What a Duke Dares (20 page)

She didn’t hide her displeasure with her brother. “And you want me to act as your go-between?”

Harry displayed not one whit of compunction. “Yes.”

“I… see.”

Her reluctance surprised him. “Pen, you were always up for a lark.”

“This is hardly a lark,” she said sharply. She suddenly felt the gulf of five years in their ages. “Cam won’t want a scandal.”

Harry’s black brows drew together. “Do you mean to dwindle into a mere wife after all your adventuring? I never thought to see it.”

She glowered at her younger brother, wishing for the days when she could give him a good clip around the ear. “You know Cam’s concerns for the Rothermere name. I don’t want him to regret marrying me.”

Harry regarded her strangely. “You speak as though he’s taken you on approval.”

Hell’s bells. She needed to be careful, even with her family. Nobody could know about the cold center of her marriage. Nobody except the two parties most intimately involved.

“Don’t be silly.” She struggled to sound like the suggestion was absurd.

“Pen, don’t let me down. You’re my only hope.” Harry’s sulkiness reminded her poignantly of his younger self. “We’d be discreet.”

“That’s what people always say.” This time when she checked behind her, Cam stood in the doorway. She couldn’t blame him for his impatience.

“I must go, Harry.” The affectionate irritation she felt was familiar from childhood. “It’s the outside of enough to spring this on me today.”

He had the grace to look abashed. “I know. But with Elias so determined to travel this afternoon, it was my only chance to ask.”

“And you couldn’t have waited?” She lowered her voice so the words wouldn’t carry to Cam. An hour married and already she deceived her husband. What was to become of her? “How long is Lady Sophie in Northumberland?”

Woe descended upon Harry like a cloud upon a mountain. “At least a month.”

For a young man of Harry’s passionate temperament, a month must feel like eternity. “Let me think about it.”

“Thank you, Pen.” Harry beamed. “I knew you’d come up trumps.”

She frowned. “I’m not promising anything. I can see this turning into a disaster for everyone involved, including Cam.”

“Pen, our guests await,” Cam said.

“I’m coming.” She narrowed her eyes at Harry. “Don’t do anything rash until I’m back in Town.”

And not then either, she prayed. The last thing Cam needed was his ramshackle Thorne connections kicking up trouble.

She hadn’t had long to come to terms with the truth that despite years of running like a scared rabbit, she was Cam’s duchess. But one thing she swore was that she’d do her best to make him proud. Now before the ink on her marriage lines had dried, Harry’s chaotic affairs threatened scandal. But if Harry genuinely loved Sophie and she genuinely loved him, could Pen deny them a happiness that she’d never find?

“Pen?” Cam’s tone would have set the servants scurrying.

“I’ll see, Harry. That’s the best I can do,” she whispered. Feeling beleaguered and inadequate, and not remotely bridal, she turned. With heavy steps, she walked in her unbecoming borrowed clothes toward her husband.

Chapter Eighteen

C
arrying two brandies, Cam entered the duchess’s apartments. Candlelight flickered over the birds and pagodas on the unfashionable silk wallpaper. The last woman to sleep in these luxurious rooms had been his tempestuous, troublesome mother, who had died when he was seventeen.

The cavernous space could house an army. A crackling fire in the hearth warmed the air. The four-poster bed on its platform looked as wide as a parade ground. By contrast, the woman propped against the piled pillows appeared small and fragile.

Warily Pen watched him cross the acres of floor between door and bed. Nor could he miss how her long, slender fingers curled like talons in the brocade counterpane covering her to the waist.

She’d been as brittle as a dry twig all day. He could kick himself for making his bride so nervous. His clumsiness on the
Windhover
had much to answer for. He wasn’t unhappy about this marriage, but he was damned unhappy that Pen was. He prayed that he could awaken her passion and make
her forget everything except the desire that had raged unsatisfied between them for weeks.

