The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (22 page)

Then he brushed a kiss to her ear. “Lisette, my wild French rose . . . you’re a wonder,”
he murmured, his mouth trailing languid kisses over her hair and down her neck.

A powerful embarrassment overtook her, and she ducked her head against his shoulder
to hide her flaming cheeks, which was ludicrous because it was dark. What had she
done? She had sworn not to let him this close, and now . . .

He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe her hand. After he had also
wiped his own, she took the handkerchief from him to wipe her thigh.

Mortification swamped her. What was wrong with her? How could she have encouraged
this, reveled in it? Was it because of pleasures like these that Maman had become
so enthralled by Papa?

Men were devils. Amazing, sweet devils who made a woman forget who she was.

“Lisette . . .” he began in a low voice.

Gaslight suddenly flooded the carriage. She jerked her gaze to the window to see houses
flashing past them. They were in a town, and now the coach was slowing down.

“Oh no,” she whispered, “we’re stopping to change horses!” Had that much time passed
already?

Muttering a string of French curses that would have done Maman proud, she vaulted
off his lap and onto the other seat, then began dragging her skirts down.
He was cursing, too, as he hurriedly rebuttoned his breeches.

“We should have drawn the curtains,” he grumbled.

“No. We shouldn’t have . . . have . . . done what we did at all.” Good Lord, she didn’t
even know what to call what they’d just done.

He stared at her, his jaw going taut. “Right,” he clipped out. “You’re right.”

Her heart sank. He didn’t have to agree with her so readily. And how could he regret
it already? Not that she could blame him.
She
regretted it already.

Didn’t she?

The carriage halted in an innyard, and the grooms hurried to change the horses. To
her shock, Max opened the door and leaped out. “Dinner was hours ago,” he said as
he held the door open for her. “I’ll get a supper packed up for us. And you probably
want to visit the necessary.”

Though both suggestions were considerate, they took her aback, coming on the heels
of what they’d just done. But she nodded her agreement, incapable of speech as she
snatched up her reticule and let him help her down. In a few blessed moments they
were inside the inn where she could flee him, at least temporarily.

The coaching inn had a rather nicely appointed retiring room for ladies, which was
abandoned at the moment. Thank God. A glance in the mirror told her she looked a fright
even by candlelight, her bonnet missing and her hair mussed and her lips a bright
red from Max’s many kisses. Anyone who looked at her
would know her instantly for the shameless wanton she was.

Then again, she was supposedly married.

A mad laugh escaped her. Well, at least there was that. And Max was even behaving
like a husband, going right from touching and caressing her to talking about fetching
supper. How like a man! He’d had his pleasure, and now he was ready to have his belly
filled.

You had your pleasure, too.

She swallowed. Yes. She’d behaved like some trollop, letting him touch her all over,
caress her all over, kiss her until she ached and yearned and—

Stop that!
she chided as her body began to melt all over again, just remembering the things
he’d done. She wasn’t supposed to let some arrogant Englishman make her feel like
this, all because he’d given her pleasure and she’d done the same to him.

Glaring at her offending hand, she bit out a curse, then filled the washbasin from
the pitcher nearby and began scrubbing her hand with the soap, as furiously as Lady
Macbeth could ever have done. When she’d rubbed it raw, she lifted her skirts and
washed her thigh.

Odd how her body looked exactly the same as before, but it felt so utterly different.
She
felt utterly different.

That’s when the tears began to flow. Truth was, she would do it again if she had the
chance. Not merely because she’d enjoyed it, but because Max had been the one giving
her the enjoyment. Somewhere along the way, what he thought of her had begun to matter.
She’d begun wanting him to . . . to desire her. No, to
care
for her.

How utterly foolish. She knew better! A duke of his consequence could never feel anything
but desire for a woman like her. And that wasn’t what she wanted. Or it wasn’t
all
she wanted, anyway.

She dried her hands and blew her nose, then set about making herself look more presentable.
Time was ticking away and they had to put as many miles between them and Hucker as
possible, but she felt an urgent need to return everything to the way it was.

For a moment, she stared at herself. Her eyes were red, but she looked halfway decent.
Unfortunately, she still smelled of . . . of what they’d done, the way Maman’s bedroom
had always smelled after Papa’s visits.

With a groan, she jerked out her scent bottle and dabbed some perfume on her wrists,
then added some to her neck for good measure. She’d probably overdone it, but she
didn’t care. It was better than smelling of something that would remind him of what
they’d been doing. Because she absolutely could
not
let herself fall into the same trap with him as Maman had done with Papa.

When she returned to the coach, Max was waiting to help her in. If he noticed her
heavy perfume, he didn’t say anything. And once they were in the carriage together,
a different scent took over—a heavenly one of baked goods and roasted meat from the
box he’d set on the floor.

“I prevailed upon the innkeeper’s wife to sell us some leftovers from dinner,” Max
said in a low rumble. “She even included a bottle of wine.”

Lisette hadn’t realized until she smelled the food
how truly hungry she was. That might even explain her headache earlier.

As the coach set off, Max pulled out a crusty loaf of bread, some pont l’évêque cheese,
and a couple of roasted pigeons wrapped in paper. She fell on the meal like a ravenous
dog, partly because she was hungry and partly to avoid talking to him.

After a few moments, she became aware that he wasn’t eating quite so avidly. Instead,
his gaze was fixed unnervingly on her. Normally she would relish the French cheese
and bread that she’d dearly missed in London, not to mention pigeons cooked with some
flavor to them and not in the boring fashion of the English. But having him watch
her so intently dampened her enjoyment.

