Guilty Series (20 page)

He bent down, unbuttoning more of her gown and tugging up the hem of her chemise. He kissed her belly, a hot, wet kiss over her navel, as his fingers moved farther down to touch her in a place she could not even name, each caress sending shards of indescribable pleasure through her. He knew it, too, knew what she wanted better than she did, for he was tormenting her with his relentless demand. “Say my name,” he breathed against her skin. “Say it, Daphne. Say it.”

He touched her with his thumb, and that tiny movement unlocked something inside her, released all the repressions and restraints she had imposed on herself ever since she had first met him. With the force of a river breaking through a dam, pure, indescribable pleasure rushed through her, and she could no longer stop herself from giving him what he wanted. “Anthony,” she cried, “oh, please, oh, yes, yes.”

He heard his name amid the almost incoherent rush of other sounds that came from her, pleas and
sighs and moans that told him more clearly than any words what his touch was doing to her. God, she was sweet. So, so sweet.

Anthony caressed her until she climaxed a second time, then he moved between her thighs. If he held back any longer, he would explode. He tore at his trousers, undoing buttons with frantic haste, then he moved between her thighs, spreading them farther apart.

“Daphne,” he said, sliding his hands behind her shoulders, pulling her to a sitting position. She slid to the edge of the table, and the feel of her, moist and inviting against the tip of his penis drove away any thought but the need to possess her. With one hard thrust, he entered her.

She cried out, and he knew he had hurt her. He stilled, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and tightened her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper into her, and he lost any semblance of sanity. He touched her breasts, kissed her face, and murmured words to arouse her without knowing what he was saying as he drove into her again and again, pushing himself to the edge of oblivion. When he climaxed, he went over that edge, falling into a white-hot heaven of pure sensation.

It was only afterward, when they were lying on the table, when he had one arm wrapped around her and the other beneath her head as a pillow, only when his cloak covered them both and his body was pressed to hers to protect her from the cold—it was only then that he came to his senses, reminding himself of the inevitable consequences of what he had just done.

D
aphne felt him get up, and she opened her eyes. The hint of dawn that came in through the windows enabled her to see him standing beside the table, his back to her.

She lifted herself onto an elbow and stared at his bare back. He was so close that she did not need her spectacles to see him clearly, so close that she could touch him. How wide his shoulders were, she thought, and how they tapered to hips narrower than hers. From her first sight of him at the excavation, she had known what an appealing sight a man could be without his shirt. Such strength, and yet he had held her so gently, touched her so exquisitely. Without the warmth of his body, the room was freezing cold, but just thinking about what had
happened only a short while ago was enough to keep her warm. It was enough to make her smile.

With a huge yawn, she sat up, pushing aside his cloak to pull the sleeves of her dress back into place on her shoulders.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said, without turning to look at her.

“No.” She moved her legs astride his hips and wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt feminine, beautiful, and absurdly happy at this moment, content with the world and everything in it. How delightful that coupling with a man could do that to a woman. It was an extraordinary thing.

She laid her cheek against his back, and suddenly she realized how rigid he was in her embrace. She lifted her head with a frown. “Anthony?”

He pulled away from her, giving her the barest glance as he bent to pick up his shirt from the floor. “Are you—” He broke off as he straightened and pulled his shirt on. Then he faced her, cleared his throat, and looked away again. “I hurt you,” he muttered, staring out the window into the dim gray light. “Forgive me. I did not mean to do that.”

Was that what was making him so uncomfortable? It had hurt, but only a little, and only for a moment. “Oh, no,” she hastened to reassure him, sliding down from the table. She laid a hand on his arm. “There was nothing to that. I am perfectly well, Anthony.” She lowered her gaze to his chest, and the sight made her flustered and a bit shy, but venturesome, too.

“In fact, I feel quite wonderful,” she confessed,
smiling, her hand straying to his chest. Her fingertips touched his warm skin where his shirt was not yet buttoned. She looked up at him, hoping he would take the hint.

He did not. His mouth tightened, and he bent down to retrieve his waistcoat from the floor.

She watched him for a moment. “Anthony, please do not distress yourself on my account. My discomfort was insignificant.”

He barely glanced at her as he put on his waistcoat. “I am relieved to hear it.”

She felt an uneasy disquiet setting in. She turned her back and began to straighten her clothes, buttoning her chemise, then her gown. Both of them were silent as they dressed. When they had finished, he rested his hands on her shoulders for a moment, and she stiffened beneath his touch. He moved away and bent down to pick up his cravat. She turned around, watching as he pulled up the high collar of his shirt, slid the cravat around his neck, and began to tie it.

