Page 56 of Fit for a Duke
‘All dukes are regarded as handsome?’ He smirked as he threw her words back at her in the form of a question.
‘There are exceptions to every rule,’ she said, sending him an impertinent look that made him chuckle. ‘Now go! The party is breaking up and you will likely be seen leaving this room if you tarry much longer. Then tongues really will wag.’
‘It might be worth it,’ he said, ‘just to give the old biddies something to really talk about.’
‘The destruction of my reputation would be a source of amusement to you, your grace?’ she asked, tilting her head in a challenging fashion.
‘No, darling,’ he replied, chuckling, ‘but proving to them just what good judgement I have almost would be.’
He caught her around the waist, kissed her lips fleetingly—too fleetingly for Clio’s satisfaction—and left her room on silent feet.
Clio stared at the door he had closed behind him and returned to the window seat, aware that sleep would evade her and that the duke’s visit required a great deal of contemplation. The more time she spent with him, the more confused she felt. She had never known anything remotely like the exquisite shards of sensation that he could create in her body simply with a look, a gesture, an innocent touch of his hand. She was a fair way to falling in love with him, which was ridiculous. He had made it clear that he looked upon her as a child, not as someone to be taken seriously.
And yet…and yet he came to her room, kissed her, paid her compliments but hadn’t tried to seduce her. That showed both respect and restraint because Clio had probably made it clear to him in a dozen little ways that she would not be averse to the possibility of seduction. Perhaps it wasn’t seduction he had in mind, she reasoned. Perhaps he was playing upon her inexperience to make her think so, thereby diverting her thoughts from helping him. She knew that Lord Fryer’s attentions had made it impossible for Adele to think about anything other than seeing him again and the duke, having overheard their conversation, would be well aware of it.
‘But I am not Adele,’ she said aloud, thinking that she really ought to slip between the sheets and at least try to sleep if she didn’t want to look an absolute fright the next day. She climbed into her bed and the last image to filter through her sub-conscious before sleep finally claimed her was of the duke’s dark, intense gaze resting upon her profile in a profoundly sensual manner, as though noticing her, really noticing her as a woman rather than a child. It was a look that promised wicked pleasure, but he was too well disciplined, too conscious of his obligations to act upon his desires.
There was such a thing as being too gentlemanly, she thought as she thumped her pillows in frustration. He had no business kissing her, smiling at her in such a provocative manner, agitating her passions and then leaving her feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. What she wanted from him she could not have said. She worried that she had disappointed him by allowing him to…To what? He had come to her, after all. Had he expected her to scream the place down? Had his kisses been a test of some sort?
Perdition, all this speculation simply wouldn’t do! She might be inexperienced, but her senses told her that Ezra really had come to talk to her, to make sure that Salford hadn’t overset her, and not with ulterior motives in mind. So it followed that he had kissed her because he’d wanted to, or because he’d found the temptation too strong to resist. Clio chuckled at the thought of being a temptress. She wouldn’t know where to begin. Even so, Ezra had stirred something deep inside of her, and now that it was awake the feelings refused to subside.
‘There’s no help for it,’ she told her bed’s canopy. ‘Being an innocent is all well and good, but Ezra has piqued my interest so he has a duty to further my education.’
She smiled as she fell asleep, astonished by her daring. Even so, there was such a thing as priorities. Ezra would be no good to her if he wasn’t alive, and it followed that she would have to help ensure that he remained so, regardless of his thoughts on the subject. All of her senses suggested that something would happen at the luncheon tomorrow and Clio had learned to trust her instincts.
‘Tomorrow I shall be guarding him, whether he likes it or not,’ she told her disinterested canopy. ‘I now have a vested interest in keeping him safe.’
Mark Salford waited for the household to settle before making his way along the corridor to Isobel’s chamber. An assignation that he would normally have anticipated with single-minded impatience had not been in the forefront of his mind for the entire evening, which came as something of a shock to him. Isobel was hisraison d'être.Since first making her acquaintance, he had known she was the person he had been waiting for to make his life complete. His soulmate, lover and best friend.
