Chapter 7
The hour was indecently late, and there was no reason for Addy to hover outside the Duke of Marchingham’s bedchamber except a scandalous one. But when had she ever balked at causing a little scandal if it meant having her way?
Never, of course.
Her hand hovered, her determination overshadowed by her fear of rejection. This was her last chance to take the greatest risk of her life. All she needed was to muster the courage to knock on the duke’s door.
The snow had finally melted sufficiently so that the roads were once again passable. In the morning, Addy, Alfred, and Aunt Pearl would be leaving. A week and a half had passed from the time Addy had unceremoniously arrived at Marchingham Hall to this evening.
And in that time, everything had changed.
She and Marchingham had fallen into a pattern.
He hid himself away, only to occasionally emerge, kiss her breathless, and then apologize and disappear again.
They had kissed in the music room, the gardens, the library, and even once in the hall, where anyone could have happened upon them.
Each time, he withdrew, only to pretend as if nothing had occurred between them when their paths crossed next.
She had never met a man more frustrating. It was as if there were two different dukes. One was cold and aloof and proper, and the other was passionate and reckless.
The latter was, naturally, Addy’s preference.
She liked when those glimmers of his wicked self emerged.
She wanted more of them. She wanted to muss his hair.
To climb into his lap and kiss him until her lips ached.
To melt every last trace of his ice. She wanted to hold his hand and to have more snowball fights. To make him laugh. To win his smiles.
And perhaps even to win his heart.
That last realization had brought her here, to the room she had discovered was his, at nearly midnight.
Her time was running out. At dinner, Marchingham had been painstakingly polite, haughty, and reserved.
When she had spoken of the plans she and Aunt Pearl had made to leave for the train station in the morning, he hadn’t even blinked.
What if his lack of reaction was because he would be relieved to rid himself of her uninvited presence at his home?
What if he had only kissed her out of boredom?
What if a man could kiss a woman yet also despise her and consider her desperately beneath him?
What if her foolish—and false—bragging about kissing half a dozen Swiss lads during her escape from finishing school had persuaded him that she hadn’t any virtue?
The questions went on and on.
And on.
Addy took a deep, fortifying breath and, raising her hand, poised to knock at last.
Her insidious mind, however, refused to allow her a reprieve. It started whirling anew with a fresh round of questions.
What if her presence at his bedroom this late at night would horrify him?
What if—?
The door suddenly opened, halting all further thought.
For a moment, she could do nothing more than stare at the sight of Marchingham in a dark silk dressing gown.
Her breath caught in her lungs. She, who prided herself on never faltering or lacking an opinion, stood speechless in the hall, admiring the lamplight’s gilded glints in his wavy hair. Their gazes clashed and held.
“Miss Fox.” His brows drew together, his confusion apparent. “Is something amiss?”
“Addy,” she blurted.
He continued to stare, his expression inscrutable.
She took another deep breath. “I wish you would call me Addy, not Miss Fox.”
He was the first to blink. “That would be far too familiar of me.”
“More familiar than your mouth on mine?” she countered, summoning all the bravado she possessed. “I hardly think so.”
Marchingham said nothing. He simply stood there in his dressing gown, looking unfairly handsome.
Looking perfect. Not even a hair was out of place.
He didn’t look like a man about to retire for the night.
He looked like a gentleman about to attend a ball, if not for the dressing gown and his bare feet.
At the reminder that he wore no shoes, her gaze slipped to the floor.
His feet were long and large and not at all hairy like Papa’s were.
In fact, they were quite lovely, as far as feet were concerned.
Not that Addy was a foot connoisseur, that was.
But she could now say with unhesitating certitude that the Duke of Marchingham’s feet were every bit as handsome as the rest of him.
“I have been remiss,” Marchingham began.
“Do you like kissing me?” she asked at the same time.
He swallowed, and because she had wrested her gaze back to his face, she tracked the bob of his Adam’s apple, fascinated by how masculine his throat was. How she longed to lay her lips there. To kiss his neck as he had hers that day in the snowy garden. To taste his skin as she had his mouth.
“That is hardly the sort of question a lady ought to ask a gentleman,” he pointed out, his voice low and smooth.
