from his lips. Marry me. They rang in his ears even now.
Lunacy.
Devil take it. He couldn’t even use overindulgence as an excuse for replacing the carte blanche he’d first intended with an honourable offer. He’d been nowhere near cup shot.
The only reason he could attribute to that particular piece of madness was his desire to put his stepmother in her proper place for all time. To force her into the role of Dowager instead of allowing her to swan about as the reigning Duchess.
At least marriage had given him the satisfaction of imagining Isobel’s rage and fear at the thought that her darling son Luke would be supplanted as heir by a child of Alistair’s marriage.
Revenge, though, was not as sweet as he’d expected. Julia was too nice, too good, to have been dragged into a cold marriage of convenience. At least, she appeared so, up until now, but as Alistair knew to his cost women were not to be trusted. He’d learnt that the hard way.
In the meantime, it pleased him to torment his stepmother, despite that there would be no resulting children from his marriage. Not when he already had a son.
He let go a breath of impatience. He should not be lingering here.
Julia lifted her head from her work, glancing towards the door. ‘Your Grace?’
He ground his teeth at the sound of his title on her lips. She’d taken to using it since the day after their wedding ball when the ton had turned up to meet his new bride. No doubt every female of that august group had blistered Julia’s ears with stories of his depraved and dissolute past. That, compounded by his coldness towards her, must have brought home to her what a bad bargain she’d struck.
When he made no response, she looked down at the work on her lap with a shake of her head, clearly thinking she’d been mistaken.
This was his opportunity to beat the retreat and head off to his club.
What was he, then? A coward to be outfaced by a woman? His wife no less?
He strode into the room.
She looked up with a hesitant smile. Despite the shadows in her eyes, beauty shone in that smile. A welcome full of hope and promise. Her lips were lovely. Full and soft. Kissable. Sinful temptation, like the rest of her slender body with its graceful curves and its power to make him lose reason. Her skin was as soft as silk, he recalled, her limbs long and elegant, yet softly formed. He bit back a curse.
‘Good evening, Your Grace.’ A calm cool voice with a throaty, inviting quality that, like the rest of her, called to him on a visceral level. He could not hear her voice without recalling the passion of their night together. He half turned so she would not guess at the interest she aroused and propped an elbow on the back of the chair facing her across the hearth.
‘Good evening, my lady.’ He deliberately curled his lip, dropping his gaze to the scrap of cloth covered in coloured shapes and patterns in her lap. ‘What a picture of domesticity you are, my dear. It always astonishes me, the kind of things you ladies like to do with your hands.’ When they could be making so much better use of them.
Hades, could he not get his mind off fornication in her presence?
She must have heard the edge in his voice for she put the work aside. ‘I’m sorry. Does it annoy you?’ Cool civility edged each inflection. With each passing day, she became chillier, a little more reserved, exactly as he’d planned.
So why this irrational sense of disappointment? He’d always revelled in his bachelor life. His freedom to come and go as he pleased. Family obligations kept to a minimum. An unpleasant duty, to be avoided whenever possible. In his experience, when relations weren’t dunning one for money, they were stabbing one in the back. He ought to know, he’d done his share of knife work. His stepmother was still bleeding from the loss of her status.
Her gaze swept his person. ‘You are going out, I see. I wish you an enjoyable evening.’ She reached for her needlework.
His jaw clenched, even though she hadn’t asked a question. She’d quickly realised that he refused to be interrogated. About anything. Yet irrationally, he found her lack of interest cutting. ‘I am going to my club. I have arranged to meet friends.’ Why was he explaining when he had no reason to think she cared?
Her shoulders relaxed. A little.
She no doubt imagined him with an inamorata.
Blast. He’d forgotten to give Lavinia her congé. Yet another detail that seemed to have slipped his mind recently. He’d have Lewis, his secretary, take care of it first thing in the morning. Given that he hadn’t visited his mistress since before his wedding, she must already understand they were finished. He’d been bored by her weeks ago. Likely another reason he’d bid for Julia at the bordello.
‘I will let the staff know you will not be here for dinner,’ she said quietly.
Always quiet. Always controlled. It rubbed him the wrong way. Made him want to incite the passion he knew resided beneath the calm surface. But it was an urge he would never indulge again, given his promise. Distance was his watchword. Security hers. They were all he had to offer. All he wanted.
‘I informed Jackson.’ His valet.
A shadow passed across her face. Her lips tightened a fraction.
He ignored this faint show of annoyance. ‘What will you do while I am off having a jolly time?’
She glanced down at the needlework and back up to meet his gaze, her chin lifting a fraction. Defiance. She was a spirited woman, his wife. His body responded with a pulse of heat.
‘Perhaps I will select a book,’ she said. ‘There are several in the library I have not yet read.’
Hundreds more like. If he had wanted to be a good husband, he would be escorting her to balls and such. Introducing her to the people of his set. Yet he hadn’t been good since his teens. Wickedness for which he now paid the price.
The very thought of failing in his husbandly duty made him want to lash out. Not at her. But at something. Life, perhaps. The cruelty of the Fates. After all, it was not her fault they were married. The fault lay entirely with him. To mitigate the damage, the best he could do was keep her at a distance.
Because when he came close, when he inhaled her delicious scent of jasmine, touched the silk of her skin, basked in the warmth of her welcoming smile, she was far too tempting.
‘I bid you good evening.’ He bowed and left.
* * *
Julia frowned at the sprig of lilac she was embroidering on a handkerchief. Why had Dunstan married her if he held her in such contempt? If their one night together had not been so deliciously sensual, so different from her experiences with her first husband, she might never have agreed to his proposal.
Indeed, having suffered eight years of her husband’s brutality when he realised she was never going to give him the heir he so desperately wanted, she’d thought never to marry again. If not for her desperate straits, she would never have accepted Dunstan’s offer the way a drowning man clutched at a bit of flotsam.
He certainly had not avowed undying love or anything close. She’d perfectly
