My Wicked Marquess (22 page)

“No?” Standing behind her, he laid his hands on her waist and kissed her nape beneath her upswept hair. “I have another present for you, Daphne. Since you don't want the necklace…”

She shivered, casting about feebly for her ability to resist him. “In the strongest…possible terms…I must object.”

“You go right ahead,” he breathed, his warm whisper fraught with wicked seduction. He continued kissing her neck again, teasing her senses into glorious awakening for him. She laid her hands atop his where they rested on her waist, but her power to push him away was fading fast.

When his wandering lips skimmed her earlobe, she was overcome with the need for his kiss. She turned her head and offered him her mouth. He claimed her lips immediately. She moaned at the welcome pleasure of his now clean-shaved face caressing hers. The absence of his scratchy beard made it easier to kiss him with all the passion seething inside her. She lifted her hand and caressed his cheek, savoring the
warm, smooth male skin beneath her trembling fingertips.

Slowly, he turned her around to face him. Reveling in his embrace despite her earlier determination not to let this happen, she could not stop herself from feeding on his kisses. At length, however, he stopped her. Ending the kiss, he held her fevered stare as he lowered himself slowly to his knees before her.

Daphne watched him in hazy-eyed silence as he gathered her hands to his lips and began kissing them tenderly, with the utmost care; her palms, each finger, her wrists. When he had lavished these with his attentions, he kissed her midriff through her gown. He grasped her hips gently and continued pressing fervent kisses to her stomach and lower, his hot breath permeating the light cotton layers of her gown and petticoat.

Her heart was slamming in her chest as she wondered with a building sense of thrill what he was about.

She rested her hands on his wide shoulders as he reached down and caressed her legs, again, through her skirts, until he came to her ankles. She shivered eagerly as his fingers played over her anklebones; her eyes flared with rising desire, but she made no effort whatsoever to stop him as his light touch began traveling northward under her skirts. She swallowed hard, but could not have uttered a word of protest if she had wanted to. All she could do was stare helplessly into his eyes, her pulse pounding.

She felt the precise moment that his hands roamed above the tissue-thin layer of her stockings and ventured above her garters, meeting bare skin.

He closed his eyes, visibly savoring the contact.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she breathed at last as he began raising the hem of her skirts.

“I want to please you,” he whispered, then bent his head and kissed her thigh. “Let me adore you.” He pressed her backward a small space to lean her hips against the sturdy secretaire behind her.

All thoughts beyond this room, this moment, this man soon fled. Forbidden pleasure turned to bliss as he lavished the same scrupulous care on kissing her thighs as he had her
neck and hands. She watched him avidly, already aroused to full willingness by the time he parted her legs and drove his openmouthed kiss against her mound.

She melted, moaning, as his tongue stroked and swirled over the tautened bud of her center. Gliding a hand up her leg, he slipped a warm, gentle finger inside her; he deepened his kiss, lapping up the dewy evidence of her desire with a moan of pleasure at the taste.

He was, she realized, as totally aroused as she, lost in his giving; she was so overwhelmed by his intense, inspired passion that she could do nothing but receive.

In that moment, she was his instrument, to do with what he willed. Her body and, more alarmingly, her soul were fully open to him; he could have taken her, and he surely knew it, being a man of the world.

But instead, he used his mouth and hands to beguile her, until suddenly—the delicious tension coiled so tightly in her core broke loose with a vengeance, sending riotous waves of pleasure undulating through her. Her back arched, her hips reached for his kiss; a soft, ragged cry tore from her lips. He lapped at her body in feverish thirst, moaning against her flesh even as the uncontrollable spasms of delight still racked her.

When all her strength had ebbed away, Lord Rotherstone lifted his head. She closed her eyes, still reeling with bewildered bliss; she rested her head weakly on the upper part of the secretaire behind her, and felt him press a damp kiss to her knee.

Enervated, her heart still pounding, she found the power at last to open her eyes. She gazed at him like a woman foxed on some secret wine that only he could give.

He passed his fingers slowly over his lips to dry them, and then he rose, brushing her skirts back down politely, satisfaction in his eyes, discretion in his faint, worldly smile. He leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to her brow. “You are a feast for all the senses, Daphne.”

“Oh, Max,” she uttered.

“I will see you at the End of Summer Ball. You owe me a dance and I intend to collect.” He laid his fingertip softly
over her lips before she could summon up the strength to contradict him. He looked deeply into her eyes, and ran a stray lock of her hair lovingly between his fingers. “No more foolish talk of refusing me,” he whispered. “You belong with me. I want you. And I will not be denied.”

