Chapter One #3
Oh Heavens. Guilt, bitter as bile, poisoned her tongue. If he only knew the horrible things she’d been thinking, he’d never have said her name in such a soft, caressing tone!
“I ought to have asked before.” He chuckled to himself. “May I call you Cassandra?”
Well, she wasn’t Miss Cassandra to him anymore, was she? She forced a noise she hoped sounded like assent.
“There is still steam rising from the water left by your maid,” he said. “Shall I help you clean—”
“No!” she interrupted, horrified. She just wanted to be alone.
His thumb stopped moving. He frowned. Something like victory surged through her veins.
Victory followed immediately by regret.
“No, thank you,” she amended. The anger within her was not appeased. “Please ring for Sally before you return to your chamber.”
There. She’d done it.
She’d politely let him know she wanted him to leave. Only he didn’t get out of her bed. Instead, he placed his cumbersome, very male palm against her cheek. She could smell her own scent on him. Revolting!
Well, a little revolting.
But, perhaps, also a very tiny, minuscule-morsel bit intriguing, too?
“Are you asking me to leave?” His frown deepened. “Do you truly want me to go?”
No. Tell him how you have felt about him since the moment you laid eyes on him.
Tell him you’d like to try again.
Oh, good heavens. She closed her eyes. Now she had two opposing voices competing in her head. Wasn’t she vulnerable enough?
Why should she give him even more ammunition by telling him the secret feelings she harbored for him, especially since that feeling—that curious, fledgling longing—was currently making her furious?
And why had she gone from bracing herself against his onslaught, to enjoying the feel of him moving inside of her, to furiously ordering him out?
The distinctions between sacred, scared, and excited had blurred.
Which was she now? Scared? Excited?
Both?
Or perhaps she was scared, because he was exciting.
Carnal knowledge had certainly smeared the carefully negotiated boundaries between them.
Covertly—she hoped—she moved her gaze over his features. His color was still high from exertion. His eyes, bright. His nightshirt crumpled, askew.
Did he have to be so distressingly handsome?
Enchanting, he’d called her. He, heaven help her, was spellbinding.
He’d a wide brow, and his high cheek bones tapered down to a distinguished chin. His thick, sandy-brown hair fell over his forehead in a romantic wave. He looked, in fact, like one of the imaginary beaus she’d sketched when she’d been young.
Young and stupid enough to dream of a love match.
No. She would not allow his obvious good will to mute her anger.
No matter how much he’d intrigued her, no matter how much she’d wanted him, he’d stolen her dreams of love when he’d yanked her onto that dance floor. She didn’t want to yield to him any more than he’d already taken. He had forced her to yield to him in public. And now…
Well, now, she’d just profoundly, intimately, painfully yielded to him in private.
Painfully…at first.
Once she’d adjusted her position, the sensation had been, not quite pleasant but—full. Friction had lit flinty sparks inside her, igniting an even deeper, hotter burn. Most confusingly, even though he’d been inside of her, still, she’d yearned for him to be closer.
She’d wanted to wrap his strange, hard body in her arms. All she’d found the courage to do was place her hands against his muscled shoulders.
And, ah, what an unexpected, overwhelming feeling…
NO! She absolutely would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how deeply he had—
His face blurred. No. No. NO.
“Ssst,” she said aloud, as if scolding one of her younger sisters to be quiet in church. But she couldn’t stop tears from clouding her eyes and fattening enough to bubble over her lids, wetting her lashes.
“Ah,” he crooned. “Ah, my dear girl.”
She shrank back. She was not his girl. She was a married lady. She lifted her wobbly chin. A duchess. His duchess.
Oh God!
How had she ever thought marriage to Harbury would make everything easy?
With his rough man-thumb, he wiped away her tears. No man had ever wiped tears from her eyes. In fact, no man—save a groom—had ever been this close to her person.
Beast.
Or dream come to life? She blinked up at him.
Bad dream.
“I’m perfectly”—her voice cracked—“fine. Just tired.”
A long, searching look satisfied him. His nightshirt fell around his thighs as he rose. He leaned back over the bed to kiss her forehead. She appreciated his tenderness. She also wanted to chuck a shoe at his head.
Pity her feet were bare.
“I’m not overwrought,” she lied again. “Only, I could hardly sleep last night.”
He smiled. “Nor I.”
Because he was getting drunk with his friend Adrian, her brother-in-law!
He smoothed the troubled indentation between her brows. “I hope you will sleep well tonight. You’re safe.”
She wasn’t. And when he cocked his head, and his stupid lock of hair fanned his forehead becomingly, her danger only increased.
“I promised to honor and keep you,” he continued. “I do, you know. I honor you.”
Honor. What did honor even mean?
He’d promised to love her too, but he’d given his heart to another long ago.
On the other hand, he’d been honest about his dear Viv.
If Cassie could not expect her husband’s love, at least she could rely on his integrity. And trust was more than many couples had between them, was it not?
Even if her fury continued to billow choking plumes of smoke and ash, she must remember—she’d proposed. This marriage was not entirely his fault.
And he was…trying.
“Thank you,” she forced. “I promised to be a good wife. And I will,” she added with only slightly bitter resolution. “But go, Harbury. Please.”
An expression of concern shaded his features. Briefly, his lips parted as if he were about to speak. She didn’t want him to speak.
She couldn’t speak. Because she hadn’t any words for the unwanted emotions warring inside.
All day she’d seesawed between conflicting desires.
She wanted to hold her husband. She wanted to push him away. She wanted to ask him what the future held. She wanted to tell him, in no uncertain terms, they had no future, at least no future in which they might be happy.
Thank heavens she’d her five sisters to distract her on this, the most consequential day of her life, else she might have gone mad. But they—along with Harbury’s sister Sarah and Adrian’s sister Emily—had already left to return to London.
She was alone with her husband. Alone on his vast, one hundred-forty-nine-thousand-acre estate.
Two towns, several villages, over one hundred farmers, tradesmen, gamekeepers, and other tenants, all under the strict eye of Harbury’s head steward Mr. Anderson—a man who, just this morning, had offered felicitations in a hearty tone with unwelcoming eyes, leaving her feeling unwanted, extraneous.
She did not belong here. She would never belong here.
She shivered. Harbury moved to adjust the coverlet around her person.
“Please,” she repeated. “I just want to go to sleep.”
He hesitated, then nodded.
She looked away as he donned his banyan. When she was certain he was fully covered, she faced her husband again.
“Good night, duchess,” he said, his mouth quirking in a wry, somewhat mystified attempt at a smile.
“Good night, duke.” She sniffed, offering what she hoped was a thankful expression…albeit a watery one.
Then, finally, he was gone.
And the new Duchess of Harbury—her heart sliced into a tripartite of silly hope she dared not indulge, sensual curiosity she feared, and furious, flowing enmity she did not know how to contain—calmly dried her tears.
For better or worse, Harbury was now her husband.
As planned, they would spend the summer here at Harbury Hall.
She would come to know him, come to know his people and his land.
She would be good. She would be dutiful.
And then, she would reunite with Eliza and her sisters at Ravenswood, Redver’s Manor home and they would all return to town for the little Season.
Her sacrifice would be her sisters’ gain.
But the little Season seemed far, far away. And the duke, far, far too present. Half of her wanted to win him, the other, to ruin him.
Heaven only knew which part would prevail.