“I have effectively purchased proposals from two fiancés,” Merry said, wiping another tear. “It’s so humiliating.”
More tears pressed on the back of her throat so she removed her other glove, concentrating on the task so that she’d stop crying.
“I know he didn’t show to his best advantage tonight,” the duke said, “but my brother is capable of great generosity. He did spur the building of the charity hospital.”
“Don’t even dream of trying to persuade me to take him back!” Merry cried. “I shall return to Boston, and I shall never marry, because I have no aptitude for choosing a husband.”
“You shall marry,” the duke said with calm certainty. He pressed a large linen handkerchief into her hand.
“You are that sort of man,” she said damply.
“A marrying man?”
“The sort who always has a handkerchief when one is needed,” she explained, pressing it against her eyes. “My first fiancé, Bertie, was the same.”
“Oh God,” the duke groaned.
“What?”
“You’re not one of those women who always harp on about their previous husbands, are you?”
“I haven’t had any husbands!” Merry objected.
“You know what I mean.” Then, putting on a Cockney accent, “Mr. Watson, he were my first, he were such a good man to me, he were, always took me to the panto at Christmas. Terrible short-tempered, though.”
Merry gave a little hiccup of laughter. Who would have guessed that the Duke of Trent had it in him to sound like a flower seller from the East End?
The duke settled her more securely against his shoulder. She ought to find her aunt. She didn’t move; instead, she just lay against him, thinking about starched linen and wintergreen soap.
“Then there was my second, that would be Mr. Tucker,” the duke said, in a cheery falsetto. “He was all very well in his way, but short with money. Poor as a church mouse, really.”
“I have George,” Merry said, running her finger around one of the duke’s buttons. It wasn’t brass, or inlaid. It was just plain black. “In time I will forget all of my fiancés.”
“The first three, anyway.”
Merry managed a weak smile. “If you would be so kind, I think it’d be best if you found my aunt now.”
Trent knew very well that he should be feeling sympathy, and not lust.
But lust it was.
He had Merry on his lap, and she was a lapful of soft curves. She felt wonderful, and she smelled wonderful, and what’s more, she was no longer betrothed, and thus was free to be kissed.
Naturally, she felt wounded and distraught; she would need time to recover. He could wait. If she hadn’t just gone through a despicable scene with his twin, he would have kissed her so ferociously that she’d have no uncertainty as regards her future.
“You will marry,” he assured her again, giving in to impulse and pulling her so close that his chin rested on a cloud of fragrant hair. “I’m glad you haven’t stuck a bunch of plumes on top of your head. I couldn’t hold you.”
“You shouldn’t be holding me like this.” But she didn’t pull away. “I shall not marry, because I fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat. The truth is that I have a shallow soul.”
“I don’t think you’re shallow.” He could just hear the faint hum of well-bred voices coming from beyond the library’s thick door.
“I am wildly in love at the start. And then the truth grows on me that it’s not love at all, and in fact, I don’t even like my fiancés very much. If I am completely honest, I’ve known how I felt about Cedric for some time.”
“You’re proving the point I made at the dinner party,” Trent said with satisfaction. “Marriage should never be arranged on the basis of emotion. It’s a highly unreliable gauge of a potential spouse’s worthiness.”
“Do you agree with Lady Caroline, then, that marriages should be a matter of bloodlines, as if one were breeding rabbits?”
“Where do rabbits come into it?” Trent inquired.
“One of my cousins, the summer when we were both nine, decided to breed a brown rabbit.”
“Why on earth? Brownish rabbits are exceedingly common.”
“He wanted to make his own, using a white rabbit and a black rabbit. He got the idea because his father breeds racehorses.”
“Did it work?”
“Not exactly, but after a few generations if you stood a fair distance away and squinted, the babies almost looked brown.”
Trent decided that he would kiss Merry, and be damned to the whole idea of giving her time to recover. He could be respectful. Gentle.
“Why are we discussing brown rabbits?” he asked.
“Lady Caroline thinks of marriage as if it were as logical as pairing rabbits by the color of their fur.”
“In that case, she’s attracted to my fur. She informed me earlier that she was giving me the supper dance and I had the distinct impression that she would announce our betrothal if I were fool enough to show up for that dance.”
“You might want to avoid being as kind to her as you are being to me,” Merry said, nodding. “She told me that the two of you were ideally suited.”
“No one will ever trap me into marriage,” he replied calmly. “That’s one good thing about being a duke. I don’t give a damn what anyone says; I’ll not marry a woman merely to satisfy society’s dictates, any more than I would marry for love, if I were to feel that emotion.”
Merry twisted to look up at him. “We should not be even in private together. Your future bride would not be pleased. But just so you know, Your Grace, I would never make any assumptions on the basis of your kindness.” She lapsed back against him and resumed tracing circles with her finger.
His future wife was terribly obtuse if she thought he often—or ever—took young women into his arms in order to comfort them.
“You are a good friend,” she said.
Trent managed not to snort.
