him off the entire thought of it. Oh, he knew marrying well was his duty, and he had every intention of fulfilling that duty, but for some strange reason he needed to know that he was wanted for something more than just his title and wealth.
“I know. But I cannot abide all these marriage-hungry mothers, throwing their dreary daughters at me. It’s appalling. I spent most of the evening outside to get away from the matchmakers.” His hands set her long hair free from its knot atop her head, sending it cascading in dark silky waves around them.
She made mocking tsk, tsk sounds as she teased him. “Poor baby. Women falling at your feet. All men should have such troubles.” Her sheer negligee barely covered her as she stretched her lithe dancer’s body on top of him.
He laughed with ease and kissed her, but inwardly he wished Lily understood what he meant. He wanted something special. Something different from anything he had yet to find. And not for the first time this evening, an image of Caroline Armstrong flashed through his mind.
“You have to marry, and once you do, all these women will leave you alone. Or so one would think.” Her long fingers caressed the masculine line of his jaw. “You’re too handsome by far, Alex.”
He took Lily’s hand in his and kissed her fingers one by one. It seemed throughout his childhood he was reminded that he would inherit the highly vaunted title of Duke of Woodborough one day. To that end, he never knew if he was valued for himself or for his title.
“Just get married. Just get married. Carry on the family name. Have sons. Pass on the title. That is all I have heard my whole life. It was my father’s dying wish to me last summer, and it was my father who began all this nonsense with the Maxwells in the first place, all the while knowing that I had no desire to marry that spoiled, vain, little twit. Now it seems that every female of my acquaintance has taken it upon herself to see that I get married.”
“So marry someone,” Lily suggested, placing feathery kisses along his jawline until she encountered his ear, where she began to nibble delicately, which she knew from years of experience that he adored.
“Do you think I haven’t thought about doing that? But I cannot marry just anyone.”
She began to undo the buttons of his finely starched, white shirt. “Men do it all the time. Choose some biddable young girl with a pretty face, a good family, and a large dowry, and marry her,” she said somewhat sarcastically.
He playfully swatted her bottom. “I don’t wish to marry someone simply because she has the proper pedigree. These empty-headed girls only want me for my title and my money. They don’t want to know me. Who I really am. I need something more from a wife. I want to marry…” His voice trailed off as he thought of a green-eyed beauty who did not wish to marry.
Lily suddenly stilled her movements, her heartbeat increasing its pace. “You’re actually looking for a love match, aren’t you?”
He caught her hands in his. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I am.” With a brooding look, he formed into words the thoughts that had been buried within him for years. “I’ve seen too many marriages turn out badly, full of bitterness and anger. I want a marriage similar to the one my parents shared. They truly loved each other and were genuinely happy together. Why should I have to settle for less to fulfill an ancestral obligation? I want to marry someone I actually wish to spend my time with. Someone intelligent and passionate. Not one of these mindless girls on the marriage mart.”
Lily blinked, her dark eyes wide. He had never talked of his feelings about marriage to her before. Being a realist, she knew he could never marry her, a common dancer from the East End slums of London, nor had she expected it of him. She clearly understood that a duke had to marry. It was his familial duty. However, she cherished the idea that one day he might love her. She wouldn’t care if he married some dim-witted society girl like Madeline Maxwell. A girl like that could never make him happy, which is precisely why she didn’t mind. He could keep his little society wife and still love Lily. She had loved this man for five years and, if she knew nothing else, she knew without a doubt that if he married for love then it would be over between them. “What if you don’t find that someone?” she asked in a breathless whisper.
He smiled seductively and tugged at the silken ties of her negligee, revealing her creamy white breasts. “Then I’ll remain a bachelor all my life.”
Lily placed her mouth on his and kissed him with an eager need, and he pulled her against his aroused body, blocking all thoughts of marriage from their minds.
CHAPTER 4
The Fairchild townhouse was awash with fresh flowers the morning after the Maxwells’ ball. While Olivia, Emma, and Caroline sat sipping chocolate in the pale yellow morning room and discussing the night’s events, bouquet after bouquet had been arriving for Emma with cards enclosed from suitors announcing their intentions to call upon her.
No flowers had come for Caroline.
“I do wish you had felt better last night,” Emma said with a note of sadness in her voice. At seventeen, Emma had a pretty face, an impish disposition, and laughing hazel eyes. She was proud of the hearts she had won at her very first ball. “Half of these flowers should rightfully be yours, Caroline. You never gave any of the gentlemen a chance really.”
“I just wasn’t feeling well,” Caroline said with forced cheerfulness as she refilled her cup with chocolate. “There will be other balls and I will dazzle all the men there.” She curled up on the comfortable, chintz-covered sofa.
Olivia shook her head with a frown, clearly disappointed by Caroline’s lack of admirers. She had expected her beautiful granddaughter to be a success. “I am afraid the damage may already be done, Caroline. I told you that your first appearance of the Season would be the most important. First impressions are the most lasting, my dear, and you were acting quite old-maidish last night. Gentlemen do not find that very attractive. You won’t get a husband acting that way.”
That was the whole point, Caroline thought to herself.
“Isn’t it astonishing that Madeline Maxwell refused the Duke of Woodborough’s proposal?” Emma changed the subject with ease. “They say the duke was so dejected that he left the ball early.”
Caroline’s head turned sharply in her sister’s direction. “The Duke of Woodborough isn’t going to marry Madeline Maxwell?” she asked, aware that her voice sounded unusually high and that her heart began to beat faster.
“No! The engagement is off! Lady Madeline refused his offer. It was all anyone was talking about,” Emma gushed, her face alive with the excitement of sharing such scandalous information. “How could you not have heard?”
“I’m not sure,” Caroline murmured, realizing she had been too lost in her own thoughts of standing on the balcony in the arms of the duke to notice anything else last night. If Alexander Woodward was not marrying Madeline and he was kissing Caroline, what did that mean? He certainly didn’t seem dejected! Recalling his dark eyes looking at her, teasing her in the moonlight, the duke seemed very self-assured. In fact, he was a little full of himself. No, he was not acting the least bit dejected.
“She’s a very foolish girl if you ask me,” Olivia added pragmatically. “But then she takes after her mother. I was never fond of Ellie Maxwell.”
Fraser, the Fairchild butler, entered the morning room carrying an extravagant arrangement of gardenias in an elegant crystal bowl. The sweet fragrance of the delicate, white blooms
