A Breach of Promise (The Rules of Engagement #1)(12)

“But it only stands to reason that you would be happy to be released.”

“That may have been true…once. But perhaps reason now eludes me.” Marcus leisurely feathered the backs of his fingers to the sensitive inside of her arm.

Though he didn’t quite make contact with her breast, her nipples contracted in eager anticipation, causing Lydia’s breath to hitch in her throat. “Don’t!” She spun away from his grasp. After maintaining a full continent of distance for over half a decade, why did he suddenly have the compelling need to touch her?

“Come now, Lydia,” he cajoled. “There are some things you cannot hide. I know you still want me.”

Even in the dim moonlight, she could detect the telltale smile that accompanied his arrogant words. Damn the man. And damn my cravings for him. “You no longer have any right to such intimacy,” she said. “We are no better than strangers.”

“No. There you are wrong. We are not strangers by half. But then again we’ve already covered this ground and I’ve already pledged to make amends for my neglect. I want you, Lydia.”

His face was drawn taut and his eyes shone with his desire, yet she could only think how beautifully and convincingly he lied. Part of her—a small but defiant part, the part that still remembered her girlhood fantasies—desperately wanted to trust him, but the stronger part remembered how he had thoughtlessly cast her aside. “We can’t always have what we want, Marcus. You must accustom yourself to disappointment.”

As I have. The unspoken words hung between them.

Marcus’ mouth twitched. “But there you are wrong, my love. I always get what I want.”

“Your arrogance is unparalleled!” Lydia itched to wipe the smug expression from his unjustly handsome face but forced a calming breath instead. “Very well then, if you will not release me from our contract willingly and discreetly, you leave me no choice but to break with you publically.”

His uncompromising stare held, challenged. “I don’t fear your blackmail. You wouldn’t want the scandal any more than I would.”

“I have few qualms now that Mother is gone. It was, after all, her wish that we wed and she died in the belief we would.”

“You mean to imply that you never desired the match? I recall quite differently. Perhaps you don’t remember the night of our betrothal?”

Damn his eyes for bringing that up! No. She had not forgotten. Like champagne, once tasted, she had only craved more. While it had been little more than a drink-induced dalliance to him, to Lydia their hasty pseudo-coupling had opened the mythical Pandora’s box. She had relived it many nights over the past six years until her frustration drove her to seek satisfaction by her own hand. Yet all the while she endeavored to purge her desire for him, she could only imagine his hands stroking her breasts, his mouth suckling her, and his fingers caressing. It was always these lurid imaginings that brought her to completion, yet still left her bereft. Unfulfilled. Empty. Just like his promises.

“I was a most dutiful daughter, my lord. I loved my parents and wanted nothing more than to please them.” That much was true, if not the entire truth. If the reality of her heart were revealed, she had once wanted him more than air—but he had destroyed her girlhood dreams with disappointed hopes.

“I could file suit for breach of promise, you know. We have a signed and witnessed contract.”

“True, but I was a minor at the time and have not ratified the promise since my coming-of-age. Thus, by law, I am no longer truly bound to you.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You have consulted a lawyer?”

“I have consulted books, my lord. Great, dusty legal tomes. Law is one of many fascinating subjects I’ve studied over the past few years.” Points of common law had only become a recent curiosity. Six years had indeed given her ample time to improve her mind. Lydia had devoted herself wholeheartedly to becoming the perfect diplomatic wife, a matchless mate for Marcus, who never cared enough to know.

“Since when has common law become a fashionable subject for young ladies?” he asked.

“I said fascinating, not fashionable,” she corrected in a tone more peevish than she would have liked and chastised herself for letting him get under her skin. What a fool she was to let him know, to allow him that power over her.

“So you think I could not press you for a breach of promise suit?”

“According to current law, any pledge to marry in which no time has been formally stipulated must be fulfilled within a reasonable period. You, my lord, have not upheld your end of the bargain.”



Bugger it all! This was not going at all according to his plan. The blasted woman was bound to defy and repulse him at every turn! He raked a long, lust-filled gaze over her and felt his frustration growing in more ways than one until a disconcerting thought jolted through him. “There is someone else!”

“There is no one,” Lydia answered. “Though I may be a fool for having waited for you, I am not a faithless fool.”

“Why else would you break with me?” Marcus persisted, more convinced the longer he considered her. What man would not give his eyeteeth to have such a woman? “I demand to know who it is.” So I can hunt him down and throttle him.

Her chuckle began as a low sound in her throat and grew to a hearty eruption of wry mirth. “Is it truly beyond your comprehension that I might wish to salvage such a pitiful thing as my self-respect? Your vanity is a truly wondrous thing, Lord Russell.”