gown she wore this evening was positively virginal in comparison with the other ladies’ attire.
Mariah had seemed relieved rather than disappointed when his glowering presence beside her had kept all other gentlemen at bay this evening.
She had been as disgusted as he by the sexual play they had witnessed during dinner and since.
Lastly, he would swear that her responses just now, to his kisses and the caress of his hands, lips and tongue, had been completely without guile or pretence.
As had her dismay when she realised that Richard Nichols had been watching them.
‘It could have,’ she choked now. ‘It could have!’
Mariah pulled out of Wolfingham’s arms before standing up abruptly, knowing, that if Richard Nichols had not played his hand too early, that she had been on the brink—the very brink!—of allowing her emotions to rule her head.
She had wanted Darian Hunter to make love to her.
She had hungered for it.
Had been so lost to the pleasure of his hands and mouth, of wanting that pleasure to continue, that she had almost been on the point of begging him to make love to her!
It was incomprehensible.
Unbelievable.
Unacceptable!
She did not find pleasure in a man’s arms, in his closeness, in his lovemaking. She never had. She never would. How could she when the single memory of that act was of the violation of her body rather than pleasure?
When Martin Beecham, the man who had later become her husband, had forced himself upon her shortly before her seventeenth birthday.
A rape of her body and her soul of which Christina was the result, thus forcing Mariah into becoming Martin’s wife.
‘What is it, Mariah?’ Darian questioned sharply as he stood up.
He made no move to touch her again; Mariah now looked so fragile, in her emotions as well as her body, that he feared she might crumple and fall at his feet if he attempted to place so much as a finger upon her.
‘You can ask me that?’ she choked out incredulously, those turquoise eyes glittering brightly in the pallor of her face. ‘After learning that the two of us were to be nothing more than exhibits in the Nicholses’ peep show?’
He grimaced. ‘Only if we had proceeded to make love together. Which we have not.’
Mariah could no longer meet his gaze. ‘That does nothing to change the fact— Oh! Do you think anyone could have been behind those walls earlier this evening?’ she gasped, eyes wide as she twisted her gloved fingers together.
Darian shrugged. ‘I doubt, with the responsibility of his other guests, that Nichols would have found the time to come up the stairs and observe you dressing.’
‘I was referring to our conversation, Darian! Did we say anything in this room earlier that might have— Do you seriously think that weasel Nichols might have watched me bathing and dressing earlier this evening?’ Mariah’s face had taken on a sickly green hue at the thought of it.
‘As I recall, our conversation was perfectly innocuous earlier,’ he reassured. ‘I also think it more likely that Lady Nichols, after escorting us to our bedchambers, would have lingered upstairs to observe me!’ Darian’s mouth twisted with distaste for the very idea of having that pale blue gaze moving lasciviously over his naked body whilst he’d bathed and dressed earlier.
Mariah stilled. ‘You believe there to be similar peepholes in your own bedchamber? In all the bedchambers?’ she added aghast.
‘After tonight I believe the master and mistress of this house to be capable of anything! After all, this is not the Nicholses’ main country residence.’ He shrugged. ‘They do not bring their children here, for example, but leave them at their Norfolk estate with their nurse. Thank heavens for small mercies!’
Mariah thought of the other occasions when she had stayed in this house, totally unaware of the eyes that might have been secretly watching her. As she bathed. As she went about her toilette. As she stood completely naked before dressing.
She felt ill.
Unclean.
Violated!
As violated as she had been that night eighteen years ago when Martin had lured her into one of the private rooms at a ball they were both attending, locked the door behind them and then coldly and calculatedly assaulted her. Warning her after the event that no one would believe the word of the daughter of a minor landowner and merchant against an earl’s, if she were to accuse him of the deed.
Mariah had been but sixteen years old and was too frightened, too devastated, felt too unclean, to dare take the risk of telling anyone what Martin Beecham, the Earl of Carlisle, had done to her.
Most especially so as he had also warned her that he would repeat the violation, again, and then again, until such time as she was with child. Not because he particularly wished for an heir, but so that she was forced into marrying him, thus bringing a good portion of her father’s fortune into the marriage.
And it had all worked out perfectly for Martin, of course, because Mariah had become pregnant with that very first attempt. She had tried to tell her parents the truth then, but as promised, Martin had denied her accusation of his having forced her, claiming that she had been as eager as he for the coupling. He also insisted that she was merely frightened of the repercussions after the event, now that she found herself with child. Repercussions that would cease to exist when she accepted his offer of marriage.
Whether or not her parents had believed Mariah’s version of events had not mattered at this point, although she liked to think that they had; she was an only child and their relationship had always been a close one.
But whether they believed her or not, her mother and father had been left with no more choice in the matter than Mariah. She would have to accept the earl’s offer of marriage. A babe born seven months after the wedding could be overlooked by society and very often was! But if Mariah refused to marry the father of her child—the more-than-willing father!—then she would be ruined and both she and her parents ostracised from society.
Faced with those choices there had been only one decision that Mariah could make.
Marriage to the very man who had raped her.
Her body might not have been violated tonight, but her privacy, her very person, had.
She was no longer a girl of sixteen, of course, too frightened to accuse the person responsible for that violation. But the reputation she had nurtured in society, as the sophisticated and flirtatious Countess of Carlisle, would most certainly be in danger if she were to now voice her complaints to her host and hostess.
As her obvious shock now had already placed that reputation
