My American Duchess (19 page)

His future wife was terribly obtuse if she thought he often—or ever—took young women into his arms in order to comfort them.

“You are a good friend,” she said.

Trent managed not to snort.

“I’ve never had a male friend before.” The surge of desire that went down Trent’s body when their eyes met had nothing to do with friendship. But Merry looked at him earnestly and said, “I’m so grateful to you for rescuing Mrs. Bennett in the ballroom, Duke. I wish there was something I could do for you. Before I depart for America, I mean.”

“Don’t you think that, as near family, we might do away with my title?”

“As I understand it, addressing a duke by his title
is
informal address for use only between family and close friends. I am counting myself among your friends, even though I am no longer betrothed to your brother.”

“You will always be in my family,” Trent said.

“I can be a distant cousin. Someday you will bring your son—the one who will inherit your title—to Boston, and I’ll teach him to be an American.”

“Will that make him a better duke?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Finally sounding less dejected, Merry proceeded to regale him with an assortment of facts about American men. Could it be that she really assumed they would be merely friends in the future? The idea was so unpleasant that Trent succumbed to impulse and interrupted her monologue with a kiss.

He had promised himself he would be gentle when he kissed her. He was wrong.

It was a greedy kiss. He had never realized that a lady’s lips could be as voluptuous as a courtesan’s—but that the
addition of surprise and innocence would make it a far headier experience than he had ever experienced.

To this point, Trent hadn’t particularly enjoyed kissing. It was too intimate. He’d never been selfish about giving pleasure, as he enjoyed bodily intimacy. All the same, he didn’t care for kissing.

Not until now.

When Merry started kissing him back, the shock of it sent a hum down his limbs that brought with it a strange feeling, as if the world were shaking around them.

One of her hands came around his neck and buried itself in his hair. Her mouth had been sweet, but now it was silk and fire. Her innocence was still there, but alongside it, a searing urgency.

Trent lost himself. Their tongues danced together and he felt a shudder go through Merry’s body. She made a whimpering sound in the back of her throat, and desire exploded down his spine.

It wasn’t until he became aware that one of his hands had settled on her thigh, and that certain parts of his body had taken on an ungentlemanly life of their own, that he regained a measure of sanity.

He drew his mouth away from hers, just far enough that he could still feel the erotic heat of her breath. He watched her face, his heart pounding unsteadily, as she opened her eyes.

A man could get lost in those eyes. Desire shimmered between them like a haze on a hot day in August.

Would she be outraged? Surprised?

She was dismayed.

“I
loathe
myself,” she mumbled, closing her eyes in anguish.

“It wasn’t a bad kiss.” Trent’s voice had a rasp that he’d never heard in it before.

Her eyes opened again. “You have the oddest sense of humor,” she said, frowning.

“Did you enjoy the kiss?”

“It was a very nice kiss. In fact—”

She caught back whatever she was about to say.

“I am a despicable person,” she said, her voice ragged.

He suppressed a smile. “I strongly disagree.”

Descriptions and details began tumbling out of her—about Bertie, who used to kiss her on a sofa (if Trent ever met him, he’d have to kill him for that), about Dermot, about Cedric . . . In short, the whole sorry saga of Merry’s romantic life thus far.

Trent didn’t want to discuss the three men she’d fancied herself in love with. He didn’t want to imagine that they had touched her. Or kissed her.

As Merry recounted her supposed sins, Trent cupped her face in his hands and lowered his lips to hers, so close that their noses brushed. She went silent. “You never kissed Cedric the way you just kissed me,” he stated.

Her eyes didn’t fail him. He could see the truth in them. “No,” she said with a little gasp. “No—that is to say, I won’t discuss it. This mustn’t ever happen again, Your Grace. I’m—”

He took her mouth in a thirsty, deep kiss.

Before now, first, second, and third kisses had been merely signposts on the road to bed. His mistresses had all been courtesans, refined women who chose their lovers and enjoyed his company as much as he did theirs.

Kissing Merry was no signpost. It was like making love, something he could do all night. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, and nothing he’d ever thought to find in a lady.

Their kiss grew ravenous and wild, her tongue sliding against his with a passion that couldn’t be shammed, es
pecially when a quiet moan floated into the dark room and was answered by his growl. This was a kiss from which he might never recover.

Finally he pulled back, because it was that or ravish his future bride in the middle of a ball, which he refused to do. Merry’s lips were cherry red and swollen, and her eyes heavy-lidded. He desperately wanted what he could not have . . . yet.

