Honoria scowled at the trees, drawing ever nearer. “I take leave to inform you, Your Grace, that I’m hardly a green girl. I’m a mature woman of reasonable experience—no easy mark.”
“Unfortunately, my dear, you have your cause and effect confused. If you had, indeed, been a fresh-faced chit just out of the schoolroom, few would imagine I’d done anything other than sleep last night. As it is . . .” He paused, slowing Sulieman as they neared the trees. “It’s well-known I prefer more challenging game.”
Disgusted, Honoria humphed. “It’s ridiculous—there wasn’t even a bed.”
The chest behind her quaked, then was still. “Trust me—there’s no requirement for a bed.”
Honoria pressed her lips shut and glared at the trees. The path wended through the stand; beyond stood the stone wall, two feet thick and eight feet high. An archway gave onto an avenue lined with poplars. Through the shifting leaves, she sighted the house, still some way to the left. It was huge—a long central block with perpendicular wings at each end, like an E without the middle stroke. Directly ahead lay a sprawling stable complex.
The proximity of the stables prompted her to speech. “I suggest, Your Grace, that we agree to disagree over the likely outcome of last night. I acknowledge your concern but see no reason to tie myself up in matrimony to avoid a few months’ whispers. Given your reputation, you can hardly argue.” That, she felt, was a nicely telling touch.
“My dear Miss Anstruther-Wetherby.” His gentle, perfectly lethal purr sounded in her left ear; tingles streaked down her spine. “Let me make one point perfectly clear. I don’t intend to argue. You, an Anstruther-Wetherby, have been compromised, however innocently, by me, a Cynster. There is, therefore, no question over the outcome; hence, there can be no argument.”
Honoria gritted her teeth so tightly her jaw ached. The struggle to suppress the shudder that purring murmur of his evoked distracted her all the way to the stable arch. They rode beneath it, Sulieman’s hooves clattering on the cobbles. Two grooms came running but pulled up short of where Devil reined in his black steed.
“Where’s Melton?”
“Not yet about, Y’r Grace.”
Honoria heard her rescuer—or was that captor?—curse beneath his breath. Entirely without warning, he dismounted—by bringing his leg over the pommel, taking her to the ground with him. She didn’t have time to shriek.
Catching her breath, she realized her feet had yet to reach earth—he was holding her still, firmly caught against him; another shudder threatened. She drew breath to protest—on the instant, he gently set her down.
Lips compressed, Honoria haughtily brushed down her skirts. Straightening, she turned toward him—he caught her hand, grabbed the reins, and headed for the stable block, towing her and his black demon behind him.
Honoria swallowed her protest; she’d rather go with him than cool her heels in the stable yard, a prey to his grooms’ curiosity. Gloom, filled with the familiar smells of hay and horses, engulfed her. “Why can’t your grooms brush him down?”
“They’re too frightened of him—only old Melton can handle him.” Honoria looked at Sulieman—the horse looked steadily back.
His master stopped before a large stall. Released, Honoria leaned against the stall door. Arms crossed, she pondered her predicament while watching her captor—she was increasingly certain that was a more accurate description of him—rub down his fearsome steed.
Muscles bunched and relaxed; the sight was positively mesmerizing. He’d told her to get used to it; she doubted she ever could. He bent, then fluidly straightened and shifted to the horse’s other side; his chest came into view. Honoria drew in a slow breath—then he caught her eye.
For one instant, their gazes held—then Honoria looked away, first at the tack hanging along the stable wall, then up at the rafters, inwardly berating herself for her reaction, simultaneously wishing she had a fan to hand.
It was never wise to tangle with autocrats, but, given she had no choice, she needed to remember that it was positively fatal to acknowledge he had any power over her.
Determined to hold her own, she ordered her mind to business. If he believed honor demanded he marry her, she’d need to try a different tack. She frowned. “I do not see that it’s fair that, purely because I was stranded by a storm and took shelter in the same cottage as you, I should have to redirect my life. I am not a passive spectator waiting for the next occurrence to happen—I have plans!” Devil glanced up. “Riding in the shadow of the Great Sphinx?” He could just imagine her on a camel—along with a hovering horde of Berber chieftains who looked remarkably like him and thought like him, too.