“Anthony, what is wrong?”

He finished tying the neck-cloth, then took her hand in his, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I take full responsibility for this,” he told her, and let go of her hand. “You need not fear for your future.”

She stared at him in bewilderment, for she was not in the least afraid. “My future?”

He picked up his coat from the floor. “We will be married after the banns have been properly posted. The ceremony will be here in the ducal chapel, if that is acceptable to you. If you prefer the parish church, simply tell me so.”

Anthony was offering to marry her? She could not quite believe she had heard him right. He sounded so dispassionate, Daphne was not quite sure if she had just received a proposal of marriage or a comment on the weather. The delicious afterglow of their blissful experience was now completely gone.

He put on his coat, turned away from her and walked to the window. “Until the wedding, you must stay elsewhere,” he said, staring out into the gray darkness. “Enderby will suffice. It would not do for you to be here. I will explain the situation to Viola. Due to the breadth of social difference between us, you will be the subject of gossip, and I regret that, but it cannot be helped.”

He fell silent, standing with his back to her, the dawn light that outlined his profile hazy and indistinct to her eyes. She did not understand why he was talking of marriage now, but she remembered his words to his sister about never marrying for love, and she knew that one question had to be answered before she could even consider marrying him.

She took a deep breath. “Have you fallen in love with me, then, that you wish to marry me?”

He turned his head, but he did not quite look at her. “You must know by now that I have—that I have come to have—a strong, and very passionate desire for—attraction, I should say, to you.”

“I see.” Daphne did not know the proper etiquette of refusing a marriage proposal, since such an event had never come her way, but she felt she should at least be able to see him clearly when she
did refuse. She leaned down and pulled her spectacles from the pocket of her apron, which still lay on the floor. She put the spectacles on, then walked to his side and laid a hand on his arm. “Desire, as wonderful as it is, Anthony, is not enough. I will not marry you.”

“We have no choice now.” He did not look at her. “I took that away from both of us just now.”

“You talk as if I had no control over any of this. This was a mutual decision, Anthony, for my feelings are comparable with yours. I, too, have a strong and passionate desire for you, but that is all. Without love, I see no reason to marry you.”

He turned to face her, and in his expression there was no hint of affection for her, only a resolute determination to have his way, an expression she was coming to know quite well. “You should realize by now that you do not have a choice in this. We must marry. There is nothing else to be done.”

“The musts and shoulds of your life do not apply to me, your grace,” she said, her voice as cool as his. “I understand that marriage is the accepted mode in situations such as this, but there are alternatives. No one knows of this but us. I shall go to London, just as I intended to do, and—”

“That is out of the question. You may very well be carrying my child. What of that?”

God in heaven, she had not even thought of a child. Her hand fluttered to her abdomen, and something sparked inside of her, a mixture of emotions. A wistful sort of hope and fear, and a sense of
her own duty, and the courage not to have her destiny or that of her child dictated by circumstances.

“We do not know if there will be a child,” she answered him. “Besides, you are an honorable man. I know you would take care of us and see that we are provided for. Illegitimate children of men such as yourself do not suffer any great setbacks in life, your grace.”

“God, Daphne, what are you saying? That I make you my mistress?”

Before she could make any answer to Anthony's question, he answered it for her. “You cannot be my mistress. If that were possible, there are arrangements I could make for you, a house in the country, an income, but it is out of the question.”

“You seem quite familiar with the appropriate arrangements for mistresses.” A thought struck her, and she looked at him. “Do you have one now? A mistress, I mean?”

He stiffened, with all the hauteur and dignity that befitted a duke. “I did, yes, but I have not seen—”

“Does she…” Daphne choked on the question, a sick knot in the pit of her stomach. After a moment, she tried again. “Does she have any children that are…that might be…” She could not go on. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she turned her back on him.

“No,” he answered her incomplete question. “Marguerite has no children, not even mine. Daphne, that is not important now. You are ruined but unwed, and that is my fault. I will not stain
your reputation with the shame of an illegitimate child. As I said, we must marry.”

She circled around to the other side of the table, putting it between them like a barrier before she turned to face him.

He did not follow her, but remained where he was. “You are the granddaughter of a baron, it seems, but Viola told me that you do not know his identity. If this is true, I will find him. We will establish your connection to him, and obtain his permission for the match. A mere formality, of course, given the circumstances, but necessary. I will negotiate the dowry and terms with him. Once we are wed, I will provide a quarterly allowance for your use. Five thousand pounds should be sufficient, but if you require more, you need only ask. As my wife, you will be entitled to my full support.”

