Chapter 4
NEW YORK CITY SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER
One month of a courtship, and Lillian didn’t feel as if she knew the Duke of Wentworth any better than she had when they had first met in the front drawing room.
But that didn’t matter.
Because she was now, by the strokes of two pens, engaged to marry him. It would be the society wedding of the year. Mother was already gleefully planning.
The duke stood by the desk where they had so recently signed their lives away, whilst Lillian was sentinel at the window, watching carriages rumble by in the streets below. The day was a rainy one, the sky grim and gray, and thoroughly suited to her mood.
“You have paid me an incredible honor, Miss Penrose,” Wentworth said to her, his tone formal as always.
His voice stole her from her rumination, making her turn to him.
He was so perfectly well-mannered, whether they were in a crowd of others or alone.
Presently, it was just the two of them in the elegant confines of the salon that had doubled as her painting room on so many occasions.
Her mahogany box of watercolors and brushes would be crated up and sent to England soon in preparation of her new life as the Duchess of Wentworth.
Everything would change.
“Tell me, Your Grace,” she said, studying him curiously. “Are you happy?”
Undoubtedly, it was not the sort of question a newly engaged woman often asked the man who would be her husband. But theirs had not been an ordinary courtship, and she knew that their marriage wouldn’t be any different.
They were two strangers, joining their lives together.
He moved toward her, hands clasped behind his back, handsome and tall.
She couldn’t find fault with the duke’s appearance, even if she did with their circumstances.
His dark hair was swept back from his high forehead, and he possessed a brooding air that lured women to him as much as his lofty title did.
She had watched, at every ball they had both attended, as debutantes and widows alike had fawned over him.
His shoulders were broad, his figure lean, his jaw strong.
“I am well pleased, Miss Penrose,” he said.
An interesting response indeed, and telling, too.
“But not happy,” she pressed.
Silence fell between them, interrupted only by the drumming of the rain on the windowpane at her side.
“Are you happy?” he countered, instead of answering her question.
She wished she knew the meaning of his deflection. Aside from a handful of polite conversations, they hadn’t spoken directly to each other very often.
Lillian thought of Monsieur Dupont, to whom she had written after Mother had abruptly canceled all future painting lessons.
He had responded, and his letter had soundly crushed any hopes she may have still harbored that he had cared for her.
Even worse, Mother had shown her proof that Monsieur Dupont had accepted a handsome sum to leave the city and never speak with her again.
It had been a foolish fancy, the way she’d felt for the handsome painting instructor.
She had always known it, but her pride was quite battered just the same.
And her heart was ragged and worn, incredibly wary of the duke before her.
Willing, perhaps, to open to him.
One day.
“No,” she answered honestly. “I am not happy. It was not my wish to marry a man who lives an ocean away from everything I have known, nor to make my life there.”
He stopped at her side, his dark-brown eyes with their sparkling amber depths intent upon hers. “You won’t be alone in England. You shall have me.”
Would she have him, though? Lillian was not na?ve.
More than one marriage of convenience had led to a husband taking a mistress or a wife taking a lover.
She wondered then if there was anyone Wentworth cared for at home.
Did he already have a mistress? Was there another woman in whom he’d had an interest before her father had come along, luring him with the promises that only the Penrose fortune could offer?
“I scarcely know you,” she pointed out to the duke instead of airing any of her tumultuous concerns.
“You will know me better in time.”
She swallowed hard against a rise of emotion. “This is not the manner of marriage I wanted or imagined I would have.”
It wasn’t as if Mother hadn’t prepared her for it from birth. Lillian had been raised to know her place in the world and to understand what was expected of her. Mother’s objective in life was to see to it that she remained the queen on the throne of high society.
“Nor is it the manner of union I would have chosen for myself,” Wentworth conceded, surprising her.
“But sometimes life leads us on a path we couldn’t have comprehended, even if we cannot fathom the reasons.
I find myself looking forward to our union.
I hope that you will find every happiness in being my wife.
” He paused, reaching for her hand and taking it in his. “Have you changed your mind?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not. I haven’t.”
There was no one else for her. And she was nothing if not a dutiful daughter. She had an obligation to her parents, and she wanted to make them proud.
The duke brought her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles.
Sparks of awareness jolted up her arm, making her fingers tense on his involuntarily.
“We have the rest of our lives to grow to know each other,” he said softly.
And yet, although he held her hand, he was still being polite. Almost insufferably so. Unlike other suitors she’d had in the past, the Duke of Wentworth had never even kissed her. Had not attempted it.
Was it because he didn’t find her attractive?
She suddenly wanted to know what it would feel like to know him in a different way. He had been the proper, impeccable suitor this last month. She wanted to shake him from his mask of cool indifference. Lillian wanted…
Oh, she didn’t even know what she wanted. Inside, she was a mess of confusion. Yearning and trepidation and curiosity were colliding.
“Do you think we will suit?” she asked, giving voice to the questions brewing within her.
“I hope that we shall.”
“Perhaps we should test it now, before it’s too late.”
His eyebrows rose. “What are you suggesting?”
“That you should kiss me,” she blurted.
Her face instantly went hot. What was she thinking, to be so daring? What if he thought her appallingly brazen for proposing something so forward?
“You want me to kiss you,” he repeated, his voice low and silken.
A rush went over her, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. The duke’s expression shifted, growing more intent.
“Yes.” The word left her in a whisper.
“That’s an excellent idea.” His head dipped toward hers.
“I-it is?” she stammered.
“It is.” Another inch and his lips settled on hers.
His mouth was warm. Hot, really. She gasped at the sensation, the sheer rightness and thrill, and he kissed her in truth then.