“Precisely. And I plan to explore the Ivory Coast as well—another exciting place so I’ve heard.” Barbary pirates and slave traders. Devil tossed aside the currying brush and dusted his hands on his breeches. “You’ll just have to make do with becoming a Cynster—no one’s ever suggested it’s a mundane existence.”
“I am not going to marry you.” Her flashing eyes and the set of her chin declared her Anstruther-Wetherby mind was made up; Devil knew he was going to seriously enjoy every minute it took to make her change it. He walked toward her.
Predictably, she backed not an inch, although he saw her muscles lock against the impulse. Without breaking stride, he closed his hands about her waist and lifted her, setting her down with her back against the stall wall. With commendable restraint, he removed his hands, locking one on the top of the half-closed door, bracing the other, palm flat, on the wall by her shoulder.
Caged, she glared at him; he tried not to notice how her breasts rose as she drew in a deep breath. He spoke before she could. “What have you got against the proposition?”
Honoria kept her eyes locked on his—standing as he was, her entire field of vision was filled with bare male. Once her heart had ceased to thud quite so loudly, she raised her brows haughtily. “I have no desire whatever to marry purely because of some antiquated social stricture.”
“That’s the sum of your objections?”
“Well, there’s Africa, of course.”
“Forget Africa. Is there any reason other than my motives in offering for you that in your opinion constitutes an impediment to our marriage?”
His arrogance, his high-handedness, his unrelenting authority—his chest. Honoria was tempted to start at the top of her list and work her way down. But not one of her caveats posed any serious impediment to their marriage. She searched his eyes for some clue as to her best answer, fascinated anew by their remarkable clarity. They were like crystal clear pools of pale green water, emotions, thoughts, flashing like quicksilver fish in their depths. “No.”
“Good.”
She glimpsed some emotion—was it relief?—flash through his eyes before his heavy lids hid them from view. Straightening, he caught her hand and headed for the stable door. Stifling a curse, she grabbed up her skirts and lengthened her stride. He made for the main archway; beyond lay his house, peaceful in the morning sunshine.
“You may set your mind at rest, Miss Anstruther-Wetherby.” He glanced down, the planes of his face granite-hard. “I’m not marrying you because of any social stricture. That, if you consider it, is a nonsensical idea. Cynsters, as you well know, do not give a damn about social strictures. Society, as far as we’re concerned, can think what it pleases—it does not rule us.”
“But . . . if that’s the case—and given your reputation I can readily believe it is—why insist on marrying me?”
“Because I want to.”
The words were delivered as the most patently obvious answer to a simple question. Honoria held on to her temper. “Because you want to?”
He nodded.
“That’s it? Just because you want to?”
The look he sent her was calculated to quell. “For a Cynster, that’s a perfectly adequate reason. In fact, for a Cynster, there is no better reason.”
He looked ahead again; Honoria glared at his profile. “Th
is is ridiculous. You only set eyes on me yesterday, and now you want to marry me?”
Again he nodded.
“Why?”
The glance he shot her was too brief for her to read. “It so happens I need a wife, and you’re the perfect candidate.” With that, he altered their direction and lengthened his stride even more.
“I am not a racehorse.”
His lips thinned, but he slowed—just enough so she didn’t have to run. They’d gained the graveled walk that circled the house. It took her a moment to replay his words, another to see their weakness. “That’s still ridiculous. You must have half the female population of the ton waiting to catch your handkerchief every time you blow your nose.”
He didn’t even glance her way. “At least half.”
“So why me?”
Devil considered telling her—in graphic detail. Instead, he gritted his teeth and growled: “Because you’re unique.”
“Unique?”
