My Wicked Marquess (27 page)

She quivered at the intensity in his passionate gaze, and warned herself against the first signs of her weakening. When he looked at her like that, her knees went a bit wobbly.

He shook his head. “Everything changed from the first moment I laid eyes on you. It changed—in me. The more I learned about you…you shook me to the core.”

“Do not say that,” she warned him barely audibly, clinging by a thread to her resolve to despise him. “It's too late. I don't believe you. I know the lies you tell.”

“I swear to you by St. Michael, I'm telling the truth.”

She was frightened of getting drawn in again by his magnetic charm, and yet the whole loft resonated with the urgent sincerity of his words.

“I'm not just referring to your beauty,” he added with a pointed look. “I've known beautiful women before, but they were not like you. Nobody is. None of them could ever make me trust them.”

“You trust me?”

“I told you so the first day I came to your house.”

“Then why is it so hard for you to be more open with me?”

“I don't know,” he said softly, shaking his head. “It's just the way I've always been. All I know is you came and found me at the Edgecombe ball and you were the only person
who cared if I left or stayed. You spoke to me and I found you…enchanting.” He stared at her, then lowered his gaze. “I had to leave that night, it's true, but from that moment forward, I knew you were the woman for me. And every time we've been together since, my certainty of that has only grown stronger.” He paused. “I am not in the habit, Daphne, of wearing my heart on my sleeve, if you'll pardon me. If the reasons I have given for wanting you have not rung true, as you say, that's probably because what I feel for you scares the hell out of me.”

She did her best to absorb his words in wonder. “You, scared?” she murmured, still in doubt. He never seemed afraid of anything.

He nodded slowly. “I've been trying to give myself sane, logical reasons for this…obsession you've cast over me. Trying to tell myself it's just a simple, practical match, for the sake of producing heirs. Nothing to be alarmed about. But that's not the truth of how I feel.”

“How do you feel, Max?” she prompted in a soft tone.

For a long moment, he considered, as though peering gingerly into himself. “Lost. Daphne…this is not an easy feeling for a man who always knows exactly where he's going.”

She felt tears beginning to sting the backs of her eyelids. She wanted to take him into her arms. He was such an expert at so many things, and so hopeless when it came to affairs of the heart. Clearly, he needed her.

“I've never experienced anything like this, and I've experienced a lot of things, believe me. But never this. Never…anything like you. You're the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thought in my head before I fall asleep. Don't misunderstand me, the lost feeling isn't all misery,” he amended. “There is also, when I'm with you, a wonderful joy. If I fought for you too hard, Daphne, it's only because I didn't want to lose this, or lose you. I've never had this before, you see. You've opened up new doors in me that…Oh, God, I sound absolutely ridiculous.” He shut his eyes and turned away. “Would you just shoot me now and be done with it, please?”

“I don't want to shoot you.” The tears she had been fighting now rose to blur her vision. “And I don't think you sound ridiculous at all.” She sat down weakly on a nearby hay bale since her legs felt too shaky to hold her up much longer.

“Well.” Max opened his eyes and stood with his hands propped on his waist, his head down. “For some reason,” he said in a low and heavy tone, “I thought you were feeling the same way. But then last night, you told me we were through. I did not understand. I still don't.” His shoulders lifted in a weary shrug. “I don't know what else to do or say to win you. I've tried everything I know, and obviously, nothing's worked. Last night, when I saw I was really losing you, I guess I lost control.”

“Well, Max, yes, but I saw how Albert kept trying to provoke you,” she offered cautiously. “We both know you could have done a great deal worse to all three of the Carew brothers, if you had wanted to.”

