“Yes, Marcus,” she said softly and without hesitation. Her eyes were now be-diamonded with tears. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the ring he’d so carelessly given her. She was his. She would not change her mind. A creature born of lust and possession suddenly crouched in his heart, waiting to be released. So taut was his hold on his roiling emotions, he forgot completely his crippled leg.
That is how he ended up flat on his back with a quite amazed Addy sprawled on top of him. The world had surrendered onto itself until it was just they two. The look of wonder on her face… He was not alone. What a glorious, dangerous feeling it was.
Several other feelings came to mind when he realized what a spectacular view the square cut neckline of her gown and her prone position gave him. He snapped his eyes shut, swallowed, and stifled a groan.
“Are you hurt, Marcus?” The breathless quality in her question poured into him like French brandy.
“Not in the way you think,” he managed to reply. Oh God, now she was touching his face. Cool rivulets raced under his skin where she touched him. Followed by lances of fire. When she moved to the scarred side of his face, he reached to stop her.
“Don’t, Marcus, please.” He opened his eyes to see some hesitance, some revulsion in her expression. It was not there. Of all the things he had seen in her face, a face incapable of deception, rejection of his marred countenance had never been one of them.
“That was very beautifully done, by the way,” she said. It was a good thing he was already on the ground. The smile she gifted him with would drop legions to their knees.
“The proposal or the fall?” He really did wish he would stop falling into holes and over his own feet in her presence. It wasn’t terribly flattering to either of them. As if she read his mind, she touched her finger to his lips.
“Hush, Marcus. Don’t spoil it.” Still lying on his chest, she sighed dreamily. His soul wanted to follow that sigh into her body. His eyes stopped at the beautifully framed square of silken skin and the heart-shaped form that brought his entire body to attention.
Addy glanced down and followed his eyes.
“Marcus Winfield, what are you looking at?”
“Heaven,” he replied without thinking.
With her finger still resting on his lips, she tapped a teasing reprimand. “Lascivious men such as yourself are seldom allowed into heaven.” Their bodies were pressed so closely together that he could feel her words and the laughter behind them to his toes.
Who knew a finger might be so enticing? He kissed the tip of it with a long, lingering press of his lips before moving on to the next. “Are you certain I cannot persuade some angel to sneak me inside?” he asked, continuing his pilgrimage from one finger to the next.
“I don’t know.” She gave a tiny gasp with each kiss he gave, but when he finished with one hand, she willingly offered the other. “It would have to be a slightly naughty angel.”
“My favorite kind.” He was playing a perilous game. Each little gasp, each little spasm that shuddered through her body intoxicated him. Rolling to his side, he laid her gently onto the cushion of the manicured lawn before he traced the lines of her hand with the tip of his tongue. She gave a little squeak of surprise.
“What is it, Addy?” he asked hoarsely. “Did I frighten you?”
“Yes.” She shook her head. “No, you… I don’t know.” She rubbed her thumb along his bottom lip. “It hurts. I mean. It’s strange. I… like it. I hurt all over, but I don’t want it to stop. How can that be?”
“I have no idea,” he assured her. “But I know precisely how you feel.”
He bit her thumb gently before working it repeatedly between his teeth. From there he moved up her bare arm, nipping and kissing until the fabric of her gown stopped him. Her every murmur and sigh was a siren song. It beckoned him, and he was powerless against it. The alabaster gleam of her neckline was temptation itself, but no statue could ever taste as sweet and warm as this.
When he nibbled her collarbone, she arched toward him and sifted her fingers into his hair. Her touch was charged with all the power of nature, and he groaned with the pleasure of it in spite of himself. How was it possible to feel both languid and on fire all at once? Even in the moonlight, he saw her pulse dancing in the graceful column of her throat, a flittering butterfly begging to be captured. When he pressed his lips to it and then caressed it with his teeth, Addy cried out her pleasure.
“Marcus,” she murmured, moving her hands over his shoulders and back. Her touch evoked tremors of delight in him. She must not say his name again, or he would die at the sound of it.
Arching his fingers on either side of her throat, he took her lips in a kiss aflame with all the pent-up passion that fired his body. Her response reminded him of Vauxhall fireworks—all shafts of light and wonder. She tasted of honey and roses and some exotic spice he dared not name. Her tongue tempted and flickered against his. He wanted to sink into the soft darkness of her mouth and never leave.
The need to breathe was the only thing to set him free, but only for a moment. She caught his lower lip between her teeth and held him there, a prisoner, but a willing one. A caress with the tip of her tongue, and she released him to stare panting into his eyes. He touched his forehead to hers and closed his eyes.
“Dear God, Addy.”
She traced a finger over his scar and continued down his throat to the collar of his evening jacket. A positively wicked expression crept over her features before she followed the same path with a series of feathery kisses. After each kiss, Marcus’s body twitched in delirious reply.
“Did you ever lure my sister into the gardens like this?” she murmured as she nipped at his throat.
“Never. God, Addy, don’t stop.”
She pushed him onto his back and slipped her fingers beneath his cravat and undid the buttons at the top of his shirt, all the while teasing his mouth with nips and kisses.
