My Favorite Bride

  “But,” he pointed out, “experience need not be gained with other men. Especially not men like Du Clos.”

  “Everyone has warned me he’s a lady’s man, so he must be adept at kissing.”

  “He’s adept at ruining young women. I’ll help you learn more about kissing.”

  “But that wouldn’t stop me from blushing when I see you.”

  “Perhaps I’ll start blushing too.” She was so clever, and so stupid. So beautiful and so . . . beautiful. Her skin glowed from the light of the candles inside. Her full mouth trembled—she was truly hurt. Worried. Unhappy. She didn’t know what to do with the emotions cascading through her.

  He did, but he shouldn’t. Shouldn’t wrap his arms around her. Shouldn’t kiss her as he had done the other night. But somehow, shouldn’t became did, as he slid his arm around her silk-clad waist, and drew her close.

  She pressed her palms against his chest. She turned her head away.

  “Samantha,” he whispered, and bending his head, he found her lips.

  Sweet. She was so sweet. So surprised, so giving, so willing, so inexperienced . . . he broke off the kiss, as if that would make him better, more honorable, when he was being the world’s worst cad. Debauching his children’s governess, and imagining ever greater debauchery.

  He almost chuckled. He had been a career soldier. He would have told anyone he did not own an imagination, but it seemed he did. As he held her form against his, letting the warmth of her soak into him, feeling the soft mounds of her breasts, seeing the sculpted shoulders, his imagination showed him, in vivid color, the tangle of two bodies on a bed. He would hold her hips, and gently press himself into her, leading her on a tender path to passion. Making her a woman—his woman.

  “Colonel, please.” Samantha sounded stifled. “Someone will see.”

  Her hands were at her side now, as if she couldn’t stand to touch him. Her chin was up, and she looked . . . angry.

  Angry?

  “And if someone sees, it won’t matter to you. You’re a respected member of society. I’m not. I’m a governess, and before that I was”—she caught her breath—“even less respectable. Please. I know I can’t stay here now, but don’t make it impossible for me to obtain a post at all.”

  He let her go as if she burned his hands. “You’re right. I apologize.”

  She brushed at her skirt, and watched her hands as she did it. “So you agree I must leave?”

  No. No, he didn’t agree to that at all. But if she stayed . . . he couldn’t fool himself. If she stayed, she’d be in his bed, if he had to carry her there.

  “Perhaps it would be better to ask if the children will be getting a new mother, in which case a governess is . . . well, she would want to choose the governess.” Samantha stepped away from him. “I assume Lady Marchant will be the lucky woman.”

  He still didn’t answer. Now was not the time. First, he had to take care of the Featherstonebaugh matter. Not that he could do anything tonight . . .

  But no. He had to be sensible. In measured tones, he said, “Lady Marchant fills every requirement on my list, and she has proved to be a hostess of incomparable skill. She is my logical mate.”

  “Well.” Samantha smiled tightly. “Then I wish you all the happiness in the world.” She turned jerkily and strode down the veranda, down the stairs, and out of sight on the grounds.

  He fumbled for a cigar and lit it. His list of bridal requirements might as well be dust. On paper, Teresa was his logical mate. She fulfilled her duties admirably. She looked beautiful. William liked her. And he thought about wedding her with the same pleasure he experienced when he thought of going to a barber-surgeon.

  Of course, in all truthfulness, Teresa seemed to think the same of him. She spent less and less time at his side, preferring to gossip with her friends, or supervise the servants—or avoid Duncan with such assiduousness that William wanted to laugh. His friends were infatuated with each other. God help them.

  Very well. When Lord and Lady Featherstonebaugh were captured and Pashenka was on his way to Russia loaded with false information, he would propose to Samantha. Then he would marry her. That was the only possible resolution to this battle.

  In the doorway behind him, he heard the rustle of silk.

  Stepping onto the veranda, Teresa said, “I have had, in my day, a number of touching declarations, but that is the one I want framed. Perhaps I’ll cross-stitch it. She is my logical mate. That gives me such a warm feeling inside.”