He shrugged, avoiding her gaze. “I promised you once that I'd never permit any man to insult you in my presence, which he did. All the same, I should have dealt with him later, not in front of you. Eh, enough of all this,” he declared, as though waving off the dangerous emotions that filled the air between them. “I am not making excuses. You were right to be rid of me, and that's the end of it. I just wanted to say, mainly, that I am sorry for all the different ways I've tried…to pressure you into doing what I want. What matters is what you want.” He took a deep breath and forged on bravely. “Whatever you decide for me, I will accept. If you just want a friend, that is what I'll be. If you never want to speak to me again, I'll stay away. If all you want is an attack dog to deal with any fool who might ever bother you, just let me know. I will respect your wishes no matter what you choose. Your happiness, Miss Starling, is my only remaining concern.”

Daphne could feel herself losing the battle not to cry. Her lips were quivering, and the tears now crowded into her eyes. It was time for one last, excruciating admission. She was frightened to say it, but let the chips fall where they may.

“Max, all I ever really wanted was to marry somebody
who loves me for me. Is that so much to ask?”

“Not at all!” He was right in front of her in the next heartbeat, dropping to his knees before the hay bale where she sat. He took both her hands and stared earnestly into her eyes. “You still
can
.”

“Max.” She lowered her head. A pair of her tears fell on their joined hands.

He rested his forehead against hers and was silent for a moment, as though gathering his courage, in turn. “Daphne?”

“Yes?” She held her breath as she waited for him to speak.

“If I loved you for you,” he whispered, “would you love me for me? Not for my title, not for my gold. Knowing full well that I sometimes act like an evil bastard. Could you love someone like that?”

“Oh, Max,” she choked out, “I already do.”

He pulled back a small space to stare into her eyes with a stunned look. “You do?”

She nodded emphatically, stifling a sob. “That's why I tried to end our match last night.”

He furrowed his brow. “I'm sorry, you tried to end our match because you love me?”

“Yes, that's what has been so impossible for me in all this! Don't you see? The way you were shutting me out—I didn't want my love to go unrequited! What else could I do but pull away while I still had the strength? I didn't want to consign myself to a living hell of loving someone I could never reach. I wanted my love to be returned in equal measure.”

“It is. It is,” he whispered as he cupped her face between his hands and wiped her tears away with his thumbs. He leaned closer and pressed a fervent kiss to her brow.

“You say that now,” she cautioned when he pulled back, “but what about tomorrow? You can be so hard to read, and when you shut down like you did after your sister's visit, how can I possibly know what you're feeling? If I don't know what you're feeling, especially toward me, then how can I trust myself to you the way a commitment like marriage will require me to? A wife is expected to hand over control of her life to her husband, and how can I do that, let alone give you my heart, if I don't even really know you?”

He gazed into her eyes, visibly hanging on every word.

“Max, if I give all of myself to you in marriage, then I want all of you in return. Maybe that's more than most women dare to expect in this world, but I don't want to risk a dark future of your domination, with me under your thumb, and you a distant stranger. Society is full of those kinds of marriages—”

“Good God, if that's how you think your life would be married to me, no wonder you kept saying no! My darling angel, that is not an accurate picture,” he chided softly.

“No?”

“It need not be. Daphne. Please listen.” He brought her hand to his lips as he held her gaze, kissed her fingers, and continued. “I don't want to control or dominate you in any way. Who cares if that's the way the rest of Society lives? We don't have to follow their rules. My life is proof of that, if nothing else. We can find a way that best suits us.”

“You mean…an unconventional sort of marriage?”

“A love match,” he whispered with a tender gaze. “We'll make our own country and you will be the queen.”

“Oh, Max.” Gazing into his eyes, she adored the spirit in the man. It was just the sort of thing that he would say.

“I don't want to dominate you, sweeting. I just want your love.” He shook his head. “God, I never wanted to admit that.”

“Why?”

“No one has ever loved me,” he said very quietly, hesitantly. “That's part of why I am not, as you say, very open. I suppose I thought the less you knew of me, the better my chances of winning you.”

“Oh, Max!” she exclaimed in tender reproach. “My dear, you are so wrong.”

He pressed closer, torment in his eyes. “Tell me what you want me to do. I'd do anything to have you in my life. Can we start over? If you'd give me another chance, I would spend every day finding ways to make you happy.”

