She and Aubrey Maystone preferred to keep the true nature of their relationship private and as such it was rare for them to pass any time together in public. Indeed, they would not have done so this evening if Aubrey had not expressed a wish to speak with her urgently. A conversation that had been cut short by the arrival of Darian Hunter.
But the manner of the public acquaintance between Mariah and Lord Maystone was such that Wolfingham could not possibly have guessed that there was a deeper, more private, connection between the two of them. Could he?
Mariah was quickly learning that it would not be wise on her part, or anyone else’s, to underestimate the intelligence or astuteness of Darian Hunter.
‘My acquaintance with Lord Maystone is a long-standing one,’ she answered frostily. ‘Come about because he was once a friend of my late husband.’
‘And is that all he is to you?’
‘What are you accusing me of now, Wolfingham?’ Her tone was impatiently exasperated, deliberately so. ‘Do you imagine that I am currently enjoying a relationship with Lord Maystone, as well as your brother? Would that not make my bed very overcrowded?’ she added scathingly. ‘And what business would it be of yours, even if that were the case? I am a widow and they are both unattached gentlemen, so there is no prior claim to hinder the existence of either relationship.’ She gave a dismissive shrug.
A nerve pulsed in the duke’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘Except a moral one.’
‘You are a fine one to preach to me of morals, Wolfingham, when you are currently sporting the bullet wound you received whilst fighting a duel over some woman!’ Her eyes flashed in the candlelight.
Darian glowered his frustration down at her, wanting to deny the accusation, but knowing that to do so would then bring the real cause of that wound back into question. A question he would not, could not, answer.
Having no answer, he decided to act instead.
Although that was possibly an exaggeration on his part, when his arms seemed to have moved of their own volition as they encircled Mariah’s waist and he pulled her in close against the hardness of his body.
Her exotic perfume immediately filled all of his senses as his head swooped down to capture her lips with his own. Soft and delectable lips that had parted with surprise, so allowing for further intimacy as Darian’s tongue swept lightly across her lips before plunging into the heated warmth beneath.
She felt so slender in his arms, the fullness of her breasts crushed against his chest, her lips and mouth tasting of honey. A silky-soft sweetness and heat that drew Darian in even closer, as he attempted to claim, to possess, that heat as his own. To claim, to possess, Mariah as his own.
Mariah had been totally unprepared for Wolfingham taking her into his arms, let alone having him kiss her. So unprepared, that for several stunned seconds she found herself responding to that kiss as her hands moved up to cling to the lapels of the duke’s evening coat, her body crushed, aligned with Wolfingham’s, as his mouth continued to plunder and claim her own. Making her fully aware not only of the hardness of his chest, but also the long length of his arousal pressing against the warmth of her abdomen.
She allowed herself to feel a brief moment of triumph, at the knowledge, this physical evidence, that Darian Hunter, the coldly arrogant Duke of Wolfingham, was aroused by her. From holding her in his arms. From kissing her.
Those brief moments of triumph were quickly followed by ones of panic and a desperate need to free herself. A move she attempted to instigate as she now pushed against that hard and muscled chest even as she wrenched her mouth out from beneath that sensually punishing kiss. ‘Release me immediately, Wolfingham!’
Her eyes now gleamed up at him in the candlelight, her chest quickly rising and falling as she breathed heavily, having managed to put several inches between the hardness of his body and her own, but failing to release herself completely.
‘You are taking your protection of your brother too far, sir,’ she added fiercely as her hands against his chest kept him at a distance but he still made no effort to remove the steel band of his arms from about her waist.
A nerve pulsed in the tightness of his jaw. ‘This has nothing to do with my brother.’
‘It has everything to do with him.’
Darian was breathing heavily, unable to reason clearly as he looked down at Mariah, his mind and senses too full of her to form a coherent thought, other than the taste of her on his own lips and tongue. The feel of her soft curves against his much harder ones. The smell of her causing his body to throb and pound with need.
A need that the pallor of Mariah’s face in the candlelight, and over-bright turquoise eyes, said she did not reciprocate.
He gave a pained frown. ‘What did you think would happen when you invited me to join you alone here in the gallery, Mariah?’
‘Not this!’ Her breasts quickly rose and fell in rhythm with her agitated breathing as she continued to hold him at arm’s length. ‘Never this!’
Darian’s frown deepened to one of concern as he heard the underlying sob in her voice. ‘Mariah—’
‘I believe the lady has expressed a wish to be set free, Darian!’
Darian’s head whipped round at the sound of his brother’s harshly reproving voice, a scowl darkening his brow as he saw Anthony watching them from the shadowed doorway into the gallery, the expression on his brother’s face one of disgust as well as fury.
A disgust and fury Darian fully deserved, given the circumstances, of Mariah’s obvious distress and the feelings Anthony had previously expressed for the woman Darian now held in his arms.
Feelings that Darian had totally forgotten about in his need to claim Mariah’s lips for his own.
His arms fell heavily back to his sides as he stepped back and away from her, only to then reach out a hand to steady Mariah as she appeared to stumble.
‘Do not touch me!’ she lashed out verbally even as she pulled free of his grasp, twin spots of fevered colour now high in her cheeks as she turned away. ‘Accompany me back to Lady Stockton’s ballroom, if you please, Lord Anthony,’ she requested stiffly as she left Darian’s side to walk quickly down the gallery to take the arm his brother so gallantly offered her.
Anthony paused to give Darian a warning glance over the top of Mariah’s averted head. ‘I have changed my mind, Darian, and we will now talk again later tonight, rather than tomorrow morning.’
Darian recognised those words for exactly what they were: a threat, not a promise.
Darian found himself seated beside the fire at his club the following afternoon, after partaking of luncheon with two of his closest friends; Christian Seaton, the Duke of Sutherland, and Griffin Stone, the Duke of Rotherham.
‘You are saying the countess refused to see you when you called at Carlisle House this morning?’ Sutherland prompted lightly.
Darian scowled into the depths of his brandy glass.