“I will find your aunt and uncle,” he said, his voice rasping as he stood, drawing her to her feet. “I’ll tell them where you are. I think it’s best that I don’t escort you home myself.”

He wouldn’t be at all surprised if every single person in the ballroom knew that the two of them had retreated to this room together.

The glow of pleasure drained from her face instantly. “You don’t think anyone knows we’re here? That would be terrible.”

Almost . . . he could almost sympathize with her horrified expression.

“I certainly don’t want you to feel trapped into marrying me, Your Grace.”

He stopped feeling sympathetic. Merry needn’t be quite so vehement about insisting she wasn’t compromised. To his mind, the only thing that could have compromised her more was if he had given in to impulse and drawn up her skirts.

“No one could possibly trap me into marrying, if I didn’t want to,” he told her. “As I have already stated.”

Relief spread across her face. In fact, another man might find it discouraging, how relieved she appeared.

But he had just kissed her. She had quivered under his touch, and moaned aloud. She wanted him.

Trent bowed, but then paused in the doorway. “I shall
pay you a call tomorrow morning,” he said. She murmured something, and looked down so that a thick fall of curls hid her eyes and the lovely line of her jaw.

Merry was his, and that was all there was to it.

She would have to get used to it.

Trent left the premises without a lady at his side, and without a glass slipper in his pocket. But just like the prince in the fairy tale, when morning came, he was determined to find his princess.

M
erry’s mind reeled as she sank back into the chair, watching the door close behind the Duke of Trent. One minute she had been talking to him about her forsaken betrothals, and then she had found herself being kissed more passionately than ever before in her life.

She put her hand to her mouth, as if his lips had left an imprint there. At first, he had been comforting. But there had been nothing soothing about his kisses.

They were untamed, ferocious, demanding.

Even thinking about them made her pulse pound in her ears. As soon as his mouth touched hers, she had felt as if she were melting inside. As if she might open her mouth and embarrass herself.

No.

They were only kisses. He was a duke, a man who would never marry someone like her. They were in
tended to make her feel better after the unpleasantness with Cedric.

Just as she tried to decide whether men actually kissed in an effort to comfort—she had the strong feeling that Miss Fairfax would not agree—a noise startled her.

She looked in the direction of the sound, the part of the room farthest from the door, and she was stupefied to see Cedric emerge from behind an armchair.

Her hand fell from her face. Her mouth opened in astonishment, but she was incapable of speech. Cedric ambled over and seated himself opposite her, making certain that his pantaloons were perfectly smooth before he crossed his legs.

“That is an extremely unattractive expression,” he observed. “You should close your mouth.”

With this insult, she found her voice. “What are you doing here?” she squeaked. It was the least of her questions, but the first to come to mind. He’d heard everything. He must have heard everything. Oh God, he must have heard her kissing Trent.

“I retreated to think over your charming remarks in the ballroom. When you and my brother entered, I could hardly leave. One hesitates to interrupt people who are so passionately engaged in the fine art of betrayal.”

Yes, he heard her kissing Trent.

“Betrayal!” Merry cried, though she could scarcely deny it. She
had
betrayed him. Still, she had to try to defend herself. “That would imply that our betrothal was still intact, which any person in the ballroom could tell you was not the case.”

It wasn’t very convincing, even to her own ears. It was despicable to kiss another man five minutes after breaking an engagement.

Cedric rose, drew a cheroot from his inside pocket, and lit it with a rush he took from the fireplace.

“I didn’t know you smoke!”

“Apparently, there are many things that neither of us knew of the other.” He turned back from the fire. “For example, I knew you were a lusty wench, but I was still surprised to see you so enthusiastically returning my brother’s, shall we say, addresses? Though perhaps advances is a more accurate word.”

“He was merely trying to reassure me,” Merry said, knowing her excuse sounded feeble.

“No, he wasn’t,” Cedric stated, sitting back down. “I informed my brother a few days ago that I had never kissed you properly, and he snatched the opportunity to score a point against me.”

Merry must not have heard correctly. “You discussed kissing me? With your brother?”

He shrugged. “Likely you don’t understand sibling behavior. By kissing you, the duke just won that round. He’ll gloat later because he stole a march on me.”

Merry gasped. “That is revolting.”

