Chapter Five
Later that afternoon
Dante hadn’t seen his new bride since the wedding breakfast, and that suited him just fine. However, since she was his responsibility whether he liked that fact or not, there were arrangements that needed to be made, which he’d set into motion after the final guest had departed the house.
He’d told his staff that his new wife would need a room prepared.
They were surprised, of course, since he’d married so quickly, but they were quite efficient and had a room outfitted for her by the end of the afternoon.
It was cattycorner from his across the corridor, but there was plenty of space between them that they shouldn’t bother each other.
“And Mrs. Dirkfield?”
The housekeeper nodded as she folded her hands at her waist. She was tall and thin with graying brown hair, but she made certain his house was kept within an inch of its life. “Yes?”
“Tell the cook we will take dinner in tonight and that there should be a special dessert to celebrate.” It meant nothing, of course, but it might make an impression on his wife.
Or it would push her to try and stab him.
“Of course, Mr. Cunningham.” She sent him a sly glance. “Did your sins finally catch up with you? I heard about your latest scandal.”
Heat surged up the back of his neck. “Yes, well, it was her fault completely. She tried to seduce me, which led to her father crashing into the room at just the right moment.” Though he’d not thought about that angle, that had to be the reason for her luring him into that library.
Except the fact that she’d tried to stab him.
“Regardless, you are married.” The housekeeper clucked but otherwise kept her own counsel. “I met your wife when I brought her up to her room as her luggage was being delivered. She seems a good sort.”
“I wouldn’t know.” The fact he was even stuck in this morass rankled. What the hell was he supposed to do with a wife? Him with his black soul and haunted memories?
“If I might offer some advice?” When he nodded, the housekeeper continued. “Think of this as a gift instead of an inconvenience. She might be able to help you when you spiral into the darkness or perhaps guide you away from your demons.”
“That assumes I’ll trust her enough to let her close.
” Did it irk him that she had accused him of a crime and still intended to murder him?
Of course, but until he could talk to her about that, he’d need to watch himself.
Perhaps he needed to get ahead of the problem and confront her when she wasn’t expecting it. “However, I will give it some thought.”
The housekeeper nodded. “Good. In the meantime, Mrs. Cunningham is settling in. I ordered her a bath over an hour ago and assigned her a maid. Shall I tell her that you would like to share tea with her?”
“No, I’ll go find her myself.”
“Very well. I’ll tell the cook about the change in circumstances for the foreseeable future.” With a frown, she headed to the drawing room door. “Also, don’t discount sharing the Christmastide season with someone this year. It might change your perspective. You’ve been bitter for far too long.”
He grunted. “That will be all, Mrs. Dirkfield.” Good God, what a coil.
There’d been no time to talk with his friends earlier, and now he felt a bit lost. How did the other men reconcile who they were with coming to love the women they’d been forced to wed?
It was certainly a riddle that he didn’t know if he’d be able to solve.
Did he want to? Again, there were no answers.
Since he was possessed of restless energy, Dante left the drawing room and went upstairs. When he arrived at her bedroom door, he didn’t give her the courtesy of knocking. Instead, he pushed his way in just as she was in the middle of dressing perhaps for tea.
“I didn’t give you leave to enter my room.” Clad in stockings, beribboned garters, and her shift, his wife grabbed a glass carafe of water from the bedside table and then hurled it in his direction.
The blonde maid flinched with a squeak of alarm.
Thankfully, he was able to dodge it, but it smashed against the open door, breaking into a spectacular mess of water and small pieces of glass.
“Since I own the house, I can go anywhere I damn want.”
Seeing her standing there with her chest heaving in her underthings, arousal rushed through his blood.
The outlines of her nipples were clearly visible through the thin fabric, and he knew an acute need to feel those buds on his tongue.
Since she started the seduction at the ball, he hadn’t had a release.
Now that he’d married her, she’d soon find that everything had consequences.
I’m not a member of Club Damnation for nothing. We’re all morally gray men.
“As I told you before, you don’t have that right.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing those charms more fully against the shift.
He rested his gaze on the maid. “Get out.”
