“The lady’s aunt will need to be distracted.” He grinned. “And she rather took a liking to you. Ply the biddy with some drink and she’ll be all yours. If you don’t, I can’t promise Miss Vanreid can manage an escape.”
With that parting shot, he ducked back out of the room, Carlisle’s growled curses trailing after him.
he Duchess of Trent.
Her Grace.
How odd. How absurd. She, Daisy Vanreid, who’d earned her carefully honed London reputation as a bold flirt and a rebel, who had been snubbed by New York’s Knickerbocker elite and an untold number of haughty aristocrats, had just married a duke. And not just any duke, but the most handsome duke she’d laid eyes on since landing on England’s dreary shore. Sebastian Fairmont, the Duke of Trent.
Daisy stared at her reflection in the strange mirror in the equally strange chamber. She didn’t look any different. Her hair remained styled in the same Grecian plait Abigail had fashioned for her before she’d managed to flee Aunt Caroline’s home. She still wore her afternoon gown, a vibrant emerald silk trimmed with lace, navy cording, and a cluster of crushed velvet roses on the bodice. Not her finest dress, and certainly not the dress she’d envisioned as her wedding frock, but a more inspired choice would have roused Aunt Caroline’s suspicions. Daisy hadn’t been willing to take the risk.
Sacrificing her vanity for the sake of her future had been the wisest decision to make. And in a life that had been marked by a series of unwise decisions, to Daisy, the handsome afternoon gown—not nearly as impressive as most of her wardrobe—was a sign that she was ready to turn over a new leaf. To begin again. To live a life unencumbered by fear or threats of violence.
To be… her true self, something she had never had the opportunity to be. Under her father’s watchful gaze, she had been quiet and reserved, her every action above reproach lest she earn his rage. With Aunt Caroline as her chaperone, she had been someone else, a desperate flirt whose confidence was largely pretense.
And now here she stood, stripped of both roles. Plain old Daisy. Daisy who didn’t know what to do. Should she be bold? Should she be coy? Goodness, she didn’t even know the duke, the man she’d just wed. She had shown so many different faces to so many different people—all in an effort to escape her father’s violence and disapproval in one fashion or another—that she wasn’t certain she even knew who she was.
Her hands shook as she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt and pinched her pale cheeks to lend them a hint of color. She had no lady’s maid. No portmanteau. No other gowns. All she had stood reflected in the glass: herself, the duke’s unadorned gold band he’d slipped on her finger, the gown and undergarments beneath it, the heavy weight of the diamond jewelry she’d carefully filled her hidden pockets with.
That was all.
Bring only what you require, the duke had instructed, and Daisy had followed his directive. The sole exception was the king’s ransom in diamonds her father had bestowed upon her, most of which had been gifts after he’d hurt her and all of which had been his means of showing the world just how immeasurable his wealth was. No, the diamonds weren’t required, but something within her—that old instinct for survival—had told her to take them just before she fled.
Her dowry, she thought with a grim smile, for she very much doubted her father would grant her another penny after she’d flaunted and defied him in such a public, irrevocable manner. Earned by every bruise she’d ever worn, each slam of a fist into her body.
She had borne his cruelty. She had allowed herself to be paraded before New York high society first and then London, clothed in the most luxurious Parisian silks and satins. Adorned by enough riches to rival any queen. She had accepted his slaps, his shoves, his brutal beatings when she disappointed him or went against his strict edicts.
But she had finally reached her limit. Consigning herself to the life he’d chosen for her had been the last outrage. Bearing his rage one more time when her freedom hovered within her grasp had been an impossibility. Leaving hadn’t been a difficult decision. She’d never known a true home or family in her life. Aunt Caroline cared only for the attention chaperoning Daisy brought her. Her father cared only for the wealth and connections she could give him with her marriage.
How ironic it was that a near stranger—now her husband—was the only person in her life who didn’t want to use her for his own selfish gain. And there was no doubt about it, Trent had nothing to gain by marrying her. Even the lure of her immense dowry could not be enough since her father would revoke it and she’d made no secret of the fact.
