Never Entice an Earl (24 page)

How true the words were. Daphne was his choice. Even before he’d discovered her abduction,
he’d known he couldn’t live his life without her. Hell, thinking back now, he’d known
since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. All this had been inevitable, and he
could not find it in his heart to regret the result, though he abhorred the circumstance.
He would marry her. He would give his life to keep and protect her. He just wished
he could protect her now from even a modicum of shame. There was also the very real
concern that she might not wish to marry him. She had always been so emphatic in that
regard. Once they were alone, he would do anything in his power to persuade her.

But in this moment, he had to persuade the two men who cared so deeply for her happiness.

He said, “I would have married her regardless of your discovering our affair, once
I persuaded her to agree. Make no mistake,
I love her
,” said Cormack emphatically. “And I know that she loves me as well, though she has
not confessed it back. But I fear she will resist.”

His Grace’s eyes narrowed. “If she loves you as well, then why would she?”

“She has vowed not to marry, I am certain as some self-imposed penance for her father’s
death.”

“He is right, Claxton,” said Havering. “She has sworn it time and time again, that
she has no wish to wed.” More softly, he added, “I think Raikes is right about the
reason as well.”

“She is stubborn and strong willed.” Cormack looked toward the stairs. “Mark my words.
She will refuse me.”

“She will not have that choice.” The duke exhaled through his nose. “You will undertake
to obtain a special license tomorrow, as soon as we return to London. Do you understand?
We will speak to Wolverton and Lady Harwick as soon as we return. You will accept
full responsibility for all of this.”

“I do,” he answered resolutely. “And I will.”

Daphne lay wide awake, listening to the silence of the inn, and wondering what had
happened downstairs. In a rush of emotion, she had given them away. Now the duke would
attempt to make Cormack marry her, in some misguided attempt to preserve her honor.

A quiet tapping came at her window. Pushing up, she rushed to the glass to see Cormack’s
face in the dark.

“Cormack,” Daphne said, pushing the frame open to find him perched on a ladder. “I
am so very sorry. To the bottom of my heart. I have ruined everything.”

“No, you haven’t.” He reached inside and, with a warm smile that instantly calmed
her racing heartbeat, took her hand. “The duke forbade you from passing through that
door, but he didn’t say anything about the window. Come down, and take a walk with
me. I’ll help you down.”

When they had reached the bottom, he took her hand and led her toward the distant
field.

“Where are we going?”

“Just over there, on that hillside. I want to watch the stars with you.”

She allowed him to lead her there, knowing that once there everything weighing on
her heart could be said. Already from his demeanor, she knew what he would say. That
he had agreed to marry her, as a consequence of their secret affair being discovered.
But she wasn’t about to allow him to sacrifice himself and betray his duty to his
family. Not for her, when she did not deserve such sacrifice.

On the hillside, he spread his coat on a space of grass and, sitting pulled her down
beside him, where they sat for a long moment in silence.

In the darkness she could just make out the pale outline of wildflowers, and for a
moment, she closed her eyes and remembered the dream where they’d made love in a field
of blooms. But this wasn’t a dream, and she couldn’t imagine that he was anything
but angry at her now for bringing this calamity upon them both.

“Daphne, we’re going to be married.”

She’d expected the words, but they still struck pain through her heart.

“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I refuse. You have an agreement to marry the
girl so that you can obtain the lands your family lost.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

“We were just supposed to have an affair! It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“I’m sorry about the way it all came about, but I’m not sorry it’s happened.”

“I am. I have destroyed your dreams and broken my vow to myself. Don’t you understand,
I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve a happily-ever-after?”

“Why not, Daphne?” he said. “Please help me understand.”

“I caused my father’s death with my selfishness, and I vowed that night never to fall
in love. Never to marry. What point are vows, if they are not kept?”

“What I don’t understand is how such a vow honors your father. How does that bring
him back?”