“I’ve never had a male friend before.” The surge of desire that went down Trent’s body when their eyes met had nothing to do with friendship. But Merry looked at him earnestly and said, “I’m so grateful to you for rescuing Mrs. Bennett in the ballroom, Duke. I wish there was something I could do for you. Before I depart for America, I mean.”
“Don’t you think that, as near family, we might do away with my title?”
“As I understand it, addressing a duke by his title is informal address for use only between family and close friends. I am counting myself among your friends, even though I am no longer betrothed to your brother.”
“You will always be in my family,” Trent said.
“I can be a distant cousin. Someday you will bring your son—the one who will inherit your title—to Boston, and I’ll teach him to be an American.”
“Will that make him a better duke?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Finally sounding less dejected, Merry proceeded to regale him with an assortment of facts about American men. Could it be that she really assumed they would be merely friends in the future? The idea was so unpleasant that Trent succumbed to impulse and interrupted her monologue with a kiss.
He had promised himself he would be gentle when he kissed her. He was wrong.
It was a greedy kiss. He had never realized that a lady’s lips could be as voluptuous as a courtesan’s—but that the addition of surprise and innocence would make it a far headier experience than he had ever experienced.
To this point, Trent hadn’t particularly enjoyed kissing. It was too intimate. He’d never been selfish about giving pleasure, as he enjoyed bodily intimacy. All the same, he didn’t care for kissing.
Not until now.
When Merry started kissing him back, the shock of it sent a hum down his limbs that brought with it a strange feeling, as if the world were shaking around them.
One of her hands came around his neck and buried itself in his hair. Her mouth had been sweet, but now
it was silk and fire. Her innocence was still there, but alongside it, a searing urgency.
Trent lost himself. Their tongues danced together and he felt a shudder go through Merry’s body. She made a whimpering sound in the back of her throat, and desire exploded down his spine.
It wasn’t until he became aware that one of his hands had settled on her thigh, and that certain parts of his body had taken on an ungentlemanly life of their own, that he regained a measure of sanity.
He drew his mouth away from hers, just far enough that he could still feel the erotic heat of her breath. He watched her face, his heart pounding unsteadily, as she opened her eyes.
A man could get lost in those eyes. Desire shimmered between them like a haze on a hot day in August.
Would she be outraged? Surprised?
She was dismayed.
“I loathe myself,” she mumbled, closing her eyes in anguish.
“It wasn’t a bad kiss.” Trent’s voice had a rasp that he’d never heard in it before.
Her eyes opened again. “You have the oddest sense of humor,” she said, frowning.
“Did you enjoy the kiss?”
“It was a very nice kiss. In fact—”
She caught back whatever she was about to say.
“I am a despicable person,” she said, her voice ragged.
He suppressed a smile. “I strongly disagree.”
Descriptions and details began tumbling out of her—about Bertie, who used to kiss her on a sofa (if Trent ever met him, he’d have to kill him for that), about Dermot, about Cedric . . . In short, the whole sorry saga of Merry’s romantic life thus far.
Trent didn’t want to discuss the three men she’d fancied herself in love with. He didn’t want to imagine that they had touched her. Or kissed her.
As Merry recounted her supposed sins, Trent cupped her face in his hands and lowered his lips to hers, so close that their noses brushed. She went silent. “You never kissed Cedric the way you just kissed me,” he stated.
Her eyes didn’t fail him. He could see the truth in them. “No,” she said with a little gasp. “No—that is to say, I won’t discuss it. This mustn’t ever happen again, Your Grace. I’m—”
He took her mouth in a thirsty, deep kiss.
Before now, first, second, and third kisses had been merely signposts on the road to bed. His mistresses had all been courtesans, refined women who chose their lovers and enjoyed his company as much as he did theirs.
Kissing Merry was no signpost. It was like making love, something he could do all night. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, and nothing he’d ever thought to find in a lady.
Their kiss grew ravenous and wild, her tongue sliding against his with a passion that couldn’t be shammed, especially when a quiet moan floated into the dark room and was answered by his growl. This was a kiss from which he might never recover.
Finally he pulled back, because it was that or ravish his future bride in the middle of a ball, which he refused to do. Merry’s lips were cherry red and swollen, and her eyes heavy-lidded. He desperately wanted what he could not have . . . yet.
“I will find your aunt and uncle,” he said, his voice rasping as he stood, drawing her to her feet. “I’ll tell them where you are. I think it’s best that I don’t escort you home myself.”
He wouldn’t be at all surprised if every single person in the ballroom knew that the two of them had retreated to this room together.
The glow of pleasure drained from her face instantly. “You don’t think anyone knows we’re here? That would be terrible.”
Almost . . . he could almost sympathize with her horrified expression.
“I certainly don’t want you to feel trapped into marrying me, Your Grace.”
He stopped feeling sympathetic. Merry needn’t be quite so vehement about insisting she wasn’t compromised. To his mind, the only thing that could have compromised her more was if he had given in to impulse and drawn up her skirts.
“No one could possibly trap me into marrying, if I didn’t want to,” he told her. “As I have already stated.”
