To Desire a Wicked Duke (5 page)

“And you are an unabashed cynic.”

“No doubt I am.”

Cynicism was bred into him; he’d learned it by imitating his illustrious father. But love was a concern all on its own.

He was not enamored of Tess. Oh, he desired her … intensely. It shocked him how much he wanted her. But desire was not the same thing as love.

His attraction to her had always irritated him, Ian acknowledged. And it would likely be even worse now that he knew what it felt like to have Tess in his arms.

He shifted in his seat, recalling the rioting of his senses when he’d embraced her on the chaise a short
while ago. His first taste of her had been beyond all expectations, and so had his reaction to her. Even though she kissed like an innocent, he’d never felt such hunger, such fierce impatience with a woman before. Admittedly, he’d lusted after Tess for years. He’d fantasized about claiming her, about losing himself in her—

Sharply, Ian disciplined his thoughts. “Love is vastly overrated,” he told her.

“Even if it is, you know very well we would never suit,” Tess retorted. “We would make each other extremely unhappy.”

That was indeed a possibility, Ian thought, although he made no comment.

“Besides, you obviously dislike me.”

That wasn’t the case at all. “I don’t dislike you.”

“You always act as if you do.”

Only because he was determined to hide his desire for her.

Aloud he said, “Your fierce aversion to me is hardly flattering.”

“I have no wish to contribute to your self-conceit.”

“Don’t turn waspish, darling,” he remarked in a light tone.

She blushed, even as her defensive gaze met his. “I am merely stating a fact. No doubt there are legions of females who would be enthralled by your proposal, but I am not one of them.”

Ian wondered how many women would leap at the chance to wed him, not to mention bed him. But not Tess. She was unique in that respect, along with many others.

“You have made your point,” he said evenly. “You
don’t wish to wed me. But you are forgetting the advantages.”

“What advantages?”

“You will find there are significant benefits to becoming my wife. A duchess can get away with a great deal more than a mere young miss.”

“I know that,” she answered, an edge of bitterness in her tone. “But I will gladly forgo such pleasures.”

“Can you afford to turn down my fortune when your chief patron has given you an ultimatum and vowed to abandon you? I am quite wealthy, Tess. I will promise to contribute generously to your causes, and I am prepared to make you a substantial marriage settlement, every farthing of which you may spend on your charities if you wish. Just think of all the good you could do. It should be some consolation that you can continue tilting at windmills to your heart’s content.”

His argument didn’t seem persuasive, judging by her grim silence as she continued stalking back and forth across the stage.

“Sit down, sweeting,” Ian said dryly. “You will wear out your slippers.”

To his surprise, Tess obeyed and returned to sit on the chaise, although she perched on the edge, straight-backed and rigid with frustration.

“If you reflect on it unemotionally,” Ian suggested, “you’ll see the wisdom of our immediate nuptials.”

“I don’t
wish
to be unemotional. We are talking about
marriage
 … a lifelong, irreversible union. This will change every aspect of our lives irrevocably.”

“Would it comfort you any if I said we could treat
our marriage strictly as a business contract? After a suitable interval, we can live separate lives if you wish.”

Her look turned guarded. “Do you mean that we would be husband and wife in name only?”

That was not quite his meaning. “The marriage must be consummated for it to be legal, but afterward, we needn’t share a bed or even a home.”

Ian didn’t expound further. He would eventually be expected to sire an heir to carry on the title, but he thought it unwise to mention that obligation to Tess just now.

As for his choice of brides, he had planned to make a marriage of convenience someday, to a gentlewoman with a dispassionate nature and similar background to his.

Not a woman like Tess, who was warm and spirited and filled with passion for her causes. She was no meek, simpering young miss, even if at the moment she was at a severe disadvantage, trying to come to terms with her unwanted fate. Otherwise, she fit his requisites for his duchess quite well. And he suspected that the physical aspects of their marriage could be more than satisfactory.

An image entered Ian’s head of them together in the bridal bed. He could picture Tess’s long, glossy-dark hair flowing around her lovely bare body, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips as he took her—

Cutting off the unwanted vision, Ian said more curtly than he intended, “We will both have to make the best of a difficult situation.”