Her glorious night-dark hair cascaded over her slender shoulders. Her white batiste nightgown was sheer as mist. While it tied decorously where her pulse fluttered in her neck, that was the limit of its modesty. Her high, firm breasts pressed against the transparent material.

His hands twitched as if he already touched her luscious flesh. Beneath the crimson velvet robe embroidered with gold dragons, he was naked. And ready.

He felt more uncertain than usual with a paramour. But Pen wasn’t just a paramour. She was his wife. His duchess.

Tonight he meant to convince her that she wanted no lover but him. Any niggle that he didn’t bed a virgin faded as her black gaze burned a line down his body. Her lingering survey might convey caution rather than desire, but his body surged. If her eyes had such power, God help him when she laid those pale hands upon his skin.

“Is that brandy for me?” Nerves added seductive huskiness to her voice.

“Yes.” With a pang, Cam noticed how unsteady her hand was as she accepted the glass. Another reminder to take this gradually. He mustered a reassuring smile and gestured to the edge of the bed. “May I?”

Her lips twisted, not in a smile. “It’s your bed.”

“
Our
bed. I endowed thee with all my worldly goods today.” His gaze unwavering, he sat. He should have expected this ambivalence. She wanted him, but she was far from reconciled to a lifetime with him.

“Thank you,” she said dully.

“You’re welcome.” Hell, he needed to lighten this oppressive atmosphere.

Her lush mouth glistened with brandy. He burned to lick
away the liquor, then drink the headier wine of her kiss. But instinct urged him to go carefully. “Pen, please smile. You’re terrifying me.”

To his relief, her lips curved with faint amusement. “The great Duke of Sedgemoor, afraid?”

“I want to do this right.”

“You’ll manage perfectly well. You always do.”

He didn’t understand the bitterness edging her response, although at least she looked less frozen. “I’ll request a report.”

Trying to read her mind, he stared into her eyes. He’d hoped to find desire. Instead he was shocked to see secrets.

What were they? Would she ever trust him enough to share them?

“Do that,” she said faintly. She lifted her glass and drained her brandy.

“You’re treating me like a dangerous stranger when you’ve known me all your life.” It was the tone he’d use to soothe a half-broken horse.

Her expression didn’t ease. “Somehow that makes it worse.”

He’d expected Pen to take this wedding night in her stride, the way she’d taken bandits and arrogant dukes and hurricanes in her stride. Her fear was disconcerting, troubling. He’d hoped that mutual hunger would carry them through any initial awkwardness. “Pen, we needn’t do this tonight.”

Her skittishness didn’t abate and her fingers tightened on her glass. “That’s astonishingly generous.”

She made it sound like generosity wasn’t in character. His lips flattened with displeasure. “Not really. You look ready to shriek if I touch you.”

She blushed. It always surprised him when this worldly woman went as pink as a peony. “You want an heir.”

“Yes, I do.” His laugh was sour. “But I can wait a day or two for that happy eventuality.”

Her gaze dropped with a shyness that surprised him. “I have a horrible feeling that putting off the evil moment will make things worse.”

For a blank moment, he stared at her, torn between unwilling amusement and outrage. Amusement won. He burst out laughing and reached for the glass twirling so furiously between her long fingers. “You’re a tonic for my vanity.”

She looked tense enough to snap. “I wasn’t trying to be humorous.”

He rose to carry the glasses to the dressing table in the alcove. “That’s what makes it amusing.”

His room was stocked with wine and brandy. Pen had a vase of stringy dahlias like the ones from the church and a brush set that had belonged to his mother. A reminder that his joke about marrying Pen in her petticoat wasn’t that funny. She’d lost everything with the
Windhover
.

Behind his back, he heard her sigh. She sounded like she carried the weight of the world. Despite his efforts at patience, temper stirred. Blast her, she was a bride. She was supposed to be cheerful. He wasn’t sure what Pen was feeling, but cheerful definitely didn’t describe it.

