Courtesan's Kiss (36 page)

“Mia, don’t. I’ll get it.” Her perfume was as exotic as his dreams of her. He tried to push her away. His fingers brushed her cheek, slowed, lingered.

“David,” she whispered, “you must know I still always want you.” She knelt back on her knees, abandoning her attempts to retrieve her book. Her glance told him that she understood the situation, understood how she looked kneeling in front of him.

Mia dropped her gaze, but only to rest it there, on the front of his breeches. He could see her smile a little, in that mischievous way that meant what she would call fun and he would call trouble. She looked up into his eyes, and back down, quick as a wink.

She pursed her lips and blew.

It was no more than a breath, but his whole body shook in response. “I wish you could have wanted me enough to defy the world and make me yours no matter what the cost.”

David reached down and put his hand on her hair,
wishing he could say the words she wanted to hear, accept the invitation she offered. His body begged him to take a half step forward. To bring them into greater contact and to let what would happen just happen.

“David. Mia.”

Mia gasped. David’s arousal faded instantly at the sound of his brother’s voice.

“I am not going to ask what you are doing in here, postured as you are.”

Mia jumped up. “I am looking for a book that I dropped. It is under the bench. Truly, Your Grace. The pianoforte is in the way and you cannot see.”

“Do not insult me with made-up stories.”

“It’s the truth, Lyn.” David stood up and moved behind Mia, his hands on her shoulders.

“That does not explain what the two of you are doing in here alone at this hour. Aren’t there enough bedrooms? Or are they too conventional for the two of you?”

There was a long, deadly silence that was as good as words at conveying Lyn’s disgust. Finally he spoke. “Come to my study tomorrow morning at ten. Both of you.”

David reached down and covered Mia’s mouth with his hand. That was how sure he was that she was about to shout no.

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said. “We will both be there.”

He spoke to his brother’s back. Meryon had not waited for an answer.

“
Dio mio
, David, what will we do?” Mia faced him,
two fingers on her lips as she seemed to consider their options, as if there were any.

“Be in his study at ten and tell the truth.”

“But what is the truth?”

“That nothing happened here tonight.”

“Yes, yes, all right. Do not tell him the complete truth.”

“And what is the complete truth, Mia?”
That I want you and am afraid that to claim you would be the ultimate selfish act
.

“That neither of us wishes to marry the other, of course.”

“Of course.”

M
IA FOLLOWED THE FOOTMAN
to the duke’s study. The sun was absent that morning; clouds and rain matched her mood. She felt as though she were walking to her execution. How ironic that she and David were about to be punished for sex they did not have.

There were two other footmen on duty outside the door. She stopped the one who made to open the door for her and tried to hear what was being said, hoping she was the last one to arrive.

She heard no sounds. No voices, no furniture creaking, no shuffling of feet. It was much later than ten. She must be the last. She hoped the duke understood that she would no longer allow him to intimidate her. She would not allow him to punish David for her actions.

After a nod, the footman opened the door and announced her, and she went in. She found the duke and
David and, oh dear, Michael Garrett already in place but waiting in complete silence.

Only men could argue without moving their lips, she thought. She could feel the tension in the room and knew her presence would only add to it.

David did seem relieved when she came in. The duke’s expression, gravity with a tinge of anger, did not change, and Michael smiled at her in such a gentle way that she wanted to sit next to him and hold his hand while the duke cast them into hell.

All three men were looking at her and she realized that the duke had asked if she would prefer to sit.

“Oh, no thank you, Your Grace. I think it more proper for me to stand.” Then wished she had not said it quite that way. Who was she to tell a duke what was more proper, especially in his own study?

“Very well.” Meryon looked at her and then at David before he began to speak. “You will not insult me with that tale about looking for a book that fell to the floor. If it was too dark to see it, then you could not have been reading it. Even if it was only pictures.”

Mia’s mind flew disastrously back to the picture books she’d looked at when they were at Sandleton. She pushed the images from her mind.

He was going to go on and on, which would make her more aggravated than distressed. The duke stood behind his desk, which was on a small platform that raised it so he would always be taller than anyone standing before him. Mia wondered if there might once have been some sort of
throne in this spot, or maybe the duke who built this house had been so short that he wanted to appear taller.

“No, Your Grace.”

As much as she would have liked to think about anything else, David’s words brought her back to the moment.

“And you, Mia, do you have any explanation for your behavior last night?”

“No, Your Grace.” Well, she did actually, but he was not willing to believe the truth. Her hands began to shake and she clasped them tight in front of her.

“I have an explanation,” the duke said, which appeared to surprise David as much as it surprised her. “Several possibilities, in fact.”

The duke closed his eyes and Mia could see that for all his cold behavior he carried his own version of the Pennistan temper, under very precarious control at the moment.

“I will not list them, as they are an insult to both of you, but rest assured I have thought of little else since I found you last night.”

David nodded and Mia tried, but she was sure it looked more like a shiver.

“In fact, with regard to you, David, last night it became clear to me that you have no control over your baser instincts. You seduced or allowed yourself to be seduced by, it really does not matter which, a young woman under your protection.”

The duke looked at Garrett and the man nodded. Did he agree or did he simply understand how it could happen?

“My wife is facing the birth of our child, facing life or death, and still you could not control yourselves. Mia, Elena loves you like a daughter, and this is how you repay her, acting like a courtesan in her home.”

