Her Reformed Rake (Wicked Husbands #3)(23)

He took a step closer to her. Then another. Her warm scent enveloped him fully: bergamot, vanilla, ambergris, and Daisy. His fingers itched to take the pins from her hair, relieve it from its careful braids, to see it cascade in silky waves down her back. His mouth longed to feel the soft heat of hers beneath it.

This was dangerous territory indeed. He wasn’t supposed to want her. Wasn’t supposed to touch her or take her. But he was only a man, after all. And she had pushed him. Very far. Perhaps over the brink.

He caught her waist and hauled her against him. Her hands settled on his shoulders, her eyes even wider. So green. The green of moss in early spring. So beautiful.

“Are you suggesting you only agreed to this marriage to escape a match with Viscount Breckly?” he demanded.

“N-not entirely.”

“Why did you marry me, Daisy?” He hungered for an answer. A truthful answer. Maybe he could rattle her. Rattle the both of them. He didn’t like the idea of harboring an enemy of England beneath his roof.

Or of wanting said enemy beneath him.

She blinked. “You asked.”

He couldn’t control his body. Couldn’t stop himself from cupping her lovely face, swiping his thumb over her lower lip. “The truth, Daisy.”

Her mouth fell open, the hot wind of her breath scorching him. “I trapped you. There, I’ve said it. I apologize, Your Grace. I noticed you. You’d been watching me from the perimeter of every ball. And I was running out of time.”

Her words took him aback. He hadn’t expected an admission. Hadn’t anticipated honesty. But his instincts told him that was what she offered him now. Sweet Jesus, the woman thought she’d tricked him into marrying her. Little wonder she seemed so ill at ease. “You trapped me?”

“In the garden. I had decided that I would scream, bring others down upon us. And I would have, even if my aunt had not come upon us. I wanted you to follow me. I wanted you to ruin me.” Her voice broke on the last sentence, but her gaze remained unwavering. “I’m sorry. I felt as if I had no choice. Do you forgive me, Your Grace?”

Bloody, bloody hell. He stared at her, bemused. “Sebastian. If I’m your husband you must dispense with formality now. Call me Sebastian.”

“Sebastian then.” Her eyes shone.

Christ. Was she about to cry? This couldn’t be an act. Could it?

His hands tightened on her waist. “I forgive you. Unless there is something else, something you aren’t telling me?”

Her nostrils flared, her color paling. Her gaze darted away to a corner of the chamber before returning to his. “Of course there isn’t anything else.”

The tell was there. She was lying. A grim sensation settled over him, displacing the lust. Superseding everything except his duty. Duty to Crown and country. Duty to innocents. Duty to everyone but the lovely, deceptive woman currently in his grasp.

His goddamn wife.

He set her away from him. “Thank you for your candor, my dear.” It took everything in him—all his years of training—to keep his tone even. Rage ricocheted through him, chasing away the last strains of ardor. Clearing his befuddled mind.

Not his. She was not his. Could not be.

He bent down then and extracted a knife from his boot, flipping it open. “We will make certain the servants believe our marriage has been consummated.” He pressed the blade to the thumb that had touched her lip, a fitting punishment, cutting into his flesh. He didn’t even feel the pain.

“You’ve cut yourself! What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

He ignored her startled question and stalked to the bed, dragging back the bedclothes. Squeezing his wound, he smeared a liberal amount of blood onto the crisp white sheets to blunt any questions. Keeping up appearances was an essential component of his mission. Double agents could be anywhere, from the lowliest scullery maid to the butler, though he trusted Giles implicitly.

“Sealing our fates,” he said at last, his tone harsh, even to his own ears. She had followed him and he caught yet another hint of her scent. Damn if it didn’t skirt his defenses, threaten to lure him back into the haze of lust. “No one, not the domestics, not your father, not anyone will question the veracity of our union after this.”

“Your Grace?”

He turned away from the brilliant streaks of scarlet marring the sheets and flicked a gaze over her. A scant two steps separated them now, and the animal in him wanted to lash out, to haul her against him and ravage her mouth. To bend her over the bed and raise her skirts.

He hissed out a breath, willing his hunger to calm. “Sebastian,” he reminded.

“Sebastian, then.” She lowered her gaze, emanating a sudden and uncharacteristic shyness. “I fear there’s one problem with your plan.”

His plan. He raised a brow, his gut clenching. He didn’t like her choice of phrase, and suspicion warred with the desire that had plagued him ever since he’d first laid eyes on her. “Oh?”

Her eyes met his, those cheeks flushing an even deeper shade of red. “I’m still clothed.”





erhaps she could have worded that better, Daisy reflected as the duke gawped at her with searing intensity. Her skin felt unaccountably warm. Her entire body, in fact, felt feverish, a state that could be owed in part to her blunt observation and in part to her reaction to him.