Relief spread across her face. In fact, another man might find it discouraging, how relieved she appeared.
But he had just kissed her. She had quivered under his touch, and moaned aloud. She wanted him.
Trent bowed, but then paused in the doorway. “I shall pay you a call tomorrow morning,” he said. She murmured something, and looked down so that a thick fall of curls hid her eyes and the lovely line of her jaw.
Merry was his, and that was all there was to it.
She would have to get used to it.
Trent left the premises without a lady at his side, and without a glass slipper in his pocket. But just like the prince in the fairy tale, when morning came, he was determined to find his princess.
Chapter Eighteen
Merry’s mind reeled as she sank back into the chair, watching the door close behind the Duke of Trent. One minute she had been talking to him about her forsaken betrothals, and then she had found herself being kissed more passionately than ever before in her life.
She put her hand to her mouth, as if his lips had left an imprint there. At first, he had been comforting. But there had been nothing soothing about his kisses.
They were untamed, ferocious, demanding.
Even thinking about them made her pulse pound in her ears. As soon as his mouth touched hers, she had felt as if she were melting inside. As if she might open her mouth and embarrass herself.
No.
They were only kisses. He was a duke, a man who would never marry someone like her. They were intended to make her feel better after the unpleasantness with Cedric.
Just as she tried to decide whether men actually kissed in an effort to comfort—she had the strong feeling that Miss Fairfax would not agree—a noise startled her.
She looked in the direction of the sound, the part of the room farthest from the door, and she was stupefied to see Cedric emerge from behind an armchair.
Her hand fell from her face. Her mouth opened in astonishment, but she was incapable of speech. Cedric ambled over and seated himself opposite her, making certain that his pantaloons were perfectly smooth before he crossed his legs.
“That is an extremely unattractive expression,” he observed. “You should close your mouth.”
With this insult, she found her voice. “What are you doing here?” she squeaked. It was the least of her questions, but the first to come to mind. He’d heard everything. He must have heard everything. Oh God, he must have heard her kissing Trent.
“I retreated to think over your charming remarks in the ballroom. When you and my brother entered, I could hardly leave. One hesitates to interrupt people who are so passionately engaged in the fine art of betrayal.”
Yes, he heard her kissing Trent.
“Betrayal!” Merry cried, though she could scarcely deny it. She had betrayed him. Still, she had to try to defend herself. “That would imply that our betrothal was still intact, which any person in the ballroom could tell you was not the case.”
It wasn’t very convincing, even to her own ears. It was despicable to kiss another man five minutes after breaking an engagement.
Cedric rose, drew a cheroot from his inside pocket, and lit it with a rush he took from the fireplace.
“I didn’t know you smoke!”
“Apparently, there are many things that neither of us knew of the other.” He turned back from the fire. “For example, I knew you were a lusty wench, but I was still surprised to see you so enthusiastically returning my brother’s, shall we say, addresses? Though perhaps advances is a more accurate word.”
“He was merely trying to reassure me,” Merry said, knowing her excuse sounded feeble.
“No, he wasn’t,” Cedric stated, sitting back down. “I informed my brother a few days ago that I had never kissed you properly, and he snatched the opportunity to score a point against me.”
Merry must not ha
ve heard correctly. “You discussed kissing me? With your brother?”
He shrugged. “Likely you don’t understand sibling behavior. By kissing you, the duke just won that round. He’ll gloat later because he stole a march on me.”
Merry gasped. “That is revolting.”
“We’re twins.” Smoke wreathed Cedric’s head. Together with the glow of the fire behind him, he resembled an elegant Beelzebub. “There’s nothing closer than blood, for all we snarl at each other. I told Trent that I had no plans to take you to bed until our wedding night. I didn’t want you to tire of me, as you had of the others.”
The humiliations Merry had felt after she ended her engagements to Bertie and Dermot were nothing compared to this. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. A ghastly memory of the times she had swayed toward Cedric, her eyes closed, expectant, flashed through her mind.
“To be blunt,” he said impatiently, “it was obvious that once you sampled the wares, you quickly came to the conclusion that you’d had enough and need not marry the poor fools. I kept my hands off you in order to hold your interest. I think we can both agree that my brother enjoyed usurping my place.”
“If I understand you correctly,” Merry said, the words strangled by disbelief, “I have never consented to—to sampling any man’s wares!”
“That’s what Trent said.” Cedric tipped his head back and blew a perfect ring of smoke. “He as much as dared me to try it on, but I thought I’d better heed my instincts and stay out of your bed.”
They—did they laugh over the way she—
“The duke advised you to stay out of my bed?” The question was dust in Merry’s mouth. She wouldn’t have believed humiliation could be this vivid, as if someone had stripped her of clothing and dragged her in front of a crowd.
“No, no,” Cedric said genially. “The opposite. I’d worked that out myself.”
Something about this story was wrong. The duke was steadfast. Honorable. She was certain of it.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, each word dropping into the silence like a wooden block. “I don’t believe that your brother would discuss intimacies. Not with you or anyone else. His Grace is neither vulgar nor dishonorable.”