He was gone after branding her lips with one last, searing kiss, slipping out quietly, leaving her spent and breathless, and even more confused than she had been before.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to regain her wits. When she opened them again, her dazed glance happened upon the sparkling sapphire necklace.

She stared at it with a kind of shock; how had she ended up with it again?

The second she saw it, a cold trickle of anger began to drip its way back into her warm, physical satisfaction.

The sight of it there, glittering in the afternoon light, seemed like a silent reproach for her weakness to his temptation.

She had accused him in so many words of treating her like a harlot, thinking he could buy her at the cost of all the luxury he could bestow. Now he had done this incredible, wanton thing to her, and Daphne was left feeling rather literally like some sort of scarlet woman.

How wicked of her. But what
wouldn't
this man do to get what he wanted?

First, he had tried to tempt her with the chance to share his wealth and power, and when that had failed, he had resorted to an even more powerful weapon: sexual pleasure.

Unfortunately, now that she'd had a taste of this forbidden sweetness, as intoxicating as it was, she realized it was a completely separate thing from what she really craved—an intimacy of the heart with him.

Without a true bond between them, she discovered that such activities could leave a woman with a bad feeling inside, as if she'd had one too many glasses of wine the previous night and acted foolish.

Clearly, with his skill as a lover, he could take her to the heights of desire, but just like his riches, this, too, was no substitute for love.

Surely he knew that. He had merely done this as another means of gaining power over her, she thought. But it wasn't going to work. Her face hardening with her anger at herself and at him, she went and snatched the necklace angrily in her grasp.

She stepped toward the window and peered out in the direction of the drive, but he had already ridden off, leaving the jeweled monstrosity with her intentionally.

As if it was her payment.

So, he refused to take it back? He thought he'd won?

Very well, you blackguard. I've got a better use for it, anyway
. She was certainly not going to keep the thing and be forever reminded of him. She knew then what she was going to do with the necklace—and she also made a decision about how to handle him.

At the End of Summer Ball, she would finish this thing between them one way or the other.

He wanted to turn this into a high-stakes game? Very well. He was going to hate her for the public repudiation that she had in mind, but maybe then he'd finally get the message.

This time, she thought grimly, the Demon Marquess had brought it on himself.

M
ax trusted he had laid her fears to rest. At least that was what he wanted to believe a few days later as his ebony coach rumbled on behind the four black horses, speeding down to nearby Richmond-upon-Thames for the End of Summer Ball. Inside the coach, a jovial spirit reigned as Rohan and Jordan and he passed around a bottle of whisky, imbibing freely ahead of the night's festivities.

His friends were conversing irreverently on which women they might amuse themselves in pursuing tonight, but Max found himself yet again in a state of distraction over Daphne. Lord, what had this girl done to him? He glanced out the carriage window at the splendor of the evening's sunset, unfurled over a wide expanse of countryside.

Dramatic, billowing clouds filled the west, blazing pink and orange on their undersides, lit from below by the September sun slipping over the horizon. The tops and sides of the clouds were smoky lavender, with patches of the fading day's light blue still visible between them. In the east, a full moon rose, wearing a misty gold halo, and the night it gathered round it like a cloak turned from royal blue to dark indigo, spangled with stars.

The trees crowded out the view again as Jordan handed him the bottle. Max accepted it with a wry smile, thought of Daphne again, and took a hearty swig.

Still, the liquor could not chase away the nagging feeling that instead of getting things under control with her in the parlor, maybe he had only made matters worse. Doubt was not the only ailment plaguing him tonight. Along with a high degree of sexual frustration, he was still secretly hurt by her attempt to get rid of him.

He really did not understand her continued resistance.

In what way did she find him lacking? Hell, he had started off barely caring whom he married, but now somehow she had him by the throat.

He had no idea why he was trying so hard, or when he'd become so determined that only she would do. Which was why he was still shocked by her attempted rejection.

He was used to getting what he wanted, and could in all modesty say that women did not usually turn their noses up at him. On those rare occasions when it did occur, he usually just laughed. He never particularly cared.

But this was different somehow. Very, very different. This one got to him because it stirred long-buried fears deep in the core of him that maybe he was not worthy of love.

All Max knew was that it was one thing to be rejected in chameleon mode. That, he did not take personally. But to try, to start, by God, to offer her his real self, and have the inner man rejected, that struck a nerve. What in the hell was it going to take for her to accept him?

When would he ever be enough?

He was already as rich as a king and higher placed in the order of precedence than ninety-nine percent of the population. If that was still not good enough for somebody to find him worthy of love, then he might as well just give up now.

