In the Arms of a Marquess(26)

He strafed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, and the tender skin beneath her ear. Tavy’s legs barely held her up. Ben gripped her arms tight, pressed his cheek to hers, and his voice came deep and rough.

“Why are you here?”

She drew away, struggling to order her thoughts amidst the tangle of emotion.

“I told you, my sister—”

He dragged her back against him and whispered over her mouth, “In England.” He kissed her again, as though he must, as though he had to touch her as much as she needed to fill herself with the sensation of him after so long.

He broke away abruptly. “Why did you return?” The words were a condemnation.

Tavy’s chest constricted. She pulled from his grasp and stumbled back, pressing her hand across her mouth. His breaths came unevenly like hers, but the muscles in his jaw looked hard, his eyes wells of blackness.

“I did not wish to.” Her voice cracked. “I would never have left India if my family had not.”

Footsteps sounded at the door. Tavy whirled around. A footman stood upon the threshold.

“My lord, more guests have arrived,” he said hurriedly as a gentleman came into view behind him.

Marcus paused in the doorway then strode forward.

“Ah, there you are, my dear. Good day, Doreé. Your housekeeper sent me looking for you. She said you were giving my fiancée a tour of your impressive castle. What an attractive chamber.” He glanced around, bowed to his host, and grasped Tavy’s hands. “You suit it beautifully, my lady.” He lifted her fingers and kissed them.

Ice lodged in the pit of Tavy’s belly, spreading like frost into her hot cheeks and trembling hands. She drew out of his grasp, heart pounding, and sought Ben’s gaze.

His languid eyes were cold, his beautiful mouth a line. He met her regard like a stranger, and the binding around Tavy’s heart that she had tied there so carefully seven years ago seemed to tear apart.

No. God, no. Not again.

She grabbed onto speech, forming words from desperation.

“How was your journey, Lord Crispin?”

Marcus seemed not to note anything amiss. “Swift. I am sorry I could not travel with you. I had a business matter to see to this morning.” He turned to the marquess and smiled conspiratorially. “Don’t be cagey about it, Doreé. You have business in mind this week, I suspect. I saw Nathans in the parlor, and Gosworth’s carriage pulled up a minute ago. Having the Bengal Club out as well, I daresay?”

“I haven’t any such august plans, my lord. Merely a bit of shooting,” Ben said with casual ease. “But perhaps we should postpone discussion of that until later. I am certain your fiancée hasn’t the least interest in weapons and birds. Now, if you will excuse me, I must be off to change before more of my guests arrive.”

He bent and retrieved his gloves from the floor, Marcus’s gaze following the action carefully.

Ben bowed. “Madam.” Without a flicker of his dark gaze, he strode from the ballroom.

“What were you doing with that fellow, Octavia?” Behind her, Marcus’s voice had lost its friendly animation.

Her throat and stomach burned, melting the ice in a flash. Hands gripped into fists, she turned to him on leaden limbs.

“He is our host, Marcus, not a fellow.”

He seemed to study her cheeks, then her mouth. “You should not have been alone in his company.”

Her insides hurt. No, she should not have been alone with him. No.

“He offered a tour of his house. It is impressive.” Her tone splintered. “But that is hardly at issue here. Marcus, I am not your fiancée. I believe I made that clear the other day. Why did you say what you did, and call me that?”

“You will be my lady soon enough.” He reached for her hands, his smile reappearing. Tavy backed away, her body shaking, shock and anger running in tandem through her.

“I have not yet given you my reply.”

“Doreé is not to be trusted.” His grin disappeared again and something unsettling lit his gaze. Something that looked peculiarly like the panic she had felt earlier. “You are a beautiful woman and—”

“No.” She thrust up a palm. “I cannot hear this.” She hurried toward the door, heat prickling behind her eyes. Dear God, she didn’t even know where her bedchamber was in this vast place. Pressing back on tears, she hurried toward the entrance hall.

“Octavia, wait. I do not wish to distress you, but you must know the way of it.”

The butler stood in the foyer.

“Sir, could you direct me to my quarters?”

The servant glanced over her shoulder at the baron approaching, and gestured her toward the stairs. She barely saw the corridors he led her through. Inside her bedchamber, she snapped the bolt across the door and moved to the elegant dressing table.

She met her reflection in the glass then dropped her face into her hands. A shuddering breath escaped her. But the tears, so hot behind her eyes minutes earlier, would not come. Instead, memory did, hard and fast with a welling up of thick heat in her chest, as she had not allowed for years. Now, with the sensation of his touch so fresh, the feeling of his body against hers, his hands and mouth upon her skin, she could no longer resist.

Marcus called her beautiful, but on the cusp of her eighteenth birthday she had not been anything of the sort. An awkward girl, too lanky and uncomfortable in her new woman’s shape, still she hadn’t much cared about that, only about being released from the cage of proper English girlhood to explore the world she had lived in for nearly two years yet had not been allowed to experience.