Chapter 14
Philip was in the entrance hall before he realized Selina had not followed him.
After the evening he’d had, her defiance was a razor to his patience, fraying it. There had been a time, not so very long ago, when no one would have dared to disobey him.
“You are not at war anymore, old boy.”
Zachary’s parting words rattled in his skull.
Taking a calming breath, Philip turned and walked back to the drawing room door.
The three women were exchanging knowing looks, clearly very pleased with themselves—pleased with Selina, at least. Lizzy looked positively ecstatic that her dear friend had adopted her habit of making things more difficult for him.
“Lady Selina.” He stared at her intently. “A moment of your time.”
“You could begin with ‘please.’ That might help,” Lizzy remarked, smirking.
Selina, however, was stony-faced. “I am enjoying an evening with my friends, Your Grace. Whatever it is you wish to say to me, we can discuss it another time.”
“Your evening is over,” Philip growled.
Lizzy sniffed. “You can’t send us to bed, Brother. We are not children.”
“Then do not act like children,” Philip replied. “Go on, get out of here. You have all made quite enough mess for the servants to clean up in the morning.”
“Says the man who is pouting because he is not getting his way,” Lizzy muttered. “I am not going anywhere.”
Selina, however, rose to her feet. “I am rather tired, and I do not want to get between the arguments of siblings.”
While Melody picked up a book and pretended to read, and Lizzy glared at Philip, Selina walked past him without sparing him a second look.
She was not obeying his request; she was defying it in a subtler fashion. It irritated him more than if she had just stayed where she was, in the same outward rebellion as his sister.
He should have just let her go. But no.
You will talk to me.
He caught up to her on the stairs, and his hand closed around her forearm, pulling her back.
“Do not walk away from me until I am finished with you,” he said quietly. “Did you forget already?”
She turned, rolling her eyes. “Did you forget my response?”
“I asked to have a simple word with you.” He ignored her remark. “As your future husband, you will show me respect enough to listen.”
“And if it is something I have no desire to talk about?” Anger flashed in her eyes, her arm suddenly rigid in his grip, as if his touch offended her.
Was that why she kept making herself scarce? Had she… not liked the kiss? He wanted her respect and her obedience when it mattered, but he was not someone who would kiss a woman who did not want to be kissed.
Did I get it so wrong?
It had felt like she was enjoying herself, spurred on by hunger as he was, but perhaps he was losing his intuition for that sort of thing. Among other things.
“If I offended you, My Lady, then I am sorry for it,” he said, a frown lowering his eyebrows.
She met his gaze with cold eyes, dismissive in a way he hadn’t seen from her before.
“It is quite all right,” she said crisply. “I am aware of what it means to be a wife. Your wife. I knew a kiss was something I would have to give one day, just as I know that I will also have to give you children someday. That is all most wives are good for, in the opinion of noblemen.”
He stared hard at her, taken aback by her frankness.
“As long as I am allowed to keep and expand my reading club with Lizzy, I won’t mind the rest,” she added with a shrug, as if what happened between a man and a woman was just something to get over with. A chore. A duty. Something to dread and endure.
His grip tightened on her arm. “This isn’t about children, Selina. I don’t care about children.”
“What?” It was her turn to sound surprised, her face scrunched up.
He moved up a step until he towered over her, his arm curving around her side to brace his hand against the banister. Pinning here there, not as he had done in the library, out of desire, but out of a fierce determination to be understood.
“I want you to want my kiss,” he growled, leaning down to her ear. “I want you to want my touch and my presence. I want you to crave them. I do not want you to think of it as a chore to be suffered through or an expectation. I do not want you to merely tolerate me, love. I want you to desire me.”
She pressed back against the banister to put space between them, a harsh bark of a laugh leaving those plump, tempting lips of hers.
“Since when have you cared about my opinion?” she asked.
“It would be a mistake to mock me, Selina,” he warned.
“It is not mockery. You have not cared about my opinion before.” Her eyes were fever bright, two hot coals of anger and defiance. “You have not asked what I wanted before. Indeed, you have done the very opposite, thus far.”
He gazed at the curve of her neck, his lips itching to kiss her there. “So, I imagined your frantic breaths in the library? I imagined the way you kissed me back so fervently? Were you clinging to me purely to steady yourself?”
It might have sounded like teasing, but he truly wished to know. If he had misjudged, he wanted to ensure he did not make the same mistake again. Even if it tortured him to keep his distance.
“I beg your pardon?” she rasped, her face flushing.
“You heard me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You just want me to obey. This is all… about control.” Her throat bobbed. “So, let me ask you this—what would you do if I won’t obey? If I refuse to want you as you want me to? If I won’t be a good little wife?”
He was contradicting himself, but he pressed closer, his hand gripping the banister so tightly that the wood creaked.
How could she act like she didn’t want him when her gaze kept flitting to his lips, her bosom was heaving like that, and her face was the deep pink of desire?
