“Perhaps later,” he murmured as he plunked his large frame into one of the chairs across from Marion.
She glanced up and their eyes met. Hers sparkled with happiness that he was once again in the room. As if he would protect her. He smiled back, but inwardly winced. He couldn’t keep her from being sized up and gossiped about. Not until he married her. And he wouldn’t be able to do that until he spoke to Charlotte Ives, a prospect he wasn’t looking forward to.
“The first thing we must do is get a mantua maker and have you fitted for your gowns.” Audrey looked at Marion with a friendly smile. “I loved that dress, but it’s helplessly out of style now. I’ll send for Miss Fox today. I’m a good customer.”
She shot a wink toward Griffin, who rolled his eyes theatrically. “Yes, her best I’d wager.”
Audrey giggled. “As if you mind, my love.”
“No, I’m proud to say I have the most beautiful wife in all of England and that other women swoon when she comes by in silk and chicken feathers.”
Audrey’s blue eyes widened. “They were ostrich feathers, you naughty man. And they were all the rage.”
Noah watched the couple exchange playful barbs. All the while their eyes danced. For the first time in his life, he envied their loving relationship and how certain they were that they would be happy for the rest of their lives. He envied how Griffin could place his palm on the small of Audrey’s back and that she would lean into his hand.
He took a quick glance at Marion. Would they ever reach that point? Because Audrey and Griffin were deeply in love and had been for a long time. Marion, on the other hand, blamed Noah for a forced marriage. She’d made that point perfectly clear and it still stung.
“I have a few things I must tend to this afternoon.”
He rose to his feet. The rest of the group did so as well, Marion’s eyes went wide. He suddenly felt a strange urge to fold her into his arms and reassure her that in a year she would barely remember her fears. That they would be happy and she would be the toast of London Society. But he wasn’t sure if that was a promise he could keep.
“Will you be back later?” she whispered.
He nodded as he held out a hand to her. The rest of the room and its inhabitants faded into the background. There was only them. “I will be. In the meantime, you’ll have a wonderful time with my sister and mother. They’ll take excellent care of you.”
She nodded, but he could still see the doubt glittering in her eyes.
“You’ll have a marvelous time, Marion.” Audrey’s voice shattered the dream world around him. “Miss Fox is the most sought after dressmaker in London. You’ll end up feeling like a princess by the time she’s done with you.”
Marion nodded and Noah could see that she, too, had been caught in the same web as he’d been. “I’m sure.”
Noah’s grip on her fingers tightened, sending warm flashes up her spine. “Will you walk me to the door?”
Marion glanced around her at the other people in the room, but none of them seemed to object to his request. With a nod, she followed him to the hallway. Once they were alone, she was sure she caught a look of dread in his eyes.
“Will you really be all right here?” he asked while he rubbed a fingertip across her cheek.
“Yes.” She put all her focus into speaking rather than the delicious slide of his skin against hers. “But what about you? Are you going to see Charlotte?”
His eyes widened at her observation, then he nodded. “Yes, how did you know?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Just a good guess. I suppose I’m beginning to know you. Good luck.”
With a nod, he released her fingers. “I’ll see you in a short while.”
Then he was gone. After he’d closed the door behind him, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
***
The Ives house was almost unbearably quiet. It seemed as if even the room was waiting for the encounter about to come. The servants ducked their eyes from Noah’s gaze, and all talk had ceased when he’d come into the foyer with his card. Then there was the agonizing wait as Charlotte determined whether or not she would receive him. But his superior title… or perhaps her desire to dress him down… seemed to have won out, for he was now seated in her parlor.
Though he’d run the scenario over and again in his mind, Noah still wasn’t exactly sure how he would tell her what he’d come to say. After all, they hadn’t exactly been engaged… yet. Despite that, he owed her an explanation. And an apology.
The door opened and Noah immediately clamored to his feet to greet her. As she pushed the door shut, he examined her. She looked pale, even paler than usual. Worse, she looked upset.
“Sit my lord,” she said softly.
“Lady Charlotte,” he choked out, truly unsure of what to say now that she was standing before him with accusation in her eyes.
“Sit,” she repeated as she did the same. “Would you like some tea?”
He started. How could she be so polite?
“No. I think you know why I’m here.”
Her serene expression blanched for a moment, revealing the anger beneath her icy exterior. “Yes. I’ve heard the whisperings about your activities at Woodbury. Some little country girl, wasn’t she? And now she is to be your…” She paused for effect. “Marchioness.”
He shut his eyes briefly at the disgust in her voice. Though he’d never cared for Charlotte the way he cared for Marion, the last thing he’d wanted to do was hurt her. When he left for Woodbury he had fully intended to keep the vow he’d made to her about no public dalliances. How was he to know he would meet Marion?
“Yes, I’m afraid what you’ve heard is true.” His eyes opened to face her when he confessed. “I assure you, I never planned for this mess to happen and I’m sorry you’ve been embarrassed by my actions.”
With a twist of one slender wrist she waved off his words. “It doesn’t signify. What does signify is you made a promise to me and you didn’t keep it. I don’t like being lied to, my lord.”
