lancaster, no rumour of Napoleon leaving Elba was ever ignored.
His nostrils flared.
‘And I have no intention of so much as telling anyone of your presence back in England until I am satisfied you have told me all that you know.’
‘Please.’
‘Poor, bewildered Georgianna,’ Zachary mocked the pained expression on her beautiful face as he slowly lifted his hand to gather up one of her tears on to his fingertip, looking down curiously at that tear before allowing it to fall to the carpeted floor at his feet as his gaze returned to her face. ‘Did you really imagine it would be so easy to convince me of your sincerity? That I would listen to your information, be so concerned by it that I would then immediately arrange for you to speak to someone in the government?’
She swallowed. ‘You must.’
‘I have already told you I must do nothing where you are concerned, Georgianna,’ Zachary thundered before quickly regaining control of his temper. A control he lost rarely, if ever. Testament, no doubt, to the anger he still harboured towards this woman. ‘What have you really been doing these past ten months, I wonder?’ he mused grimly.
She blinked. ‘I told you, after André— Once I learnt he had merely been using me, I had no choice but to leave him.’
Zachary was fully aware that her violet gaze could no longer meet his own. A sure sign that she was lying? ‘And what did you do then?’ he prompted. ‘How did you continue to live in France, Georgianna, with no money and, as you claim, no lover’s bed to warm you?’
‘It is not just a claim.’
‘I am afraid that it is.’
Georgianna looked up at the duke apprehensively, not fooled for a moment by the calm evenness of his tone. ‘What do you mean?’
He returned her gaze contemptuously. ‘I mean that you have made a mistake in claiming Rousseau would ever have allowed you to leave him.’
Georgianna ran the tip of her tongue across suddenly dry lips before speaking huskily. ‘Why do you say that?’
He gave a derisive laugh. ‘My dear Georgianna, if you really were just the foolish romantic you claim to be, then once your usefulness to Rousseau was at an end he would have had no choice but to kill you for what you already knew about him, rather than simply allowing you to leave.’
She drew her breath in sharply, the colour draining from her cheeks even as she felt the burning in her chest and temple, a painful reminder that André had attempted to do exactly that.
She still cringed at the numbing disillusionment, the cruel and frightening way in which she had discovered André had never cared for her, but had merely been using her. And the shock, the devastation of learning that André intended to rid himself of the nuisance of her by taking her out of the city before killing her.
That he had not succeeded in doing so had been more by chance than deliberate intent.
And Georgianna had the scars, physical as well as emotional, to prove it.
Zachary remained unmoved by the haunted expression on Georgianna Lancaster’s suddenly deathly pale face. Her elopement with André Rousseau, the mystery of where she had been and what she had been doing this past ten months, were all more than enough reason for him to distrust every word that came out of her delectable mouth.
And he did still consider it a delectably sensual mouth, he conceded regretfully. The sort of mouth that he had once imagined doing wild and wonderful things to his body—
Zachary stood up abruptly. ‘Fortunately, the decision as to the truth, or otherwise, of the information you wish to impart, does not rest with me.’
‘Then with whom?’
Zachary looked down at her grimly. ‘There are others—less gentle than myself—who will decide the matter.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘You will, Georgianna.’ Zachary hardened his heart to the increased bewilderment in those violet-coloured eyes. ‘Have no doubt, you most certainly will.’
She stared up at him with fearful eyes. ‘You cannot mean to— You are saying I shall be tortured, in order to ascertain whether or not I am telling the truth?’
‘The English government does not resort to torture, Georgianna.’ Zachary bared his teeth in a hard and mocking smile. ‘Not openly, at least,’ he added softly.
‘You are trying to frighten me,’ she accused emotionally.
‘Am I succeeding?’ he taunted.
‘You must know that you are.’ Her slender fingers tightly gripped one of the downy pillows.
‘Poor Georgianna,’ Zachary drawled mockingly. ‘Are you even aware of your father’s death?’ he prompted sharply.
‘Yes. I learnt of it yesterday when I returned to England.’ Her lashes lowered. ‘I— Do you have any news of Jeffrey?’
‘He is well, I believe. Inheriting the title put paid to Cambridge, of course,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘But he fares well with his new responsibilities as Earl of Malvern, with the aid of his guardian.’
‘Who on earth...?’
‘I am sure your belated concern for your brother is all well and good, Georgianna,’ Zachary continued dismissively, ‘but it will not succeed in deflecting me, and others, from the suspicion that you might also now be a spy for Napoleon.’ He gave a mocking shake of his head. ‘And to think, just ten months ago the situation was all so very different. That if you had not run away, then all of this might now be yours.’
All of this, Georgianna knew, being the Hawksmere houses and estates, the title of duchess, and the Duke of Hawksmere himself as her husband.
All of which would most assuredly have been hers, if she had continued with the betrothal her father had accepted on her behalf and married Zachary Black, the aloof and enigmatic Duke of Hawksmere.
It was every young girl’s dream, of course, to receive an offer of marriage from a duke, to become his duchess, revered and looked up to by society.
It might also have been Georgianna’s dream, too, if her father had once consulted her and not instead roused her stubbornness by accepting Hawksmere’s offer without so much as discussing it with her.
If she had truly believed she could bear to be married to such a cold and arrogant man as Hawksmere, a man she had no doubt did not love her.
If she, stupid romantic fool that she had been, had not already believed herself to be madly in love with another man, a penniless tutor, whose situation in life had appealed to her young and too-innocent heart. The man she had believed to be in love with her.
As opposed to this man, Zachary Black, the icily composed Duke of Hawksmere, whom she knew had not loved her, but had only offered for her because she was the eminently suitable, and malleable, nineteen-year-old daughter of the Earl of Malvern.
Chapter Three (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Georgianna had been flattered but terrified when her father first came to her and proudly told her of the offer of marriage he had received, and already accepted, on her behalf, from the wealthy and powerful Duke of Hawksmere.