She was a modern female, wild and liberated, which meant that they were a match made in heaven, and when they were apart Mark longed for her with every fibre of his being. Which is why he pretended not to mind her determination to attract the duke. One could not cage a free spirit. Mark could be patient when the occasion called for it. He would wait for Isobel to accept failure, at which point he would be there to pick up the pieces and salve her wounded pride. He could not ask her to become his wife as things stood, but as soon as Clio came to her senses he would be a man of substantial means. A man to be reckoned with.
A man who could grant Isobel her heart’s desire.
Isobel’s temporary infatuation with the duke was doomed to failure; that much Mark had always known. He understood the duke’s fastidious character and was well aware that he would never entertain the prospect of a union with another man’s widow.
Mark threw back his head and growled, thinking Wickham a blind fool, and wondering why he wasn’t more relieved that he represented no form of competition for Isobel’s affections. Perhaps because the blasted man looked down on Mark and had pretended to disapprove of his behaviour during the upheaval of war. The prospect of meeting one’s maker caused all men to grab what they wanted while they still could.
All men other than the duke, who appeared to have a heart of stone.
Wickham’s outrageous accusation of rape that threatened the reputation of the entire regiment still rankled. The woman might have been unwilling initially but she was simply being a tease, as women almost always were, and a little firm persuasion was all it had taken. Mark had never had to resort to rape in his entire life, even if it was a common enough occurrence during respites between battles. There was absolutely no need for Wickham to have made such a song and dance about something so meaningless.
How was Mark supposed to have known that the lady he had favoured with his attentions was a relative of someone important in the town, or that she would cry crocodile tears in an effort to pretend that she had not been a willing participant? There was such a thing as camaraderie between officers and gentlemen, and regardless of his baseless suspicions, or what the hysterical female had claimed after an event she was happy to participate in, Wickham should have taken his side.
The two men had remained sworn enemies ever since.
And now, tonight, Mark’s nemesis had deliberately singled Clio out for no other reason than to spite Mark, he was absolutely sure of it. Mark’s anger still burned at the manner in which Wickham had held her scandalously close as he danced with her, thereby giving Lady Fletcher’s guests a tantalising subject about which to gossip and speculate. Clio was too young to know any better, so Mark didn’t blame her for following Wickham’s lead. He had wanted to talk to her about it, felt it his duty to warn her of the dangers of a predatory man of the duke’s ilk, but the opportunity had not arisen.
When he did manage to get her alone, Clio had the temerity to look down her pert little nose at him, making it clear that she would accept no advice from him before he even broached the subject. Mark had been in danger of self-combusting with anger. When his charm offensive missed its mark, he had been reduced to bringing her father’s name into things, convinced that it would sway her thinking. She had always been dutiful; keen to impress her cold father even though he was no longer around to be impressed, and would comply with his wishes.
Eventually.
Except on this occasion, it hadn’t worked. The duke had turned her head and Mark would have the devil of a job getting her to change her mind. Perhaps a little more of the firm persuasion he had employed in Spain would become necessary at the luncheon party tomorrow. Such occasions always allowed leeway for private discourse since the chaperones tended to overeat and then fall asleep.
Mark smiled to himself, aroused by the prospect of putting the presumptuous little jade firmly in her place. Once she had his ring on her finger she would regret the day that she had dallied with his affections or his name was not Mark Salford.
‘There you are. I began to wonder.’ Mark dragged his attention back to the here and now as he entered Isobel’s room and found her draped on a chaise, ready to receive him, dressed in a diaphanous nightgown that left little to the imagination and fired Mark’s raging lust. ‘I have been waiting an age.’
‘I had to be sure that everyone was abed before joining you, my love. I am supposed to be pining for Clio’s attentions, if you recall.’ And, the devil take it, he actually was! But he knew he had said the wrong thing the moment she pouted.
