very pores, heightening his senses, so that he was aware only of the woman standing so proudly beautiful before him.
‘Must we continue to argue about this, Mariah?’ His voice lowered huskily even as he took a step forward.
Her gaze became guarded as she tilted her head further back in order to be able to look up at him. ‘I have not given you permission to use my first name,’ she bit out frostily. ‘Nor am I aware of any argument between the two of us. You have made a request and I have discounted the very idea of there ever being any sort of alliance between your brother and myself. As far as I am concerned, that is an end to the subject.’
Darian drew in a deep breath. ‘I do not see how it can be, when Anthony seems so set upon his pursuit of you.’
Mariah was not at all happy at the way Darian Hunter had moved so much closer to her. So close, in fact, that she felt as if her personal space had been invaded. And not in an altogether unpleasant way.
Her years of marriage to Martin had been extremely difficult ones, so much so that in the early years of their marriage she had preferred to remain secluded in the country. Maturity had brought with it a certain confidence, a knowledge, if you will, of her own powers as a woman, if not in regard to her husband, then at least towards the attentions shown to her by other gentlemen. With that confidence had come the art, the safety, of social flirtation, without the promise of there ever being anything more.
It was a veneer of sophistication that had stood her in good stead since Martin’s death five years ago, when so many other gentlemen had decided that the now widowed and very wealthy Countess of Carlisle would make them an admirable wife.
As if Mariah would willingly forgo the newfound freedom and wealth that widowhood had given her, in order to become another man’s wife and possession!
Oh, she knew well the reputation she had in society, of a woman who took as her lover any man she chose. Knew of it, because it was a reputation she had deliberately fostered; if Mariah Beecham was known only to take lovers, rather than having any intention of ever contemplating remarrying, then the fortune hunters, at least, were kept at bay.
Occasionally—as now!—a gentlemen would attempt to breach those walls she had placed about herself and her private life, but to date she had managed to thwart that interest without offence being taken on either side.
Even on such brief closer acquaintance, she knew that Darian Hunter, the powerful Duke of Wolfingham, was not a man to be gainsaid by flirtatious cajolery or, failing that, the cut direct.
And he was currently standing far too close to Mariah for her comfort.
‘I have already told you that you must speak with your brother further on that subject, Wolfingham.’ Mariah tilted her chin challengingly. ‘Now if you would kindly step aside? As I have said, it is now my wish to return to my other guests.’
Instead of stepping away Darian took another step forward, at once assailed by the warmth of Mariah Beecham’s closer proximity and the aroma of that exotic and unique perfume. ‘And do you always get what you wish for, Mariah?’ he prompted huskily.
The nerve fluttered, pulsed, in the slender length of her neck, as the only outward sign of her disquiet at his persistence. ‘Rarely what I wish for,’ she bit out tersely, ‘but invariably what I want!’
‘And what is it that you want now, I wonder?’ Darian mused as he continued to breathe in, and be affected by, her heady perfume. ‘Can it be that your air of uninterest and detachment is but a ruse? And that secretly, inwardly, you long for a man who will take the initiative, take control of the situation? To take control of you?’
‘No!’ the countess gasped, her face having paled in the moonlight.
His brow rose. ‘Perhaps you protest too much?’
‘I protest because it is how I genuinely feel,’ she assured vehemently. ‘I am no gentleman’s plaything, to be controlled.’
‘No?’ One of Darian’s hands moved up of its own volition, with the intention of cupping the smooth curve of her cheek.
‘Do not touch me!’ She flinched back, her eyes huge turquoise pools now in the pallor of her face.
Darian frowned at her vehemence. ‘But I should very much like to touch you, Mariah.’
‘I said, do not touch me!’ Her expression was one of grim determination as she reached up and attempted to physically push Darian away from her.
It was now Darian’s turn to gasp, to lose his breath completely, as one of her tiny hands connected with his recently injured and painfully aching shoulder, causing pain such as he had never known before to burst, to course hotly, piercingly, through the whole length and breadth of his body.
He clasped his shoulder as he staggered back, his knees in danger of buckling beneath him at the depth of that pain, black spots appearing in front of his eyes even as his vision began to blur and darken.
‘Wolfingham? Tell me what is wrong.’
Mariah Beecham’s voice seemed to come from a long distance away as the darkness about Darian first thickened, then became absolute.
Darian felt totally disorientated as the waves of darkness began to lift and he slowly awakened.
Quite where it was he had awakened to, he had no idea, as he turned from where he lay on the bed to look about the unfamiliar bedchamber.
It was most certainly a feminine room, decorated in pale lavenders and creams, with delicate white furnishings and lavender brocade curtains at the windows and about the four-poster bed on which he currently reclined, the pillows and bedclothes beneath him of pale lilac satin and lace.
It was Darian’s idea of a feminine hell!
Certainly he felt ridiculous lying amongst such frills and fancies. Nor did he remember how he came to be here in the first place.
He recalled attending the Countess of Carlisle’s ball, dancing with her, and then that heated conversation with her on the terrace. Followed by the excruciating pain, and then—nothing. He remembered absolutely nothing of what had happened beyond that.
Either he was still at Mariah Beecham’s home, which, considering their argument, he doubted very much, or he had gone on to a club or gaming hell, where he had drunk too much, before spending the night with some woman. Both would be uncharacteristic; Darian never drank too much when he was out and about in the evening, nor did he bed random women.
As such, neither of those explanations seemed likely for his current disorientation.
He struggled to sit up, with the intention of removing himself from his hellish surroundings. All to no avail, as he found it impossible to move his left arm.
Glancing down at the source of the problem, Darian realised that he was wearing only his pantaloons. His jacket, waistcoat, his shirt and his boots had all been removed and his left shoulder was now tightly strapped up in a white bandage, his arm immobilised in a sling across the bareness of his chest.
‘And