Guilt stabbed directly in to Noah’s heart, gnawing at his every nerve. How he would have liked to spare everyone involved the pain his decisions had caused. Then his mind strayed to Marion and the way she’d responded to his touch, to his mouth. The way she’d looked after her father had beaten her. No, there had been no choice, and he would never again regret it.
“There were circumstances.”
She barked out a sharp burst of humorless laughter. “Circumstances? I can imagine what those were.” She shook her blonde head. “A man like you will never settle for one woman. I only hope your newest obsession realizes that.”
Noah winced at her harsh words and the ring of truth they held. Yes, in the past he’d bored of his conquests. But Marion was different somehow. He wanted to be true to her.
“Charlotte…”
“I never should have trusted a rake.” With a soft sigh, the heat left her voice and for a brief moment her shoulders sagged. “Please leave.”
Noah rose to his feet and held out his arms in surrender. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t look up, but her face had returned to its normal calm and unflappable mask. Noah far preferred Marion’s passionate expression of the emotions in her heart.
“Just go,” she whispered.
He did as she asked with a short bow. In the foyer, the butler opened the door with a sniff, and Noah found himself once again in the muggy late summer air of London. He shook his head as he swung up on his mount to head back to his estate.
As he rode away, he was wracked by conflicted feelings. Yes, he did care for Marion, but he still doubted his own ability to do the right thing where she was concerned. Perhaps his own true self would never be stifled to conform to the man his father had been. Marion professed not to care about that fact. In fact it had been she who’d urged him to remain his own self instead of trying to be his father.
Yet, did she really understand what that real self was? A womanizer. A spy. A man who l
ived for pleasure. At least, that’s what he’d been for so long that he hardly remembered anything else.
Suddenly he longed for a private moment with the woman who would be his wife. A moment without a chaperone where he might look into her eyes and see if he could find any goodness in himself reflected there. He would have that moment. Tonight, after supper was over.
Proper or not.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Marion twirled a lock of hair around and around her fingertip as she stared out her chamber window at the flickering lights of London. Where was Noah?
He’d shared supper with his family, but had left before ten, saying he had other business to attend to. From his somber expression and quiet demeanor, Marion guessed his meeting with Charlotte hadn’t gone well, but there had been no opportunity to ask him privately.
But now he was long gone, perhaps at home in his own bed. Or perhaps off at a club gaming. Or somewhere else. Somewhere she couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine.
She rubbed her bare arms with a shiver. Her dressing gown remained draped across the bed where she’d left it, but she doubted putting it on would help. It wasn’t the room temperature that made her quake. It was the idea of Noah in the arms of some other woman. A woman who wasn’t nervous about giving him her body. A woman who knew how to return the intense pleasure he’d shared with Marion back in Woodbury.
Her body reacted at that thought, softening and aching as she remembered the touch of Noah’s mouth on her skin. His hands caressing her in ways she’d never imagined, arousing reactions she couldn’t control.
She leapt at the quiet tap on her door. Spinning around, she stared guiltily at the barrier between her and the hall. Here she’d been thinking the most intimate, scandalous thoughts and a visitor was right outside.
“Co-come in,” she stammered, for she feared her legs wouldn’t hold her up if she tried to walk.
With a quiet click, the door swung open and the very man she’d been fantasizing about leaned on the doorjamb, occasionally glancing over his shoulder as if he were afraid he’d be caught.
“Noah.” Without hesitation, she hurried across the room to him. Here was the opportunity she’d been longing for. To be alone with him. Before she thought of the prudence behind her action, she threw her arms around his neck to hug him.
For a moment he stood stunned, but as Marion’s warmth seeped through his coat and into his skin, Noah brought his arms around her in a crushing embrace. It felt so right to hold her. Despite
“Marion,” he breathed into her hair.
When he said her name, it seemed to snap her back to reality. With a gentle shove, she pulled from his arms and scurried back a few steps. An enticing pale pink blush spread from her cheeks to her chest.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Noah couldn’t have agreed with her more. She stood just feet away from him in a thin shift that barely covered the smooth, velvety curves of her skin. He hadn’t snuck back in to Griffin and Audrey’s estate to make love to Marion, but now that he was standing in her bedroom with her warmth still on his skin, he was having a difficult time thinking of anything else.
She cocked her head. “Noah?”
He shook away his thoughts as he slipped into her chamber to shut the door behind him. The last thing either one of them needed was to be caught. Again.
“I was worried about you. I came to see if you were doing well here.” He took another small step toward her, reveling in the way she swayed in his direction.
She snapped herself back to full attention as she turned away. “I’m fine. Your family is very kind.”
“They like you.”
“I’m glad of that, I like them, too.” She looked at him slowly. “How did things go with Charlotte? I wanted to ask at supper, but it didn’t seem the time.”
Noah’s expression transformed from one of desire to sadness and guilt.
“It went as well as could be expected. She’s angry, but she’s accepted the change. And no one called me out over it, so I won’t be dueling with her father at dawn at least.”
