What a Duke Dares (23 page)

“He swore that he’ll never show the painting to another living soul. I believe him.”

“And Sir Andrew Melton?”

Pen laughed dismissively. “Now there’s a fellow whose mother has definitely given up hopes of awakening his interest in the fair sex.” Umbrage sharpened her voice. “My refusal on the yacht must have stung, given you believed that every man in Europe has shared my bed. And a few in Asia too.”

He struggled not to squirm under her taunts. “Not so many. Definitely one or two.”

“You kept careful note of my supposed paramours.”

Another jibe that hit home. “Our childhood connection spurred my interest.”

He was mortified to admit how agonizingly jealous he’d been of Pen’s lovers. Especially when she showed no interest in Camden Rothermere.

Her lips tightened. “If I’m so notorious, nobody would think you a cad if you didn’t marry me. I only gave you what I’d given a hundred men.”

“There have been plenty of wanton duchesses.”

When she caught the bitterness in his voice, her expression softened. “Cam, not every woman is like your mother.”

“You’re not.”

The thaw ended abruptly. “You thought I was.”

“No, never,” he said emphatically. “My mother’s every act was a betrayal. Of her husband. Of her rank. Of her family.”

“I had no idea that people thought me such a trollop. You sacrificed yourself to this marriage to save my good name. Now I discover that I have no good name to save.”

As her indignation faded, Pen looked tired and wretched. He should let her go back to bed—without him—but he knew how quickly she’d rebuild her defenses. He needed to get to the truth now.

“Don’t forget that I was preserving my good name too.
A man who seduces a girl he’s known from childhood then abandons her to insult is beyond the pale.”

Her smile held no amusement. “Even if the childhood friend goes to the dogs?”

“You’re still a Thorne.”

“And now I’m a Rothermere.” Clearly a fact that gave her no pleasure.

Why should it? She’d exchanged independence for life with a man who had treated her like a doxy. Remorse twisted his guts anew. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Hell, Pen, you’re twenty-eight years old. For nine years, you’ve run wild with a louche crowd under your aunt’s inadequate supervision. Not to mention that any man would want you. What in Hades was I meant to think?”

Bleak humor flickered in her black eyes. “Don’t sound so peevish, Cam. Most men would be delighted to discover that their bride was a virgin.”

Was he blushing? “Perhaps so, but not in the circumstances that I did.”

“Poor boy,” she said sarcastically.

“You have every right to anger. There’s no excuse for my behavior. I should crawl on my knees to you and beg forgiveness.” Cam gestured with his free hand. “But we’re together for life and we need to reach some understanding.”

Her expression was cynical. “So you can touch me again.”

Devil take his blundering, she spoke of his possession like dire punishment. “Do you mean to bar me from your bed?”

“I made promises to you.” She twirled the glass in her hand until the wine flared ruby.

It was the same dead tone she’d used when she said that she’d done her duty. Disappointment pierced him. But what could he expect after his rough wooing? “If duty alone
compels you, our marriage bed will be a cold place. I think we can do better than that.”

“You’re an optimist.” She sighed and the resistance seeped from her body. “Cam, can you give me some time? Surely we don’t have to decide everything tonight. It’s been a long and difficult day.”

Guilt, his constant companion, stabbed deep. It had been a long and difficult few months. She’d lost both aunt and brother, and faced death several times. He’d risen to take her in his arms before he remembered that his embrace was the last thing she wanted. He subsided into his chair and surveyed her discontentedly.

A bride proved more bewildering than any mistress. His sympathy went out to the Grand Turk with his hundreds of wives. Then all impulse to amusement fled when he saw his wife’s closed expression. “Pen—”

She raised her hand. “Not… yet.”

With that he must be content. It had been a devil of a wedding night.