“Oh, but I—”
“Now!”
With a frightened glance at his wife, the maid scuttled out of the room. The snick of the door closing seemed to echo in the sudden silence that followed.
“What do you want?” his wife asked, and in many ways, he was glad that she wasn’t a shy miss or one prone to hysterics. She darted a glance to the bureau, but there was at least five feet of space between it, where the leather sheath rested with the jeweled-handled knife, and her.
Easily, he stepped into that path, blocking her access to the weapon. “To consummate the marriage. If we’re to be forced into it, I might at least have the release out of it.”
“Over my dead body.” She retreated a few steps. “Marriage in name only is what I agreed to this morning. It’s not my fault if you weren’t listening.”
“You might have proposed it, but I didn’t agree to it.” Why the hell was verbally sparring with this woman so arousing? He’d said her name once while reciting vows, and truly, he’d never been introduced to her formally.
“Surely, you don’t think to force me…” A trace of fear went through her sapphire eyes, and she retreated another few steps before the wall prevented further escape.
“It’s my right as your husband, and bear in mind, I never advertised myself as a gentleman.
If you thought that, you didn’t do proper research.
” More randy than he’d been in a long time, Dante pounced as if he were a jungle cat and she was his prey.
He caught her in his arms and claimed her lips, and what was more, her soft lips were almost like a prayer as they pressed against his.
As expected, Anne put up a fight, and when she planted her palms to his chest and attempted to push him away, that tension only enhanced the raw lust surging through his veins.
He wanted to draw it out to make what he was about to do more exciting and perhaps acceptable, for he would take her without her consent. In that he’d been deadly serious.
But it would be damned pleasurable for her, if he was as good as he thought.
Slipping his fingers around her wrists, he held her hands behind her back as he moved over her mouth, deepened the kiss until their tongues thrust and parried, crazily mated.
Though she struggled to free her hands, he easily kept her secured and continued to chase her tongue, caught her between the wall and his body, almost demanding that she submit to him.
Which she did not.
In fact, she managed to break away from his hold, darted toward the door, but it only enhanced the desire that crashed through his veins.
He stayed in the middle of the room then spun her about to face him.
“I don’t think so, Mrs. Cunningham.” Since her hair was already down and still a bit damp from her bath, he buried his fingers in the long length of that dark waterfall, and once more, he kissed her, perhaps to teach her a lesson, or punish her.
Damn it, he was in control of not only this embrace but also his life that had suddenly been turned on its head.
“You are mine now and would do well to remember that.”
“No…” Yet when he didn’t back down, little by little, she ceased to try and break from his hold.
Instead, Anne rested her palms on his chest, even went so far as to kiss him back.
Small victory, that, for he didn’t trust her not to harm him as she’d tried earlier, but when such an attack didn’t come, he tugged on her hair, lifted her chin, and took full advantage of ravishing her mouth.
“Why?” she asked in a quivering whisper.
“Why the hell not? We’re married. I’m not going to waste having a woman nearby.
” When he craved access to her body, he wrenched away only to cup her breasts through the thin fabric of her shift.
He squeezed them, rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples to encourage them to harden, and she made a sound of either protest or encouragement, it was difficult to tell.
“Don’t touch me.” The words faded as she tried to push him away, but that only stoked the fires of need building within him. “I’m not… This isn’t right.”
“I must.”
“We don’t know each other.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Because he was a prick and he wanted to make it clear he was in charge, he gripped the bodice of her shift, easily tore the lawn asunder, and then pushed the ruined garment from her body.
She gasped, and her eyes widened. “I don’t love you.”
Did her protests mean she was truly an innocent?
Dante snorted. “Two people can indulge in carnal play for many different reasons, and right now, my reasons are mastery, domination, and ire. None of it requires loves.” It took little effort to shove her against the wall, put a knee between her thighs to hold her in place, and continue to bedevil her breasts and nipples.
The lingering scent of lavender from her bath urged him onward.
When her eyelids fluttered closed and her lips partly slightly as a half-stifled moan escaped, he allowed himself a grin. Perhaps she would surrender after all.