she’d tantalised him, trying to drive him wild enough to overcome his refusal to take her before they were wed. He’d insisted she deserved better than some furtive, hurried coupling in the library or garden, where her father or a servant might at any moment interrupt. When they finally tasted consummation, he wanted them to be able to love each other freely, at length and at leisure.
This time, he had been eager and she’d been...indifferent.
If he’d not had numerous ladies testify to his expertise as a lover, he’d have been unmanned by her total lack of response.
But that wasn’t quite right, he corrected himself. Her body had responded; of that, he was certain. But for some reason, she’d refused to allow herself to experience pleasure.
To punish him for coercing her into this, so he might not revel in her satisfaction at his hands?
He didn’t think so. She’d exhibited no triumph at having resisted his skill; there’d been nothing of gloating superiority in her being able to render him helpless with pleasure, while refusing to allow him to do the same for her.
Besides, though he might have had the bad taste to propose the liaison, he’d done nothing to force her into accepting. As she certainly knew, were she to have refused the offer, he would have left it at that.
Instead, it was almost as if she had withdrawn entirely, not permitting herself to experience pleasure.
How had the passionate girl he remembered come to this?
Was this startling transformation her late husband’s fault? For the first time he began to doubt his certainty that the account she’d given him of her marriage was a complete, or at least exaggerated, fabrication.
A sympathy he did not want to feel welled up in the wake of that doubt.
Stifling it, he jumped up and began to pace. There had to be some way to penetrate that wall of resistance. Break through to reach the body trembling for completion, and bring it to satisfaction.
If she’d been repulsed by him, or truly unresponsive, he would have, regretfully, dismissed her tonight. Instead, there’d been an intriguing disconnect between her will and her body’s arousal.
He’d hoped a few episodes would be enough to set him free of her. But he knew now with certainty that he could never let her go until he’d reached her, coaxed forth the response simmering beneath the surface, until she cried and shuddered in his arms with all the passion he’d not allowed himself to taste all those years ago.
How best to tempt her?
Pouring another glass of wine, he set himself to consider it.
* * *
Dismissing the sedan chair, Diana let herself into the townhouse and crept up to her chamber on legs that were still not steady. Summoning the maid to help her out of the gown—mercifully, the girl made no comment on hair that looked like an escapee from Bedlam had arranged it—she then dismissed her.
Sleep was out of the question. With her body still humming with awareness and her hard-won calm in tatters, she settled into the chair before the hearth, heart racing as she tried to determine what to do next.
Oh, she had been so right to fear letting Alastair Ransleigh get close to her! She’d thought, after eight years of fulfilling a man’s desires in whatever way demanded of her while mentally distancing herself from the activity, she would be able to service Alastair with detachment.
And so she had...but just barely.
The process had been much easier with the Duke, who had no interest in her physical satisfaction. In fact, he’d mentioned on several occasions that he thought it demeaning for a man to have a wife who disported herself in the bedchamber like a harlot; such behaviour was for strumpets, not for the high-born woman chosen for the honour of breeding the offspring of a lord.
Given his opinion, she might have been tempted to ‘disport’ herself on occasion, had it not meant lengthening the time she had to suffer his touch. As it was, she slowly perfected the ability to wall herself off from what was happening to her. Viewing actions, even as she performed them, as if she were a spectator observing them from afar had allowed her to tolerate the bedchamber requirements of her role.
But Alastair was not the Duke she hated. And hard as she tried to block out what he was doing, ignoring it had proved impossible. Alastair’s touch had been more veneration than violation, and it had taken every iota of self-control she’d developed over eight miserable years to keep herself from responding.
He’d always had the power to move her. She’d not allowed herself to remember that. Once she was irrevocably married, it would have been a cruelty beyond endurance to recall the joy of being caressed by a man whose touch thrilled her, while being forced to submit to intimacies with a man she loathed.
She’d given herself up to Alastair completely that halcyon summer, eager for him to possess her, arguing against waiting until after the wedding for them to become lovers.
She smiled wistfully. Would it have made any difference, had she not been a virgin when the Duke sought her out?
Probably not. He’d regarded her as a treasure like the Maidens of the Parthenon, and like them, she’d have been collected even if ‘damaged’. He’d merely have constructed an inescapable cage to prevent any lapses after marriage, and waited to bed her until he was sure she was not carrying another man’s child.
And simply disposed of the evidence, if she had been.
But that was neither here nor there, she told herself, pulling her focus back to the present. The problem was how to deal with Alastair Ransleigh now.
Perhaps if she had remembered how quickly and deeply Alastair affected her, she’d have armoured herself better to resist him. After this evening, she no longer suffered from that dangerous ignorance. So what was she to do to avoid another near-disaster?
Forbidding herself to react had simply not been effective. Especially since, unlike the Duke, he’d clearly wanted her to respond. Wanted to give her pleasure...as a gift?
Or was that to be the form of his revenge: making her respond to him, making her burn for his touch, then abandoning her, as she had abandoned him? Would he not be satisfied until he’d succeeded in doing so?
Could he succeed?
She didn’t want to feel anything. Not passion, not desire, not longing, not affection. Overcoming the forces ranged against her, doing what she could to safeguard the boy unlucky enough to be her son, would require all the strength she could muster. A wounded bird marshalling all her efforts to lead the predator away from her nest, she couldn’t afford to bleed away any of her limited energy in resisting Alastair Ransleigh.
His reappearance was a complication she didn’t need.
She could simply not see him again. Send him a note saying she’d changed her mind. Follow the instincts for self-preservation that were screaming at her to run. Unlike the Duke, who had ignored her refusals, she knew with utmost certainty that if she sent such a message, Alastair would let her go.
But that would be taking the coward’s way out. All these years, she’d promised herself that if she ever had the chance, she would do what she could to make amends