Daphne felt anger and frustration rising within her like the tide. He was talking as if she had no say in that. “Is not marrying me a bit extreme? I am somewhat ignorant of these matters, but I believe it is the usual custom for men in your position not to marry women for this sort of thing, but to pay them off.”

He pushed aside the oak table between them so violently that it skidded across the stone floor and hit the wall. She did not move.

He took another step toward her, and the chair in his path followed the table. She still remained where she was, meeting his gaze as he halted, a few feet away.

“You insult my honor, Miss Wade, and your
own,” he said, his voice low and furious, “if you assume that I would sink so low as to pay you off with a
douceur
as if you were some demirep or prostitute.”

“It is you who makes me that, with all your talk of terms and settlements and quarterly allowances and no personal regard or respect for me behind them. Accepting your support for a child we might have is one thing. Marrying you is something else, a wholly unnecessary step, to my mind.”

“You were a virgin, in heaven's name! If you believe that I would take the innocence of a young lady and not do right by her, you know nothing of my character as a man, of what my position as a peer means to me, or of my honor as a gentleman.”

“And what of Lady Sarah?” she countered. “Were you not intending to marry her?”

“I suppose Viola told you. It hardly matters, as I have not declared any such intention to the lady, and now I cannot do so.”

“You were not in love with her, yet you intended to marry her. You do not love me, yet you now wish to marry me. One wife is as good as another? With a mistress for additional variety, of course.”

“Love, love,” he said impatiently. “What is love? Define it for me, if you will. You are the one who had her heart broken, so you told me. Tell me about love.”

“That was not love!” she cried. “That was infatuation! A foolish inclination not supported by anything but my own imagination, for you felt nothing for me at all. I knew it, but—”

“What?” His shocked question made her realize her deepest secret had just slipped out.

Somehow, she did not care. What other people thought of her no longer mattered. “Yes, Anthony,” she admitted, looking him in the eye, unashamed of her feelings. At least they had been honest ones. “I was infatuated with
you
. God help me, I fell for you the moment I met you. Stupid of me, but there it is.”

He was staring at her in utter astonishment, and somehow that only fueled her anger. “Unbelievable, isn't it? Me, of all women, wanting a duke. Me, a woman with no money, no connections, and no family—at least no family that wants to acknowledge her. Me, a plain, shy, serious woman who by all rights should become a spinster because she is as noticeable as a stick insect on a twig!”

She saw a flicker of something in his expression, and she went on, “Yes, I was standing outside the music room that night when you and your sister talked of me. I heard every word you said. Do you recall that conversation, your grace?”

Comprehension dawned in his face, comprehension and a hint of dismay. “I did say that,” he murmured and began to walk toward her. “I admit, I had forgotten the entire incident. It meant so little at the time.”

“So little to you, perhaps, but so much to me.” She was too angry to care that it would serve no purpose to tell him these things now, angry with how he had turned what had just happened between them in to something that involved obliga
tion and shame. “I believe I was also compared with a machine, a creature with no feminine appeal. I was pathetic, I believe that was the term you used—”

He stepped forward and grasped her shoulders to give her a little shake, as if she were getting hysterical, when in fact, she was quite calm.

“Listen to me, Daphne,” he said. “I am grieved that you overheard me say something so thoughtless, but I did not know you. I mean, of course I knew you, but I did not really know—” He broke off. Lowering his hands to his sides, he took a deep breath and tried again. “It was true that I said it, but it was because I meant that you made yourself unnoticeable. That was all, and your tendency to do so was a subject, I might add, which we have discussed. Viola was talking of finding you a husband, and she asked my opinion—”

“You certainly gave it. You told your sister that finding me a husband was a hopeless business.” She gave a humorless laugh. “Not so hopeless after all, since you are now feeling this absurd compulsion to marry me yourself. How odd life is!”

He stepped back, clasping his hands behind him and looking every inch the proper duke. “Please believe that I have nothing but regret for those words. What I said was cruel and thoughtless, and I realize you must have been deeply hurt, but I assure you that wounding your feelings was never my intent. Since then, as I have already stated, I have developed a strong attraction to you, strong enough that one could safely describe it as a sort of madness
with me. A temporary madness, perhaps, but a madness nonetheless. I wanted you so badly, I—” He expelled a harsh breath and the ducal dignity faltered. “God, after what just happened, do I have to explain?”