“It doesn’t, but, Cormack, my mother and father were so in love. More so after years
of marriage than on the day they first wed. Not only did I shatter her happily-ever-after,
I deprived my grandfather of his son and his heir, and my two sisters of their father.
I owe my life to them. That sort of debt is never fully repaid.”

He reached out and covered her hand with his own, twining his fingers between hers,
and clasping it tight. “Your family does not expect that from you.”

His gentle manner elicited the deepest feelings inside her, feelings she couldn’t
even define. She desperately wanted him to hold her, but could see no alternative
but to push him away.

“Of course they don’t, but I made the promise
to myself
…because…because it was the only way I could live with myself.” She dashed away the
tears from her eyes, but still, they flowed, over her lashes and down her cheeks.
“What good are promises to those you love, unless they are kept? You made a promise
to your family as well—”

“Then let us make new promises. Better ones, that honor those that we love.” Suddenly
he seized her against him and pressed her back onto the soft ground. The fragrance
of flowers filled her nose. His lips kissed the tears from her skin. “If your father
was alive, I would ask him, no beg him, to allow me to marry you. But he is not, and
so I ask you.”

“Cormack, don’t,” she warned thickly.

He kissed her hard, the power of his passion stealing her breath and her resistance.

“Lands. Honor. Family. They are nothing without you.”

His lips grazed over her cheeks, her eyelids and mouth in a pleasurable assault she
found herself helpless to resist. She softened beneath him and wrapped her arms around
his waist, wanting nothing more than to make love to him, here under the stars. But
though her body surrendered, her heart still resisted.

“Accept me,” he murmured against her skin. “Be my wife.”

Yes.
The word hovered on her tongue, but she refused her mouth permission to say it. She
did not deserve this sort of happiness, not tonight, and certainly not forever.

His hands touched her calves, her thighs, as he raised her skirts. Her body reacted,
going liquid with desire, aching with a need so powerful she could only touch him
as well, pushing his shirt up to smooth her hands greedily over her stomach and chest.

“Say it,” he urged, lifting away to unfasten his breeches, and lowering again to kiss
her. She kissed him back, moaning as he lowered himself between her thighs, hot and
thick, where suddenly he stopped and rested his forehead to hers. “Please, Daphne,
please…”

“My love,” she whispered, though the word was barely a breath, moving beneath him,
begging with her body that he make her complete.

“You are
my
love, but that’s not good enough. I deserve more, as do you.” He breathed raggedly,
touching her hair. “You demanded a secret of me, when I took you in my bed.”

She stilled, listening not only with her ears, but with her heart.

“Do you remember, I told you I wished it could be you?”

“I remember.”

“It wasn’t a secret, not really.” He nuzzled her cheek, and her neck. “But more like
a dream.”

“Cormack.”

“You make my dreams come true.” He shifted, gripping her hips, and in one thrust entered
her.

She cried out, stunned by pleasure.

“Say it, that you’ll marry me.” He moved his hips, kissing her more deeply, more fervently
with each thrust, claiming the deepest part of her, to her soul. “Please.” He wrapped
his arms beneath her, seizing her to him so tightly she had to gasp to breathe. “Say
you will marry me, that I can love you not just now, but forever.”

At hearing his plea, at last the walls around her heart collapsed, setting her free
to love him. New tears filled her eyes, this time formed of joy instead of pain.

“Yes,” she whispered, twining his arms around his neck. “I will marry you. I love
you, Cormack.”

He laughed, a joyous sound from deep in his throat. Lowering to press a hot kiss on
her mouth, he rolled, bringing her atop him. There, below a canopy of stars, she lowered
to press her lips to his mouth, to his throat, until he pushed her back, guiding her
with his hands and his body, to take up the same rhythm as his. “Yes, like that. You
can’t know…how good this feels.”

She arched, her head falling back as she found a deeper pleasure. “I do,” she whispered.
“Oh, Cormack, I do.”

