Of course, there remained the small, niggling notion that she wasn’t at all the sort of wife he’d intended to procure for himself. He had never meant to wed a woman who was as beautiful as she was maddening, as silly as she was seductive. A woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to achieve it. Yes indeed, there was something about Lady Stokey that rendered her a dangerous woman.
“Would you care for a whiskey?” Thornton asked, interrupting his thoughts. “You look as if you could use it.” He splashed some amber liquid in a glass and nudged it in Heath’s direction without bothering to wait for his response. “Besides, it’ll dull the pain of my fist connecting with your jaw. Supposing it’s required, of course.”
“Naturally.” Heath took the glass and tossed back a gulp. “I’m no fool, Thornton. I know I deserve a sound thrashing.”
“Yes,” his host said agreeably, having a healthy sip of his own whiskey. “You do.”
“But I hope we can dispense with the formalities,” he pressed onward, not truly relishing the thought of the marquis giving him a drubbing, regardless of how justified one would be. “Since Lady Stokey’s father is not present, it would seem I must ask for her hand in marriage from you.”
“I would be happy to act in Lord Northcote’s stead,” the marquis said, raising a brow. “I trust your offer is a serious one?”
In for a penny, in for a pound. He took another sip of whiskey. “Yes. It’s no secret that I’ve been looking for a bride. I would be honored to take Lady Stokey as my wife.”
“Honored?”
Bloody hell. The man needn’t sound so dubious. “I realize that circumstances have necessitated this proposal, but I do hold her in high esteem.”
“Good. As my wife’s sister, Lady Stokey’s future happiness is my chief concern,” he said. “Do you promise to make her happy?”
The question startled him. Ordinarily, peers of the realm discussed finances and dowry when arranging alliances. Even his interview with Bess’ father had been no exception. Happiness was not a prerequisite. Indeed, it wasn’t even a consideration. “I shall do my utmost,” he said simply, meaning the words.
It wasn’t his intention to wed Tia and make her miserable. After Bess, he’d given up on the idea of finding love again. It had taken him some years and a hell of a lot of guilt-banishing to realize Bess’ death didn’t mean he couldn’t find a comfortable union with another woman. He wanted a woman in his bed, a lady in his drawing room, a mother for his children. Tia would wear all those roles exceedingly well, he felt. That he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath didn’t precisely hurt either. He hadn’t wanted a cold, chaste marriage of duty only. He had no fear he’d suffer that fate with Tia.
The marquis nodded. “I’ll take you at your word, Devonshire. There is one more thing. My wife requested that I remind you that Lady Stokey is possessed of some funds of her own. I’m given to understand she would likely prefer to retain access to them during her marriage to you.”
It was another odd request, but one which didn’t trouble Heath in the least. He had his own funds. If Tia required funds for baubles and fripperies, he had no objections. He wasn’t marrying because he needed gold in his coffers. He was marrying for necessity and heirs. “She may retain her funds and dispense with them as she likes.”
“Excellent.” Thornton stood, his expression changing to one of relief. “Welcome to the family, Your Grace.”
Heath stood, knowing he’d done the right thing by Tia. Now all that remained was to get his little spitfire to agree to marry him. And he had the distinct feeling that it would prove quite a feat.
“I must what?”
Tia stared at her outraged sister, aghast. Cleo’s expression was most forbidding. Perhaps unforgiving as well. Tia knew this time she had gone beyond the pale, but that didn’t mean anyone could expect her to simply bow to the whims of society as if she didn’t have a free will.
“You must marry him,” Cleo repeated, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at her in the same way their nasty old governess, Miss Hullyhew, had whenever they’d been naughty. “There is no other alternative.”
She supposed a smarting ankle and wrist had become the least of her problems. “You cannot order me about as if I were your vassal, Cleo.” But of course, she knew her sister could and would, both because she was a sister and because Tia herself was a captive audience, trapped in her bed thanks to her latest misadventures.