Mia shut her eyes. The duke looked so bereft at the thought of her toying with his wife’s sensibilities that guilt overwhelmed her.

“David, you are the older and I asked you to protect my wife’s ward, not compromise her.” The last came out in a raised voice and Mia began to feel faint.

It was not David’s fault. Mia wanted to tell the duke that. She prayed to the Virgin that she would say the right words and that the duke’s affection for his brother would not be ruined. But when she opened her mouth to speak, the duke gave her a look that was so like a dare, she pressed her lips together instead.

“Very wise, Mia,” the duke said. Then he drew another deep breath and Mia waited for the sentence. “I do not care what kind or how much sex you have had, but do not try to convince me you have not been together. You both will tell Elena that you are going to be married. The banns will be announced beginning this Sunday, and the wedding will take place as soon as that phase is complete and we are certain that there is no impediment to the marriage.”

Married? The duke was going to force them into marriage. “No,” Mia announced, in the same slightly raised voice that the duke had used. “I am the one responsible. It is all my fault. It was all my idea. You can ask my maid. I thought it would be an adventure.”

She stopped until she was sure she had their attention. “David may be older, perhaps even wiser, but he is after all only a man. Seducing him is the most selfish thing I have ever done.”

“Mia, that’s ridiculous,” David began. “Do not make it sound like I was—”

“Stop, David,” she said with enough force to silence him. Mia looked at Mr. Garrett and then the duke. “You see, we will even argue over this, which is why I will not marry him. We agree on nothing. Well, almost nothing.”

With that she turned toward the door. The three of them could fight this out in the boxing ring. She would stay in her room for the next year and never see any of them again.

“Mia, if you persist in hurting Elena this way—” The duke stopped, then started again. “If you walk out that door and persist in actions that hurt the people who love you the most, I will not welcome you at Pennford again.”

The duke’s ultimatum only firmed her resolve. She turned back to Meryon and saw an expression on David’s face that made her heart ache. “Welcome me, Your Grace? Elena loves me, and William, well, at least William understands me. But your family has never
welcomed
me. At best I have been considered a responsibility, an obligation. But do not fear, Your Grace; the moment I am able, I will absolve you of that burden.”

With her eyes she tried to tell David how sorry she was, how much he meant to her, how he held her heart in so many ways but that she would be a fool to give him such a treasure when he had no idea how to care for it.

Without another word, Mia left the room. The footmen stood straight and impassive on either side of the door. They had probably heard everything.

“Y
OU IDIOT
,” D
AVID SWORE
at his brother. “I told you that demanding an engagement would not work with Mia. I told you that dictating to her never works. And it did not. Damn times ten dense dukes.”

His brother ignored the insult. “Miss Castellano’s categorical refusal leaves me with only one alternative.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I entrusted you with her care because I wanted Elena to rest assured that Mia was safe.”

The duke shook his head. David knew Lyn was disappointed in his own judgment as well.

“You have proved yourself unreliable in the most important of ways, David.”

Ah yes, the Pennistans carried guilt in large measures and shared it freely.

“Until you can convince Mia that marriage is the only honorable action, there will be no money, no support of any kind for your proposed cotton mill. Not until you prove yourself worthy of the trust. I will not burden my wife with a disgraced relation.”

“Do not call her disgraced, Lyn,” David shouted, and then, with an effort, lowered his voice. “She is as bright and happy as any woman I have ever met. Most of the time I’ve treated her as an inconvenience, and did you
know that last night she went to dinner and no one else was there? Winthrop had to tell her that there was no family dinner. No wonder she thinks no Pennistan has ever appreciated her. Because, I’m afraid, it’s the truth.” He wished Lyn would come down to the boxing ring. He could teach him a few home truths there. “As for your refusal to fund the cotton mill—”

“David.”

He had forgotten Garrett was in the room.

“David, His Grace did not say he would not fund the mill. Only that you must prove yourself all over again.”

“Prove myself? By convincing Mia to marry me when she so clearly does not want to? No, I will not do that. I will not force her into anything that would make her so unhappy, any more than you can force me.”

The duke flexed his fist and David wanted more than anything for Lyn to take a punch at him.

“What’s more, I will never accept even a guinea from you, Your Grace, much less capital for a cotton mill.”

“Calm down, both of you.” Garrett came and stood in front of David as if physically deflecting the insults. “Your Grace, as your spiritual adviser, I suggest that you show some compassion. David and Mia obviously have a strong bond that they have not yet resolved.”

Garrett looked from one to the other. David did not so much as blink. His brother relaxed his fist, but his expression was still angry.

“Your Grace, your efforts to force them into a commitment that neither is ready for is ill-advised and wrong.
You were young once, too.” He nodded toward the door, obviously referring to Mia. “And David had his youth stolen from him. Is it any surprise he would be so attracted to someone who wants to share hers with him?”

They both turned to look at him. David dismissed them with a shrug, even though Garrett’s words had given even him insight. “I have nothing more to say. I will be in the boxing ring with Romero. The two of you can discuss me and insult me, but leave Mia alone. Despite what you may think, she is the innocent in this.”

David left the room without waiting for permission from either of them.

To his surprise, Garrett came after him almost immediately. “He is upset, David. He is worried to his soul about Elena’s lying-in. Do not make it more difficult for him.”

“This is one time that I know exactly how Mia feels. She loathes rules and orders from on high. Did you know that she plans to live independently once she comes of age? To move to Bath and host a salon that specializes in music?”