Bloody hell
. He viewed his own aching uncertainty and thought himself pathetic. Pathetic like the angry boy who'd been a punching bag for the local bullies, the lonely son who had not mattered enough to his own parents to stop them from selling him off to a secret government agency for gold, even though they'd known he could be killed.

The bottle came around to him again, and Max tried to drown his disgust with another long swig.

Perdition
. If this girl could make him hurt like this before
he had even bedded her, then how might she torment him throughout all their coming years as man and wife?

God, if he were anywhere near as shrewd as his comrades in the Order generally thought him, he would wash his hands of her and choose somebody else. Some pretty-headed, agreeable nitwit that he could hold at arm's length in benevolent indifference. Someone who would spend his gold and not dare question how he lived his life.

But despite Miss Starling's aggravating stubbornness, Max could not let go.
You never give up, and you never back down
, Virgil had once said. It was one of the things the Order valued about his nature, but sometimes his kind of stubbornness could be a curse.

Life would've been so much easier if he could just tell Daphne who and what he really was. Instead, there was nothing he could do but wait for her to accept her fate—and hope that, in the meanwhile, his own deepening hunger for her did not drive him into lunacy. He was already feeling a little too close to the edge.

Max noticed then that the carriage had grown silent, the mask of merriment slipping briefly to reveal three of the Order's lost boys, men now, each left to battle private demons of his own.

“Never thought I'd say this,” Rohan murmured, taking the bottle back from Max, “but I am beginning to miss the war.”

“I know,” Max murmured, “exactly what you mean.”

A trace of a bitter smile was Jordan's only answer.

Max let out a taut sigh. “Cheers, lads,” he said ironically, and uncorked another bottle.

Unfortunately, he already knew the liquor was not as potent a sedative as that sweet potion he had tasted yesterday, the nectar of her virgin body. Dissolving on his tongue, she had been almost mystically intoxicating. He wished he could've got foxed again tonight on that rare, exquisite wine. She seemed to have medicinal effects on him, as well. But since he had doubtless pushed her far enough, he supposed he could wait…until their wedding night.

 

A breeze as soft as cashmere blew in off the tranquil river, perfecting the night's conditions for the End of Summer Ball. Music floated over the gardens; the colorful lanterns strung up everywhere were already lit in anticipation of the darkness on this night of the equinox.

In hours, summer would concede to autumn, but for now, the countless guests in all their finery strolled the sculpted grounds, chatted with clusters of friends, or sat at the tables and chairs set up beneath the graceful open tent. There, the wine flowed freely, an abundance of delicacies arrayed to tempt the palate.

Meanwhile, inside their hosts' manor house, all the doors to the terrace were flung open; guests had begun crowding into the candlelit ballroom, eager for the dancing to begin. The musicians in the orchestra gave their instruments a final tuning.

Anticipation hung upon the air.

It was to be a grand night, with hundreds in attendance. Daphne had heard that the Regent himself might make an appearance, but her thoughts continuously revolved around one particular guest, who had not yet arrived.

She expected to see Lord Rotherstone at any moment, and the prospect of her dire task tonight had her on edge. It was a good deal more intimidating than her plan a few weeks ago of confronting Albert Carew.

Max had left her house the other day under the impression that he had fixed everything between them and prevented her defection by the things he had done to her. But he was about to find out just how wrong he was.

After their brash encounter in the parlor, she could already sense his control closing around her, enveloping her. It increased her desperation to get out now while she still could.

His superior size, his iron strength, his keen intelligence, his wealth and title, his ability to manipulate her father and Society through his calculating charm—and most of all, his indecent skill at kissing away her protests with overwhelming pleasure—all this made the domineering marquess a powerful foe, indeed.

She could already feel herself slipping into his unyielding grasp, but she still had time and will in her to fight and to keep control of her own destiny. Terrible things could happen, after all, when a person lost control over her own life.

Lady Thurloe had said,
My brother does not easily forgive.
Daphne was counting on that in her scheme to turn Max against her for once and for all. When she answered his inevitable request for a dance in the ballroom tonight with a snub, then maybe then he would finally get the message and leave her in peace.

She did not want to hurt him, just give him enough of a sting to signal that if he was wise, he would give up on his pursuit. He should find somebody else who was content to marry him for his gold and his title.

Daphne wanted more—she wanted him, the person—but he refused to listen. Sharp as he was, he only pretended that he didn't understand.

Unfortunately, word of their drive through Hyde Park together had sparked a fresh wave of gossip that her reputation could really not afford. As Daphne moved through the crowd, going to fetch two glasses of wine for her and Carissa, she noticed several people glancing at her, whispering a bit. She registered an awareness that they were talking about her, but she did not sense any particular hostility behind the glances.