Unique in that she was arguing. He halted, raised his eyes to the heavens in an appeal for sufficient strength to deal with an Anstruther-Wetherby, then looked down and trapped her gaze. “Let me put it this way—you are an attractive Anstruther-Wetherby female with whom I’ve spent an entire night in private—and I’ve yet to bed you.” He smiled. “I assume you would prefer we married before I do?”
The stunned shock in her eyes was balm to his soul. The grey orbs, locked on his, widened—then widened even more. He knew what she was seeing—the sheer lust that blazed through him had to be lighting his eyes.
He fully expected her to dissolve into incoherent, ineffectual, disjointed gibberings—instead, she suddenly snapped free of his visual hold, blinked, drew a quick breath—and narrowed her eyes at him.
“I am not marrying you just so I can go to bed with you. I mean—” She caught herself up and breathlessly amended, “So that you can go to bed with me.”
Devil watched the telltale color rise in her cheeks. Grimly, he nodded. “Fine.” Tightening his grip on her hand, he turned and stalked on.
All the way from the cottage, she’d shifted and wriggled against him; by the time they’d reached the stable, he’d been agonizingly aroused. How he’d managed not to throw her down in the straw and ease his pain, he had no idea. But he now had a roaring headache, and if he didn’t keep moving—keep her moving—temptation might yet get the upper hand.
“You,” he stated, as they rounded the corner of the house, “can marry me for a host of sensible, socially acceptable reasons. I’ll marry you to get you into my bed.” He felt her dagger glance.
“That is—Good God!”
Honoria stopped; stock-still, she stared. Somersham Place lay spread before her, basking in the morning sunshine. Immense, built of honey-colored stone at least a century before, it sprawled elegantly before her, a mature and gracious residence overlooking a wide lawn. She was dimly aware of the lake at the bottom of the lawn, of the oaks flanking the curving drive, of the stone wall over which a white rose cascaded, dew sparkling on the perfumed blooms. The clack of ducks drifted up from the lake; the air was fresh with the tang of clipped grass. But it was the house that held her. Durable, inviting, there was grandeur in every line, yet the sharp edges were muted, softened by the years. Sunbeams glinted on row upon row of lead-paned windows; huge double oak doors were framed by a portico of classic design. Like a lovely woman mellowed by experience, his home beckoned, enticed.
He was proposing to make her mistress of all this.
The thought flitted through her mind; even though she knew he was watching, she allowed herself a moment to imagine, to dwell on what might be. For this had she been born, reared, trained. What should have been her destiny lay before her. But becoming his duchess would mean risking . . .
No! She’d promised herself—never again.
Mentally shutting her eyes to the house, the temptation, she drew a steadying breath, and saw the crest blazoned in stone on the portico’s facade, a shield sporting a stag rampant on a ground of fleur-de-lis. Beneath the shield ran a wide stone ribbon bearing a carved inscription. The words were Latin—it took her a moment to translate. “To have . . . and to hold?”
Hard fingers closed about hers. “The Cynster family motto.”
Honoria raised her eyes heavenward. An irresistible force, he drew her toward the steps. “Where are you taking me?” A vision of silk cushions and gauze curtains—a pirate’s private lair—flashed into her mind.
“To my mother. Incidentally, she prefers to be addressed as the Dowager.”
Honoria frowned. “But you’re not married.”
“Yet. It’s her subtle way of reminding me of my duty.”
Subtle. Honoria wondered what the Dowager—his mother, after all—would do if she wished to make a point forcefully. Whatever, it was time and past to make a stand. It would be unwise to cross his threshold—beyond which, she had not the slightest doubt, he ruled like a king—without coming to some agreement as to their future relationship, or lack thereof.
They reached the porch; he halted before the doors and released her. Facing him, Honoria straightened. “Your Grace, we must—”
The doors swung inward, held majestically wide by a butler, one of the more imposing of the species. Cheated of her moment, Honoria only just managed not to glare.
The butler’s eyes had gone to his master; his smile was genuinely fond. “Good morning, Your Grace.”
His master nodded. “Webster.”