Until that moment Hawksmere had been a gentleman Georgianna had never so much as spoken to and seen only rarely, and then only from a distance, at several of the ton’s entertainments during the past two Seasons. The toplofty gentleman had much preferred his clubs, and the company of his close friends, to the bustle and formality of society’s much tamer entertainments.
But even viewed from a distance, Hawksmere had seemed intimidating to her, and aged one and thirty years to her nineteen, their twelve years’ difference was so obvious in experience as well as age.
His demeanour was always one of icy disdain as he habitually looked down his arrogant nose at the crush of guests assembled at those entertainments. And the terrible scar visible upon the duke’s throat had caused Georgianna to tremble every time she so much as glanced at it, as she imagined the raw savagery that must have been behind such an injury.
The very idea of her ever becoming the wife of such a haughtily cold and frightening gentleman had filled her young and romantic heart with fear. Especially so when the two of them had not so much as spoken a word to each other. Indeed, the only possible reason Georgianna could think of for the proposal was that, as the only daughter of the Earl of Malvern, Hawksmere must consider her a suitable candidate to provide his future heirs.
The dukedom aside, even the thoughts of the intimacy necessary to provide those heirs with such a terrifying man as Hawksmere had been enough to cause Georgianna’s heart to pound fearfully in her chest.
Besides which, she was already in love and had been so for several months. With André Duval, the handsome and charming blond-haired, blue-eyed French émigré her father had taken pity on and brought into their home, so that he might help to prepare her younger brothe,r Jeffrey, for his entry into Cambridge.
That same handsome and charming blond-haired, blue-eyed Frenchman who just weeks later had so unemotionally taken her out to a wood outside Paris with the intention of killing her.
Tears of humiliation now burned Georgianna’s eyes as she looked up at Hawksmere. ‘As I said, I was very young and very foolish,’ she said dully.
‘And now you are so much older and wiser,’ Hawksmere taunted.
‘Yes.’ Georgianna’s eyes flashed darkly. This man could have no idea of how much older and wiser she was, how much even a loveless marriage to him would have been preferable to the fate that had befallen her.
He eyed her pityingly. ‘I trust you will forgive me when I say I do not believe you?’
‘I very much doubt that you have ever needed anyone’s forgiveness, least of all mine, to do just as you please.’ She sighed as she moved to the edge of the bed before standing up. ‘Very well, Hawksmere. Arrange to take me to your torturers now and let us put an end to this.’
Looking at her from between narrowed lids, Zachary could not help but feel a certain grudging admiration for the calmness of Georgianna Lancaster’s demeanour and the slender dignity of her stance. A dignity so at odds with the frivolously young and plumply desirable Georgianna Lancaster of just ten short months ago.
Zachary had not been consciously looking for his future wife the evening he attended the Duchess of St Albans’ ball, only making that brief appearance because the duchess had been a friend of his deceased mother. He had thought only to while away an hour or so out of politeness to that lady before making his excuses and departing for somewhere he could enjoy some more sensual entertainments.
Indeed, he had been about to do exactly that when Georgianna Lancaster had chanced to dance by in the arms of some young rake. Even then it had been her eyes which first drew his attention.
Eyes whose colour Zachary had never seen before. Long-lashed and violet-coloured eyes, laughing up merrily into the face of the gentleman twirling her about the ballroom.
It had taken several more minutes for Zachary’s hooded gaze to move lower, for his body to respond, to harden, at sight of those delectably pouting and sensual lips, the swell of full and creamy breasts above her gown and curvaceous, childbearing hips.
To say that his arousal at her abundance of femininity had come as something of a surprise to him was understating the matter.
Normally he did not so much as glance at any of the young débutantes paraded into society every Season, having long ago decided they were all prattling flirts who sought only a titled and wealthy husband, none of them having so much as a sensible thought in their giddy heads.
Georgianna Lancaster did not look any less giddy than her peers, but at least his manhood had sprung to attention at sight of her, a necessary function if one was in need of an heir, and, he had decided, the daughter of the Earl of Malvern would do as the mother of that heir as well as any.
He had even convinced himself that her youth was an asset rather than the burden an older, more demanding woman might become. He would be able to mould Georgianna to his ways; he could wed her and bed her, enjoy that lusciously ripe body to the full whilst he impregnated her, before then leaving her to enjoy her role as the Duchess of Hawksmere, and so allowing him to return to the more sophisticated entertainments he preferred.
Or so Zachary had decided as he had looked upon Georgianna Lancaster that evening ten months ago.
What he had not considered at the time, or for some days after the announcement of their betrothal appeared in the newspapers, was that Georgianna Lancaster had not been the one to accept his offer of marriage. That, young as she was, she had a mind of her own. She had no intention of becoming the wife of a man, even a duke, she neither knew nor loved.
Or so she’d stated in the letter she had left behind for her father to read after she had eloped with her French lover, and which Malvern had reluctantly shared with Zachary when he had demanded the older man do so.
Zachary’s mouth thinned as he remembered the days following Georgianna’s elopement with her French lover.
The formal withdrawal of the betrothal in the newspapers so soon after it had been announced.
The condolences he had received from his uncles and aunts.
Most humiliating of all, perhaps, had been the knowing looks of the ton, all of them aware that Zachary Black, the haughty Duke of Hawksmere, having finally chosen his future duchess, had then just days later been forced to retract the announcement when that future bride had withdrawn from the betrothal.
Or so the story had been related to society at large. Very few people were made privy to the knowledge of Georgianna’s elopement with the young and handsome French tutor.
Certainly none knew that it had been discovered, after the elopement, that the French tutor was not who he’d claimed to be, but was in fact a spy.
As Georgianna Lancaster was herself now also a spy, at the behest of her French lover?
She certainly knew far too much of Zachary’s private business, of his connections, to be the complete innocent she claimed to be.
‘Your Grace?’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed as he returned his attention to the here and now. ‘If only it were as simple as that, Georgianna,’ he bit out scathingly. ‘Unfortunately, there are several aspects of your story which the two of us will need to discuss in more detail.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as why you chose to come to me, of all people, with this fantastical tale.’
