say Mariah was flustered by Darian’s request would be putting it mildly. Especially when she had every reason to know that the arrogantly self-assured Duke of Wolfingham never ‘asked’ permission to do anything, let alone asked permission to kiss her. The notorious and scandalous Mariah Beecham, Countess of Carlisle...
She attempted a sophisticated and dismissive laugh, hoping Wolfingham did not recognise it, as she certainly did, as sounding more nervous than assured. ‘I thought we had agreed not to continue with that conversation until after we have returned to London.’ She gave a pointed glance to where her shawls and handkerchiefs were once again draped over those peepholes into her bedchamber, in order to preserve her privacy, both while she’d bathed and changed her clothes earlier.
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘I find that my desire to at least touch you again cannot wait that long.’
His desire to touch her again!
It was Wolfingham’s touch that had been her undoing from the beginning. Not just once, but so many times. On the terrace of her own home. In the guest bedchamber of her home, where he had necessarily to stay in order to recover after his collapse. In the gallery of Lady Stockton’s home. And here. Here at Eton Park she had allowed Darian to touch her more intimately than any other man had ever done before.
Mariah now feared her response to his touch.
Not because she thought Darian would ever physically hurt her—she was already sure he would never use force upon any woman. She had come to know him these past two weeks, knew he was not a man who showed his strength or power through physical dominance over others, but by the sheer force of his indomitable will.
No, she did not fear Darian would physically hurt her, as Carlisle had hurt and humiliated her, to such an extent she had never cared to repeat the experience.
Darian Hunter was capable of hurting her in a much different way.
She was not only aroused by him, felt desire for him, she also liked and admired him. His strength. His honesty. His family loyalty. His devotion to his country. He was, as she had learnt these past weeks, in all things an honourable man.
A man she might love.
And Mariah did not wish to love any man, even one as handsome and honourable as she now knew Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, to be.
The independence of nature she so enjoyed now had been hard won, after years of living only half a life, hidden away in the country, and for the most part ignored by the husband she hated and despised. For the past seven years, since revealing Martin’s treasonous behaviour to Aubrey Maystone, she had no longer had reason to fear Martin, or anything he might try to do to her. Aubrey Maystone had taken care of that.
For the first time in her life Mariah had done exactly as she pleased, her worthwhile work for the Crown enabling her to become a woman she could not only respect, but also like.
For her to fall in love, with any man, would, she believed, be to put all of that at risk.
To fall in love with Darian Hunter, the much respected and admired Duke of Wolfingham, would most certainly lead to heartbreak on the day he cast her aside and left her for another female who had caught his fancy.
Wolfingham might have a reputation in society as being severe and very proper, nor had there ever been any gossip as to his ever having taken a permanent mistress. But that did not mean there had not been other rumours, of his liaisons with several ladies of the ton, and the gaming hells and the houses of the demi-monde he had visited on the evenings he spent with the other Dangerous Dukes.
Dangerous.
Yes, where Mariah was concerned Darian Hunter more than lived up to his reputation as being dangerous. To her independence. To her untutored body. To her untouched heart.
And that she could not, dare not, allow.
‘Goodness, Wolfingham, where on earth has all this politeness and solicitude come from?’ she taunted him mockingly. ‘If it is because of our conversation earlier today, then let me assure you that it is of no consequence.’
‘No consequence?’
‘Absolutely none,’ she dismissed coolly in the face of his vehemence. ‘It was too many years ago to be of any significance to the here and now. Nor, as I assured you earlier, do I have need of anyone’s pity. Least of all your own,’ she added with deliberate scorn.
‘Least of all mine?’ Wolfingham’s eyes were steely now as he looked at her through narrowed lids.
‘But of course.’ Mariah returned that hard gaze with a challenging one of her own. ‘You really are arrogance personified if you believed otherwise. In the circumstances I described to you earlier, a woman can either grow stronger from the experience or allow herself to be beaten down by it. I am certain that by now you know me well enough to have realised which one of those women I have become?’ She arched haughty brows.
Oh, yes, Darian knew full well which one of those women best described Mariah. Her fortitude was only one of the reasons he admired and liked her so much. Desired her so much. A desire she was now at pains to inform him she wanted no part of.
To a degree she would not even give permission for him to so much as kiss or touch her again.
Was that avoidance not telling in itself?
Or was he simply grasping at straws, because he so much wished for Mariah to return his desire?
It was a question Darian intended to explore with all thoroughness once they were well away from Eton Park.
He nodded. ‘As it is almost five o’clock, might I suggest that we join the other guests downstairs for tea?’
A surprised blink of Mariah’s long dark lashes was her only outward sign that she was surprised at his ease in accepting her refusal. ‘But of course.’ She nodded graciously as she collected up her fan before sweeping past him and preceding him out of the bedchamber.
Darian smiled grimly as he followed her out into the hallway before offering her his arm to escort her down the stairs.
Mariah might believe him to have been routed by her set-down, but if she had come to know him half as well as he now knew her, then she would very soon realise that his patience, in achieving his goals, was infinite.
And his most pressing goal, desire, was to make love with Mariah.
‘If one knows where to look, it is almost possible to see the bruises in the shape of fingerprints upon Lord Nichols’s neck,’ Mariah remarked conversationally a short time later before taking a sip of tea from her cup, as she and Wolfingham sat together on a chaise in the Nicholses’ salon. Its placement by one of the windows allowed them to observe the other guests.
‘He’s lucky he still has a neck to bruise,’ Wolfingham muttered, the ice in his gaze the only sign of his displeasure, as he gave every outward appearance of relaxation, lounging on the chaise beside her.
Mariah chuckled softly. ‘I