“Why didn’t you, Marcus?” She demanded his answer even as her body demanded he respond.
He reversed their positions and threw his leg across hers possessively.
“She never drew me the way you do. She never infuriated me or dressed me down or took me to task,” he said roughly. “She never wore this dress.”
His finger wove a path around the green satin neckline, drawn as a compass toward north. He looked into her eyes intently before bending to touch his lips along that same course. Her shivers were food from heaven to him. Never before had he yearned to please a woman, to bind her to him with a sensual cord that either of them could pull with a single look.
He ran his tongue into the shadowed valley at the top of her dress, and as if drawn by strings, she arched into his body with a simmering groan.
“Addy,” he rasped as he settled into the cradle of her hips. “Addy, sweet, Addy.”
He covered her mouth with his as their bodies moved in imitation of their mating tongues. A naughty angel had invited him into heaven, and God help anyone who tried to evict him.
A strident voice blared out from the darkness. “Adelaide.”
Did every Eden have to have a serpent?
“Adelaide, where are you, dear?”
Marcus groaned helplessly against her lips even as Addy stifled a giggle.
“Your mother has the worst sense of timing in all of Christendom,” he bit out between gritted teeth.
“You are mistaken, sir,” she replied, kissing the tender spot beneath his chin. “She has the worst timing in the world.”
“Stop that,” he hissed. “I have no hope of facing your mother without causing her to faint, again, if you keep kissing me like that.”
“Like what, Marcus?” She ran her tongue up his throat before nipping his lower lip. “Like this?”
“Yes, like that.” He pushed himself up and away from her and lumbered to his feet before helping her up. “Now go and stop her before she sees me.”
“Why can’t she see you, Ma
rcus? I’ll simply tell her we’ve been strolling in the gardens.” She brushed at his evening jacket and trousers with one hand, whilst she shook out her dress with the other. He grabbed her hands and held them still.
“Stop touching me before I embarrass us both completely.” His voice sounded urgent even to himself.
“What on earth could be embarrassing about…” She followed his eyes down to a point below his waist. “Oh, dear. Did I do that?” If there were such a thing as fairies, then hers was the face of a decidedly wicked one.
“You most certainly did, now go. She’s coming this way.” He pushed her onto the path and then snatched her back into his arms for another soul searing kiss. “Go before I go mad.”
She glided a few steps and then turned to look over her shoulder. “I’m glad you never took Clementine into the gardens, Marcus.” The words drifted around him like a harem girl and caressed every tingling nerve in his body. Her sultry smile was Eve and Venus wrapped in moonlight. He was completely, irrevocably lost as she dashed away.
A few whispered words on the pathway broke the quiet of the night. She had intercepted her mother and was leading her back to the house. The “danger” had passed, but his body was still ready for battle. Or ready for something. What had he been thinking? An idiotic question. There were portions of his body in complete agreement with that sentiment whilst others were convinced letting Addy leave was the evening’s act of lunacy.
Marcus took a deep breath of the brisk April air and glanced back at the fountain. It still murmured along merrily. With a sigh of resignation and a shake of his head, he took off his jacket and placed it on the bench. He then removed his evening shoes and placed them next to the jacket. With as much dignity as a man in his condition could muster, he stepped into the fountain and sat down.
He propped his elbows on his knees and let the cool, clear water wash over his lower body. Like a frog awaiting the transforming kiss of a princess, he contemplated the night sky.
“Not funny at all, Julius.”
*
Stretched out on the decadently soft bed in the yellow and green guest suite, Adelaide went over her encounter with Marcus in the gardens. A slow smile flickered across her face. It was a woman’s smile. One of which she was incapable. Until now.
Whilst she was not at all certain what it meant, the sensations it recalled were an assurance of one thing. She would marry Marcus Winfield. Not because he was a duke. Not because she feared ruin if she did not. She would marry him because, in spite of his protestations to the contrary, he needed her. More important, he wanted her.
Never before had her inexperience been so clear to her. His desire for her was rather overwhelming. For someone with her limited knowledge of desire it was a little frightening in a thrilling sort of way. What she did know was her body had awakened to answer his tonight, and now nothing would be the same.
The look on his face as he watched her come to him in the moonlight was unforgettable. She had never dreamed a man would ever look at her that way. Not short, plain Adelaide. Not The Diamond’s little sister. All of those years of hoping someone—some man would see her as desirable, and to have it be Marcus, was beyond a dream come true. If only she could make him look at her like that forever. If only—
“Adelaide, do stop lying about in that dress. The wrinkles will never come out of it.”
The sound of her mother’s voice caused Adelaide to sit up so quickly she fell off the bed. How did the woman manage it? She’d appeared in the room without making a sound. It was very disconcerting when one considered Henrietta Formsby-Smythe’s voice had been compared to Gabriel’s trumpet, cannon fire, and Squire Bishop’s prize pig. Which made her silent entry into rooms where she was neither wanted nor expected beyond frightening.
“Yes, well,” her mother said. She sat down on the bed whilst Adelaide struggled to get up. “I imagine a man like His Grace would have an effect on a woman.”