Daisy read the gossip sheets, which often spewed thinly veiled venom toward her. For a duke to wed an American girl who had flouted convention and courted ruin—even if her motivation for so doing was justifiable—who had spent the last month in a desperate bid to kiss as many bachelors as possible in the hopes she could land a proposal, for the Duke of Trent to marry the notorious Daisy Vanreid, he would have to be motivated by only two things. His desire for her and his honor.
Her conscience pricked her then, an unwanted reminder that she had forced his hand, had encouraged him when no lady would have. It didn’t matter that he’d been circling her like a shark for the last month. She needn’t have lured him into the moonlit garden. Needn’t have dared him.
Take your turn.
And his response? I believe I will.
The reminder sent a frisson of something foreign down her spine. Something delightful and frightening all at once. She clasped her hands tightly at her waist. At any moment, a knock would sound on the door adjoining the chamber in which she now stood to his.
She could not think of the handsome room surrounding her as hers. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Everything had happened with far too much haste, and now Daisy couldn’t help but feel herself mired in a dream from which she would soon wake.
After their simple vows at the registrar’s, they had ridden in awkward silence to the duke’s home. Now her home. He’d performed a perfunctory introduction to his domestics. They’d shared tea and some muffins Daisy had been too nervous to sample beyond a tiny nibble.
The duke had hardly touched his tea and muffin either. Instead, a flush had stained his throat, drawing her attention to his pronounced Adam’s apple. The absurd thought had flitted through her mind to press a kiss there, to bury her nose in his neck and inhale deeply of the strong, masculine scent of him.
“We will need to… render this union,” he had announced abruptly. “I’m sorry, for I know this has all transpired with unaccustomed rapidity. But given your father’s treatment of you, and the fact that he will oppose an alliance between us, I cannot think of any other way.”
His words had rattled about in her mind like pins in a seamstress’s box. A noisy jangle until they found their home in her skin. Render. Union. He meant they would consummate. And of course they would. After all, they were married. She was his duchess. Everything had been properly done.
Except he remained a stranger to her. Likewise, he little knew her. Daisy had been wearing the mantle of accomplished flirt for so long in the absence of her father’s tyranny that she’d neglected to contemplate the ultimate consequences of her actions.
Playing a role was one thing. Becoming a wife was another.
“Can we not delay, Your Grace?” she had asked.
His regard had been frank, verging on grim. “Do you wish to give your father any means of dissolving this union?”
“No,” she had whispered, staring down at the perfect circle of fragrant tea awaiting her consumption. The porcelain of her teacup was thin and delicate, at least a century old, and embellished with his family coat of arms. A reminder that regardless of how much wealth her father had amassed with his tireless greed, the Trent duchy was the sort of ancient privilege the Vanreids could never aspire to reach.
The duke had replaced his cup in its saucer with nary a sound. “Then we would be best served to rule out any means as expediently as possible.”
Such a cool, emotionless method of announcing to her that they would consummate their marriage, Daisy thought now as she continued to stare at her reflection. And just then, the much-awaited knock sounded at the door.
“Enter.”
Her voice lacked its ordinary note of confidence. Gone too was the sensual, almost smoky quality that inevitably led to him thinking the wrong sort of thoughts. Thoughts that involved creamy skin, lush breasts, a prettily nipped waist, and full hips. Thoughts that wondered at the precise shade of her nipples. It had been dark, after all, in the gardens at the Darlington ball. The moonlight had bathed her in an ethereal silver, goddess-like glow.
Damn it to hell. What was he doing, waxing on about her in such a fashion? He wasn’t meant to consummate their union. He was meant to keep up the pretense before his household so that there would be no question. So that her bastard of a father couldn’t attempt to delegitimize the marriage.
So that their falsehood of a union would appear genuine. A love match rather than a means for him to gain access to Vanreid and any information Daisy possessed about his businesses.
