Chapter Fourteen
Fast in the grip of a powerful desire, his erection heavy and thick and pounding, Alec rolled to his back and shot to his feet.
Have it your way, Duchess. The next time will be mine.
Out in the hall, he plowed his fingers through his hair and leaned against the wall. He swore, a vile and vicious curse. Christ, his mind was in a fog when she was near. A battle warred deep in his soul. He couldn’t think. Hunger still burned. Desire scalded his veins.
Go back in. Take her, urged a voice within. She is your wife. She is yours. Take her. Why deny yourself the spoils?
He couldn’t, he reflected grimly. He wouldn’t. Not like this. Not until she wanted him with a passion that matched his.
Oh, he had no doubt it was there. He’d felt it in the eager parting of her lips, every tremor in her body, the desperate way she clung to him.
When he kissed her, he felt so many things!
It was as if she fought the same battle as he.
Little wonder it rankled that his Irish rose continued to deny her longing.
Why, in the end, was she so reluctant? Why?
His steps took him downstairs to his study.
He needed distance between them to cool his blood.
A mere wall between them, a single room, simply wasn’t enough.
The temptation of knowing she was in the next room would be too strong.
In the study, he snatched the whiskey decanter and a glass and collapsed into the chair behind his desk, his emotions still raw.
A shadow slipped over him.
His lovely Maura was a beautiful woman. From the beginning, he’d wanted her.
She had invited him, lured him. And he had swallowed the bait, only to become a husband and acquire a wife in a way he’d never expected.
He’d been so resentful, so angry; he’d told himself he didn’t want her.
But he did. God above, he did. He gave a bitter laugh of self-reproach.
And since she was now his wife, it was entirely natural to take her to bed again, yet something held him back. She held him back.
Things had changed since they wed.
When they left Ireland, he was determined to stay aloof. He’d been a fool there, allowing his passion to control him.
And now he found himself at war—at war within himself.
If this marriage had not been forced upon him, he wondered, would his feelings for Maura be any different? Would he desire her any less? No, came his reluctant admission.
But to all appearances, the one woman he truly desired did not desire him. And she was his wife, by God!
He was both furious and perplexed. Was it because she had what she wanted? The title of duchess and a rich husband?
If only he knew! When he kissed her, he felt so many things. How right it felt!
Yet how strong was his pride.
And how strong was hers!
She was like a burr beneath his skin, forever in his mind. It was as if she fought the same battle as he. Need. Temptation. He longed to feel her surrender, not just to him, but to her feelings.
He’d felt her passion. Her craving. As strong, as desperate, as his. He’d felt the need that vibrated in her heart, as surely as it vibrated in his. He wasn’t wrong. Or was he? Doubt seated itself deep in his vitals.
He gave a self-mocking smile. Were his emotions so clouded by his longing that he could not trust them?
He had done this to himself, he realized.
He’d told himself he could remain indifferent to her beauty.
He had denied himself the spoils, because he hated that he’d been duped.
His pride wouldn’t allow him to admit his desire burned as strongly as ever.
Here at Gleneden, those first few times he kissed her, it was to prove that despite what happened in Ireland, he wasn’t powerless.
He’d wanted to assert himself. To show her that he would not be a puppet. If only his hand hadn’t been forced.
Yet what did that matter? She was his wife. He was her husband.
Neither of them could change that.
Nor did it change his desire for her.
And Maura wanted him. Her lips did not lie. Her lips had never lied.
She had trembled in his arms tonight. Trembled with pleasure, he was certain.
He felt the precise moment she surrendered—the precise moment of retreat!
A half-formed suspicion cut through him—that she was not as worldly as he’d thought.
Indeed, he could swear he caught a glimpse of fear—of vulnerability—and that was most frustrating of all.
Had he been a brute the night they’d slept together in Ireland?
She denied it.
Truth or lie, he conceded to himself, it had inevitably led to the same conclusion.
Marriage.
Draining the glass, Alec rested his forehead against the back of the hand that held it, staring into the dark. What a fool he’d been, he told himself scathingly. He could no more stay his desire than stop breathing. He had only to look at her and fire scalded his blood.
He leaned back. His mouth twisted. It still grated that she’d married him for his wealth. Had she? pricked a needling little voice. Was she a fortune-hunter? She had asked for nothing. Indeed, she disdained what his money would give her!