“We’re twins.” Smoke wreathed Cedric’s head. Together with the glow of the fire behind him, he resembled an elegant Beelzebub. “There’s nothing closer than blood, for all we snarl at each other. I told Trent that I had no plans to take you to bed until our wedding night. I didn’t want you to tire of me, as you had of the others.”

The humiliations Merry had felt after she ended her engagements to Bertie and Dermot were nothing compared to this. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. A ghastly memory of the times she had swayed toward Cedric, her eyes closed, expectant, flashed through her mind.

“To be blunt,” he said impatiently, “it was obvious that once you sampled the wares, you quickly came to the conclusion that you’d had enough and need not marry the poor fools. I kept my hands off you in order to hold your in
terest. I think we can both agree that my brother enjoyed usurping my place.”

“If I understand you correctly,” Merry said, the words strangled by disbelief, “I have never consented to—to sampling any man’s wares!”

“That’s what Trent said.” Cedric tipped his head back and blew a perfect ring of smoke. “He as much as dared me to try it on, but I thought I’d better heed my instincts and stay out of your bed.”

They—did they laugh over the way she—

“The duke advised you to stay out of my bed?” The question was dust in Merry’s mouth. She wouldn’t have believed humiliation could be this vivid, as if someone had stripped her of clothing and dragged her in front of a crowd.

“No, no,” Cedric said genially. “The opposite. I’d worked
that
out myself.”

Something about this story was wrong. The duke was steadfast. Honorable. She was certain of it.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, each word dropping into the silence like a wooden block. “I don’t believe that your brother would discuss intimacies. Not with you or anyone else. His Grace is neither vulgar nor dishonorable.”

Cedric snorted. “You understand so little about men, my dear. Though anyone could deduce that from your romantic history, could they not?”

“Ignorance alone cannot explain my rotten choices,” she said, rather sharply.

“Trent and I discussed that very thing—intimacies with you—later in the day on which you found that dreadful dog in Hyde Park,” Cedric said. “We had returned to Cavendish Square and were on the threshold, just about to enter the house. If it makes you feel any better, Trent sent the butler back into the house when the conversation began.”

There was something so bluntly factual about his report that a lump of ice began to form in Merry’s chest.

“You talked about me on the front steps?” Against her better judgment, she almost believed him. Almost.

“I told him that I didn’t plan to tup you until marriage, and that I hadn’t kissed you because I felt you were the sort to lose interest. How right I was. I must say that you take faithlessness to an extreme,” he added, drawing on his cheroot so sharply that it made a hissing sound.

Merry had the irrational sense that he was crushing her heart, physically compressing her chest. She wanted to tell him to stop, but instead she just sat rigidly in place.

“You must understand, we are exceedingly competitive,” Cedric continued. “Our mother used to egg us on, which didn’t help. Trent even tried to turn my betrothal to you into a contest, but I needed your dowry and of course, as duke, he could never marry someone of your nationality and stature. Though he did have one go at you before I stopped him.”

Merry felt as if she’d descended into some sort of nightmare in which no one was who she’d thought he was. “You mean . . . on the balcony?”

“You didn’t really believe that he had no idea who you were when you first met, did you? I had told the duke that I was planning to propose to Miss Pelford the night before the ball where you met him.”

“Oh.”

“I warned him off,” he said, pity leaking into his voice. “I told my brother that you were so in love with me that he had no chance. But as you see, he waited until there was a breach between us and leapt on you like a fox snapping up a chicken.”

In that moment, Merry understood that her heart
was
breaking—though the heartbreak had nothing to do with the end of her engagement.

Cedric caught her expression and misunderstood it. “The duke wouldn’t have ruined you or, God forbid, compromised you. He’s not that wicked, and besides, he wouldn’t risk being forced to marry you. He understands that his spouse will need to come from the peerage. He just wanted to score points against me.”

Did Cedric think that she would applaud a cruelty that went only so far? Nothing between the duke and her was real, not the way he smiled at her, talked to her, or teased her. And yet their friendship had felt more real and more true than any relationship she’d ever had with a man.

Cedric shrugged, and blew another ring of smoke. “He won that round. The sport of betrayal, as played out between brothers.”

He gave her a look that was oddly sympathetic. “If it helps any, it has nothing to do with you. We came out of the womb fighting for the same toys. The estate has never been enough for him. He wants everything that’s mine: he even told me that he wanted the dogs. He offered to adopt both of them.”

Merry tried to think of something cutting to say, but even when she was furious, she’d never been any good at coming up with insults.

She did the only thing she could think of: she began to tug off the diamond ring. “I’ll return this to you.”