Sebastian hesitated for a few breaths, willing his fierce arousal to abate, before opening the door to the chamber adjoining his. The duchess’s chamber. Somehow, it was easier to think of it in those terms than to call it hers.
To call it Daisy’s.
For given the circumstances, that seemed altogether wrong. And far too intimate for a woman who was a pawn, a woman whose presence and memory both would eventually be expunged from the home. From Sebastian himself.
How? Something—some inner devil—asked the question before he could dismiss it. How could he ever forget her? Jesus, he was very much afraid that he could not, no matter how he tried.
It took every bit of training he had to maintain his calm and purpose as he entered the room. She stood, completely dressed in the same, smart green gown she’d worn to wed him. Her golden tresses were still confined in an elaborate coil of braids. Her eyes widened as he crossed the chamber to her, and her fingers laced together at her wasp waist as though in prayer.
Two thoughts struck him in rapid succession.
Her beauty made him ache.
She was nervous.
He stopped with only a few paces between them, near enough that he caught a whiff of bergamot. Suspicion sliced into him, mingling with lust. She appeared as jittery as a wild hare, about to race away for a hiding place should he make one false step. Were her nerves those of a chaste bride who’d just married a stranger? Or was her conscience bringing her an unwanted pang of guilt at her deception? The possibilities were plain, an odd dichotomy. Either she knew what her father planned and she was a part of an intricate scheme to infiltrate the League, or she was an innocent being used by both sides.
But he mustn’t think about the last, for his duty wasn’t to question. It was to carry out the missions presented him. To keep home and hearth safe for all. It sure as hell wasn’t sympathizing with the woman before him. A vibrant, lovely, luscious woman he couldn’t trust. A woman whose father planned death and destruction.
“I neglected to assign you a lady’s maid,” he realized aloud. He’d never had a woman in his residence before, under his care. His mother had passed away when he’d been a lad of fifteen, and his father not long after that. He’d spent half his life as a bachelor. Likely, his oversight had been the cause of his housekeeper’s request to meet with him. A request he’d denied in his need to see the task before him accomplished as expediently as possible.
A pretty pink flush crept over her creamy skin. “Mrs. Robbins saw to that, Your Grace. I was too caught up in my thoughts to ring for her. I apologize. Would you like me to ring for her now?”
Ah, Mrs. Robbins was a more than capable woman. He should’ve known she’d tie up all his loose ends as always. Not even his unannounced arrival with a new bride had thrown her.
“Sebastian,” he corrected Miss Vanreid gently.
Not Miss Vanreid, he reminded himself. For she was his wife now, even if their union wasn’t real or meant to last. He couldn’t very well think of her as his duchess, could he? Daisy, he decided. A flower that symbolized innocence. How ironic.
“Sebastian,” she echoed, her color deepening. Her clasped fingers tightened until her knuckles protruded in stark relief. “Should I ring for the lady’s maid to aid in my… preparation?”
Either she could rival the greatest actress to ever tread the boards, or she was every bit as innocent as her namesake. In matters of the flesh, if nothing else. “There’s no need to ring for her now. I have no intention of consummating the marriage.”
Her wide, sensual lips fell open in surprise, her golden brows snapping together. “You don’t?”
“No.” Every base, uncouth instinct in his body thundered for him to go against his better judgment. To take her in his arms and taste that pliable mouth once more. To find the hidden buttons on her bodice and slide them from their moorings. To strip away all her layers until every inch of her soft, sweet flesh was revealed to him. To finish the plundering he’d begun in the moonlight.
His cock went completely rigid at the images such unworthy thoughts produced. Good Christ. This was not part of the bloody plan. Why did she have to be so damnably tempting?
Her expressive face betrayed her confusion. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“We need time to get to know each other,” he elaborated. “The unusual haste with which our nuptials took place has robbed from us the chance to court.”
