Kissing.
He could feel her lips under his. They had been soft and full and so eager to respond. His body hardened as he remembered the sheer ecstasy of her touch. She was an innocent, yet she instinctively knew how to bind him to her with passion.
He wanted her.
He wanted her with an intensity that threatened to engulf him.
He couldn’t break the engagement yet. He had to see her one last time. He had to touch her and see if he could withstand the torture of it.
Did he love her enough to go through with this marriage, knowing what he did about her?
Did he hate her enough to marry her just to control her and punish her for what she’d made him feel?
Just one more time.
He had to see her just one more time. Then he would know.
Chapter 22
“Lord Stannage is here to see you, Miss Barrett.”
Henry’s heart slammed in her chest at the butler’s announcement.
“Shall I tell him you’re not at home?” the butler asked, noting her hesitation.
“No, no,” she replied, nervously wetting her lips. “I’ll be right down.” Henry set down the letter she’d been penning to Emma. The Duchess of Ashbourne would probably withdraw her friendship from Henry once news of the broken engagement got out. Henry had decided she’d like to send one last piece of correspondence while she still could count Emma among her friends.
This is it, she said to herself, trying to fight the choking feeling in her throat. He hates you now. She knew she’d hurt him, perhaps just as much as he’d hurt her.
She stood, smoothing down the folds of her pale yellow morning dress. It was the one he had bought her back in Truro. She wasn’t sure why she’d instructed her maid to take that one out of the closet that morning. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to hold on to a tiny piece of her happiness.
Now she only felt foolish. As if a dress could mend her broken heart.
Squaring her shoulders, she walked out into the hall and carefully shut the door behind her. She had to act normally. It was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she was going to have to behave as if nothing were wrong. She wasn’t supposed to know that Dunford had received a note meant for Rosalind, and he would be suspicious if she acted otherwise.
She reached the top of the staircase, and her foot hovered over the first step. Oh, God, she could feel the pain already. It would be so easy to turn around and flee to her room. The butler could say she was ill. Dunford had believed her to be ill the previous week; a relapse was plausible.
You have to see him, Henry.
Henry swore at her conscience and finally stepped onto the staircase.
Dunford stared out a window in the Blydons’ sitting room as he waited for his fiancée to greet him.
Fiancée. What a joke.
If she hadn’t told him she loved him . . . He swallowed convulsively. He might have been able to bear it if she hadn’t lied to him.
Was he so naive to want what his friends had? Was he crazy to think a member of the ton could find a love match? Alex’s and Belle’s successes in that endeavor had made him hopeful. Henry’s arrival in his life had made him ecstatic.
And now her betrayal had ravaged him.
He heard her walk into the room but didn’t turn around, unable to trust himself until he had a stronger hold on his emotions. He kept his gaze firmly on the window. A nanny was pushing a pram down the street.
He took a ragged breath. He’d wanted her children . . .
“Dunford?” She sounded oddly hesitant.
“Close the door, Henry.” He still didn’t turn to face her.
“But Caroline . . .
“I said, ‘Close the door.’ ”
Henry opened her mouth, but no words came out. She stepped back to the door and closed it. She took no further steps into the center of the room, leaving herself poised to flee if necessary. She was a coward and she knew it, but just then she didn’t much care. She clasped her hands in front of her body and waited for him to turn around. When a full minute passed without a sound or movement from him, she forced herself to say his name again.
He whirled around abruptly, surprising her with a smile on his face.
“Dunford?” She hadn’t meant to whisper.
“Henry. My love.” He took a step toward her.
Her eyes widened. His smile was the same one she’d always seen, the same curve on his finely molded lips and the same gleam of even, white teeth. But his eyes . . . oh, they were hard.
She forced herself not to step back and pasted her signature cheeky grin on her face. “What did you need to tell me, Dunford?”
“I need a specific reason to visit my fiancée?”
Surely it was her imagination that heard that slight stress on the word “fiancée.”
He began to walk toward her, his long, even paces reminding her of a predatory cat. She took a few steps to the side, which was just as well, for he brushed right past her. Her head whipped up in surprise.
Dunford took two more steps to reach the door, then he turned the key in the lock.
Henry’s mouth went dry. “But Dunford . . . My reputation . . . it will be in tatters.”
“They’ll indulge me.”
“They?” she said stupidly.
He shrugged with supreme nonchalance. “Whoever it is who shreds reputations. Surely I’m allowed a little license. We’re going to be married in a fortnight.”
We are? her mind screamed. He was supposed to hate her. What had happened? Surely he had received her letter. He was acting so oddly. He wouldn’t be looking at her with that hard expression in his eyes if he hadn’t come here to break off the engagement.
“Dunford?” It seemed the only word she could make herself say. She knew she wasn’t acting as she ought; she should be cheeky and flippant and everything he expected from her. But he was behaving so strangely, she didn’t know what to do. She’d expected him to lose his temper, to come storming in and break off the engagement. Instead, he was quietly stalking her.