Overwhelmed, she captured his face between her hands and kissed him wholeheartedly. He responded with a soft
moan, molding his hands against her waist.

At first he was tentative, letting her set the pace, but she was suddenly on fire for him. Clutching and caressing him, she drew him closer. He wrapped his arms around her, until their bodies were firmly pressed together.

She draped one arm around his neck and ran her fingers through his hair as she returned his kisses. They were slow and deep, a waking dream. The sumptuous slide of his mouth on hers stoked her need for more. She ran her hands down his muscled back. She wanted him so badly. A touch was all it took to coax him down on top of her, a rustle of hay as she lay back; and then he eased atop her, sliding his forearm under her head to cradle it.

Her blood throbbed as she gazed up into his eyes.
Make love to me.

“You intoxicate me,” he breathed, forcing himself to pause.

“Oh, Max.” Though the thin layer of hay over the wood planks of the loft floor did not provide much of a bed, still, she gloried in the dense weight of him atop her. But then she saw the troubled look that had passed across his brow. “What is it, my love?”

“Perhaps you would be better off without me.” His voice sounded so perfectly lonely. “I've been so selfish, but maybe you'd—”

“Do not be absurd!” She laid her finger on his lips to silence him. “You said this would be my decision.”

He stared into her eyes, realizing she was talking about their future—and right now.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I'm ready, Max.”

Sheer passion rushed into his face.

At once, his lips swooped down onto hers, and he kissed her with wild abandon. Longing to give herself to him right here and now, before she lost her nerve, Daphne returned his amorous frenzy ounce for ounce. She was so caught up in consuming his kisses and reveling in the warmth of his hand on her breast that when she heard the rumbling wheels of another stagecoach arriving in the inn yard, she paid it no mind.

Until about two minutes later.

For, as it turned out, it was not a stagecoach at all that had arrived. The scramble of liveried servants below and the great commotion that followed heralded the arrival of a very important personage, indeed.

At first, the voices from below could not penetrate their little secret world of carnal rapture in the hayloft, nor interrupt the fierce debate that she gathered her Demon Marquess was having with himself, over whether he ought to grant her wishes and deflower her now, or wait for a slightly more decorous situation for them to make love for the first time. She reached down and touched him boldly in a place that certified her preference on the matter.

But at that moment, the voice of the Dowager Dragon thundered through the air. “I am here for my niece, Miss Daphne Starling! Fetch the gel at once and tell her I am here.”

Daphne gasped, lying stock-still beneath Lord Rother-stone.

“Shite,” he breathed, as they both looked toward the little doorway at the end of the loft.

“What is the meaning of this? I dropped everything to come in answer to what I was told was an emergency. We were on the road all night. Now where is my niece?”

Wilhelmina's voice followed. “Beggin' your pardon, Duchess Anselm, Miss Daphne went into the stable a while ago.”

“Um, if you mean the young lady with the blond hair,” one of the grooms spoke up, “she's in the hayloft. And, er, I don't think she wishes to be disturbed, milady.”

“In the hayloft? I say. Daphne Starling! Are you up there? Show yourself at once!”

She and Max looked at each other, wide-eyed.

“Well, then,” he remarked. He got off her and she sat up, but from their flushed cheeks, rumpled clothes, and the bits of hay in their hair, it was fairly obvious what they had been doing.

Daphne let out a forceful exhalation, trying to catch her breath. She looked to Max for his usual cool leadership in a crisis. “What do we do?”

“It's your choice,” he answered meaningfully.

She absorbed this for a long, thoughtful moment. Then she smiled at him with grateful understanding, and kissed him on the nose.

Bracing herself, she stood, and walked over to the rectangular opening, poking her head out into the sunshine.

“Hullo, Great-Aunt Anselm! Up here!”

The Dowager Dragon lifted her head, her gray hair wound in a tight bun. Her severe face registered astonishment. “Jove's nightgown, Daphne Starling! Come down from there before you fall and break your head.”