After a long silence, Tess spoke in a weak voice. “I fear you may be right.”

“We should be married on the morrow, before the gossips can savage your reputation.”

Renewed dismay claimed her features, but at least she didn’t argue. Ian pulled out his pocket watch, noting that it was nearly one o’clock. “I had best leave now if I hope to reach Doctor’s Commons in time.”

“In time for what?”

“I need to procure a special license to wed. I will likely remain in town overnight to visit my solicitor and make the financial arrangements we discussed. But I should return by late tomorrow morning.”

Tess bit her lower lip hard. “You are just going to leave me here to face Lady Wingate and her houseguests alone?”

“You needn’t face them unless you wish to.” He cocked his head. “In fact, you are welcome to accompany me to London if you like, but I should think you would rather remain here and prepare for our wedding.”

She flinched at that. “I expect I should attend the play’s performance this evening if I hope to maintain my contributors’ goodwill, although it will be difficult to carry on as if nothing has happened. And it will be utterly impossible to pretend we are making a love match as Lady Wingate suggested.”

Ian didn’t reply directly, not wanting to delay his departure with a futile discussion about love and love matches. “Where would you like the ceremony to be held?”

Looking stunned again, Tess gazed mutely back at him, as if finally accepting that this was really happening to her.

Rising, Ian said in a bracing tone, “You may decide
where the blessed event is to take place. Any of my homes might do … my house in London, the chapel at Bellacourt, here at Wingate Manor, your own house in Chiswick. Or you may prefer a church wedding. I doubt if St. George’s in Hanover Square is available at this late date, but you may have other ideas. If I recall, you planned to wed Richard in the village church in Chiswick.”

“No, not there,” Tess said. “It would be a mockery to wed in a holy church for an unholy union.”

She shuddered slightly, evidently an involuntary response. Even so, Ian couldn’t help wincing again, in addition to feeling another wave of guilt along with a fresh desire to comfort her. It would take a harder heart than his to be impervious to this beauty with the passion-bruised mouth and vulnerable eyes.

Stepping closer, he reached down to touch the backs of his fingers to her cheek. His voice lowered as he gazed down at her. “I truly regret that it has come to this pass, Tess.”

“So do I,” she whispered, drawing back and looking away.

Remorse was Ian’s chief sentiment as he waited in the entrance hall of Wingate Manor for his carriage to be brought around. He deeply regretted forcing Tess to the altar. In fact, he regretted the entire damned morning.

His first mistake was overreacting when he parted the stage curtains to find her kissing Hennessy. He’d felt an instinctive rage, a deep-seated, primal male possessiveness that he’d never felt with any other woman.

Then he’d compounded his error by taking Tess to task for her wanton conduct and revealing the extent of his jealousy.

It wasn’t that he harbored any deep feelings for her, Ian reasoned. He simply wanted to save her from a Lothario. Yet he couldn’t deny that he savagely disliked the idea of Tess giving herself to another man, particularly one of Hennessy’s hedonistic tendencies.

He hadn’t liked the idea of his cousin Richard having her either, Ian remembered. He could still recall his first sight of Tess at her comeout ball. She was laughing with Richard with the intimacy of old friends, the expression on her face one of fond delight.

Her delight had suddenly arrested, however, when Ian stepped forward, as if she’d become sharply conscious of the sexual awareness pulsing between them. When Lady Wingate made the introductions, Tess stared up at him warily through a fan of dark lashes. She wasn’t intimidated by him, Ian thought, merely cautious. And given his wicked reputation, he couldn’t blame her.

He’d wanted her from that first moment, though. When he danced with Tess at Lady Wingate’s urging, the heady sensation of being so near to her had gone straight to his head—and to his loins as well. He’d been immediately, shockingly aroused.

His wild physical response to Tess had no justifiable rationalization. The sensual hunger she stirred in him was far out of proportion to their respective ages and experience.

He’d been twenty-six at the time, well on his way to becoming a rake like his late father. As a genteel
young lady making her bow to society, Tess was much too innocent and proper for his tastes.

