In the Arms of a Marquess(36)

“Marcus, I am angrier than I have ever been with anyone.” Except one person, but that anger had been laced with grief. “You have shown a lack of respect for me. I do not know how you could imagine that would entice me to accept you.”

“Allow me to make it up to you.” He grasped her hand. A lock of dark hair fell over his brow. Tavy had the unsettling instinct to smooth it away in a comforting gesture. For all his presumption, he had been a loyal friend in India and since her return to England.

“You can tell me the truth about the blackmailer. I think there is more to it than you have said.”

“I cannot speak of it at this time, but I will tell you eventually, I promise. My dear, let us forget about this and renew the friendship we have always enjoyed. This quarrel mars what should be a celebration.” His gaze was so sincere. Marcus always looked directly into her eyes. He never looked at her the way Ben did, first at her eyes, then all of her, then at her mouth, before returning his gaze to hers. Marcus’s gaze did not turn her inside out.

That had to be for the best. If what she learned about the blackmailer was unacceptable, her heart would not suffer for it.

“Octavia?”

She seemed to be staring at his neckcloth.

“Marcus, what if I told everyone that you invented our betrothal?”

“You would not.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you would not wish to see me hurt or humiliated. I know that about you.” He leaned forward and touched his lips to her brow, a gentle, brief caress.

Was this what one was supposed to feel for one’s husband, a mild tenderness mingled with frustration and a sense of inevitability? Alethea and St. John’s bond seemed the exception. The married pairs at Fellsbourne bore this out, most of them business arrangements between people with little in common. Only cherubic little Lady Gosworth seemed happy in her marriage, her husband gruffly appreciative of her. At least with a husband like Marcus, she would not find the need to seek out other gentlemanly company like Priscilla Nathans did.

Voices sounded in the corridor. Marcus looked toward them. Tavy tugged her hand away and stepped back across the threshold.

He banded his arms around her, pulled her forward and clamped his mouth over hers.

Astonishment shut out all else for an instant. Then she became aware of his lips urging hers to respond, his hands gripping her back and head, her breasts smashed against his big, firm chest. She had a quick impression of the scent of bergamot lotion and his skill at kissing as she flattened her palms against his shoulders and pushed.

A gentleman cleared his throat in the corridor.

Marcus released her. Tavy crossed her arms over her thinly garbed chest and swiveled her head. Lord Styles and the Marquess of Doreé stood two yards away.

“Ma’am.” Lord Styles bowed. He turned his regard upon Marcus. “Don’t blame you in the least, Crispin, stealing a march on the wedding day.” He twirled the chain of a quizzing glass around his index finger. “But do you mind if Doreé and I pass along to our chambers before you continue?”

Ben’s languid gaze slipped from Marcus to her, the black depths expressionless.

Tavy jerked back into her chamber and snapped the door shut. Pressing her palms to her burning cheeks, she leaned her brow against the panel. Shame enveloped her. Not because she had been caught embracing a man to whom she was not yet married. Not because anything in that embrace had stirred desire in her. Not even because she had been discovered by a man she had been kissing only hours earlier—enthusiastically, hungrily.

He was her weakness. Even as the moisture from Marcus’s kiss still lingered upon her lips, warmth bloomed in her the moment she saw Ben. Not a moment earlier. Being kissed by another man only increased her desire for him.

“Perhaps,” she whispered to the empty chamber, “I am a great deal more like Priscilla Nathans than I care to admit.”

Chapter 9

DECOY. A strategem employed by a ship of war to betray a vessel of inferior force into an incautious pursuit, til she has drawn within the range of cannon.—Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine

Ben tamped wads of paper into the Manton’s double muzzles and braced the fowling piece against his shoulder. His spaniels darted through the brush, rousing birds from hiding with a flurry of soft flapping like loose sails in an easy wind. He took aim and fired, the stock jerking against muscle and bone. Two birds dropped.

“Bloody well done, Doreé.” The Earl of Gosworth splashed through an ankle-deep puddle to bypass him. Ahead, beaters smacked at shrubs and patches of undergrowth with paddles, stirring prey into flight. Farther off, gunshot ricocheted beneath the heavy overhanging clouds.

Ben shouldered his weapon and began walking, his boots sinking into mud. He despised birding, or hunting of any sort. He had hunted enough men to make the pursuit of dumb beasts less than enthralling. He preferred sport with a sword in his hand or a horse beneath him. And today especially he did not care for the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts.

Styles moved up beside him, the tails of his duster fluttering through the grass, his fowling piece gripped jauntily in his hand.

“Gosworth is wagering ten pounds on Crispin throttling Nathans before they can complete the Singapore deal,” he commented, following Ben toward the rise beyond the thistle bed to higher, less soggy ground. On the other side of the patch, Lord Nathans gestured with his weapon, shouting for his partner to hurry along. Styles snorted. “That Cit is a thorough boor.”