Chapter Twenty-One

A
fter dinner, Cam accompanied his wife upstairs. For a day and a half, he’d been a married man. The experience bore no resemblance to his expectations. For a start, he’d kept his hands to himself. Being with Pen without touching her—when he had every legal and moral right to roger her from here to China—was a torture he wouldn’t inflict on his worst enemy.

He’d woken with the dawn in his own bed, rigid with longing, miserable, lonely, feeling like a dog someone had kicked into the gutter. And sick with guilt over hurting Pen. At breakfast, to his bewilderment he’d encountered a stranger. This tranquil, restrained woman wasn’t Pen. Pen was impulsive and opinionated and ready to shoot a man if he wronged her. Yet this morning she’d played the perfect duchess. It could have been Lady Marianne facing him over the marmalade.

And Cam had loathed it.

He’d burned to wrench his wife from her chair and muss her neat perfection. Then fling her across the polished table and do things likely to make the butler resign.

But he’d behaved himself, although just being in the same room was torment.

The only logical choice, given his bride’s reluctance for his company, was to devote the day to business that had accumulated during his absence. So why then had he found himself showing Pen every nook and cranny of the vast house? And in return, all she’d expressed was polite interest. Not once had she called him a blockhead or objected to an arrogant remark. He worried if perhaps last night he’d done her brain some injury.

Now, confused, unhappy, and shamingly randy, he trailed after her into the duchess’s cave of a bedroom.

Pen turned with an expression of well-bred surprise that he’d never seen before. “Your Grace, what are you doing?”

Cam glared at her. “Why the hell are you ‘your grace’-ing me? You’ve called me Cam since you were toddling.”

She flushed. “As you wish. But I’d still like to know what you’re doing.”

He shut the door with a sharp click. “I’m coming to bed with my wife.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “Now?”

He stalked toward her, tugging off his neckcloth and tossing it to the ground. “Now.”

“You said you’d let me think about it.”

Clearly a welcome was too much to expect. He shrugged off his coat and flung it across the room. “Have you?”

She retreated again. “Have I what?”

Impatiently he flicked open the silver buttons on his silk waistcoat. “Have you thought about it?”

She frowned as if questioning his sanity. “Of course I have.”

He let the waistcoat fall where he stood. “Good. No need to call your maid. I’ll undress you.”

At last Pen stood her ground. “Why are you doing this?”

His smile was mocking. “My dear, you might be innocent, but you’re not
that
innocent.”

She raised her chin and regarded him like he’d crawled out from under a rock. In a sewer. “I’m not ready.”

“It’s like falling off a horse. You need to get straight back on.” He was deliberately crass to provoke a reaction. She’d been a blank slate all day.

“I’m not your horse,” she said cuttingly.

Briefly she disappeared from view as he tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it near the crumpled blue waistcoat. “If we wait too long, you’ll convince yourself that the experience was so awful that you never want to repeat it.”

She arched an eyebrow, although he didn’t miss how her eyes focused on his bare chest. Last night he’d found grounds for hope in the way she’d looked at him. His nakedness had intrigued rather than disgusted her.

“Too long is more than a day?”

“Yes.”

She backed until she bumped into the high bed. “I don’t think so.”

Briefly he considered undoing his trousers, but a glance at her outraged expression told him that might be a step too far. “I do.”

“Hurrah for you,” she said sourly, clasping her hands before her. She breathed unevenly.

Cam suspected that despite her nervousness, she was interested, however reluctantly. But he’d learned to be careful with assumptions about Penelope. “Yesterday you promised to obey me.”

Rebellion darkened her eyes. “Yesterday you said you wanted more than mere duty.”

He was grateful to see a spark of spirit. “I’ve changed my mind. If mere duty is all you’re offering, I’ll take it.”

“You’ll regret this.” She sidled along the bed.

He stepped closer, deliberately crowding her without touching her. “I doubt it.”

If Lady Marianne had given him mere duty, he’d have accepted it. From Pen? Never. Before he’d blasted everything to hell, he’d tasted her passion. He meant to do more than taste her tonight.

