Price of Desire (54 page)

He almost started to apologize before her words caught up with him.

“What?”

She turned to face him then and in the growing twilight her face still glowed
.
“You took the perfect tedium I had planned and showed me what glory could be, what love
could be, what family could be
.
You showed me I didn’t need to stand alone
.
How could you do that?”

The knot in his chest released and he felt his world expand
.
There were no words to express what he saw shining in her eyes
.
Instead he did the only thing a man could do
.
He caught her tight, lifting her into his arms and spinning with the carefree freedom of a child
.
Her serious expression relaxed as he set her back on her feet
.
She leaned against him, melting into him like butter on warm toast.

“So we told the truth then
?
I do so hate deceit.”

“What?
”
He looked down at her, confused.

She hesitated and then smiled bravely up at him, her chin tilting in the gesture he knew so well
.
“It is a love match?”

He heard the question and the tremor in her voice as she dared to say the words he could not yet bring himself to speak.

He kissed her lightly and then more passionately, letting his passions demonstrate what his words could not
.
She mumbled against his mouth and he drew back.

She looked up at him, her eyes dusky with ardor
.
He could feel the rapid rise and fall of her breasts against his chest
.
And then she smiled, the most glorious, all encompassing smile a man could dream.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He drew her back against him, burrowing his hands in her hair and letting her know that not only was it a yes
.
It was a very definite yes.

Epilogue

“You, M
ajor
Huntington, are a fool.
”
Wulf looked up from the rows of sums before him and gazed at the stiff figure in the doorway
.
Lady Smythe-Burke, the houseguest who would not leave, strode in.

Knowing he’d lost his place in the additions and would have to start again, he sighed
.
He’d been here for hours
.
“I am not sure what you mean.”

“I think I stated it simply enough
.
You are a fool.”

“I would not want to contradict a lady.”

“What are you doing right now, M
ajor
Huntington?”

“The books for my estate in Devonshire
.
There wasn’t much to do over the winter, but now as spring approaches they take the most incredible amount of time.”

“That is what I suspected
.
And what will you be doing after that?”

“I suppose I’ll read over this treatise on drainage and write to my estate manager with my suggestions.”

“Why?”

Wulf settled back in his chair and looked at her with bafflement
.
She was no longer a young women, but surely not old enough to be addled.

“Why, because that’s what I have to do.”

“Why?”

This was getting to be too much
.
He glared at her.

She lifted her chin
.
Was Rose giving lessons?

“M
ajor
Huntington, what is you’re wife doing?”

“I am afraid I really couldn’t say
.
She finished her own accounts and left.”

“She is pounding a needle through her embroidery as if she were shelling an enemy encampment.”

“I am failing to see your point.”

“As I said
,
you are a fool.”

“Lady Smythe-Burke, would you please come to the point.”

“Let me try to phrase this in a way that your limited masculine brain can understand
.
Never did I have this problem with Sir William or Burberry
.
What would you like to be doing?
”
She glanced at the piled history books on the corner of his desk
, and at the scrunched missive describing the difficulties Mitter was encountering
.
“And what would your wife like to be doing?”

His mind was caught on her previous statement
.
“You know Sir William, my stepfather
?
You knew Burberry?”

“Of course
.
Do you think everything just happens by chance
?
Although my actually getting to watch the show, that I hadn’t planned
.
Can’t complain though
.
I did earn almost ten thousand pounds betting on you
.
Now think about what I’ve said
.
I am planning to return to London on the morrow
.
I am beginning to find country life dull
.
Wedded bliss just lacks thrill,” she smile
d
innocently at him, “unless of course, it’s your own.”

She smiled at him one more time, then left the room, muttering about men, fools, green eyes, and why didn’t women run the world . . . a good idea that.

Wulf began to smile to himself as the full import of her words sunk in
.
He and his dear managing wife had been well managed
.
His dear
,
managing wife
.
He looked at the pile of scribbled notes and figures before him, at the mile of land management tracts waiting to be read, and then over at her own neat desk, with every book and pen in its proper place
.
She was never behind in her ledgers or knowledge of the latest farming techniques
.
He glanced at the latest long missive from his estate manager
.
He truly was a fool
.
He bet she
knew what to do about slugs
.

He stood and walked to the door and down the hall to the morning room
.
Three
blonde
heads bent over needlework
.
The first and blondest presided over an increasing
ly
intricate tapestry of
flowers and birds bursting life-
like off the page. The second and smallest shoved the needle with great force and little skill, her small foot kicking at the tin soldiers scattered around her feet
.
And the last, his Rose, sewed with some skill, but many muttered and colorful curses.