‘It is not fantastical or a tale.’
‘Why me, Georgianna?’ he persisted.
Her lashes lowered over violet eyes. ‘I—I can see no harm in my admitting that it was André who informed me that you had long been acting as a spy for the Crown.’
Zachary gave a humourless smile to cover the inner jolt her words had given him; if Rousseau knew of the work he carried out in secret for England, then surely it followed that others must also? ‘Could you not have found more stimulating pillow talk?’ he said scornfully.
Georgianna’s cheeks coloured at the insult even as she straightened the narrowness of her shoulders determinedly. ‘He taunted me with the knowledge when he...when he...’
‘Yes?’
She raised her pointed little chin. ‘When he admitted that he had never been in love with me.’ Her lashes lowered, her voice husky. ‘When he told me that he had deliberately seduced me, then used our elopement as a way of leaving England. That there were now some who suspected his real reason for being in England.’
Zachary nodded abruptly. ‘He had only just been put under more intense investigation at the time of your elopement.’ And if Rousseau now knew of Zachary’s own secret work for the Crown, then his usefulness in that capacity had surely come to an end?
‘How disappointing for you,’ he drawled dismissively in order to cover his inner disquiet.
Violet eyes flashed rebelliously. ‘Do not dare to mock me, your Grace.’
All humour faded as Zachary’s mouth thinned in displeasure. ‘Your behaviour these past ten months dictates that I shall now dare to treat you in whatever manner I please, madam.’
The fight went out of Georgianna as quickly as it had flared to life. She bowed her head, totally shamed at the truth of the duke’s words. She had behaved like a fool ten months ago. A stupid and naïve fool who had fallen completely for André’s charm.
A charm that had completely deserted him the night he had taunted her, mocked her, for having run away with him, a spy for Napoleon. When the man to whom she was betrothed, the man she had run away from, was in fact the honourable one and more of a hero to England than any but a select few knew.
‘That still does not explain how you knew where I should be this evening.’
Georgianna raised her head wearily, too tired now to do any more than answer Zachary Black’s questions. ‘I returned to England by ship yesterday.’
‘Does your brother know you are returned?’ he prompted sharply.
‘No one but you knows.’ She gave a sad shake of her head. ‘It would have been most unfair to burden Jeffrey with that knowledge.’ Much as she might long to see her brother again, to know if he at least was able to forgive her for her past recklessness, he was still but nineteen years of age, and newly become the Earl of Malvern, with all of the responsibilities that title entailed. He did not need to be burdened with the knowledge of the return to England of his disgraced sister, too.
‘Obviously you did not feel a need to treat me with the same consideration,’ Hawksmere rasped disdainfully.
She winced. ‘I have explained why you are different. Why I had no choice but to seek you out and speak with you.’
‘But not how you knew where I should be this evening,’ he reminded grimly.
‘I made it my business to keep a watch of your comings and goings as soon as I arrived in London yesterday, in an effort to speak with you alone. This evening, spent at your club, to celebrate the nuptials of your friend, offered me the opportunity I needed.’
Hawksmere gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘I should have known if you had been following me.’
‘Obviously you did not.’
Which was worrisome, Zachary acknowledged with a frown. It implied a complacency on his part now they were no longer at war, a laziness, if he had failed to realise he was being so closely watched.
He straightened. ‘This has all been very interesting, I am sure, but I have several other things that require my attention this morning, not to forget a wedding to attend this afternoon. So I am afraid I cannot waste any more time on this particular conversation just now.’
She nodded. ‘I am staying at lodgings in Duke Street—perhaps you can send word to me there once you are have decided what to do?’
‘Oh, no, Georgianna, I am afraid that will not do at all,’ Zachary drawled drily, grateful for the approximate knowledge of where she was staying in London. And that no one but he was aware of her presence back in England.
She stilled warily. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that, for the moment, I cannot allow you to leave this bedchamber.’
She gasped. ‘You cannot keep me a prisoner here.’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘Can I not?’
‘No.’
‘And, pray tell, who is to stop me?’
Her hands clenched at her sides. ‘You are attempting to frighten me again.’
‘And succeeding?’ Zachary prompted mildly.
‘Not in the least.’ Georgianna clamped her lips stubbornly together as she refused to show any fear at Hawksmere’s threats.
As she refused to ever show fear again, of anything, or anyone, after the way she had suffered at Rousseau’s hands.
Which did not mean that Georgianna was not inwardly quaking at the icy determination so clearly shown in Hawksmere’s expression.
She repressed a shiver at how, just ten months ago, she had so narrowly escaped becoming the wife of this cold and ruthless gentleman. A man, Georgianna had no doubt, who would have settled her in one of his ducal homes following the wedding and then repeatedly bedded her, until she had filled his nursery with his heir and his spare. After which, like many of the gentlemen of the ton, he would no doubt have abandoned her to find her own entertainments, whilst he returned to the life he had enjoyed before their marriage.
Such, Georgianna knew, was the life of many wives in society. A loveless and boring existence.
A life she had hoped to escape when she had eloped with André.
Only to then find she had placed herself in an even more dire position than becoming Hawksmere’s unloved duchess.
Did she regret her elopement of ten months ago?
Of course she did.
If she could live that time over again, she would have remained in England with her family.
And become the wife of Zachary Black, the Duke of Hawksmere instead?
Never!
Despite all that Georgianna had endured these past months, despite all that she might still have to endure, she did not have a single regret in regards to refusing to become the wife of the Duke of Hawksmere.
She would never marry at all now, of course. How could she, when her reputation was now such that no gentleman would ever consider making her his wife? And to lie about her past, to pose as a widow, perhaps, in order to marry a lower-born gentleman, was a deceit she refused to practise on any man, or any children born into that marriage.
No, Georgianna had accepted that she would spend the rest of her life alone. As she fully deserved to do, when her impetuous actions of ten months ago had resulted in such shame and scandal.