With a sigh to equal hers, he acknowledged defeat. Tonight at least. He was unreasonable to expect eagerness. His wife had had mere days to recuperate from the wreck and accept a radically different future from the one she’d planned. He wasn’t a barbarian, despite the throbbing weight in his loins. He could give her time to view that future with a tad more optimism.

“You’re tired, Pen. No need to stir early tomorrow. When you’re up, I’ll show you around the house.”

She regarded him with palpable disbelief. “That’s it?”

He straightened his shoulders from their discouraged slump and struggled to smile. Frustration stung like acid in his veins. “I know you won’t believe it, but I’m very happy that you married me.”

To his surprise, the black eyes sparked for the first time today. He had a nasty feeling that this reprieve had lifted her spirits. Just as he had a nasty feeling that he’d spend his wedding night alone with an improving book and a bottle of brandy.

“You’re right, I don’t believe it, but I appreciate your gallantry.” Her jaw no longer looked likely to shatter if she spoke one untoward word.

“In time, you will. It’s been a devil of a ride since we met. We’re both at sixes and sevens.” He spoke what he prayed was the truth. “We’ll get there. Goodwill and kindness will take us a long way.”

Her expression changed, although he was too far away to read her fathomless eyes. Damn it, he didn’t want to skulk back to the ducal chambers. He particularly didn’t want to lie in the big, cold bed alone.

No, he wanted Pen in his arms. He wanted to scale the ladder to heaven that had beckoned since he’d found her again. He wanted to kiss her and touch her and ignite her passions. More than that, he wanted to slide inside her long, glorious body and forget everything except pleasure.

Tonight, want took him nowhere.

He turned toward the door.

“Cam?”

He didn’t turn, partly because he didn’t trust himself not to leap on her, whether she wanted him or not. “Sleep well, Pen.”

“Cam,” she said more urgently. “Wait.”

He frowned at the polished mahogany door before him. Did she know how near he was to breaking point? She played a dangerous game.

He heard a rustle behind him. The thick carpet in a pattern matching the delicate chinoiserie wallpaper muffled the soft pad of her feet.

Every hair on his skin rose at her approach. He deliberately hadn’t touched her since coming in, afraid that if he did, restraint would vanish. Also something about her watchfulness warned him that if he pushed too far too fast, he’d destroy all trust between them.

He’d cajoled her into marriage. For her sake. And for his. He couldn’t claim unselfishness. Now Pen, or malign fate, or demons from hell paid him out for his self-interest.

He clenched his fists at his sides and faced her. She stood a foot away. Every sense was alert to her. Her violet scent drifted toward him. “Do you need anything?”

As she inhaled, her breasts shifted against her transparent nightdress. Dear God, she tortured him.

“I think…” Another excruciating pause before her words tumbled out in a heated rush. “I think I need to sleep with my husband.”

Pen watched blazing excitement replace Cam’s resigned grimness. Despite her invitation, she was still nervous, but her heart gave a great swoop of anticipation as he swept her up against him. He swung her high and strode toward the bed.

“Are you sure?” She’d never heard that raw tone before, even in those fraught, incandescent moments on the
Windhover
.

Before she could answer, he bent his glossy dark head and kissed her hard and hungry, as if he starved. She kissed
him back with despairing abandon. The rich flavor of brandy mixed with the even richer flavor of his mouth.

Cam had wanted her as a mistress, not as a wife. Cam desired her. Cam would never love her.

With his lips plundering hers and his arms lashing her close, she hardly remembered why any of that mattered. What mattered was that he touched her with mad desperation and he held her as if she was the only woman in creation.

She was doomed. But this was a doom of heated caresses and fevered moans and kisses that made her head swim with pleasure.

He’d kissed her like this on the
Windhover
before he’d broken her heart—yet again—with his insulting proposition. After those heady moments, the wild rush should feel familiar. It didn’t. She felt as if she’d never been kissed before.