“Go on,” she goaded, her voice catching. “What would you do?”
He could see her pulse fluttering in her throat. Whether it was nerves or longing that intensified its beat, he couldn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted to kiss that spot, feel that racing pulse against his mouth.
“What would you do?” she repeated, breathless.
His hand came up from the banister and closed around her throat, gentle, not squeezing too hard. Her neck arched, those eyes drawing him in, bringing him closer to her lips. Like she wanted him, more than anything.
Biting his lip, he leaned in that little bit more. If he spoke her name, it would brush his mouth against hers.
Instead, footsteps in the hall brought a sharp curse to his lips.
If that is Lizzy, she won’t be pleased.
Only, the footsteps were coming from the opposite direction of the drawing room and moving with haste.
Glaring, his hand fell away from Selina’s throat, and his head whipped around to find Mary standing in the middle of the entrance hall, frozen. A sting of something like hurt flickered in her brown eyes, her face tense.
Jealousy, if he wasn’t mistaken.
“There is… a carriage coming, Your Grace,” she said.
Why she was declaring that instead of letting the visitors come to the door, to be received by the butler, would have been beyond him if it were not for that wounded look on her face. The arrival of a carriage was just an excuse to interrupt; he would wager a lot of money on it.
“You should announce yourself,” he seethed.
She was absolutely doing this on purpose. Revenge for his rejection the other night.
Mary tilted her chin up. “I have never had to do so in the past. I do not even have to knock on closed doors… aside from your study that one time. But you were not cross about it.”
She smirked, and he heard Selina’s breath catch.
“You will announce yourself from now on!” he snapped.
Selina half slipped out of his grasp, moving to the safety of the next step up. “Don’t mind me,” she bit out. “I do not care what you do, but I demand respect if I am to be your wife. You should not be so… obvious.”
Before he could explain—though what could really be said?—she wrenched her arm free and, hiking up her skirts, ran off up the stairs.
Philip stared after her, bristling.
“I thought you might want to know about the new arrivals,” Mary said, her smile triumphant. “My mistake.”
His attention snapped back to her. Fists clenched and blood still pounding through his veins from smoldering desire, he strode down the stairs.
Standing over Mary, frustration a formidable fire in his belly, it took most of his willpower not to seize her by the collar or shake her for her jealous insolence.
“This is the last time I will allow this behavior,” he snarled. “Whatever familiarity we had is over. I will not repeat myself again! And I will not show you the lenience I showed before.”
Mary chuckled bitterly. “You say that, but you’ll soon grow bored of the novelty of that sweet little thing.
She knows nothing of the world or how to please you.
” She traced her fingertips down his lapel.
“You will desire me again, Your Grace, and I will be right here, eager to satisfy what she can’t. You know you can’t resist m—”
“You will not disrespect my betrothed,” he hissed. “I want you gone by morning.”
Mary flinched back. “What?”
“If you do not leave on your own, I will make sure to find you a place as far from here, as far from London, as possible,” he threatened. “If I see you near here again, you will not like the consequences.”
“This is all I am to receive after everything I have done for you?” Mary’s voice cracked. “I meant no disrespect, Your Grace, but… I know you. You will be looking for your next amusement within weeks of your wedding. You will tire of her. She has nothing to offer you!”
His lip curled. “Gone. By morning.”
“Your Grace, please… I meant nothing by it. I—”
“I will not have you upsetting my betrothed,” he shot back. “And I know you. You meant everything by interrupting. You are jealous, and that means there is no longer a place for you here.”
He had hoped it would not come to this, that Mary would be reasonable and see sense after their recent encounter, but no such luck.
“Speak to the housekeeper about your final imbursement,” he added.
If looks could kill, he would have been dead in the center of his own entrance hall. Nevertheless, it had to be done. There was no room for jealousy in his life or his manor, not with a wedding coming and a reluctant bride to wrangle.
Upstairs in her guest chamber, Selina went straight to her bed and fell back onto the coverlets. Her chest rose and fell as if she had run a marathon, her hand coming up to feel the rapid movement.
From there, her curious fingertips traced higher to her throat. She touched where Philip had touched. Closing her eyes, she imagined his hand was still there, applying that light, exquisite pressure.
Am I mad?
Should she have been afraid of his hand around her throat? Had he been trying to tell her that he would strangle her if she didn’t obey, if she didn’t want him as he wanted her to? It didn’t feel like it, and despite what Lizzy had insisted, he still wasn’t a brute to her.
Was he showing me how things could be if I just gave in to him?
She thought of Mary, and her eyes snapped open again. Her hand fell to her side, and her thundering heart skipped a few beats, her chest overwhelmed with a tight feeling. Jealousy? Envy? More disappointment?
“How many other maids in this house is he familiar with?” she whispered, her jaw tight.
How many indiscretions will I have to suffer through?
Her eyes closed again until her heartbeat slowed and the thrill of his touch and his almost-kiss had all but drained away.