A ruse? No, he decided. Pride? Oh, aye, indeed. Yet it pleased him—pleased him immeasurably—to see her delight over her stockings. He wondered what she would say when the rest of his purchases arrived. When they had left Madame Rousseau’s shop, no doubt Madame rubbed her hands together in glee.
But he must own up to the truth. It was he who had sought her out that night. But then, she had participated—oh, most willingly! He gave a brittle laugh; he was certain it had nothing to do with his appearance.
And everything to do with the fact that he was the Duke of Gleneden.
But it certainly didn’t seem as if it was his person or his possessions that she coveted!
What then? He examined her motives. What was she after? What had brought her to Gleneden?
He couldn’t dispel the notion that the lovely Maura McBride—he was rather startled at how easily her new name slipped through his mind—was up to something. She wanted something. But what the devil could it be, if not his name and his fortune?
Alec smiled tightly. Maura had been shocked at his blatant caress tonight. Her flesh had clamped tight around his finger, so tight he’d had to halt his penetration. So tight that for an instant a fleeting notion ran through his mind.
But that was impossible. If he didn’t know better—if he hadn’t seen for himself the bloodstained proof upon the sheets—along with Maura, her uncle, and the baron, he could almost believe…
Suspicion gnawed at him. He groped for memory.
Snatches of remembrance appeared and disappeared, just beyond his reach.
He’d always felt that something was amiss about that night.
He set aside the glass and pushed both fingers into his temples.
Why couldn’t he remember making love to her?
Why? It was as if his mind had been wiped clean, as if there was a gaping hole.
He fought to bridge the gap. He fought to recall every detail.
Why the devil couldn’t he remember bedding her?
His mind worked furiously. How could the memory elude him so?
Why couldn’t he remember? He’d shared a whiskey with the baron before the masquerade.
In light of being found in bed with her the next morning, he had believed the only thing possible—that he must have been feeling the effects of too much liquor by the time he took Maura up to his room more than he realized.
But to be so foxed that he couldn’t remember bedding the woman who was now his wife? It nagged at him.
His mind was like a cobweb. Hazy, yet impenetrable.
He tried again.
And this time…ah, this time! Sketched in his mind were hot, enflamed kisses. Maura pulling briefly away to pour wine. He’d drained his glass. So had she.
He closed his eyes. Memory sharpened.
Bottoms up, he’d said. And then—
He’d tugged Maura down onto the bed. The taste of her mouth, the curl of his tongue around her nipples…
every touch returned in vivid recall. He remembered his hand over hers, closing her fingers around his shaft, one by one, her touch almost timid.
Vaguely, he remembered thinking it so at odds with her sultry invitation.
Then everything blurred. It was as if his mind had gone blank until he woke the next morning.
A fleeting sensation passed through him. The thought unveiled a vague sensation; he fought to keep hold of it. Another sensation caught hold…that of Maura tugging. At his boots. At his breeches…
All along he had sensed that something was not right. There was a reason behind it, he was certain.
And that reason had something—everything!—to do with his bride. He held his liquor well. That’s what made it so difficult to believe he’d been to bed with a virgin. And he had been fine.
Until that last glass of wine.
His body went utterly still.
Until that last glass of wine.
“Oh, God,” he whispered.
It was suddenly all so very vivid. He could see it in his mind; hear the way their glasses clinked. Bottoms up, he had declared.
He swore, a long, blistering oath.
It made sense now. Her shyness whenever he touched her. The way she responded, the way she resisted before ultimately yielding her lips to his.
And now he knew why.
She had drugged his wine, the little witch!
The following morning, Maura helped herself to a dish of Scottish oats from the sideboard. Pouring a little milk over the top, she started toward the table. It was curious; this was the first time Alec wasn’t at the table before her. Why, she almost missed his bedeviling presence!
Mrs. Yates came through the door. “Ah, I thought I heard you, your grace! How are you this fine mornin’?”
Maura glanced up at her. She had just pushed her spoon into her bowl. “Excellent, Mrs. Yates.” She gestured with her spoon to Alec’s chair. “Have you seen his grace about this morning?”
“He’s gone to Glasgow again, your grace. He asked me to tell you he’ll be back by tomorrow, so you needn’t worry.”