“Lord Trotter saw you and the duke in bed together,” Cleo said, her voice accusatory but scarcely above a whisper, almost as if she feared someone would overhear them although they were alone in Tia’s private chamber with the door closed.
Tia winced at the reminder of their unwanted guest at the hunting cabin. “The duke was warming me. I caught a chill after being stranded in the rain. That is all the man could have seen.”
“Darling sister, please dispense with your protestations of innocence. You and I both know quite well that you weren’t innocently singing hymns in bed with Devonshire.”
“Of course we weren’t.” Tia sniffed. “I’m a dreadful singer.”
“Cease being obtuse,” her sister ordered, apparently not willing to allow her to brazen it out. “I warned you about your behavior with Devonshire. You know that Thornton and I are treading on extremely thin ice with society as it is. Not to mention the ramifications for poor Miss Whitney. And Bella. Dear heavens. Bella will slay you if you don’t do the proper thing and wed the duke.”
Marriage.
To Heath.
Tia frowned, considering the previously inconceivable prospect. She’d never thought to marry again, and certainly not if it wasn’t for love. Lord Stokey had quite cured her of the notion that marriage was an institution in which she would care to trap herself once more. Her widow’s portion was respectable. She flitted through life much like a butterfly, floating when and where she would with no man to demand her time. No troublesome rules. No tiring emotions. Not a single expectation.
She treasured her independence. It was a possession few women could claim to fully own. She wasn’t prepared to so quickly raise the white flag of defeat and simply bow to Cleo and Thornton’s wishes. There was also the matter of the duke not having asked for her hand.
“Devonshire hasn’t asked me,” she pointed out. “You said yourself that he came here to hunt for a bride. Men like the duke don’t wed a woman like me.” As she said the last, a pang crept through her heart. It was true, of course. But a small part of her rather wished it weren’t.
“You say that as if you’re a French whore.” Cleo’s eyes narrowed. “The lady doth protest too much.”
Damn it all. Why did her sister have to be so perceptive? Why couldn’t she have been blessed with a meek and dull-witted sibling instead? Tia sighed. “I’m merely speaking truth. Devonshire is likely searching for a young, innocent miss. I’m a widow. I’ve had lovers. I adore parties and dresses and the city, and he adores books and crumbling estates in the country. We’re quite opposite.” Most of these things she knew from what she’d heard of Heath, back when she’d traveled in the same circles without ever being kissed senseless by him in her bedchamber. Or carried in his arms. In truth, if she was honest with herself, she would admit that she knew very little of the man himself, other than that he was the best kisser she’d ever known and that he could make her weak with wanting by merely catching her in his blue gaze.
“Yet apparently none of the things you’ve just listed kept you from becoming lovers,” Cleo observed wryly, bringing Tia back to the conversation at hand. Or to be more precise, to her sister’s berating.
Well, yes. There rather was that. But lust could do powerful things to a woman. “Bed sport is different from an offer of marriage,” she insisted. “It’s one thing to have a spot of fun and quite another to be chained to a man as his chattel for the rest of my life.”
Cleo raised a brow. “You should have thought of that before you went about cavorting in hunting
cabins with the Duke of Devonshire.”
“I wasn’t cavorting. A lady of my age doesn’t cavort.” Of course, she did allow a wicked duke to have his way with her. Bother it all.
“You were, and you were seen.” Her sister’s frown was ferocious, letting Tia know she couldn’t easily cajole her way out of the predicament in which she now found herself firmly mired. “And I’ve heard enough of this claptrap that you’re too ancient for misbehavior and marriage. You’re only five-and-twenty.”
Drat Cleo for being so persistent. Tia’s head was beginning to ache. She needed some time alone with her thoughts. Some time to figure out her next course of action. Some time that didn’t involve being berated by her sister.“If you’re finished railing at me, I should like to get some rest. I’ve had a devil of a day.”
“You?” Cleo’s tone was indignant.
Tia winced. “It isn’t a trifling matter, getting caught out in the wilds of East Anglia in the midst of a raging rainstorm, you know.”