‘Do not look so sad, Georgianna.’ The duke deliberately chose to misunderstand the reason for that sadness as he crossed the bedchamber on predatory soft steps, until he now stood just inches away from her. ‘I may be busy for the rest of the day, but I shall return later this evening. And when I do—’ those glittering silver eyes held her mesmerised as he slowly raised a hand and allowed the hardness of his knuckles to graze softly over the warmth of her cheek ‘—I am sure we shall be able to think of several ways in which to keep you entertained, during your incarceration in my bedchamber.’
Georgianna gasped as she heard the intent beneath that softly sensuous voice. Just as she now flinched as the hardness of those knuckles travelled the length of her throat before moving lower, lingering to caress the swell of her breasts through the material of her gown.
Leaving her in absolutely no doubt as to what those entertainments might be.
Her cheeks burned with humiliated colour as she pulled back from those caressing knuckles. ‘I may have fallen from decency in society’s eyes, Hawksmere, but I assure you I have absolutely no intention of becoming your plaything.’
The duke eyed her derisively. ‘The arousal of your breasts, from just the merest touch of my knuckles, tells a different story,’ he drawled mockingly as he glanced pointedly downwards.
Georgianna’s startled gaze followed the direction of his mocking gaze, her face paling as she saw what Hawksmere so obviously saw; those rosy berries that tipped her breasts were now swollen and full, and could clearly be seen outlined against the soft material of her gown buttoned up to her throat.
Because they were aroused?
By Hawksmere?
Impossible.
Oh, he was handsome enough to set any woman’s heart beating faster. But it was a dangerous attraction, a challenge those silver eyes proclaimed no one woman would ever be able to satisfy.
Too much of a challenge, it was rumoured, for any woman, high-or low-born, married or unmarried, to resist sharing the duke’s bed once he had expressed an interest.
But Georgianna was not one of those weak and susceptible women. How could she be, when she found Hawksmere no less intimidating now than she had ten months ago?
Except...
There was no denying the physical evidence of her breasts having become aroused by his lightest of touches.
Not with desire but fear, Georgianna instantly assured herself.
Because Hawksmere had just threatened to keep her here, a prisoner in his bedchamber, for as long as he chose to do so.
She straightened her spine. ‘You cannot keep me here against my will,’ she repeated firmly.
‘I can do anything I wish with you, Georgianna,’ Zachary murmured with satisfaction, mocking her response, her undeniable arousal at his caress.
An arousal which Zachary knew no woman could fabricate or control.
As he had been unable to control his own arousal as he had lightly caressed the engorged tip of her breast.
Despite her having run away from marrying him ten months ago, Zachary could not deny that he still physically desired this woman. In his bed, beneath him, to be buried to the hilt between her thighs.
Try as he might, Zachary had found no explanation for that sudden clench of desire when he had looked at Georgianna Lancaster ten months ago, and he had none now, either. It was enough to know that it still existed.
A weakness, in the current circumstances, best kept to himself.
He stepped back abruptly. ‘As I said, I have other things to occupy me this morning, but I will go downstairs now and arrange a breakfast for you, and then I advise that you get some sleep.’
‘I am not hungry, nor shall I sleep.’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed on her critically, noting the hollows in the paleness of her cheeks, her slenderness beneath the unbecoming black gown. ‘You are grown too slender.’
‘I said I am not hungry.’ Those violet-coloured eyes flashed again in warning.
Another show of temper Zachary did not care for in the least, as he stepped deliberately closer to her, so close that he could see the way the pupils of her eyes expanded as she now looked up at him apprehensively.
‘Nevertheless, you will eat all of the breakfast I have brought up to you.’
She maintained her ground even as a nerve pulsed rapidly at her throat, no doubt as evidence of her inner nervousness. ‘And I have said I shall not.’
Once again Zachary felt that grudging admiration for her stubbornness; not too many people dared to stand against him, least of all women. She was a very young woman at that, and one who did not as yet appear to fully appreciate the danger she had placed herself in by choosing to step back into his life.
He gave a slow and deliberate smile. ‘I advise you not to defy me, Georgianna.’
She eyed him rebelliously. ‘Why should I not?’
He gave a nonchalant shrug as he murmured softly, ‘Because I shall win and you will lose.’
Georgianna repressed another shiver of apprehension as she heard the arrogant certainty in his voice. As she acknowledged that, through her own stupidity this time, Hawksmere now had her completely at his mercy. She was his prisoner, to do with as he wished.
Hawksmere smiled confidently as he seemed to guess at least some of her thoughts. ‘I shall be locking you in here in my absence, of course, and taking the key with me. And I advise that you not bother giving yourself a sore throat, or knuckles, by screaming or shouting, or banging on the door for my servants to release you whilst I am gone,’ he added derisively. ‘I shall make sure to inform them, before I depart, that it is all part of the erotic play between the two of us, and that the more you ask to be set free the more you desire to stay here and await my return.’
‘You truly are a monster.’ Georgianna’s cheeks burned with humiliated colour.
He shrugged. ‘I have never made any pretence of being anything else.’
The implication being, Georgianna knew, that she was the one who had practised deceit, when she’d lied to her family and her betrothed in order to run away with André.
And that Hawksmere believed she was lying to him even now.
Except she was not. And Hawksmere’s decision to keep her locked up here, and his threats, did not change the fact that time was more the enemy than this arrogant duke. ‘You will speak to someone this morning on my behalf?’
Hawksmere’s mouth thinned into an uncompromising line. ‘I have no plans to do so until the two of us have spoken again, no.’
‘But you must,’ Georgianna gasped desperately. ‘Napoleon...’
‘Enough, Georgianna,’ Hawksmere rasped his impatience with her persistence as he grasped her arms, his silver eyes as cold as ice as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her. ‘I have not had the opportunity to sleep, either, this past night, and my patience is now at an end.’
‘But...’
‘I said enough, Georgianna,’ he thundered.