She gave the gossips an unflappable smile and nodded to them politely, then she lifted her chin and walked on, her head held high.

Thank God, the ton knew nothing about their episode in the parlor, nor about those stolen kisses at his house. She hadn't even told Carissa! She had told her friend about the carriage drive, but nothing beyond that. Now she could just imagine how ruined she'd be if Society ever found out the whole story. It was dreadful knowing he could hold those kinds of secrets over her head if he liked.

She wished she could forget that wanton streak he had uncovered in her. It was
so
desperately unladylike, but what could she do? The man turned her into some sort of wild
creature. Alas, what was done was done, and now she could only trust in his honor, and hope to God that Lord Rother-stone could keep a secret.

Brushing off a twinge of guilt, she got the wine and carried it back carefully toward where she had last left Carissa. They had split up a few minutes ago in a division of labor; while Daphne fetched the drinks, Carissa had gone to fix a little plate of treats for them to share.

Jonathon had not yet arrived, fashionably late as usual. But it was just as well. She planned on keeping a distance from him tonight for his own safety. No need to test Lord Rotherstone's good nature.

As she made her way through the crowd, she expected at any moment to see Max's gorgeous face by the lanterns' light. Instead, to her distaste, it was Albert Carew who fell into step alongside her.

He was on his way up to the ballroom, but he walked with her a short way. “I heard you were seen taking a drive with Rotherstone last week.” His whole demeanor dripped sarcasm.

“What of it?” she replied in annoyance.

“Oh, nothing.” He shrugged with his superior air. “There is no accounting for taste.” He gave her a cold, scornful smile and walked away.

Daphne clenched her jaw just as petite Carissa came slipping through the crowd, swift and ethereal, moving with elfin haste. Dressed in an enviable gown of pale, seafoam blue, her auburn hair in ringlets, she looked paler than her usual ivory complexion as she rejoined Daphne.

“There you are!”

“What's wrong? Are you all right?”

“God,” she uttered. “You'd better give me that.”

Daphne immediately handed her a glass of wine. “What's going on? Where are our treats?”

“Never mind that. Bad news.” Carissa took a surprisingly large swallow of wine and then steadied herself. “Oh, Daphne—I was over at the refreshments tent, where I just received the shock of my life!”

“What is it?” she asked quickly.

“I hardly know how to tell you what I've just heard—” Carissa winced. “About you.”

“
Me?
” Daphne stood motionless. She knew that she turned white. She could feel the blood rush from her face.
He wouldn't have told anyone
. A wave of dizziness passed, but her stomach had bunched up in knots.

Good God, if Max had boasted to anyone about the liberties she had let him take—but surely he would not do such a thing. She swallowed hard and braced herself to hear her fate. “Yes?”

Her friend eyed her suspiciously. “I don't know what is going on, but over there just a moment ago, I overheard your stepmother sharing the most shocking confidence with some ladies.”

Stepmother?
By comparison to what she feared, word of Penelope's meddling would be cause for relief. “What did she say?”

“She was bragging, in fact.”

“Indeed?” she asked faintly.

Carissa leaned closer. “She said a
betrothal
is soon to be announced between you and the Marquess of Rotherstone!” she whispered in bewilderment.

“What—?” Daphne blanched.

“I'm certain that's what I heard her say!”

“Oh,
nooo!
” It was Penelope, after all, who had triggered the whole Albert debacle with her big mouth. “God, I don't believe it. She's done it again?”

“Tell me she is suffering from delusions!” Carissa ordered. “There can be no truth to this fiction, surely?”

“Carissa,” Daphne forced out stiffly, “there's something you should know. The truth is—” Daphne licked her lips nervously, for her mouth had gone dry. Then she nodded. “He has offered for me.”

Carissa gasped.

“He spoke to my father—and Papa agreed—but I haven't!”

“Oh, I don't believe it!” Carissa clapped a hand briefly over her mouth. Her eyes were round. “The Demon Marquess
proposed
to you?”

“Yes. Well—if you call it that. I mean, his idea of a pro
posal is
ordering
one to marry him. But whatever he thinks or says, I still said no!”

Confusion furrowed her friend's brow. “But then—why did you go driving with him?”

“Because he charmed me!” she exclaimed in helpless vexation, throwing up her hands. “Oh, you don't understand how wicked he is, how smooth and irresistible! I know now why they call him that. He can tell you black is white and up is down—he gets me so muddled!” She let out a frustrated sigh. “He sweet-talked me into giving him a chance. He said it was only fair. So, I agreed to let him take me out for a drive…oh, but he is beautiful, Carissa. He truly is. I wish that he were not.”