And she felt very much like a cornered fox.
“Perhaps I just want to kiss you,” he said, absently brushing the cuff of his jacket.
Henry swallowed nervously and then blinked before saying, “I don’t think so. If you wanted to kiss me, you wouldn’t be picking lint from your jacket.”
His hand stilled, hovering over the sleeve. “Perhaps you’re right,” he murmured.
“I—I am?” Good Lord, this wasn’t going at all how it was supposed to.
“Mmmm. If I really wanted to kiss you—really, mind you—I would probably reach out, grab your hand, and pull you into my arms. That would probably be an appropriate show of affection, don’t you think?”
“Appropriate,” she replied, hoping her voice sounded natural, “if you really wanted to marry me.” She’d given him the perfect opening. If he was going to jilt her, he’d do it now.
But he didn’t. Instead, he arched a mocking brow and began to move toward her. “If I want to marry you,” he murmured. “An interesting question.”
Henry took a step back. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Surely you’re not afraid of me, Hen?” He stepped forward.
Frantically, she shook her head. This was wrong, terribly wrong. Dear Lord, she prayed, make him love me or make him hate me, but not this. Oh, not this . . .
“Is something wrong, minx?” He didn’t sound as if he particularly cared.
“D–don’t toy with me, my lord.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t toy with you? What an odd choice of words.” He took another step toward her, trying to read the expression in her eyes. He didn’t understand her this afternoon. He had expected her to come bounding into the room, all smiles and laughter as she usually was when he came to visit
. Instead she was nervous and withdrawn, almost as if she were expecting bad news.
Which was preposterous. She couldn’t have realized she’d accidentally sent him the letter meant for her dear friend Rosalind. Whoever this Rosalind person was, she didn’t live in London or Dunford would have heard about her. And there was no way she could have received Henry’s missive and replied in the space of one day.
“Toy with you?” he repeated. “Why do you think I would want to toy with you, Henry?”
“I—I don’t know,” she stammered.
She was lying. He could see it in her eyes. But for the life of him, he couldn’t imagine why she would lie. What did she have to lie about? He closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath. Perhaps he was misreading her. He was so furious and still so much in love he didn’t know what to think.
He opened his eyes. She was looking away, her gaze focused on a painting across the room. He could see the elegant, sensuous line of her throat . . . and the way one silken curl rested on the bodice of her gown. “I think I do want to kiss you, Henry,” he murmured.
Her eyes flew back to his face. “I don’t think you do,” she said quickly.
“I think you’re wrong.”
“No. If you wanted to kiss me, you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.” She backed up a step and then scooted around a chair, trying to put some furniture between them.
“Oh? And how would I be looking at you?”
“Like . . . like . . .”
“Like what, Henry?” He rested his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned forward, his face dangerously close to hers.
“Like you want me,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
“Ah, but Henry, I do want you.”
“No. You don’t.” She wanted to flee, wanted to hide, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his. “You want to hurt me.”
His hand closed around her upper arm, holding her in place as he circumnavigated the chair. “Maybe there’s a little of that, too,” he said with chilling softness.
His lips captured hers. It was a hard, cruel kiss, unlike any other he’d given her, and she clearly was not enjoying it. “Why so resistant, Hen? Don’t you want to marry me?”
She twisted her head away from him.
“Don’t you want to marry me?” he repeated, his voice a cold singsong. “Don’t you want all I have to offer you? Don’t you want security, a comfortable life, and a home? Ah, yes, a home. Don’t you want that?”
He felt her struggle in his arms, then go still, and he knew he should release her. He should let her go, turn around, and walk out of the room and out of her life. But he wanted her so much . . .
Lord, he wanted her, and that lust overtook him, turning his fury into desire. His lips grew softer, demanding only pleasure. He trailed kisses along her jawline to her ear, down her neck to the tender skin ringed by her pale yellow bodice. “Tell me you can’t feel this,” he whispered, his words a dare. “Tell me.”
Henry only shook her head, not sure whether she was signaling him to stop or admitting the sense of need he whipped up in her.
Dunford heard her whimper with desire, and for a split second he didn’t know whether he’d lost or won. Then he realized it really didn’t matter.
“God, I’m an ass,” he whispered harshly, furious with himself for letting his desire take over his body. She had betrayed him—betrayed him—and still he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
“What did you just say?”
Dunford saw no reason to answer her. It wasn’t really necessary to expound at length on how much he wanted her and, damn it, still loved her despite her lies. All he did was murmur, “Shut up, Hen,” and lower her onto the sofa.
Henry stiffened. His tone had been soft, but his words had not. Still, this was probably the last time she would be able to hold him like this, the last time she could pretend he still loved her.