Tears blurred her vision. ‘You have every right to be angry with me, to despise me for my having ended our betrothal in the way that I did.’ She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘Take your revenge upon me any way you please. I do not care what you do to me, as long as you take my warnings seriously.’
‘And if it is my wish to claim your body, for your having run from me, from our betrothal, ten months ago?’ he taunted softly.
She shook her head. ‘As long as you also listen to me in regards to Napoleon.’
‘One more mention of that man’s name and more pressing responsibilities be damned, I shall be forced to begin that punishment now!’ the duke warned darkly. ‘Now that I think about it, it might be best if I were to request that you remove your gown,’ he mused hardly. ‘You will be less likely to attempt an escape if you are half-naked.’
‘I will not take off my gown.’ Georgianna pulled out of his grasp to move quickly away from him, her hands held up defensively in front of her rapidly rising and falling chest.
Zachary studied her through narrowed lids as he noted the wild panic in those beautiful violet-coloured eyes. Much like a deer the moment it realised it was caught in the sights of the hunter’s gun.
All because he had asked her to remove her gown?
Surely a woman who had shared one man’s bed for the past ten months would not be quite so averse to the idea of another man seeing her naked?
Unless...
‘Did he hurt you?’ Zachary scowled darkly.
That violet gaze sharpened. ‘What?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Did Rousseau hurt you?’
‘Of course he hurt me! How could he not, when he used me to make good his escape?’
‘That is not the type of hurt I am referring to, Georgianna.’ Zachary took several steps towards her, coming to a halt as Georgianna shadowed those steps by moving back, until she was now pressed up against one of the velvet curtains hanging at the window. ‘I have no intentions of harming you, Georgianna.’
She gave a choked and bitter laugh. ‘You have just threatened to take away my gown.’
‘And that is all I have threatened.’
She gave a shudder. ‘It is enough!’
Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘Some men like to give pain to their bed partner during lovemaking, as a way of heightening their own arousal.’
She gasped. ‘Do you?’ Pale and slender fingers now tightly clasped at the throat of that unbecoming black gown as she stared at him with dark and shadowed eyes.
‘No, I most certainly do not,’ Zachary assured grimly. ‘But I am beginning to suspect that Rousseau did. Do you perhaps share his perversion?’
‘No!’
‘I am glad to hear it.’ Zachary’s eyes narrowed. ‘But has he left lasting marks upon your body you would not wish another man to see?’ he added harshly, surprised at how violent it made him feel to think of there being so much as a single bruise administered to that alabaster skin, let alone any lasting reminder of the man Rousseau.
Georgianna breathed shallowly, not sure she understood all that Zachary Black was saying to her. Not sure she wanted to understand.
Surely lovemaking was exactly that? An expression of the love a couple felt for one another? Or if not love, then at least a tenderness, a caring, for the other’s welfare?
What the duke was describing, the deliberate inflicting of pain, did not sound as if it could be any of those things.
And yet Georgianna did indeed bear scars, and ones inflicted upon her by André Rousseau. Not the visible scars to which Hawksmere seemed to refer, of course, but they were damning none the less. A testament to the scorn, the total uninterest in which André had held the impressionable young girl who had forsaken all for her love of him.
‘I can see that he did.’ Hawksmere obviously took her silence to be her answer, his expression grimmer than ever. ‘And you still love such a man?’ he added disgustedly.
‘No.’ Georgianna choked in protest; how could she possibly love a man who had treated her as André had?
To her everlasting shame, Georgianna was no longer sure she had ever really loved André, or whether she had not just been in love with love itself.
A year ago she had been so young and idealistic, had believed in love and romance. And the handsome and penniless Frenchman employed by her father had seemed so much more romantic, so much easier to love than the intimidating and distant Duke of Hawksmere. To the extent that Georgianna had woven all of her dreams about the golden-haired and romantic Frenchman in order to run away from marrying the dangerous duke.
Reality had proven to be so much less than those silly, romantic dreams.
Not that she believed Hawksmere to be any less dangerous now than she had previously. The opposite, after the things he had said and done to her today.
But she certainly had no romantic dreams left in regard to André Rousseau, either, or indeed any other man.
Hawksmere’s top lip curled up in distaste, silver eyes a pale glitter between narrowed lids. ‘Again, this is something we will have to discuss further upon my return. No doubt we shall have the opportunity to discuss many things during the hours we spend here in my bedchamber together,’ he added pleasantly.
‘How long do you intend to keep me here?’ Georgianna stared at him disbelievingly.
‘As long as it takes to get to the truth,’ Zachary assured uninterestedly.
She gave a desperate shake of her head. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have said? Do you not understand the urgency of the things I have told you?’
He eyed her mockingly. ‘I have listened to the little you decided to share with me, yes.’
‘What will it take to convince you of my sincerity?’
‘More than you have already told me, obviously,’ Zachary drawled drily, brows raised questioningly. A frown creased Georgianna’s forehead as she obviously fought an inner battle as to how much more she intended revealing to him.
Finally she gave a defeated sigh. ‘Napoleon is to leave Elba before the end of this month.’
‘And you come to me with this story now?’ He raised sceptical brows. ‘With the end of the month just days away?’
‘I did not—’ Georgianna gave an impatient shake of her head as she accepted that to Hawksmere this was still just a ‘story’. ‘I only learnt of the plan nine days ago and I could not immediately get passage from France. I...’ Her gaze lowered. ‘André has men placed at all of the ports, watching and waiting for anyone who might wish to betray Napoleon.’
‘And yet here you are,’ Hawksmere drawled disbelievingly.
She nodded. ‘But I had to bide my time and make good my escape when the chance came for me to join a large family travelling together. I was all the time fearful that someone might recognise me. Am I boring you, your Grace?’ she prompted sharply as the duke gave a yawn.
‘As it happens, yes, you are.’ He nodded unapologetically.
‘But...’
‘I really am uninterested in listening to any more buts or arguments just now, Georgianna,’ he rasped harshly.