“Enough,” Cleo bit out.“I won’t entertain any further attempts on your part to garner my pity or to otherwise distract me. Thornton is having an interview with Devonshire at this very moment. Your fate is sealed, my dear. You will wed the duke, and that is that.”
Dear, sweet heavens.
he lady was being stubborn.
Heath cooled his heels in the yellow drawing room later the next evening, waiting for Tia to deign him worthy of her presence. Despite Lord and Lady Thornton’s most fervent efforts to oversee a meeting between Heath and Tia the day before—ostensibly to both ward off further scandal and to ensure a union was indeed forthcoming—Tia had pled a headache. She’d been unable to leave her chamber, thanks to her grievous injuries. After many frustrated attempts at coaxing Tia from her haven, Lady Thornton had conceded defeat. Her eyes had been snapping with fire as she’d announced to Thornton and Heath both that the lady would not be joining them.
Heath had considered sneaking to her chamber and persuading her in the best way he knew how, but he’d thought better of it, not wishing to do any further damage. Thus far, Lord Trotter had been willing to keep his knowledge to himself thanks to the clever manipulation of the marquis. But their time of reprieve was limited. Trotter’s silence was dependent upon an announcement being made.
An announcement that it seemed Tia wasn’t willing or ready to make.
He paced the length of the room, wondering if he’d be forced to simply go to her chamber and extract her from it himself. She had finally agreed to a meeting sans the marquis and marchioness. Thornton and his wife had acquiesced, seemingly at their wits’ end.
But that had been—he consulted his pocket watch—an hour ago. His patience was thinner than Lord Trotter’s hair at the moment. The minx had certainly put him through his paces. He was of half a mind to tell her—when she finally appeared, that was—that he’d like to ask for Miss Whitney’s hand in marriage. It would be worth it just to see her eyes flash with fury.
The door to the drawing room clicked open at last, revealing the source of his irritation. She looked, despite his irritation with her, beautiful as ever. She wore a dashing day dress of silk and cut velvet in a deep shade of burgundy that set her golden locks off to perfection. Her bodice was high-necked, lined with a formidable row of buttons he longed to undo. She wore a diamond star in her hair, a brooch at her throat, and glittering diamond earrings.
She was not smiling. And she had only a slight limp to detract from her otherwise august figure. The result of yesterday’s adventure, no doubt.
He bowed, deciding to be formal. She would need wooing, that much he knew from the short time he’d spent in her company.“My lady.”
She stopped halfway across the room, leaving a good amount of distance between them. A safe amount of distance, he presumed. She met his gaze then, her expression guarded. “Your Grace. I understand you wished an audience.”
He thought of how she’d felt beneath him the day before, warm and soft and eager for him. She could don a mantle of ice if she chose, but he knew how to thaw it, by damn. He stalked closer to her, cutting the space between them by half. “I did.”
She clasped her hands at her waist and raised an imperious brow. “If you’re intending to offer for me out of some misplaced notion of being a gentleman, you can stubble it right now. I’m a widow, not some silly virginal miss you’ve ruined.”
A different tactic occurred to him just then. He moved toward her with slow deliberation, stopping only when he was near enough to catch a whiff of violets. “That wasn’t my intention.”
Her eyes widened ever so slightly, her cheeks turning the pale pink of a rose in bloom. “It wasn’t?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Tia licked her lips, staring at him. “Why in heaven’s name are you standing so near to me?”
“What’s the matter, darling?” He reached for her hand, running his fingers over her smooth skin, stopping only when he reached her wrist. Her pulse beat steady and swift. “Don’t you trust yourself?”
She flinched away from him, giving him his answer more surely than any words could. “You’re certainly familiar for a man who isn’t intending to propose marriage. If it’s a mistress you’re after, you can stubble it just the same. I’ll not be a kept woman.”
In truth, he’d never thought of making Tia his mistress. Why would he want her temporarily when he could have her forever? Twice with her hadn’t been enough. He very much doubted that forever would be.