He didn’t sound shocked or scandalized or even displeased. Rather, he sounded intrigued.
“We have already established that I’m not a lady.” She drew upon her mettle, summoning her sunniest smile. “And I take note that you haven’t provided me with an answer either.”
A lone brow rose. “I am certain you already have your answer.”
Did he truly think she would allow him to escape her with such ease this time? Addy knew him by now.
She shook her head. “I want to hear it from you.”
The air hung heavy with portent. Addy couldn’t shake the feeling that no moment in her life would ever compare to this one.
One wrong word, one false step, and Marchingham would run from her again.
He would likely retreat into his bedroom and bar the door, not emerging until he saw the back of her heading down the approach to Marchingham Hall.
Something shifted in his expression, the sternness fading, his jaw relaxing. “I shouldn’t enjoy it.”
“But you do,” she pressed.
He inclined his head. “Yes.”
Elation shot through her, almost making her giddy.
“I’m leaving in the morning.”
His lips compressed, the harsh angle of his jaw tightening again. “I am aware of that, madam.”
“Then perhaps you will call me by my name.”
“Adelia Louise.”
He had remembered her middle name. The realization sent warmth creeping through her.
“Addy,” she countered.
Anyone could call her Adelia, just as anyone might know she was Adelia Louise Fox.
The newspapers had reported on everything from the size of her waist to the color of her eyes, to the size of the fortune her father had settled upon her as a lure for prospective husbands.
She hated the public perception of her, the ceaseless desire from people she had never met to know about her.
To think they knew her merely because they had read about her in the papers.
But not everyone had leave to call her Addy.
That name was reserved for her closest family and friends.
She wanted to hear it now, in the duke’s precise, perfectly accented baritone.
Just once. More than once, if she were ruthlessly honest with herself, but once would suffice if it was all she could be allotted.
Marchingham swallowed again, looking as if he were at war with himself.
So handsome and composed, and yet there was a storm gathering in his eyes.
The same storm she had felt in him when he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her, when his tongue had slipped inside her mouth, when he had held her to him as if she were something both precious and breakable all at once.
“Say it,” she urged him. “Or are you too afraid that saying it will make everything that has happened between us these last eleven days impossible to ignore?”
“Addy,” he bit out, as if doing so caused him physical pain. “Addy Louise Fox, you should know better than to be knocking at an unwed gentleman’s door at midnight.”
She grinned at him, unable to contain the wild rush of joy coursing through her. She felt like a fireworks display in the night sky, explosive and combustible.
“I do know better.”
He frowned, his nostrils flaring. “Then why are you here?”
“You know why.”
“Addy,” he rasped, clearly trying to cling to his resolve.
But then he reached for her, and she knew he was failing.
His hands clamped on her waist in a possessive grip as she stepped forward.
Their bodies connected from chest to hip.
And oh, without the layers she ordinarily wore, what a revelation it was.
She could feel him against her—that male part of him, thick and insistent against her stomach.
Proof he was not unaffected, had she needed any.
“What shall I call you?” she asked, settling one hand on his shoulder while the other cupped his cheek.
Letty and Lila had always referred to him as Marchingham. She had no notion what his given name was, even if she did know the taste of him on her lips and the way he kissed.
“You shouldn’t call me anything.”
But despite his warning, he turned his head, punctuating his words with a kiss directly to the center of her palm.
More warmth spread through her. She liked that. She liked that very, very much.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“I loathe my name,” he murmured. “I always have.”
“What is it? I promise not to laugh.”
Her teasing had its intended effect, startling a chuckle out of him.
“Hoyden.”
She feigned an innocent look. “Your given name is Hoyden? I do agree it’s rather unusual.”
“No, you are a hoyden.” His tone was gruff, but there was no bite to it, no sting. “My name is Lionel, but I prefer Lion.”
It suited him. Powerful and regal and dangerous, all at once.
“Lion,” she repeated softly, liking the way it felt on her lips.
Liking what it meant. The Duke of Marchingham had told her his given name. And he was holding her in his arms. He hadn’t pushed her away or denied her. He hadn’t fled or withdrawn.