She felt herself sinking into the plush cushions, felt the heat of his body as it covered hers. His hands cupped her bottom, pulling her toward his obvious desire. His lips were on her earlobe, then her neck, then her collarbone. He was traveling lower, lower.
Henry couldn’t quite make her arms encircle him, but neither did she possess the fortitude to pull herself away. Did he love her? His mouth loved her. It was loving her with startling intensity, circling around her taut nipple through the thin muslin of her gown.
She stared down, her mind strangely detached from her burning body. His kisses had left an indecent stain on her bodice. Not that he would care. He was doing this to punish her. He would—
“No!” she cried out, pushing at him so violently that he fell to the floor in surprise.
He was silent as he slowly rose to his feet. When he finally leveled his gaze at her face, Henry knew panic like none she had ever imagined. His eyes were slits.
“Suddenly worried about our virtue, are we?” he asked rudely. “It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?”
Henry hastily scrambled into an upright position, refusing to reply.
“Rather an about-face for the girl who told me she didn’t care two figs for her reputation.”
“That was before,” she said in a low voice.
“Before what, Hen? Before you came to London? Before you learned what women are supposed to want from marriage?”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She awkwardly rose to her feet.
Dunford let out a short bark of angry laughter. God, she wasn’t even a good liar. She stumbled over her words, her eyes refused to meet his, and her cheeks were flushed pink.
Of course that might only be passion. He could still make her feel passion. It might be the only thing he could make her feel, but he knew he could raise her body to fever pitch. He could make her need him, bind her to him with lips, hands, the heat of his skin.
His body grew aroused as his thoughts grew more erotic. He could see her as she had been at Westonbirt, her soft skin glowing in the candlelight. She had moaned with desire, arched her body toward his. She had cried out in rapture. He had given her that.
Dunford took a step forward. “You want me, Henry.”
She stood utterly still, unable to deny it.
“You want me now.”
Somehow she managed to shake her head. He could tell it took all her fortitude to do it.
“Yes,” he said silkily. “You do.”
“No, Dunford. I don’t. I don—”
But her words were cut off by the pressure of his lips on hers. They were cruel, demanding. Henry felt as if she were suffocating, smothered by the weight of both his anger and her own insensible desire for him.
She couldn’t let him do this. She couldn’t let him use his fury to make her want him. With a wrench of her head she tore her lips from his.
“That’s all right,” he murmured, cupping her breast with his hand. “Your lying mouth is not the part of you that most interests me.”
“Stop!” She pushed against his chest, but his arms were closed around her like a vise. “You can’t do this!”
One corner of his mouth tilted up in a mockery of a smile. “Can’t I?”
“You are not my husband,” she said, her voice shaking with fury as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You have no rights over my person.”
He let her go and leaned back against the doorjamb, his posture deceptively lazy. “Are you telling me you wish to call off the wedding?”
“Wh-why would you think I want to do that?” she asked, knowing he thought she wanted to marry him for Stannage Park.
“I can’t fathom even a single reason,” he said in a very hard voice. “In fact, I seem to have everything you require in a husband.”
“We’re feeling a bit superior today, aren’t we?” she retorted.
He moved like lightning, pinning her against the wall, his han
ds planted firmly on either side of her shoulders. “We,” he said with unconcealed sarcasm, “are feeling just a bit confused. We are wondering why our fiancée is acting so oddly. We are wondering if perhaps there is something she wants to say.”
Henry felt all the breath leave her body. Wasn’t this what she wanted? Why did she feel so utterly wretched?
“Henry?”
She stared at his face, remembering all of his kindnesses toward her. He had bought her a dress when no one else had thought to. He had badgered her into coming to London and then made sure she had a lovely time once she arrived. And he had smiled the entire time.
It was difficult to reconcile this image with the cruel, mocking man standing before her. But still, she couldn’t bring herself to humiliate him publicly. “I won’t call off the wedding, my lord.”
He tilted his head. “I can only surmise from your inflection that you wish me to do so.”
She said nothing.
“Surely you realize that, as a gentleman of honor, I cannot do so.”
Her lips parted slightly. It was several seconds before she was able to say, “What do you mean?”
Dunford regarded her closely. Why the hell was she so interested in whether or not he could jilt her? That was the one thing he was certain she didn’t want him to do. If he did, she would lose Stannage Park forever.
“Why can’t you cry off?” she pressed. “Why?”
“I see we have not educated you in the ways of society as well as we thought. A gentleman of honor never jilts a lady. Not unless she has proven herself unfaithful, and perhaps not even then.”
“I have never betrayed you,” she blurted out.
Not with your body, he thought. Only with your soul. How could she ever love him as much as she loved her land? No one’s heart was that big. He sighed. “I know you haven’t.”
Again she said nothing, just stood there looking pained. How baffled she must be at his anger, he thought. She couldn’t know that he knew her true motives for marrying him. “Well,” he said wearily, dreading her reply. “Are you going to jilt me?”