“About what happened earlier, Lisette—”

“No, we don’t need to talk about it. I understand.” She couldn’t bear to hear him
speak the usual lies; she’d just as soon pretend it hadn’t happened.

She bent forward to remove an apple from the box, but he caught her by the arm to
stay her. “We
do
need to talk about it, and you
don’t
understand. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I need you to know that I—”

“I
know
!” Snatching her arm free, she hunched back into the seat and drew her cloak about
her like a shield. “I already know what you’ll say. That it was a mistake. That we
shouldn’t have gotten carried away. And I agree.” She forced a lightness into her
tone that she didn’t feel. “We enjoyed ourselves, but it didn’t mean anything.”

“It damned well meant something to me,” he ground out.

“Did it? What, exactly?” When he let out a curse and glanced away, she added, “You
don’t have to say it. You enjoyed . . . what we did together, but you’re a duke and
cannot marry someone like me.”

His gaze shot back to her. “That’s not what I would say.” He dragged in a heavy breath.
“All right, I can’t marry you, but not because of who you are, because of your parentage
or station or any of that rot. Not even because I’m a duke. I just . . . can’t.”

That was why she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, curse him! She was already growing
to care for him deeply, and she couldn’t stand the humiliation—the pain—of hearing
exactly how little he cared.

“As I said,” she bit out, “I understand. So there’s no reason to speak of it any further.
You can’t marry me and I don’t
want
to marry you, so—”

“You truly have no desire to marry me.” His hands flexed on his knees as if he fought
the urge to reach for her. Or throttle her. “Not even a little?”

What did he want? For her to beg him to marry her so he could trample all over her
pride while he continued on with his
I can’t marry you
? She would not do it! “No, Your Grace, not even a little. I like you, but I’m not
seeking a husband. So let’s just forget what happened earlier, shall we?”

“You can do that?” he said, his voice suddenly ragged. “Because I don’t think I can.”

“You will have to. I refuse to engage in an affair, and you have no interest in anything
else. So once again, we
find ourselves at an impasse. Except that I don’t think this particular impasse can
be resolved.”

He dragged one hand through his hair, then offered a tight nod. “Perhaps you’re right.
Perhaps it
would
be better if we try to forget what happened.”

“Yes, I think that would be best,” she choked out, then steadied her shoulders. “Now,
didn’t you say there was wine?”

His eyes glittered at her in the dim light of the carriage, and for one long, tempting
moment, she thought for sure he would throw caution to the winds and drag her into
his arms and kiss her again. And if he did, she knew she would not have the strength
to resist.

But he didn’t. With a shuddering breath, he turned to hunt in the box.

As she watched his bent head glistening golden in the moonlight and remembered how
sweetly he’d kissed her, her throat ached with unshed tears and her heart felt ripped
from her chest. Yes, it
would
be best if she forgot how he’d stroked her and caressed her and called her pretty
names. It really would.

So it was a wretched shame that there was no chance in hell of that ever happening.

M
AXIMILIAN SAT THERE
numb, long after Lisette had fallen into a fitful sleep. He’d handled the whole thing
badly. First he’d accused her of all manner of perfidy and behaved like a jealous,
besotted fool, then he’d nearly taken her innocence, and finally he’d made that idiotic
speech about not being able to marry her.

No wonder she’d withdrawn from him to cloak herself in her pride.

If
that was what she’d been doing. Perhaps she’d really meant it when she said she had
no desire to marry him. Given what she’d endured watching her father muck up her mother’s
life, it would be understandable.

But he’d gone to the retiring room to fetch her, and heard her crying through the
door. The sound of those tears still echoed in his brain. No, she hadn’t meant it.

It was one more measure of how different she was from other women. Any other woman
would have pressed her advantage, tried to extract some promise of
a future from him after he’d put his hands all over her so insolently.

Not his Lisette. She was too proud for that. Instead she went off and cried her heart
out alone. And even knowing that, he had still hurt her.

He
was
an insensitive, arrogant arse.

At the very least, he should have revealed why he couldn’t marry her. He should have
told her that both his great-uncle and his father had died raving mad, that odds were
good he would as well, and that she would
not
enjoy watching it.

But after hour upon hour of having the woman treat him like a regular person, he hadn’t
wanted to give that up. Because if she knew the truth, she would look at him the same
way every other woman did—as the duke who was sure to degenerate into madness any
moment.

At least other women weighed the advantages of being married to a rich duke against
the possibility of madness and sometimes chose to ignore the latter. But she didn’t
care about the former, so she would only see the latter. That would kill him. Better
to have her think him an arse.

Not only an arse but a heartless rogue.

What had she said?
I refuse to engage in an affair, and you have no interest in anything else.

Little did she know. The idea of marrying Lisette had begun to have an intoxicating
appeal. He knew it would only end in tragedy, yet he couldn’t stop imagining what
it would be like.

She would turn the
ton
on its ear. Ladies would gossip endlessly about her, and when they realized she didn’t
care a whit, they would lionize her. Because the
ton
always worshipped whoever had no use for them, especially when that person was the
wife of a wealthy duke.

In those long, lonely nights at Marsbury House, he would have her to hold, her to
joke with, her to tease. He would no longer have to lie in his bed waiting for the
madness to start. She would distract him from it.