Eight Hunting Lyons (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

Chapter Twenty-Two

D aniel’s mind lurched into a strange position. His body didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe. But his brain seemed to jolt in his head as the world tilted around him.

Marriage? To Li-Na?

She said it as if it were the obvious and most logical choice, which was in direct odds to the kind of impassioned declaration he was used to getting from women. He’d spent his time in London when he was young. He’d had debutantes drop their handkerchiefs at his feet and bat their eyelashes at him from behind their fans. He’d even kissed several while they declared their absolute delight for his attention. A few even said they loved him.

At least they did until their fathers disdained his presence. He was a younger son, after all, with no land to recommend him. He had yet to discover his knack for buying and selling art. He didn’t even go to the Continent until he realized that many young ladies were catching his eye in the hopes that he would introduce them to his older, titled brother.

In short, he was not the kind of gentleman that practical Englishwomen wanted. Until he became rich. And then he had women throwing themselves at his feet in every country. They all said they loved him, but he knew they really loved his income. So he set them aside in favor of art.

Li-Na was the only woman to interest him in years. And here she was speaking as if it were easiest thing for them to marry. Despite her past. Despite her as a foreigner. Despite all those normal British complications when the son of an earl chose to wed. It was as if she didn’t know that the son of an earl could not marry someone without a specific pedigree.

“I am not going to marry,” he said, the words falling out as if he intended to say them. Which he had not.

“Why not?”

He didn’t have an answer that made any sense. Because women only want my titled brother? Because they look to my riches and not me? “Because even as a second son, my marriage is a transaction of families, a connection for political considerations or entry into higher society. But I have no interest in either of those things.”

“Neither do I.”

Of course, she didn’t. She wasn’t connected, and he’d already tried to tempt her with money to no avail. “But those are the reasons to marry. At least they are for a man in my position in England.”

“Can you think of no other reason then? Daniel, you have never done anything the way the English normally do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m English to my very core.” He came from a long line of Englishmen, he lived in a castle, he ate and drank the foods of his birth. He was English!

And yet, he was not. He traded in art, which was not a normal pastime for his peers. He privately thought the Prince Regent was a mercurial fool who should not be handed the reins of a country. He disagreed with the vicar because he thought women should be allowed freedom from their violent husbands. And he had long since railed at the fact that eldest sons were given everything while the second sons were expected to maintain the appearance of status without any of the benefits. And most of all, he thought women ought to have a legal say in the rearing of their children.

That was decidedly un-English, according to his peers, and so he had ignored the lot of them, conducted his business how he wished, and hid away here in Cornwall when he didn’t. And when he thought of the future, long after Stefan had taken the reins of his title, he imagined himself still in this hopefully renovated castle, resting between trips around the world. The whole world, this time, including China.

And what did any of that have to do with Li-Na and her request to marry him?

He had no answer, and so he watched in dumbfounded silence as she pushed gracefully to her feet, gathering blanket and teacup as she moved.

“I have determined,” she said as she stood before him, “that there is life outside of London.” She gestured to the stars. “There is a whole universe which I didn’t pursue until you showed it to me.” She looked back to him. “But I cannot explore that as a mistress. What if you tired of me and left me in a foreign country?” She lifted her face to the stars. “I did not make your English system. I did not choose that a wife is more valuable than a mistress. But since this is the world you have, I have decided that I would be willing to be your wife.” She smiled. “If you want me.”

Of course, he wanted her! He’d wanted her art first, and then her body. He had done little in the two weeks away from her except yearn for her. But that was an entirely different thing from marriage.

He rose to meet her, using his superior height to his advantage. She’d tilted his world with his statement and so he did what he could to restore his own sense of equilibrium. He stood tall before her and let her beauty settle his thoughts into order. First things first.

“I want you,” he rasped.

He stroked the curve of her cheek with his hand until she adjusted her face to his. Then he put his mouth on hers and took his time as he tasted her. He went slowly while his hunger roared to life. He was gentle as he stroked her lips with his own, delicate as he pushed his tongue into her mouth, and then tantalizing as he invaded her then withdrew. In and out while her breath caught, her body swayed, and she surrendered to him.

Her body now seemed far away from her calm statement about becoming his wife. She was hot and willing as he trailed his kisses along her neck. He trailed his teeth along her jaw and explored her breasts with his free hand.

He pinched her nipple and heard her gasp. He knew when her knees weakened against his leg, her thighs spreading enough that he could slip between them. His cock was thick and hard, already pulsing with the need to take her.

He could make her his mistress if he chose. Indeed, hadn’t he already given her a quickening? Her first! He could have her if he wanted, right now, and he wanted it with a need that nearly overwhelmed him.

Nearly.

Instead, he pulled back, his hand stilling while he lifted his mouth from her flesh. And when she looked up with dazed eyes, he set her back on her feet.

“I cannot marry you,” he said. “And it’s not because I’m an aristocrat.”

“Then why?” Her voice was so hushed that he read the words off her lips. Whatever sound they made was lost in the breeze.

“Because you don’t love me.”

She straightened in apparent shock. “You want love?”

He laughed, though the sound did not hold humor. “Everything I do is for love, Li-Na. What is art but love put on canvas? Why do I spend my days fighting for Stefan’s future if not love for my nephew and his future? My every action is done from love, and if you cannot see that, then you cannot be my wife.”

She frowned as she slowly shook her head. “That is the most un-English thing you have ever said.”

Perhaps that was true. “Every man must find what he loves, else how would we endure our days?” There was too much sadness in every life—including those of the most exalted—to continue on without love. He knew because he had met some of the greatest men alive, and each one had troubles, each one searched for their hearts to be filled. It was how he sold them art. He offered love in a form that they could possess.

She had no answer for that. Indeed, she had the look of a woman seeing him for the first time. He had seen that same stunned expression on his customers after he introduced them to a work of art that touched their hearts with something sublime.

He waited while she gazed at him. He saw the moonlight trace her cheeks in silver and studied the curve of her mouth that was both innocent and a carnal temptation. He saw that her gaze was fixed upon him and knew when her hands reached for him. What a stunningly beautiful woman she was, but she loved him no more than the paintings she drew and then tossed aside as if nothing. He would not be so unimportant to his wife. He was not here for her convenience, only to be erased when the next tide washed in.

He stepped back from her. And in so doing, he separated himself from any thought of marriage.

“I brought a man with me from London. He is an emissary from the Prince Regent, and he wants…” Daniel shrugged. “I have no true idea what he wants except that he will be here after he rouses himself from bed.”

Li-Na blinked at his change in tone, but soon settled into the business of his words. “Am I to speak with this man?”

“You are to stay very far away from him. I do not want him to know that you are even here. Take a walk, create a goddess on the sand, converse with Widow Greeves’ pigs. I do not care so long as he never sees you.”

She dipped her head, her hands folding in front of her belly as she settled into her most servile pose. “I will leave at first light.”

“Nothing that early, but before Mrs. Hocking arrives.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He winced. How he hated it when she acted like his servant. When she referred to him as “my lord,” and he saw nothing of her but the top of her bowed head. He could have had her this night. He could be right now in her bed enjoying the sweetness of her body. But he had never been a man who could accept anything less than the full expression of the heart. And in this, she was still hidden away as surely as she had been inside a cage in the Lyon’s Den.