  Teresa was pleased to see he was at least smart enough to say nothing except, “Teresa . . .”

  A most unusual impulse had come over her. It was noble. It was foolish. It would result in the loss of a great prize, both financial and social, and she didn’t like the impulse at all. But she was tired of being clever and doing what everyone thought she should do. She was tired of all the proper men bobbing about her, wanting a piece of her fortune. She was tired of scheming and planning to save herself from a fortune hunter by marrying a fortune, when fortune hunters were always so much more charming than suitable gentlemen.

  She lifted her hand. “Oh, don’t! Don’t ‘Teresa’ me. I don’t know if you’re going to propose marriage to me, or not propose marriage to me, but let me lift you off the hook. I don’t want you. I won’t take you. I already married one man who didn’t love me. He liked me. He enjoyed me. But he didn’t love me. He loved his military instead.” Taking William’s cigar, she took a puff of it. “You are so damned madly in love with that governess of yours—”

  William drew in a sharp breath.

  She didn’t know whether it was because she swore, or smoked, or because she told him the facts. She didn’t care. “You can scarcely keep your mind on your business—which, by the way, I have figured out.” She took another puff. “Because I’m not as stupid as I pretend to be. In fact, I’m smarter than almost anyone here—and I’m tired of hiding that, too.”

  “My business?” he questioned cautiously.

  She whispered, “The spying. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” Raising her voice again, she said, “But I will tell you—go and get Miss Prendregast. You’re an honorable man with honorable ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong and who should marry whom. You’re so damned honorable you’d ask me to marry you because you thought it was the right thing to do, and you wouldn’t take Miss Prendregast as your mistress because that was the wrong thing to do, and I’d wake up every morning knowing you didn’t love me. Every time we rolled around in the sheets, I’d know you were pretending I was her. And I’m too good for that kind of treatment.” She gestured widely with the cigar. “She’s in her guest house, sulking or crying or, knowing her, trying to decide if she should go after you. I’d suggest you get over there and help her make up her mind.”

  He stared at her. At the cigar. At her sardonic expression.

  He smiled. He picked up her hand and kissed the back. He bowed, vaulted over the railing, and disappeared into the night.

  She snorted and took another puff of the cigar. What an idiot she was. An idiot, and she didn’t care a whit.

  “Well.” A man’s deep voice spoke from the deepest shadows near the house. “That was the most interesting scene I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness.”

  Swinging around, she watched with a sinking heart as a tall, dark shape moved toward her. Ruddy ‘ell. It was him.

  Duncan towered over her. “And here I’ve heard you brag you always get your man.”

  The light from the windows softly lit his face, and she could see the dimples in both his cheeks. The blackguard. “How long have you been listening?”

  “I followed you out here, of course. I have rather a vested interest in the results of that little talk.”

  “Really? What interest could you have in whether I marry William?”

  “Then you couldn’t marry me.”

  She sucked on the cigar so hard she brought on a fit of coughing.

  Duncan, in another one of his s
pasms of ungentlemanly behavior, smacked her on the back. “Give me that.” He removed the cigar from her fingers and tossed it into the bushes. Taking her shoulders, he leaned over and kissed her.

  She shoved at him and, as hard as she could, slapped him across the cheek. She hated him. God, how she hated him!

  As she wound up for another shot, he grabbed her wrist. “That, my darling, was a mistake.” Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her hard against him and bent her backward.

  And kissed her—a full-blown, open-mouthed, passionate raid.

  She tried to scold, but his tongue was there, moving in and out in a brazen imitation of intercourse. He let go of her hand and cradled her neck. Off-balance, she grabbed for his shoulders. The railing dug into her thighs, and she wanted to be incensed. About the position, about the indignity, about his presumption.