“You wish to court me?” She stared at him. Her gown heightened the emerald hue of her eyes. The fingers that had been laced so tightly together now plucked at her skirts, adjusting the fall of silk over her crinoline dress shaper. Some of her signature bravado returned. Here was the woman who had dared him to take his turn. “Have you taken a woman to bed before, Your Grace?”
He nearly swallowed his tongue. Jesus. She thought him a virgin? He didn’t bloody well kiss like a virgin. And just what sort of woman asked such an insulting, prying sort of question? His skin felt unaccountably hot. Dear Lord, he couldn’t possibly be flushing, could he? A gentleman didn’t blush. He didn’t blush, goddamn it.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, though I daresay this isn’t proper discourse for… husband and wife. In a marriage, it’s best to leave the past where it belongs.”
Referring to them as such, a married pair, made his entire body tighten. It sounded so intimate. In truth, it was intimate. A man couldn’t be closer to any other woman. And yet, their marriage was a lie. Everything about it was false. He had to remind himself. She stood before him, his for the taking. And yet he could not have her.
Ought not to want her.
Wanted her with a fiery desperation anyway.
“Forgive me if I’ve insulted you,” she said then. “Gentlemen do not frequently act with honor toward me. I’ve cultivated a reputation, you understand.”
Her admission had him clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt. What man had dishonored her? He wanted to feed any bastard who had touched her his teeth. But of course, he hadn’t the right. And it was ludicrous to entertain such a feeling of primeval possession. She wasn’t his. Not truly. Nor would she ever be.
He tamped down the primitive emotions surging through him. “Daisy.”
“I don’t mean to suggest that my reputation is anything but a reputation,” she prattled on. “I… I have kissed a few suitors, and I don’t deny it. I do realize what you must think of me, but I was desperate to escape the marriage my father wanted for me. I would have done anything, even marrying a man I scarcely know.”
Brilliant. She thought him a virgin, and she’d only agreed to marry him to escape being shackled to Breckly, her father’s choice. How grim. His mind and body were at odds, scrambling for control. The thought of another man kissing her, the recollections of the times he’d spied her in the arms of her suitors, made him want to thrash them all. No one should kiss her b
ut him, damn it.
Ridiculous thought. Foolish to even entertain such idiocy. He couldn’t shake it. The notion clung to the deepest part of him, a part he’d buried beneath years of exhaustive work for the League. Years of never allowing anyone close. It wasn’t just that she was his wife. It was that she was his. He knew it in his bones.
He took a step closer to her. Then another. Her warm scent enveloped him fully: bergamot, vanilla, ambergris, and Daisy. His fingers itched to take the pins from her hair, relieve it from its careful braids, to see it cascade in silky waves down her back. His mouth longed to feel the soft heat of hers beneath it.
This was dangerous territory indeed. He wasn’t supposed to want her. Wasn’t supposed to touch her or take her. But he was only a man, after all. And she had pushed him. Very far. Perhaps over the brink.
He caught her waist and hauled her against him. Her hands settled on his shoulders, her eyes even wider. So green. The green of moss in early spring. So beautiful.
“Are you suggesting you only agreed to this marriage to escape a match with Viscount Breckly?” he demanded.
“N-not entirely.”
“Why did you marry me, Daisy?” He hungered for an answer. A truthful answer. Maybe he could rattle her. Rattle the both of them. He didn’t like the idea of harboring an enemy of England beneath his roof.
Or of wanting said enemy beneath him.
She blinked. “You asked.”
He couldn’t control his body. Couldn’t stop himself from cupping her lovely face, swiping his thumb over her lower lip. “The truth, Daisy.”
Her mouth fell open, the hot wind of her breath scorching him. “I trapped you. There, I’ve said it. I apologize, Your Grace. I noticed you. You’d been watching me from the perimeter of every ball. And I was running out of time.”
Her words took him aback. He hadn’t expected an admission. Hadn’t anticipated honesty. But his instincts told him that was what she offered him now. Sweet Jesus, the woman thought she’d tricked him into marrying her. Little wonder she seemed so ill at ease. “You trapped me?”
Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands Book 3) Page 7
