Chapter Eight #2
Despite the intimacy of their surroundings, they were not lovers. Hell, they were barely friends. They were simply two people who had come to an arrangement for their mutual benefit.
‘Just don’t choose a man like me,’ he added, trying to make his voice jovial, and annoyed that it held a strained quality.
She said nothing, just continued to gaze at him, her eyes shining, those full red lips still temptingly parted.
‘Choose a man you can love and who can love you in the manner you so rightly deserve.’
His words were hardly out when, as if he was being granted a wish he knew he should not ask for, those beautiful, soft lips were lightly kissing his.
Margaret’s hand snaked around the back of the Duke’s neck and she cursed her evening gloves for keeping the touch of his skin from her fingers.
She should not have kissed him, should not still be kissing him. Margaret knew that, but his gentle words had stripped away the last of her resistance until she no longer knew what was right and what was wrong. All she knew was what she wanted.
And this was what she wanted.
She’d wanted his kisses so desperately that every inch of her body burned for that forbidden intoxicant. And now that she’d had one taste, like any drug, she wanted more—so much more.
Oh, yes, this was what she had to have.
She kissed him harder, loving the smell of his expensive sandalwood cologne, that underlying masculine scent, the feel of his rough cheek against her smooth one, but mostly loving the taste of him. A taste she could not get enough of.
Her hand ran through his hair, weaving possessively into the curls as her lips continued to taste his.
She’d fought hard enough to deny the effect he had on her.
When jealousy had consumed her on meeting his ex-lover, she’d tried to be appalled by him.
When she’d imagined him taking one or more of those high-kicking show girls as his lover she’d tried to tell herself she was not envious but outraged.
When the truth was that she longed to feel what those women had felt when he took them in his arms.
Now she did and it was glorious.
If he’d tried to seduce her, she knew she would never have kissed him.
Her guard would have come up immediately.
Her notorious sharp tongue would have lashed out at him.
Instead, he made her feel beautiful, desirable, a woman who was sure to find a man who would love her, but right now that was not what she wanted.
She wanted no other man. Just him.
‘We shouldn’t,’ he said, his voice a husky growl, before his lips trailed a line of kisses down her neck, each kiss sending waves of warm pleasure cascading through her body.
He was right. They shouldn’t. But each touch of his lips on her sensitive skin further stoked the fire burning inside her and she knew she would not be stopping until he quenched it.
‘Yes, we should,’ she murmured, and angled her head, exposing more of her neck to his nuzzling lips.
Oh, yes, we most certainly should. But she wanted more than just his kisses, as glorious as they were. She wanted to feel his caressing hands on her body, wanted to explore the skin and muscles under his shirt. She wanted to lose herself to every pleasure this magnificent man could give her.
To that end, she wrapped her arms around his back and sank down onto the carriage bench, taking him with her.
His body covered hers, the delicious weight and warmth seeping into her, and his kisses once again found her lips. Both hands encircled his head and she kissed him with a fervour which she could not control.
His tongue moved tantalisingly over her bottom lip, and she parted her lips wider in response. When his tongue entered her mouth she released a sudden gasp of surprise, then gave herself over to the exquisite sensual pleasure as he kissed her harder, deeper, with more insistence.
Writhing beneath him, she returned his kisses and rubbed her soft breasts with their tight sensitive peaks against his firm chest, each stroke sending ever increasing heat pounding through her body.
Margaret knew she was lost. Lost to him. Completely.
‘Unhand my daughter, you scoundrel,’ an angry male voice burst into her dazed mind. The Duke sat up immediately, taking her with him.
Unsure what was happening, she looked towards the open door and her enraged father glowering at them. Behind him, peeking over his shoulder, her mother was beaming like a child on Christmas Day who had received every present she had ever wished for.
Margaret’s hand shot to her mouth to cover the gasp trying to escape, and her body, which seconds before was tingling with pleasure, now burned with embarrassment.
‘Winifred,’ her father said, ‘take your daughter inside while I have words with the Duke.’
‘No, Father. You don’t understand…’ Margaret said, finally finding her voice and fully taking in the seriousness of what her parents had just witnessed. Feeling mortified at being caught by her parents in a passionate embrace was really the least of her problems.
‘I understand perfectly,’ her father snapped. ‘Get inside, Margaret. Now. I will deal with this situation.’
‘No, you’ve got it all wrong.’ She turned to the Duke. ‘It was all my—’
The Duke lightly placed his finger on her lip. ‘It’s all right. Do as your father asks. We’ll talk later.’
No, it was not all right. It was all wrong and it was all her fault. But she could see her furious father was not going to listen to reason, so, with her mind a tempest and her body heavy with embarrassment, she stepped down from the carriage and followed her mother up the pathway.
‘There’s going to be wedding bells a lot sooner than we planned,’ her mother trilled as they entered the house.