  But she couldn’t. Not when a thrill swept across her skin unlike any thrill she’d ever experienced before. This was no gentlemanly buss. This was everything any woman had ever dreamed of, and it was happening to her. Eyes closed, she savored the encounter. She wanted to rub herself against him, over and over, getting pleasure from the mere contact with him. But he held her too firmly. He controlled her every movement, keeping her between him and the railing. When he came up for air, her sanity briefly surfaced. But he dipped his head again, sliding his open mouth along her jawline, taking her earlobe between his teeth and biting lightly. She jumped. She gasped. “That hurt!”

  He chuckled, a soft puff of breath in her hair. “My darling, you don’t even know what you like.” He bit her again.

  “God. Duncan.” She clutched his hair in tight handfuls, wanting to wound him, too.

  He didn’t seem to care. He kissed her below her ear, kissed the pulse on her throat, lingered over one particular place which seemed to fascinate him, right where her neck met her shoulder.

  She heard herself moaning, blatantly exposing her feelings like some madwoman.

  Duncan didn’t taunt her, though. He tasted her as if he couldn’t get enough.

  She stared up at the stars wheeling past and wanted . . . wanted his hands on her breasts, wanted his head between her legs. Blast him, she wanted the rogue in every way possible.

  He kissed her lips again, entering her mouth as if sure of his welcome—and he was. Eyes closed again, she teased at his tongue, kissing him as she had never kissed a man before. And she hadn’t. Not like this. Not with her whole body. Not with her whole mind consumed with desire for the man who held her in his arms.

  When he lifted his head at last, she ran her fingers through his hair. In a husky voice she scarcely recognized, she said, “I’ll meet you in my bedchamber.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “Later.”

  She blinked at him, trying to get her bearings. “Wha . . . what do you mean, later?”

  “Dear girl, you have sent William on his way to meet his love. William is the host. That leaves you as the only one left to direct the ball, because you are the hostess.”

  She couldn’t believe it. She could scarcely breathe. He wasn’t on fire as she was. He wasn’t out of control. “You did this to me. You did this on purpose.”

  “What? Kissed you? Damn right. You’ve needed kissing for years.”

  Humiliation clawed at her. “You brought me out here, and you forced me until I . . . you forced me.”

  “My darling, I’m not restraining you at all.”

  He wasn’t. At some point in that last kiss, he’d stood her upright, and she still clung to his shoulders like some weak girl in need of a man. She snatched her hands back to her side and balled them into fists. She wanted to shriek. She wanted to kick him. She wanted to claw his eyes out.

  “When the ball is over,” he said, “I’ll come to you in your bedchamber.”

  She could see the dimples in his cheeks again, and knew he was laughing at her. He hadn’t been as involved as she had been. He had deliberately made her desperate for him, then proved he held the upper hand. “You will not be welcome.”

  “Maybe not initially, but we both know I can change your mind.”

  She lifted her hand to slap him again, open-handed and with the full strength of her arm behind her.

  He didn’t touch her, but his voice was suddenly cold and hard. “Don’t hit me again.”

  She hesitated, lowered her hand—then it occurred to her. She had to go back in, and she’d been kissing Duncan Monroe in every lascivious way she knew. And he’d been kissing her. The bastard had already marked her. Of course. He wanted to humiliate her in front of everyone. Because she’d been so scornful of him, he’d taken his revenge, and a fine revenge it was. “Did you mess up my hair?”

  “Not at all. I was careful not to.” He carried her shaking hands up to her head. “See? I didn’t even slip out a hairpin.”

  “Did you unbutton anything?” She groped for her back.

  “You are completely fastened. Your gown is as impeccable as it was when you arrived.” He stepped back and viewed her. “Well, perhaps a little more wrinkled, but surely the dancing can account for that.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure you’re right.” Taking a long breath, she straightened her shoulders. “You’re sure you didn’t do anything that would make me conspicuous?”

  “My darling, you have an incredibly suspicious mind.”

  “And you can weave horseshit into gold.”