Georgianna looked up searchingly into his hard and implacable face. Noting the cold glitter of his silver eyes. The tautness of the skin across sculptured cheekbones. The sneering curl of his top lip.
The determined set of his arrogant and unyielding jaw.
She knew in that moment that all of her efforts of appeal for Zachary Black’s help had been a waste of her time.
That this man despised her so utterly he would never believe a single word she said to him.
Chapter Four (#u82ac8ee7-d496-53cc-9ac0-6f2b7d226ccf)
Zachary was irritable and tired by the time he returned home several hours later, his morning having proved to be a frustrating one.
Not least because the man he had wished to speak with, the man to whom he had reported this past four years, was unavailable, and likely to be so for the next few days, as his deputy had informed Zachary. It happened, of course, but it was frustrating, nevertheless.
He had duly passed along the relevant information to the deputy, of course, but even so he still felt a sense of dissatisfaction.
It was true that there had been dozens of rumours of plots and plans to liberate the Corsican from Elba these past months and each and every one of them had necessarily to be investigated.
What if Georgianna were telling the truth and Napoleon really did mean to leave Elba before the month’s end and return to the shores of France? Possibly as emperor? That would not suit Louis or England.
Zachary had also requested to look at the file they had accumulated on André Rousseau these past months, hoping it might shed some light upon Georgianna Lancaster’s own movement. There had been no sightings of her in Rousseau’s company for some months. No sightings of her at all, it seemed, since a week or so after she and Rousseau had arrived in Paris together.
A curiosity in itself.
Where had Georgianna been all this time? And what had she been doing? For that matter, if she had not been with Rousseau, then where had she come by the information regarding Napoleon?
For the moment Zachary’s instructions were clear; he was to continue to keep Georgianna Lancaster imprisoned in his home and continue questioning her until such time as he was notified otherwise.
For all that Zachary had earlier today taunted Georgianna with the possibility of her continued incarceration, he was not best pleased at receiving orders to do exactly that.
And one of the main reasons for that was Georgianna herself.
The previous year she had been an inexperienced and idealistic young girl, that plump and desirable pigeon that Zachary had decided to marry, bed and subsequently mould into being his undemanding duchess.
Just a few minutes in her company earlier this morning and Zachary knew that Georgianna’s ten months in France had wrought more changes in her than just the physical ones.
That bright-eyed young girl, eager for life, was no more. And in her place was a coolly dignified, capable and stubborn woman. One who had lived in Paris, by all accounts, completely alone for some months, before arranging her own passage back to England. Who had then managed to follow him without his knowledge, until such time as she was able to speak with him privately. Moreover, Georgianna had shown him that very morning she was not a woman who intended to ever be cowed, by him, or anyone else.
If anything, that air of dignity, her independence and intelligence, appealed to and aroused Zachary even more than that naïve young woman he had intended to make his wife.
And whatever else Georgianna might claim to be now, she had eloped with André Rousseau ten months ago. She had been the Frenchman’s lover for a number of weeks, if not months, before and following that elopement.
For Zachary to feel desire and admiration for such a woman, a woman he had every reason to distrust, was not only rash on his part, but it could also be dangerous.
Zachary drew in a deep breath as he came to a halt outside the door to his bedchamber, noting there was no sound coming from within. He had questioned his butler on his arrival, and been informed that all had been silent above stairs all morning. Georgianna had obviously taken Zachary’s advice to heart and refrained from screaming, or banging on the door, demanding to be set free.
And perhaps that had just been a ploy and she was even now poised behind the silence of that door, candelabrum in hand, ready to knock Zachary senseless before making good her escape?
His smile was grim as he quietly unlocked the door to his bedchamber. He entered softly and saw the room was in semi-darkness, the curtains pulled halfway across the two picture windows, nevertheless allowing him to see that the breakfast tray still sat on the table near the door where he had placed it earlier.
The untouched breakfast tray.
A single glance was enough to show him that none of the food on the plates had been eaten. Only the dregs left in the bottom of the delicate china cup to show that Georgianna had drunk her tea at least.
The half-drawn curtains allowed the weak February sunshine to shaft across the room to where Georgianna lay asleep on top of his bed. She was still dressed in that unbecoming black gown. The curling ebony hair had been loosened, however, and now flowed thick and silky over the pillows behind her and across her breasts down to her tiny waist.
Zachary put down the bag he carried to cross softly to the bedside and look down at her. Her face appeared as a beautiful pale oval in the weak light. Long lashes fanned silkily against ivory cheeks as she continued to sleep, her rosy and sensual lips slightly parted as she breathed softly and evenly.
A deceptive picture of innocence, if not beauty.
So she might once have looked in their marriage bed, Zachary acknowledged with annoyance as his traitorous body stirred, hardened, as he continued to look down at her. And he had no doubt that until a year ago she had been an innocent, those violet-coloured eyes full of joy, of the expectations of life, rather than swirling with dark shadows as they had been earlier today.
Feeling any sort of empathy, sympathy, for this woman would be a mistake on his part. Most especially when he still questioned her real motives for seeking him out.
Zachary’s mouth thinned as he turned away impatiently and walked determinedly from the bedside with the intention of pulling the curtains completely across the windows. He had no time to rest himself—he had Wilding’s wedding to attend—but Georgianna might as well continue to sleep peacefully.
Zachary was in need of a bath and a change of clothes after his own sleepless night, before he then attended the wedding in just a few hours.
‘Leave them. Please.’
Zachary gave a start at the sound of Georgianna’s voice. A voice that sounded as if it were underlined with panic. Or possibly fear? Simply because he had been about to draw the last of the curtains fully across the windows to shut out the daylight?
He turned to see that Georgianna had moved up on to her elbows, those ebony curls falling past her shoulders and cascading back on to the pillows behind her.
Her face was still that ghostly oval, her eyes so dark they appeared almost purple as she looked across at him pleadingly. ‘Please,’ she beseeched earnestly.