Oh, she was an acknowledged beauty, no doubt about it. Her thick, glossy hair was mahogany dark and rich; her face fine-boned and captivating, her complexion pale and perfect. Her figure was slender but enticingly ripe in all the right places.

She had a serene loveliness about her, an unmistakable feminine allure that drew Ian against his will. She’d left a deep mark on his memory that night, a mark that had only increased over the years since. But even though Tess’s magnetic beauty bowled him over at a physical level, it was her passionate warmth and spirit that touched him on a much deeper plane—as did, ironically, her genuine goodness.

Perhaps because it was such a contrast to his own misspent youth, Ian suspected, when he was a wild, moody lad with a tree-sized chip on his shoulder.

He had wasted his younger years living on the edge of compulsive excess, defying society’s dictates and living down to his licentious father’s expectations. After inheriting the title at twenty-two when his ducal father was shot in a duel by a jealous husband, Ian had further tarnished his reputation by spending all his time in gaming hells winning enormous fortunes, and in various bedrooms indulging in amorous affairs with women who pursued him primarily for his title and wealth.

Compared to him, Tess Blanchard was a saint. Even without the comparison, she was laudable. She had a giving heart that was unfeigned, and an indomitable spirit that had earned his admiration. Even though she had suffered bitter disappointments in recent
years—having lost both her parents and then her beloved betrothed—she’d risen above her own misfortunes to lessen the misfortunes of others. Ian couldn’t help but be impressed by her strength and resilience, by her tenacity and courage.

Tess was a fighter as well as being a pioneer of sorts. Like other young ladies of her genteel station, she made up baskets of food for the poor, stitched shirts and knitted stockings, and collected donations from the neighboring gentry. But her efforts went much farther and had a far greater impact.

One of her chief causes was the Families of Fallen Soldiers, relatives and loved ones of those who had died fighting in the decades-long war against French tyranny. She also visited soldiers’ hospitals in London to comfort sick and wounded veterans. And over the past summer, she had expanded her solicitations to the entire Beau Monde and organized several charitable benefits that drew the cream of the ton, including the Prince Regent.

It amused Ian to watch Tess at work, soliciting funds from the wealthy denizens of the ton. She was sweetly ruthless, persuading with charm and common sense, and if that failed, shaming them into opening their purses. She frequently managed to get her way, despite the obstacles in her path.

But admiration or not, Ian had done his utmost to quell his attraction for Tess because Richard had laid claim to her the night of her comeout ball. He might covet what his cousin had, he might still feel the pull of desire every time he looked at her, but he possessed enough honor to consider her strictly off-limits. He’d
even helped Richard salvage his courtship of Tess four years ago, Ian recollected.

And while Richard was abroad fighting a war, he’d kept away from her as much as possible. If he was forced by family duty or social convention to interact with her, he made certain he always riled her—picking fights, dictating to her, generally throwing around his weight as head of Richard’s family—in part to conceal his craving for her, but also because his state of arousal around Tess frequently put him in a foul mood.

Even after his cousin’s death, Ian kept up the pretense of being at odds with Tess and only backed off a little out of consideration for her grief.

He hated to see her grieving, though. He’d been the one to break the news to her of his cousin’s death two years ago, conveying the letter from the War Ministry commending Richard’s valor on the battlefield at Waterloo.

It was the second hardest thing Ian had ever done. The hardest was seeing the resulting devastation in Tess’s eyes. Her sorrow had ripped through his chest. Even though he’d brought Lady Wingate with him to try and console Tess, she had proved inconsolable, then or in the months that followed. Her betrothed’s untimely death had changed her, had stolen the laughter from her eyes.

A fierce protectiveness had welled up inside Ian that day. And he still felt protective of her, whether he wished to or not. As a consequence, he’d made certain that Tess was well guarded by her servants whenever she went to London to visit hospitals or asylums to care for wounded war veterans. And more recently,
he’d commissioned actor Patrick Hennessy to look after her when she visited the theater district to foster clever new projects that generated income for her charities.