Page 47 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
Pride goeth before a fall. She’d always imagined that she was immune to the foibles that led weaker women to their downfall. It turned out that given adequate temptation, she was just as fallible as everyone else. She should have been kinder to Viola after the scandal broke.
When Evesham cuddled her closer, she couldn’t muster the will to pull away. The embrace was comforting rather than sexual. After tonight, she knew enough to tell the difference.
This care for her shouldn’t be so potent. But his nearness relieved some of her lacerating distress. Which was ludicrous, when he was the cause of her trouble.
They stood together in silence. He buried his face in her tousled mass of hair. The heat of his body seeped through her, and despite everything, she started to feel better.
“You must go,” she murmured, after a long while.
He shifted against her back, and the hand splayed over her stomach stroked her through the thin layers of her robe and nightdress. Despite everything, her unruly nerve ends stirred with interest.
How could she want him after what had just happened? It made no sense. She’d veered so close to disaster, yet still ruin lured her.
“I’ll speak to your father in the morning,” he murmured.
She frowned, not following what he meant. “You’ll tell him what we did?”
He grunted with amusement. “No, you delightful goose. I need to get his permission to wed you.”
All Juliet’s brief serenity disintegrated to dust. She wrenched out of Evesham’s arms. Curse her, she shouldn’t be in his arms at all.
She lurched around to face him. “We can’t marry.”
“Of course we can.” He looked puzzled. “After tonight, I think we must.”
She waved away his answer and used his own arguments against him. “Nothing happened.”
“Yes, it did.” He looked determined to do the right thing in a way that a dedicated debauchee never should.
“Nothing irrevocable.”
His gaze hardened. “I’ve touched your bosom. I’ve had my hand between your legs. I’ve been in your bed. I’d say all of that makes it imperative to step up to marry you.”
She scowled, wanting to clout him for not acting like the careless philanderer that she knew him to be. “Why are you pretending to be an honorable man? Just because we were unwise doesn’t mean we should sign up for a lifetime of misery.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek and if she hadn’t known him to be impervious, she might think her response injured his feelings. “Then you’ve mistaken me, my lady. The liberties I’ve taken require me to make an honest woman of you.”
Her fists closed at her sides. Boxing his ears became more appealing by the second. “I am an honest woman.”
“Too honest,” he retorted. “You may not like me. But you like what we do together. A wedding is the price of things getting out of control.”
Things? No, it wasn’t things. It was Juliet Frain who had lost control. Painful as it was to face that truth.
Evesham had been excited, but he’d kept his head enough to stop in time. For a few unhinged moments, she’d been ready to welcome his possession. A rake and a libertine. An unrepentant seducer. The last man she’d ever imagined herself wanting.
She wrapped her arms around herself to contain her shivering. It was a betrayal of everything that she wanted to feel, but she missed the clasp of those strong masculine arms.
Juliet strove to sound determined and rational. Like the woman she’d been before Evesham lumbered into her life, laying everything to waste. “I appreciate your chivalry, Evesham, but I won’t marry you.”
His lips flattened. “After what happened, won’t you at least call me Lucas? Evesham is too formal when we’ve stretched out on a bed together.”
She flinched. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”
“Whether I say it or not doesn’t stop it being true.”
Damn his eyes. He was right. “I’d like you to go,” she said in a voice calmer than she felt.
He didn’t shift. It was an odd moment to realize that he was at least as obstinate as she was. “So shall I speak to your father tomorrow?”