“No need.”

“There’s every need,” she said, trying to stop herself from crying. “I don’t want your ring. I mean, of course, I won’t keep your family ring.”

“I do not accept your breaking of our engagement,” Cedric said casually.

“
What?
” Merry’s head jerked up. “What did you just say?”

Cedric flicked the ash from his cheroot. It landed on the carpet to the side of his chair. “We will marry just as planned. It was extremely gauche of you to air our private business in the ballroom earlier, but we’ll put it about that it was a lovers’ quarrel.”

“We are not marrying!” Merry glared at him. “You must be very drunk. Either that, or you’re cracked.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m neither,” Cedric replied, sounding a little surprised. “I was trapped in that chair with no more than a sip of brandy for what felt like hours while you and the duke pawed each other.”

Merry’s thoughts were so jumbled that she couldn’t form coherent speech. She should get up and find her aunt, and never mind the fact that everyone would gape at her. Surely they all knew, even if she hadn’t, that she had been no more than a pawn between rival brothers.

No, it was worse than that. She was seen as a lascivious American heiress who sampled and discarded men the way other women did hats. No wonder Bess had been so worried about the damage to her reputation if a third fiancé was jilted. Merry’s naïveté had protected her from understanding the ugly conclusions people were drawing.

Merry felt a stab of longing for her father so acute it almost took her breath away. Her father would never have let her betroth herself to three despicable men in a row. Well, two despicable men; Bertie was only hot-tempered.

Her father would have put his arms around Merry and made everything all right, the way he had when she was a little girl with a scraped knee.

Cedric flicked another ash, indifferent to where it landed. “Actually, I’ve come to a decision about our mar
riage. I know we’re supposed to marry in June, but I think we’ll marry two days hence instead.”

“No!”

“I don’t trust you to stand by your word as time passes. This must feel tiresomely familiar, but if you refuse to marry me, I can and will sue for breach of promise.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Merry whispered. But she straightened her spine and met his eyes. “You are immoral to do this to me. You and your brother, both of you.”

“It is not
I
who nearly did the blanket hornpipe with a man to whom you are
not
engaged, in the Verekers’ library—where anyone might have entered.” Cedric pointed at her with his cheroot. This time, the ash dropped onto the chair and he flicked it away.

“In fact, there’s enough shame to go around. You will marry me, Merry Pelford, because the moment you accepted my proposal, you promised me that money. Moreover, when you told all and sundry about the unpleasant state of affairs regarding my debts, you made me look like an ass. You damaged my chance of making a satisfactory marriage in the future.”

The feeling of being caught in some sort of odd, distorted nightmare was only growing stronger. Merry tightened her lips before she said something irrevocably unladylike. Perhaps that etiquette list had been good for something.

“So you must marry me or I’ll sue you
and
your uncle,” the fiendish man opposite her said. “I’ll give him some credit: as soon as Pelford realized I was having second thoughts, he popped out with that offer to pay off my debts. Here’s my thinking: You may be something of a sow’s ear, but you can be shaped into a purse full of guineas. Or however that goes.”

“You are a contemptible person,” Merry said stonily. “I am not a sow’s ear. And only a boor and a parasite would allow another man to pay his debts.”

“I don’t think we should exchange insults just yet, do you? It seems so connubial, and we aren’t there yet.”

“Why must you make yourself seem clever by using big words?” Merry cried.

He raised an eyebrow. “Your paltry vocabulary is hardly justification for such hostility. I would venture to call it—forgive me—a trifle ill-bred.”

“If I were to enter the church with you,” Merry stated, “I would never say yes. Unless in answer to the bishop’s question whether anyone had just cause to stop the wedding.”

A faint smile curled Cedric’s lips. “I have every faith that you will respond appropriately—in other words, with a yes.”

“I’ve been sued by one avaricious man,” she pointed out. “I have an attorney already.”

How could she have ever thought that Cedric had warm eyes? They were cold as ice. “In fact, you will marry me.”

Merry jumped to her feet. “You’ve lost your senses, perhaps owing to an overindulgence in spirits. I shall return to Boston as soon as I can arrange passage.”

If she thought about the fact that the duke and his brother had discussed her; about the fact that the duke had kissed her merely to score points against his brother; about the fact that she was nothing but a shuttlecock batted between insolent, titled Englishmen, she would cry.

No, she would sob.

She pushed the thought away and started for the door. She’d been deceived before. She would survive this.