Honoria stood her ground. She was not going to cross his threshold until he acknowledged her right to ignore—as he did whenever it suited him—society’s dictates.
He shifted to stand beside her, gesturing for her to precede him. Simultaneously, Honoria felt his hand at the back of her waist. Without her petticoat, only a single layer of fabric separated her skin from his hard palm. He didn’t exert any great pressure; instead, seductively questing, his hand traveled slowly, very slowly, down. When it reached the curve of her bottom, Honoria sucked in a quick breath—and stepped quickly over the threshold.
He followed. “This is Miss Anstruther-Wetherby, Webster.” He looked her way; Honoria glimpsed triumph in his eyes. “She’ll be staying—her boxes should arrive this morning.”
Webster bowed low. “I’ll have your things taken to your room, miss.”
Stiffly, Honoria inclined her head—her heart was still fluttering in her throat; her skin felt hot and cold in the strangest places. She couldn’t fault the butler’s demeanor; he seemed unsurprised by his master’s lack of attire. Was she the only one who found his bare chest at all remarkable? Stifling an urge to sniff disbelievingly, she elevated her nose another inch and looked about the hall.
The impression created by the exterior extended within doors. A sense of graciousness pervaded the high-ceilinged hall, lit by sunlight pouring through the fanlight and the windows flanking the front doors. The walls were papered—blue fleur-de-lis on an ivory ground; the paneling, all light oak, glowed softly. Together with the blue-and-white tiles, the decor imparted an airy, uncluttered atmosphere. Stairs of polished oak, their baluster ornately carved, led upward in a long, straight sweep, then divided into two, both arms leading to the gallery above.
Webster had been informing his master of the presence of his cousins. Devil nodded curtly. “Where’s the Dowager?”
“In the morning room, Your Grace.”
“I’ll take Miss Anstruther-Wetherby to her. Wait for me.”
Webster bowed.
The devil glanced down at her. With a languid grace that set her nerves on end, he gestured for her to accompany him. She was still quivering inside—she told herself it was due to indignation. Head high, she swept down the hall.
His instruction to his butler to wait had recalled what their sparring had driven from her mind. As they neared the morning-room door, it occurred to Honoria that she might have been arguing for no real reason. Devil reached for the doorknob, his fingers closing about hers—she tugged. He
looked up, incipient impatience in his eyes.
She smiled understandingly. “I’m sorry—I’d forgotten. You must be quite distracted by your cousin’s death.” She spoke softly, soothingly. “We can discuss all this later, but there’s really no reason for us to wed. I daresay, once the trauma has passed, you’ll see things as I do.”
He held her gaze, his eyes as blank as his expression. Then his features hardened. “Don’t count on it.” With that, he set the door wide and handed her through. He followed, closing the door behind him.
A petite woman, black hair streaked with grey, was seated in a chair before the hearth, a hoop filled with embroidery on her lap. She looked up, then smiled—the most gloriously welcoming smile Honoria had ever seen—and held out her hand. “There you are, Sylvester. I’d wondered where you’d got to. And who is this?”
His mother’s French background rang clearly in her accent; it also showed in her coloring, in the hair that had once been as black as her son’s combined with an alabaster complexion, in the quick, graceful movements of her hands, her animated features and the candid, appraising glance that swept Honoria.
Inwardly ruing her hideously creased skirts, Honoria kept her head high as she was towed across the room. The Dowager hadn’t so much as blinked at her son’s bare chest.
“Maman.” To her surprise, her devilish captor bent and kissed his mother’s cheek. She accepted the tribute as her due; as he straightened, she fixed him with a questioning glance every bit as imperious as he was arrogant. He met it blandly. “You told me to bring you your successor the instant I found her. Allow me to present Miss Honoria Prudence Anstruther-Wetherby.” Briefly, he glanced at Honoria. “The Dowager Duchess of St. Ives.” Turning back to his mother, he added: “Miss Anstruther-Wetherby was residing with the Claypoles—her boxes will arrive shortly. I’ll leave you to get acquainted.”