Giving her what she hoped approximated a look of shocked innocence, Adelaide sat down next to her. Stalling for time, she carefully smoothed her now wrinkle-ridden dress.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Mother. Marcus was the perfect gentleman.”
“Hmmm.” In a move that brought back many an unpleasant childhood memory, her mother grasped Addy’s chin with her thumb and forefinger and tilted it from side to side. Adelaide had a feeling she was not checking for an unwashed neck. “Your perfect gentleman needs to hire a new valet if the one he has cannot give him a closer shave.”
Clasping her hands together in her lap was the only thing that kept one of them from flying to the slightly abraded places on her throat. There was no need to look in a mirror. Adelaide knew every inch of skin exposed by the low neckline of her gown was now glowing deep red. Her mother’s smile was mysterious and somehow forgiving at the same time.
“Come now, Adelaide,” she said. “You did not really expect me to believe you and His Grace were out there observing the stars, did you?”
“It sounded good at the time,” Adelaide said under her breath.
“It would have sounded better coming from lips not swollen by kisses and a throat not beard-brushed, my dear. Besides, your brother used the same excuse the last time I interrupted his star gazing in the company of a young lady.”
“Which brother?”
“Any of them. I shudder to think which of them will be the next of my children to find themselves in your current predicament.”
Adelaide rolled her eyes and made a note to get a list of the excuses her brothers had given their mother, just in case.
“It is not a predicament, Mother. It is a betrothal. And if you, Emily, and His Grace have your way, it will be one of the shortest betrothals on record.”
Her mother tapped a particularly noticeable spot on Adelaide’s throat.
“And a good thing too.” A satisfied smile, accompanied by a heartfelt sigh was the signal Henrietta Formsby-Smythe was about to say something outrageous. “Of course, dear Emily would know all about short betrothals. I seem to recall her returning from star gazing expeditions in the gardens of some of the best homes in London with far more than beard burn and swollen lips to show for it. It is apparent Selridge takes after his father in more ways than one.”
“Good Lord, Mother. How can you say such things? About his mother, no less.”
“Yes, and she became a mother exactly eight months after she and the duke exchanged their vows.” She leaned in to whisper. After all she had already said, suddenly they needed secrecy? “Julius was a very healthy baby too.”
“I am certain I did not need to know that, Mother.” As usual Adelaide’s tone of righteous indignation was completely lost on the matriarch of the Formsby-Smythe family.
“It matters little now. Emily got her man. Just as you have, Adelaide, dear. I am so pleased.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but I got Clementine’s man.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother waved her hands dismissively. “They would not have suited. I never saw him look at her the way he looks at you. And if tonight is any indication, he is far more interested in you than he ever was in dear Clementine.”
“You were singing quite a different tune when he was to marry her, as I recall.”
Her mother could be silent when necessary. That silence was normally followed by a sharp look that drew Adelaide’s immediate attention, when she was younger. Over the years, she came to realize this particular look meant Henrietta’s selective memory was in play. There was no fighting the selective memory, under any circumstances.
Adelaide sighed. “I am willing to concede Marcus is at least attracted to me. Parts of him are very fond of me indeed. It is hardly the basis for a good and lasting marriage.”
“You would be surprised.”
“Mother.” Adelaide was certain those words were not meant to be heard. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view, the poor woman had no idea how well her voice carried, e
ven when muttering.
“I have given birth to six children, Adelaide. Surely you don’t still believe that corker about cabbage leaves.”
They eyed each other briefly and then laughed. Suddenly, uncertainty and sadness took the place of mirth in Adelaide’s heart. Attraction might be enough for some people. It would never be enough for her. How could she explain it to her mother, when she could not fully explain it to herself?
“I know that look, Adelaide Guinevere. It is the look of a girl who wants the entire plate of almond biscuits, not just one or two.”
Who knew the woman could read her so well? Of course, she could. Adelaide was a book she had been reading for twenty years. Parts of it, no doubt, were committed to memory.
“You have said it often enough in warning, Mother. Certain parts of a man are attracted to anything in skirts. I would shave my head and become a nun if I thought he did not care for me in that way at least. Marcus is very much a man. No surprises there.”
“Oh really?”
“I did not mean…” This was not the sort of conversation she ever expected to have with her mother.
“I know what you meant, dear. Your father was very much a man as well.”
“Was? What is he now?”
“A husband. A different creature entirely. Well, not entirely, but you understand what I mean.”
Adelaide did not understand. More important she could not bear to contemplate what she needed to contemplate in order to understand. This was fast becoming the longest night of her life.
“And I daresay, after what happened in the garden tonight, your chances of becoming a nun are rather slim.” Waving her hand at Adelaide’s attempt to speak, she continued. “What is it you want, dearest? Do you even know?”
She paused to ponder her mother’ question for a moment. “I don’t want my marriage to be about… that.” Her mother raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don’t want it to be all about that. I want to engage more than just his… bedchamber interest.” She found her voice growing soft and weak, and she hated it. “I want him to care for me. I want him to feel about me, the way I feel for him. I want to capture his heart.”
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