The next morning, after what had been a completely sleepless night for Cormack—and,
he knew for a fact, for Daphne as well—the gentlemen gathered outside, while the innkeeper’s
son harnessed the horses. Rackmorton had already been dispatched to London on the
back of a braying, bucking donkey they had secured for the sole purpose of humiliating
him on his long ride back to town. Kincraig had volunteered, quite readily, to follow
a short distance behind to ensure the marquess’s course remained true.

Havering looked at Cormack. “One day we’ll all look back at this, and it will be the
most entertaining story.”

Claxton glowered darkly. “We aren’t at that point yet. I do not look forward to explaining
this turn of events to Wolverton and the marchioness, not to mention my wife.”

Hearing footsteps, Cormack turned to the door of the inn and watched as Daphne approached.
Instantly forgetting the duke and Havering, he strode forward and reached for her
hand. She appeared so small, and so pale and terrified, so different from the temptress
of the night before. Wanting to reassure her, he pulled her his arms and kissed her
ardently.

He murmured against her temple, “Darling, I can’t wait to marry you or to introduce
you to my family. Don’t look so anxious. All will be well.”

She clung to him, and at last a smile overtook her lips. “Let us go. Oh, Cormack,
take me to Bellefrost. Take me to meet them all.”

The four of them made use of Rackmorton’s carriage, riding in comfort, but also in
relative silence, for the next hour. Cormack never once released Daphne’s hand. At
last they turned down the long drive.

“Here we are. This is Bellefrost.” Pulling her into the circle of his arms, he watched
her face as they drew nearer to the place he called home.

Her cheeks warmed, and she smiled. “It’s beautiful. I see why you love it here.”

When the carriage stopped, they disembarked, but something stopped Cormack from leading
them directly to the stairs.

“A moment, if you will,” he said to Claxton and Havering.

Tucking Daphne’s hand into his elbow, he took her round the side of the house, and
down the pebbled lane to the family cemetery. From the gate, she led him, easily finding
the pink marble tombstone that bore his sister’s name.

“I’m so sorry, Cormack. That you lost her. That you still don’t have the answers you
tried so hard to find.”

“Don’t be. Today is not a day for regrets. I hope I’ve made clear to you I have none.
I just wanted to bring you here, because she was so special to me.”

“I wish I could have met her. I wish that she could have been here, to greet you on
your return home. She must have been so proud to call you brother.”

She slipped her hand into his, but the gesture turned into a full embrace, and he
kissed her. “I’m so happy that you’re here.”

Footsteps sounded behind them. Tiny ones, running along the path. Cormack turned to
see Michael bounding toward him as fast as his short little legs would carry him,
followed by his father, Lord Champdeer. At the house, a curtain moved in a window,
and there his mother’s smiling face appeared.

Daphne quickly released him and stepped back, as he lunged forward to sweep the little
boy up into his arms, and high over his head. The child squealed with delight.

Being reunited with the family he adored so completely brought a sudden surge of emotion
into his throat, so fast and immense that he could not trust himself to speak. He
loved Daphne, and he knew they would love her, too. But that did not mean he did not
worry about how best to say the words he must say. The beginning of a new dream, as
wonderful as it might be, meant the end of another.

He brought the child to settle in his arms, but the boy wiggled, demanding to be released,
and barreled straight toward Daphne, where he grabbed a fistful of her skirts and
stared up at her with wide-eyed curiosity.

Lord Champdeer, gray haired and dressed in a neat black suit, smiled faintly, his
gaze moving with unconcealed interest to Daphne.

“Michael saw you from the window, and he was off like a shot.” He chuckled. “But I
see you have brought guests. Please come. Let’s invite everyone inside.”

“—and we are going to be married,” said Cormack, his throat growing distinctively
husky on the last word.

Silence owned the moment. As if he sensed the gravity of the moment, even little Michael
did not make a sound.

Cormack lifted a hand to her back to steady her. Only then did she realize she’d swayed.
She had been nervous on the ride to Bellefrost, but now she could scarcely breathe.
That Lord and Lady Champdeer loved their son was obvious. How would they react to
her?