‘What is it, Georgianna?’ Zachary prompted sharply as he crossed, frowning, to her side.
Her breasts quickly rose and fell. ‘I—I am afraid of... I do not like complete dark.’ She sat up abruptly to curl her arms defensively about her drawn-up knees, looking for all the world like that frightened deer of earlier.
‘What foolishness is this, Georgianna?’ Zachary chided impatiently. ‘If you think to appeal to my softer side with exhibitions of feminine—’
‘How could I possibly do that, when we both know you do not have a softer side for me to appeal to!’ she came back sharply as she moved swiftly to the side of the bed before standing up and crossing to the window on stockinged feet. There she pulled back the curtains to allow in the full daylight. ‘And I assure you I speak only the truth.’ Her hands, no longer hidden in those black lace gloves, were clasped tightly together in front of her, the knuckles white as she looked up at him. ‘I do not like to be in the complete dark. Ever.’ Her lips firmed as she raised her chin in challenge.
Zachary ignored Georgianna’s insult as he continued to study her through narrowed lids. Her face was ashen, but that could be because she had not slept for long enough, nor had she eaten the breakfast he had had brought to her.
No, it was those tightly clasped hands, and the defiance in her stance, which now convinced Zachary that she was sincere in her dislike, even fear, of the complete dark.
‘And why is that?’ he prompted softly.
Georgianna swallowed, hating that she had shown any sign of weakness in front of Zachary Black, the mocking Duke of Hawksmere. She hated him for dwelling on that weakness, whereas before she had merely feared him.
Nor did she have any intention of telling this hateful man of the head injury she had suffered and which, for two weeks, had left her blind. For that short time she had been caught in eternal darkness, afraid that she would never be able to see again.
It had been fear unlike anything Georgianna had ever known before, including the bleakness of those hours after André had attempted to murder her, leaving her body in the woods for the wild animals to devour.
She accepted she had wronged Zachary Black in the past and had apologised for it, but surely, surely she did not have to now reveal all of her humiliations so that he might taunt her further?
She hoped to keep some dignity.
‘How did you get that?’ she demanded sharply, eyes wide as she saw and recognised her travelling bag sitting on the floor just inside the door of the bedchamber.
Hawksmere gave it a cursory glance before turning back with a dismissive shrug. ‘It was collected from your lodgings this morning, of course.’
‘I— But— How did you know where...? I told you earlier the name of the street where I had taken lodgings,’ Georgianna confirmed heavily.
‘You did, yes.’ Zachary gave a hard smile of satisfaction. It had not taken long at all for one of his footmen to be sent to Duke Street to discover in which lodging Georgianna was staying. ‘It was not too difficult to guess that the Anna Smith, who arrived in London yesterday, was in fact Georgianna Lancaster,’ he added coolly as she seemed to have been struck momentarily dumb. ‘And the two small portraits on the dressing table of your mother and father together, and another of your brother, confirmed it was so.’
Those violet eyes rose quickly to meet his. ‘You went to Mrs Jenkins’s house yourself?’
He shrugged. ‘I did not think you would appreciate having one of my footmen pawing through your more personal items.’
She bristled. ‘Obviously you did not hesitate to do so yourself.’
‘Obviously not.’ Zachary gave a mocking nod. ‘We may have fought a war with France, but I have always considered that they do make the most sensual of ladies’ undergarments.’
Two spots of colour appeared in the paleness of Georgianna’s cheeks. ‘And no doubt you have seen enough of them to be an expert on the subject?’
‘No doubt.’ Zachary’s mouth quirked in amusement. ‘Is it not a little late for you to be exhibiting such maidenly outrage, Georgianna?’ he added hardly.
He was right. Of course he was right, Georgianna acknowledged heavily. She knew she had forfeited any right to feel outrage, maidenly or otherwise, in Hawksmere’s eyes, as well as those of all decent society, the moment she left her home in the middle of the night and eloped with André.
Except, unbelievable as it would undoubtedly be for others to learn, she was still a maiden...
She and André had spent the first night and day of their elopement travelling by coach to the port where they intended to board the boat bound for France, their intention being to marry there rather than linger overlong in England. And André had explained, once they reached that port, that they stood more chance of remaining undetected if they travelled as brother as sister. A logic for which Georgianna had been exceedingly grateful.
Not least because, by that time, she had begun to doubt the wisdom of her actions.
It had all seemed so romantic, so exciting, when she and André made their plans to elope together in the middle of the night. But the long hours spent in the coach together, the rattling and jostling too severe to allow sleep or even rest, and fraying both their tempers and patience, had enabled Georgianna to see André as rather less than the romantic hero she had thought him to be.
To realise that, by running away with André in the middle of the night, she had cut herself off completely from her family, from society, in a scandal so shocking she would never be able to return.
The respite of travelling on the boat together as brother and sister had been something of a balm to her already frayed nerves.
To accept that she was no longer as sure that she wished to become André’s wife at all.
Considering the nightmare that had followed, it was perhaps as well she had already begun to have those doubts.
She drew herself up to her full height of just over five feet as she now met Hawksmere’s gaze unflinchingly. ‘I trust you are not expecting me to thank you for something that was unnecessary in the first place?’
‘Oh, it was very necessary, Georgianna,’ he corrected harshly. ‘As I informed you earlier, you are to remain here for the next few days. And I thought you might feel more comfortable if you had your own things with you.’
Georgianna’s head ached from having awoken so suddenly, in response to Hawksmere shutting out the daylight. The same response, panic and fear, she always felt now at finding herself in complete darkness.
Nevertheless, headache or no, she could not allow Hawksmere’s words to go unchallenged. ‘We both know your only concern was to allay Mrs Jenkins’s suspicions when I did not return there later today. No doubt she was suitably impressed at the presence of the illustrious Duke of Hawksmere in her modest home?’
He gave that derisive smile. ‘No doubt.’
Georgianna gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘You really do mean to keep me a prisoner here, then?’