“Cam, I don’t want to do this,” she said shakily, still twisting her hands together.

He cupped her jaw. Self-disgust flooded him when she jumped. She’d enjoyed his touch on the yacht. Until he’d been an idiot. She’d enjoyed his touch last night. Until he’d been an idiot.

The lesson for tonight was not to be an idiot.

Cam sucked in a breath, striving to calm his racing heart. He had time. He had patience. He had the skills. And tonight she wouldn’t take him by surprise. The new Duchess of Sedgemoor didn’t know it, but her world was about to change. Forever.

In a subtle caress, he moved his hand against her face. “Courage, Pen.”

She broke the contact. “I’m not feeling brave.”

He reminded himself that coaxing his wife to pleasure wouldn’t be quick or easy. But the reward was worth it. He didn’t do this only for himself. He did it for Pen. Such a sensual woman shouldn’t fear a man’s touch. She should revel in it. He’d make her forget that he’d ever hurt her. “Tonight I’m going to show you paradise.”

That remark elicited a derisive snort, but at least she stopped edging away. He was close enough to see her trembling. “I wasn’t anywhere near paradise last time.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Even before I spoiled everything?”

He was gratified to see her color rise. She avoided his searching regard. Damn it, why hadn’t he had the brains to understand that her shyness signified more than coyness?

“Pen?”

With a flash of temper that pleased him even more than her blush, she jerked her head up. “I’ve forgotten.”

He laughed appreciatively. “Little liar.”

“Stop trying to inveigle your way into my bed.”

“Everyone deserves a second chance.”

She folded her arms and surveyed him without favor. A night of self-castigation and a day of struggling to keep his distance lent him the wisdom to remain silent.

“If I say no?”

He sighed, defeat beating around him like a hundred angry ravens. “I’ll leave you alone.”

“How reassuring,” she said sarcastically. Her arms fell in surrender to her sides. “I’m at your service, Your Grace.”

If anyone but Pen’s husband had asked her to revisit yesterday’s disaster, she’d threaten him with the nearest fire iron.

But she owed Cam more than she’d ever realized. She’d always known that for her sake, he’d relinquished the perfect bride, a big society wedding, a connection with an influential family. She’d had no idea that he had wed a woman whose name was synonymous with sin, however ill-deserved her reputation. This marriage had done Cam a greater wrong than she’d imagined.

She swallowed to moisten a mouth dry with nerves, and told herself she could endure his possession. But dread hollowed her stomach. Along with a roiling soup of other emotions that included unwilling attraction, contrition, resentment—and ineradicable love. When during her sleepless night, she’d resolved to become a proper duchess even if
it killed her, she’d known that her proud spirit wouldn’t bow easily. But imagining oneself a conformable wife and playing the part proved very different.

His green eyes were grave. “Trust me.”

“I’ll have to, won’t I?” she said grumpily, before recalling that a conformable wife wouldn’t snipe.

He caught one of her clenched fists. “We’ll go slowly.”

She shivered. Not entirely with fear. “I’d rather get it over with.”

He kissed her knuckles until her fingers relaxed. “You’ll change your mind.”

She didn’t believe him. Her belly lurched as she recalled the dizzying drop from the heights of excitement to the act itself.

He released her. “Turn around.”

“Why?”

His lips twitched. “I’ll help you undress.”

“Is it necessary?” All the same, she turned. It was a relief to escape his glittering gaze. He looked smug, like he knew a great secret. He also looked like he wanted to make a meal of her. Neither quieted her jangling agitation.

He untied the wide olive satin ribbon that cinched the gown so unnaturally high. “Absolutely.”

She caught the gown as it sagged over her bosom. “We need to do something about my clothes.”

Skillfully he unlaced the back. “I am doing something about your clothes.”

She felt no desire to laugh. Her knees trembled as she stepped from the crumpled gown. “You know what I mean.”