“That wasn’t my intention either,” he told her. He could read the confusion in her pretty eyes. Good. He liked having her thrown off balance. It gave him the upper hand, a position he needed when it came to her.
“Then what was?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
At the moment, all he truly wanted to do was kiss her. Kiss her senseless. Kiss her until her rapier wit was dulled by desire. He planted a hand on her cinched waist and pulled her flush against his chest. “Simply this.”
Before she could protest, his mouth was on hers. She sighed and melted against him, not even bothering to fight it. When she opened for him, he deepened the kiss. His cock went instantly hard, and if he’d had any lingering doubt that marrying the woman in his arms was the right thing to do, they were banished in that instant. She was his. And he was going to show her precisely that.
He kissed her with all the passion raging through him, so thoroughly that by the time he broke away, he felt as dazed as Tia looked. Her delectable mouth was swollen and berry-red. Her eyes glistened. A handful of her curls had come undone. Save for the fact that she remained buttoned up as a temperance spinster, she appeared utterly debauched and utterly delicious. Oh, yes. She was his, damn it.
“Christ, Tia,” he said, his breathing as ragged as hers. “When we’re wed, I’m going to keep you in the bedchamber for a fortnight.”
His words seemed to return her to the present. She blinked, raising a hand to her mouth. “When we’re wed? You just said you had no intention of offering for me.”
“I said I had no intention of offering for you out of…what was it you called it?” He stopped to capture her precise phrasing. “Ah yes, my misplaced notion of being a gentleman.”
She frowned at him once more. “I confess, I’m quite confused.”
He kissed her again, just to erase that frown. “I’m offering for you because I want you.”
“I’m not your first lover,” she said. “That’s rather apparent. Why would you choose me for any reason other than necessity? You seek to avoid scandal, and that is all.”
“No.” Of course, that had been his initial motivation. But he’d had time to think upon it as he awaited her over the course of the last day. He knew that he would never find a more perfect wife than Tia. She was everything he’d never thought he’d wanted. And yet, he couldn’t resist her, didn’t wish to. “I seek a woman who drives me wild with desire, a woman who isn’t afraid to be passionate in my bed, a woman who is beautiful and madd
ening and in need of a man who knows how to give her pleasure.”
She was quiet, considering him with a searching gaze that he had the distinct impression saw more than he would have preferred. “You speak of desire but not of love.”
Ah. She hadn’t struck him as a sentimental female. He didn’t honestly believe he could ever love again. Losing Bess had cured him of that ailment. Love was for fools and the incurably young. “I won’t insult you by claiming to be hopelessly in love with you in such a short amount of time. But I do believe that we can build a mutual affection for each other.”
“I can’t claim to be impressed by either love or marriage,” she said, surprising him again. “I was in love once, and I was hopelessly disappointed. When I married, it wasn’t for love, and I was hopelessly disappointed then as well. Tell me, why should I give up my independence now when I know I’m bound to be disappointed either way?”
The lady had a point. She could continue flitting about society as she pleased, taking lovers as she pleased, attending parties and commissioning dresses. But he had a feeling that eventually she’d find that life just as disappointing. She wasn’t meant to be alone, and neither was he. Maybe in each other, they’d found the perfect match.
“I can’t speak for your past,” he said honestly. “But I can promise you that I will do my utmost not to disappoint you as your husband. I’ve also spoken with the marquis regarding your personal funds. They shall remain yours to dispense with as you please even after we wed.”
She looked away from him, lowering her gaze to study the intricate pattern on the rug at their feet. “I don’t wish to be married to simply avoid a scandal. I’m made of stern stuff. I daresay I could weather any scandal that came my way.”
“While the potential for scandal precipitated the situation in which we now find ourselves, I wish to marry you for another reason entirely. And it makes no sense for you to attempt to weather a scandal on your own when I’ve done my fair share to help create it.” He reached out then and tipped up her chin, unable to keep from touching her again. She was too damn tempting. Too beautiful.
Reckless Need (Heart's Temptation Book 3) Page 9