His jaw tightened. ‘For the moment, yes.’
She sighed. ‘An occurrence which I can see does not suit you any more than it does me.’
He shrugged his wide shoulders. ‘It would seem that neither one of us has a choice in the matter. But there is a bright side to all of this, Georgianna,’ he added softly as he crossed the bedchamber with those soft and predatory steps. ‘Just think, you did not have to marry me in order to share my bedchamber.’
Georgianna refused to be intimidated as Hawksmere now stood just inches away from her. So close, in fact, that she could see every detail of the livid scar upon his throat, as well as the dark stubble on his jaw, evidence that he had not yet had time to shave today. Indeed, his evening clothes from the night before showed that he had not so much as taken the time to change his clothes yet this morning.
Because, despite his scepticism towards her earlier, he had believed enough of what she told him to not waste any time in sharing that information?
Georgianna certainly hoped that was the case.
She could bear any amount of Hawksmere’s mockery, as well as his scorn and disgust, if at the same time he helped to thwart this latest plot to liberate Napoleon from Elba.
She gave a humourless smile. ‘We must all be grateful for small mercies, your Grace.’
Zachary’s bark of laughter was completely spontaneous. A genuine appreciation of Georgianna’s continued feistiness, despite the direness of the situation in which she now found herself.
And not much succeeded in amusing Zachary any more.
As an only child, he had inherited the Hawksmere title eleven years ago, upon the death of both his parents in a carriage accident. The years that followed had been lonely as well as busy ones, mainly filled with the responsibilities of his title, and fighting against Napoleon, in open battle, and secretly as an agent for the Crown.
Those same years had shown him that women, young and old, thin or plump, fair or dark, single or married, were willing to do almost anything for the attentions of a duke. This had resulted in a jading, a cynicism within him, beyond Zachary’s control.
It appeared Georgianna Lancaster was the exception.
Not only had she chosen to run away from becoming his duchess ten months ago, but even now she continued to defy and challenge him in ways that no other woman ever had.
‘I believe I prefer you feisty and defiant, Georgianna, rather than the naïve ninny you were ten months ago,’ Zachary murmured appreciatively as he looked down searchingly into the pale face she held up to challenge him. The arching of her slender neck allowed those ebony curls to fall silkily down the length of her spine to her pert little bottom.
‘A naïve ninny you nevertheless intended to make your wife,’ she reminded scathingly.
He shrugged. ‘I believed you to be a malleable ninny then.’
Her brows rose. ‘And now?’
Zachary gave a slow and appreciative smile. ‘Now I believe this added fire makes you more appealing than I might otherwise have expected.’
Georgianna shuddered, keeping a watchful eye on Hawksmere as she instinctively took a step back from him. She was wary of the way in which his eyes now glittered down at her so intently, almost as if a white light had been ignited in those silver depths. Georgianna was unsure of precisely what that flame might mean, but she did know that she no longer wished to stand quite so close to him.
Hawksmere took that same step forward before raising his hand to gently cup one side of her face, the soft pad of his thumb moving in a soft caress across her parted lips. ‘There is nowhere you would be able to run this time, Georgianna, that I would not find you.’
Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest: at Hawksmere’s threats, his proximity, and the effects of that caressing thumb against her lips. A sensuous caress, much as Georgianna might wish it otherwise, which caused a heat to course through her whole body, leaving her skin feeling flushed and tight and her breasts swelling uncomfortably beneath her gown.
Because, as Hawksmere had claimed earlier, she was aroused by his touch?
How could that possibly be, when she disliked this man, when she had run from him, from the very idea of becoming his wife, less than a year ago?
Perhaps it was just that she had been alone, and lonely, for so very long? Too long without the gentle touch of another? Since she had been held by another? Looked at with warmth, if not affection?
Except the warmth in Hawksmere’s gaze was so clearly predatory rather than affectionate.
Georgianna pulled back sharply from the mesmerising effect of that silver gaze. ‘I have no intentions of running anywhere,’ she assured him decisively. At least, not until this matter of Napoleon’s liberation was settled. ‘Did you go to your superior this morning and report my information?’
Zachary continued to look down at Georgianna for several long moments more. His response to her was undeniable. To her beauty, her proximity, to having touched and caressed those soft and pouting lips. Totally undeniable, when his erection pressed so insistently against the front of his breeches.
‘And what business is it of yours whether I did or I did not?’ He arched a challenging brow.
‘But...’ she blinked her bewilderment ‘...I am the one responsible for giving you that information.’
He nodded abruptly. ‘All the more reason for it to be mistrusted, surely? What did you expect, Georgianna?’ he taunted as she looked pained. ‘Did you think that by returning to England, by twittering about some ridiculous plot of how Napoleon intends to leave Elba before the end of the month, that all would be forgiven? That you would be a heroine, and could then return to your family, to society?’ he prompted cruelly.
Those striking eyes became misty with unshed tears. ‘I am well aware there can be no forgiveness, in any quarter, for the way I have behaved,’ she spoke so softly Zachary could barely hear her, as her tears fell unchecked down the paleness of her cheeks.
Zachary felt instant regret for his deliberate cruelty. Whatever this woman might have done to him personally in the past, there was an undeniable vulnerability about her now, an aloneness, that Zachary knew he could relate to.
He breathed deeply through his nose. ‘Perhaps that situation is not quite so bleak as you think it is.’
She tilted her head curiously. ‘What do you mean?’
He owed this woman nothing except his contempt and distrust, Zachary reminded himself impatiently. Certainly not absolution for her deeds of ten months ago.
And yet...
He was not a deliberately cruel man, no matter what others might say or think to the contrary. He considered their past association.
Could Georgianna really be blamed for what had happened in their past? She was a young girl of only nineteen who’d feared, to the extent of running away from marriage to a man who had not even troubled himself in getting to know her before offering for her. He’d been a man who had not even spoken to her before making that offer. And once made, she’d had that offer accepted by her father without knowing a thing about it—or him.
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