‘What?’
‘After what your father and I just witnessed, there’s no other option.’
‘Oh, no!’ Margaret gasped, moving quickly towards the nearest chair and collapsing into it before her legs gave way beneath her. ‘This is a disaster.’
‘No, it’s not. It just means things will happen a lot more quickly than you had inexplicably insisted and we’ll get the Duke up the aisle before there’s any chance of anything going wrong.’
Margaret looked up at her mother, who was still smiling fit to burst.
‘Did you plan this?’
‘How could I possibly do so?’ her mother said, trying to look the picture of innocence but failing miserably.
‘Is that why you sent us off together without a chaperone, because you expected this to happen? Is that why you waited before coming out to the carriage, and came yourself rather than sending a servant to escort me inside?’
Her mother giggled. ‘Margaret, dear, what do you take me for? As if I would put my only daughter’s virtue in such jeopardy by sending her off to the theatre alone with a man if I had even the slightest inkling that any of this might happen?
And yes, perhaps I should have instructed a servant to escort you inside, and not waited until I saw the carriage start to rock before insisting your father go out and see what the delay was, but what’s done is done and there’s no point thinking about any of that now. ’
The two women stared at each other, one smiling, one scowling, then Margaret collapsed back into the chair.
She had been played and her mother had won this round.
But she still did not have her victory and Margaret would be doing everything in her power to make sure this marriage did not take place.
Her father entered the drawing room, his face like thunder. ‘It’s all settled. The Duke will apply for a special licence and the two of you will be married within the week.’
Margaret jumped to her feet while her mother clapped her hands.
‘What? No!’ Margaret shouted over her mother’s squeals of joy. ‘No, Father, that’s not fair!’
‘It is fair,’ her father replied, pacing up and down as if trying to walk off his rage. ‘And at least he had the decency to suggest the immediate wedding before I demanded it of him.’
‘No, you can’t force him to marry me.’
‘I am not. You were already going to wed, but his actions mean it must happen a lot sooner than planned. My God, he has known you for less than a week. You’ve been officially courting for only a few days and already he’s taking liberties.’
‘It wasn’t like that. He didn’t take liberties.’
Both parents watched her intently, her father’s face still red with anger, her mother still looking triumphant.
‘I know what I saw, Margaret,’ her father said.
The last thing Margaret wanted was to have this embarrassing conversation with her parents, but the Duke could not be punished for something that was not his fault. ‘He didn’t kiss me. I kissed him.’
Her father’s brow furrowed more deeply. ‘You kissed him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, relieved that he had understood so quickly.
‘Then you’ll have no objection to marrying him sooner than you intended.’
‘What? No! That’s not fair. I kissed him, so he should not be punished by being forced into a marriage he doesn’t want.’
‘He’s not being forced into marriage. The two of you are engaged.’
Margaret drew in a deep breath and gritted her teeth together to steady herself for a conversation she did not want to have with her father. ‘Yes, but we never intended to marry,’ she said quietly.
Both parents stared at her and her mother finally stopped grinning.
‘It was just a mutually beneficial arrangement between the two of us, but we never intended to actually go through with the marriage,’ Margaret continued, forcing her voice to remain steady.
‘The Duke hoped an engagement would make him look respectable and save him from…’ She paused, knowing what she was about to say would not redeem the Duke in her father’s eyes, but also knowing she now had no choice but to tell the entire truth.
‘An engagement would hopefully extricate him from a scandal with Baroness Winterborne, whose husband was threatening to divorce her and cite the Duke as her lover.’
Her father’s hands curled into fists, making it clear that such honesty was not really helping. ‘And what do you get in exchange for saving him from a husband’s justified wrath?’
‘I wouldn’t have to go through another Season.’
Both parents continued to stare at her as if trying to grasp what she was saying, then her father nodded slowly while her mother’s beaming smile returned just as bright as before.
‘None of that matters now, Percival,’ she said to her husband. ‘The Duke kissed her, remember? He took liberties. He has to marry her.’
‘He didn’t kiss me, Father. I kissed him,’ she said, driving home her point.
‘Why?’ her father asked.
‘Why what?’
‘Why did you kiss him?’
‘What?’ she repeated.
‘It’s a simple enough question. If you don’t want to marry the Duke, why did you kiss him?’
It might be a simple question but Margaret had no idea how to answer it.
Should she tell him that something about the Duke made her ache with desire?
Should she tell him about the jealousy that had consumed her at the theatre when she had met his ex-lover?
Should she mention how he’d looked when he’d gazed at The Garvagh Madonna?
Would her father understand? Did she understand?
‘I don’t know,’ she said instead.
‘Well, it matters not. You will be married within the week and that is the end of the matter,’ her father said, causing her mother to once again clap her hands, and for Margaret to sink back into the nearest armchair, completely defeated.