  He laughed. The bastard threw back his head and laughed in full-bodied amusement. She started to walk away, but he caught her arm. In between snorts, he said, “Your hair, your gown are perfect, and if you have a passionate, revealing glow about you, I can hardly be blamed for that.”

  “I’m going in.”

  “I’ll be in your bedchamber tonight.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  She sailed into the ballroom, her chin tilted upward perhaps a little too much, but she needed the confidence such a posture gave her. The guests smiled at her, toasted her with their wine, and she smiled back, grandly aware of her duty tonight. She was aware. That slip out on the veranda could scarcely be considered anything more than a moment’s madness. She circulated, making her way to the stage. She stepped up with the musicians and ordered them to play a little trill. When she knew she had everyone’s attention, she announced, “Colonel Gregory is indisposed, but he has asked that we enjoy ourselves, and in tribute to him, I think we should.” A titter ran through the ballroom, and she smiled and nodded. “It’s time for our midnight supper now. It will be served in the great hall.”

  Everyone smiled at her until she descended the stage, smiled with such amusement a cold trickle ran down her back, and her gaze swung to Duncan. Duncan, who stood silhouetted against the night, leaning against the open French door and like the lout he was, smoking a filthy cigar.

  She jerked her gaze from his and strolled toward the great hall, leading the guests. But she casually glanced in one of the mirrors as she passed—and there it was. On her pale smooth skin, where her neck met her shoulder. A small, purple mark. A love bite. She stopped. She stared. She couldn’t—didn’t—restrain her gasp of horror. And in the mirror, she could see Duncan. Moving toward her. Across the ballroom. The focus of all eyes.

  And in the light, clearly visible on his cheek, was the mark from her fingers.

  He bowed, a great, sweeping gesture of obeisance, and mouthed a single word. “Tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  William strode up on the porch of the guest house. In a rage of frustration, he discarded his jacket on the wooden floor, ripped off his waistcoat and flung it over the rail. Striding to the door, he lifted his hand to knock—and stopped.

  This course he considered was not honorable. The young woman did not deserve to be debauched by her employer, regardless of the freedom with which she handed out her kisses.

  He lowered his hand.

  To him, though. Only to him. And he ought to be ashamed for kissing her, and more ashamed that he felt such pride in her
response.

  Her awkward, inexperienced response.

  Certainly she gave no indication of being a woman of the world. Rather, she made clear her scorn for the society ladies who fluttered about their men, flattering them to their faces while discounting them in private.

  He strode to the railing and clutched it so tightly the blood left his fingers. But he wanted Samantha. Everything in his body, in his mind, demanded he take her, possess her. He dreamed about her—about her blonde hair flung across his pillow, about the satin skin of her shoulder and how it would feel to his lips, about mounting her and having her, again and again. It was ruthless, the way he felt about her, as if she were an enemy to be conquered. He wanted to teach Samantha her place, and that place was in his bed.

  He pounded the railing with his fist. Damn it. Damn it!

  He was a civilized man, a soldier who had seen too much in his travels and who prided himself on his enlightenment. He should look on Samantha and remember her gentleness with his children, her kindness to his servants, her propriety with his guests.

  Instead he remembered how openly she laughed at him, how cleverly she defied him, how she strode like a panther and smelled like a woman. Every emotion he experienced for her was primitive, coarse, and unregulated. He was a man out of control.

  Behind him, the door banged open and he turned to observe Samantha, exiting in a flurry. She slammed the door so hard it bounced back open, and she growled as she turned to shut it properly.

  That was all it took. The sight of her, the sound of her. His lips felt stiff, but his voice low and dark. “Samantha.”

  She froze, then little by little faced him.

  It was dark on the porch. The curtains muted the light from inside the cottage, the roof deflected the moonlight, but he could see the tense outline of her figure against the white wall. She wore the same garments she had worn at the ball, her arms and chest pale and bare. She stared at him, and her bosom heaved as she took a long breath. “You. How dare you come to me, here, tonight?”

  Then she rushed him. Right at him.

  He braced himself for an attack.