His lips moved over hers with expert precision, as if he had already kissed her a hundred times before.
As if he had been born to kiss her and she had equally been born for this moment, when this man she scarcely knew angled his mouth over hers and sipped from her lips as if she were the sweetest dessert he had ever tasted.
As if she were something invaluable. Something to be worshiped. As if each kiss were a revelation. No one had ever kissed her like this. She would forever be transformed, and she knew it. There would be the time before she had known his lips on hers, and then there would be the time after.
He was still holding her hand. Lillian realized her fingers gripped his far too tightly.
She let go and grasped his shoulders. They were strong and broad beneath her fingertips, wonderfully masculine.
He was tall, so tall, and yet they fit together perfectly.
As if she belonged in his arms, tucked into his chest. A frisson of something thrilling and new—dangerous, even—went down her spine.
She hadn’t felt this way with anyone else.
His hands settled on her waist, and he deepened the kiss, his mouth angled over hers, his tongue gliding along the seam of her lips.
She let him in. Welcomed him, even, and knew the luxurious slide of his tongue against hers, the taste of him, sweet like the tea they had shared before the contract, with a hint of berry tart.
Lillian’s lips sought his, coaxing, teasing, tasting. She kissed him as if she were starved for him. As if the world would end if their lips parted. And in that moment, it felt as if the world she’d known had indeed upended, nothing to save her but the man holding her in his arms.
The man she was going to marry.
She tasted sweet.
Alaric kissed Miss Penrose, unable to get enough of her. He was a starving man and she was the feast laid before him.
He would die if he didn’t have more.
And so he kissed her and kissed her.
Backed her against the desk, intent upon he knew not what. Ravishing her upon the betrothal agreement? Hardly. But she was intoxicating, and he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t ever want to remove his mouth from hers.
It had required every bit of control he possessed to keep from kissing her this last month.
To watch her from afar, falling a bit more under her spell with each passing day until he had gazed upon her across a crowded ballroom one evening and the truth had revealed itself to him in glaring, startling honesty.
He had fallen in love with Miss Lillian Amelia Penrose.
He had never expected his feelings to develop for her so swiftly.
On the day he’d first met her, he had hoped that in time, they would develop a mutual appreciation for each other.
Perhaps even a friendship. Alaric had never believed there would be or could be love.
But she was dazzling. A brilliant butterfly in a sea of sparrows.
She was intelligent and kind, bold and candid.
Sparing with her smiles, making him want to earn them.
He fitted his lips over hers, telling her everything he did not yet dare to say with words.
Showing her how utterly enchanting he found her.
How much he appreciated every facet that made her who she was.
How much he couldn’t wait to be her husband.
He had been careful with her thus far, being a gentleman, giving her time, but now they were betrothed, and she had asked him to kiss her, and—
Dimly, he became aware of muffled thuds.
Alaric jerked his lips from hers, eyes flying to the door. But they hadn’t been interrupted by a wily chaperone. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Penrose hovered at the threshold. He and Miss Penrose had likely been left alone for a good reason.
This one.
Never mind that. He was already so smitten with her that he hardly needed a reason to force him into matrimony.
“Oh.” Miss Penrose looked up at him, hand pressed to her kiss-swollen lips. Her pale Prussian-blue eyes were wide as they met his.
He found himself grinning at her, pleased by her reaction to his kisses. She had kissed him back, and quite thoroughly, too. Moreover, the idea had been hers.
“Oh, indeed,” he echoed, feeling as shocked as she looked.
Their every interaction thus far had been painfully polite to the point of being awkward. He’d thought her frigid. But there was nothing cold about her fiery, passionate response to his kiss.
“I should…I have to…excuse me, Your Grace,” she blurted, her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink and her rambling words telltale hints that she was every bit as affected as he was.
There would be time aplenty to investigate the undeniable passion burning between them soon.
Alaric took a step in retreat, forcing his rampant ardor to cool and putting some much-needed distance between them before he did something truly foolish, like lift her skirts and pleasure her on a desk in the midst of her parents’ mansion where anyone could come upon them at any moment.
“Of course, my dear,” he said with what he hoped was a passable attempt at sangfroid.
In truth, he felt as if he were at sixes and sevens. The kisses they had just shared had shaken him deeply.
Miss Penrose looked at him as if she meant to say something more. But in the end, she simply curtseyed and fled from the salon, a streak of champagne and ivory silk trailing in her wake. He watched her go, feeling bemused.
Belatedly, Alaric glanced down and found the source of the sound that had forced him to interrupt their kiss. A small stack of books that had been sitting atop the desk had been swept to the floor. Likely by Lillian’s billowing bustle and skirts as he had kissed her senseless.
Alaric bent to retrieve the fallen books. As he placed them back atop the desk in their former home, however, one opened and a letter slid from its place tucked within the pages. Thinking to keep the contents of the epistle private, he hastily picked it up, averting his gaze.
But not averting it before he caught a hint of Miss Penrose’s name at the top of the page, clearly written in a masculine scrawl. His stomach knotted. She was receiving correspondence from another man?
It was none of his concern, he told himself. She could write to whomever she wished. Letters didn’t mean anything.
But as he hastily tucked the letter back into one of the books, his eye caught on one sentence.
Although I hold you in highest regard, I cannot return your eloquently stated feelings. Given your impending marriage to the duke, it is for the best, dearest Lillian, that we should part…
Alaric stuffed the letter deep into the tome’s pages without bothering to read the rest, cold replacing the heat that had suffused him.
Alaric was in love with Miss Lillian Penrose.
But she was in love with another nameless, faceless man.
And in six months’ time, she would become Alaric’s wife.