“Rose.
”
Her head jerked up at his words, and she cursed again as she pricked herself on the needle.

“Rose, I was wondering if you could come help me with some
of
my accounts. I can’t seem to get the sums to balance in the copies my manager sent up
.
And then I could use some advice on whether to try one of the new strands of wheat in my upper fields.”

A smile that rivaled that one she’d given him all those months ago, the night before their wedding spread across her face
.

“If you want me to I’d be pleased to help.”

She rushed towards him as if afraid he’d change his mind.

He caught her tight to him
.
“Have I ever told you, my lady, my dearest lady, how much I love you?”

The smile that could not have grown bigger, did.

This time it was she
, unmindful of the two blond
e
heads discretely still bent over their needlework, who kissed him showing him without words just how she felt about his statement, about him, and about the world they’d created – together.

*****

Keep reading for an
excerpt from
Taste of Desire
,
the last book of
The Desire Series
.

Coming February 2013
!

The Desire Series

  
Hint of De
s
ire

   Price of Desire

   Taste of Desire

     
(coming
February 2013)

A Talent for Sin

Bound by Temptation

Taken by Desire

What a Duke Wants

The Real Duchesses of London

 
Kathryn, the Kitten

   Linnette, the Lioness

   Elizabeth, the Enchantress

   Annabelle, the American

Prologue

Cornwall, 1816

Minerva, Lady Harburton, tipped her glass to him across the ballroom.  He watched as she let her lips linger on the edge, parted her mouth further, and then slid her tongue artfully along the rim.  She lowered her eyelids and let her shoulders roll forward, displaying the upper swells of a monumental bosom above the emerald silk of her bodice.

He should have been titillated, or at least intrigued.  In fact, Tristan St. Johns, Marquess of Wimberley, had pursued this moment for weeks.  He knew he had only to breathe seduction, and Lady Harburton would spill all her secrets. 

At last he would learn whether the Lady or her family had traded the King’s secrets to Napoleon.

He took a step towards her.  Her smile broadened.  Why did he feel shackles around his ankles?

She was a beautiful if overblown woman.  She was married, but that had never before been an impediment.  A quick tumble with a willing and experienced woman, a tryst that might solve the puzzle he long worried at – it was a small price for so great a prize.

Lady Harburton stepped towards him.  He waited and she drew closer, the lioness approaching the tethered sheep, not seeing the trap about to be sprung. 

He could smell her heavy scent, see the powder and rouge that marked her face.  She licked her lips again and it was impossible to miss the innuendo of the gesture.  She giggled like a schoolgirl and lay her hand upon the embroidered velvet of his jacket.

“It is so hot inside this evening, my lord.”  She snuggled closer as she spoke.  “Don’t you long for a cool breeze?”

“I would confess the room is a trifle stifling, but what is one to do?”  Tristan held still as she moved until her breast brushed along his arm.  He shot a glance around the ballroom.  He had always believed in discretion.  His friend Wulf strode around the edge of the room, no doubt seeking their hostess, Lady Burberry.  Minerva’s husband was deep in a corner, involved in conversation that almost certainly centered on horseflesh.  Everyone else was engaged in his own small social sphere.  Nobody was watching.

Minerva followed his glance.  “Don’t worry; nobody cares what we do.  I should tell you that I have a corner room, where the breeze positively caresses the bed.  It really is most invigorating.  It’s at the end of the blue hallway if you should care to experience it.  I know I positively must get out of this dress and lie down.”

She didn’t give him a chance to answer, but rubbed her breast hard against him so that he could feel the peaked nipple beneath the silk.  Then she turned and, with a quick flounce of her skirts, headed towards the hall.

Tristan leaned back against the wall and wished he could close his eyes.

It was all just so much bloody work.  A man never got the chance to rest.  Still, he had a job to do, and he would do it well.  He sucked in a deep breath and pulled himself upright.  He’d give Minerva five minutes and then follow.

It wouldn’t hurt to have another brandy first.
             

He turned, and stopped.

She stood at the top of the stairs, hair made of moonbeams and a shy curve of lip that could have lured foxes from the den.  Her gown was blue and straight – but that was all he noticed.  She glowed as if she were lit by stars as she slowly descended the stairs. 

Miss Marguerite Wilkes.

She was his hostess’s younger sister.  He’d seen her before.  Been introduced.  But now she rendered him speechless, thoughtless.  Innocence.  Beauty.  Wonder.  Integrity.