Page 56 of The Truth About Love and Dukes

His lashes lowered, then lifted. “Yes.”

She looked into his eyes, so cool, so remote, and yet, they flared the spark in her that his kiss had ignited, and her body responded at once with a strong, answering thrill. She took a step toward him. “But—”

She stopped as he took another step back.

“No doubt, this feeling I have is temporary,” he said. “It will pass, but until it does, I fear you may be vulnerable to further attentions of this sort from me, for as I said, I am finding them difficult to master. In light of that, I suggest that for the remaining time you are here, we should maintain as much distance as politeness and civility will allow.”

That was rather less thrilling, particularly since he spoke of his lack of control as if it were a compulsion to eat sour persimmons. “I see.”

“I will do all that I can, Miss Deverill, to ensure that tonight’s events are not repeated. Of course you cannot be expected to forget my conduct, but I hope you can forgive it. Good night.”

He offered her a stiff bow and turned away. Irene, stunned, bemused, and still unmistakably aroused, could only watch him as he walked toward the door, his most unaccountable admission still ringing in her ears.

I have had, from the moment we met, an ardent desire for you.

She’d only imagined such words in dark, half-formed thoughts in the privacy of her own room, and she certainly never would have thought they could come out of this man’s mouth.

He vanished out the door, and Irene stared at the empty doorway. She blinked, she shook her head, she laughed in disbelief, and only now was she able to articulate precisely why she found this entire situation so absurd.

“But we don’t even like each other.”

Even as she said it, she was acutely aware of the feelings he had brought about within her, feelings which she had never experienced before, nor had even known existed. Passion, it seemed, did not require liking.

She pressed her fingers to her lips, wincing, for they felt puffy and tender to the touch. Her plan, she noted, had gone quite awry. She’d gotten the crazy idea that it might be easier—or at least, less impossible—to reason Torquil into accepting the marriage than it would be to dissuade his mother from entering it, and encountering him here had seemed a perfect opportunity to begin implementing that strategy. She had certainly not been attempting to attract him; she’d never even thought of such a harebrained idea. Torquil attracted to her would have been a ludicrous notion ten minutes ago. And though she’d begun to discern that he had certain appealing qualities, she’d never have imagined in her wildest flights of fancy that such scorching heat existed beneath his icy surface.

I am a man possessed of deep carnal appetites.

So much for scaling the glacier, she thought wryly. Tonight, she might very well have melted it instead, something she’d never dreamt was even possible.

Life, she appreciated, was sometimes utterly unpredictable.

For Henry, the next five days were agony. Whenever he saw her, he was the perfect gentleman. His conversations with her were superficial and amiable. His manner was impeccable, his attitude toward her so scrupulously polite that no one could have faulted it.

But in his heart, he lusted.

Alone in his rooms, he closed his eyes and imagined her with him—what her magnificent body would look like if she were naked before him, her gold hair tumbled down around her shoulders. He imagined the texture of her bare skin and the sounds she might make, and the feel of her body moving beneath him—and above him, and in front of him. His imagination, the tool of his lust, seemed to know no bounds.

In front of others, he was careful. He was discreet. He never looked at her for more than a few seconds, and when he did glance her way, he made sure that his expression revealed nothing, ensuring that no one, not even those nearest and dearest to him, could guess what had occurred between him and Irene Deverill in a darkened corner of the library.

But in his mind and body, he knew.

He knew every detail because he relived it, over and over. The scent of her hair and the taste of her mouth and the tease of her foot riding up the back of his leg. Instead of the exquisite pain of his own withdrawal, he fashioned different, much more satisfying endings.

None of this, of course, made his pretense of polite disinterest toward her any easier. But he could not stop the willful licentiousness of his thoughts. He didn’t even want to.

This situation could not continue for long, he knew that. If it did, he’d go mad. But his only other option was to send Miss Deverill home, and he had no intention of doing that.

He was not ready to give up on the only means he had of separating his mother from her Italian. If anything, the incident with Miss Deverill made him more convinced than ever that his mother was making a mistake. Lust was no basis for a lifetime commitment.

Nor was he sure sending Miss Deverill away would make a particle of difference. He feared the distance from Upper Brook Street to Belford Row wasn’t nearly enough to suppress his appetite.

No, he was caught, like a fly in treacle. But he had to admit it was a damned sweet way to drown.

By the morning of the water party, however, Henry had managed to achieve a stable, if agonizing, equilibrium, and he felt that he just might be able to withstand the next eight days without ravishing Miss Deverill in a corridor or hurling himself off a cliff.

The morning was clear and warm, promising the sort of fine summer day so rare in England and so splendid when it occurred. The wind, too, seemed amenable to a day on the water, brisk enough to carry them to Kew and back with a minimum of effort, but warm enough to make the journey pleasant.

Still, the Mary Louisa was just out of dry dock after extensive repairs, and to make sure she was fully ready for the day, he arrived at Queen’s Wharf several hours ahead of the rest of the party.

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