Marion sank her teeth into her lower lip. “I wonder if she’ll make things difficult for me as a form of revenge.”
It had been something she’d not worried about until that day. Audrey and Tabitha seemed so focused on making her appearance in Society perfect. She would hate to see them, or Noah, disappointed.
He brushed her arm. His touch heated her skin even as it sent goose pimples across the flesh.
“No, she wouldn’t do that. It isn’t in her nature. She’ll avoid you before she’ll try to hurt you.” His eyes darkened to a midnight blue that drew Marion in and didn’t allow her any room for escape. “I don’t want to talk about her any longer.”
“No?” She heard the tremble in her voice as she stared up into Noah’s eyes, the eyes that told her so clearly how much he desired her at that moment. And she hoped hers gave him the same message. That she ached for his touch. “What do you want to talk about?”
In answer, he dipped his head and caught her lips with his own. Their pressure was firm, yet gentle as he drew her into his embrace. When the tip of his tongue nudged her mouth, Marion melted. Her limbs became water and Noah her only support as she opened herself to an even deeper kiss. She arched against his hands as he slid them down her spine, their heat piercing through the thin cotton of her shift.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her mouth before he pulled away to run a hand through his hair. She smiled as little pieces stood up on end, giving him a disheveled , utterly rakish look.
“Why?”
Before he could respond, she rose to her tiptoes and placed another heated kiss on his lips. Noah surrendered to his desire and pulled her against him a second time, loving her taste and her smell and the way her chestnut hair curled around his shoulders.
“Because,” he panted, grasping her arms to push her back a fraction. “I know this marriage isn’t what you want.”
Her eyes flickered with brief sadness, but it was quickly replaced by the desire he’d kindled there. With a shrug of one shoulder and a soft smile, she whispered, “I’d like to make the best of it.”
To Noah’s surprise, she shrugged out of his hold to glide her palms across his chest. Looping her fingers under the lapels of his jacket, she pushed it from his shoulders and down to the floor in a heap. Her eyes never left his as she began to work the buttons of his linen shirt.
“Wait.” He caught her roving hands with both his own. “Are you sure you want this? Because once it’s done, there will be no turning back.”
“I’ve wanted this since Woodbury. I’ve hardly thought of anything else.”
She blushed, but there was no hesitation in her eyes when she pushed his hands aside to continue her exploration of his body. Her fingers nudged his buttons open, pulling his shirt aside until finally it, too had fallen to the floor.
“You’re so perfect,” she breathed, running soft fingertips along the contours of muscle and tangling them in the wiry chest hair that peppered his chest.
Noah sucked in his breath through his teeth, all the while reminding himself of the control he’d been taught as a spy. He needed all of it to keep from throwing Marion on her bed right then and there and taking her. No, for this first time he would give. There would be plenty of time for taking in the future.
With a dip of his head, he placed a hot kiss on her throat, easing his lips down the curve of her shoulder until his mouth met the thin strap of her chemise. He caught it with his lips to lift it away from her skin. She whispered her pleasure as his teeth grazed her shoulder.
“Noah…” Her hand gripped his bicep as he slid the strap from her shoulder to droop around her elbow.
“Yes?” he asked with a smile.
Marion shook her head. She wanted something but didn’t know how to ask. She wanted him to ease the ache he’d begun by touching her. “I don’t know.”
His mouth returned to her sensitive shoulder,
his tongue probing her soft skin as he slowly eased her back toward the bed. The gentle touch sent moist heat from his mouth directly through her body. Every nerve crackled with even the slightest touch, and between her legs she throbbed with need for him to give her the same powerful release she’d experienced before.
His fingers caught the second strap of her gown and with aching slowness he pulled it down. The soft fabric slid over her breasts, down her hips to pool at her feet. Though she should have been embarrassed to be so revealed to him, she wasn’t. In fact, she was proud of how his eyes widened as they moved over her skin.
“And you say I’m perfect,” he murmured as he stepped nearer to her to cup the base of her neck for another soft kiss. “You’re more beautiful than any woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Tears welled up in her eyes at his compliment. “Then make me yours. Tonight. Now.”
He nodded as he brought her up against the full, hard length of him. The warmth of his body took away her chill from earlier in the evening, leaving her almost too hot. His hands did nothing to ease the fire in her. When he made a slow slide up her stomach to cup the smooth flesh of her breast, that fire was only stoked. His thumb strummed over her nipple in a rhythmic way that had her wriggling closer while sensation rushed through her.
They knelt on the bed and for the first time Marion felt bold enough to touch Noah the same way he had her. She slid her hands over his muscles, smiling when they bunched under her palms, and he closed his eyes at the pleasure of even the slightest stroke of her fingers.
With hesitation, she pressed her lips against the hollow at the base of his throat and felt his pulse throb beneath her with a wild cadence. Feeling even more adventurous with this newfound power, she darted her tongue along his collarbone as her hands kneaded the cut muscles of his stomach.
When she wrapped her lips around the tight ridge of Noah’s nipple, he let out a low groan and his fingers dragged around her shoulders.
The Temptation of a Gentleman Page 21
