But as the evening wore on and he was forced to watch Maria dance with a succession of young and handsome gentlemen, he began to wonder if he was so smart after all. Because seeing her with them was really chafing him raw.
One of the idiots made her laugh several times-an egregious transgression. Another let his hand linger on her waist after the dance was done-a cardinal sin. And the last one before the drawing had the audacity to whisper something in her ear that made her blush-a crime so unpardonable that Oliver wished he could thrash the man senseless for it. He’d never wanted to thrash so many men at one time in his whole life.
Somehow he managed to remain calm as the gentlemen gathered for the drawing. He watched Maria write her name on a slip of paper and put it into Foxmoor’s top hat, but he couldn’t tell if Foxmoor succeeded in snagging it. He held his breath through the entire process, only relaxing when the men started drawing names and Foxmoor dropped a slip of paper into the hat with a meaningful smile just as Oliver reached in.
Pulling the slip out, he read aloud, “Miss Maria Butterfield.”
Maria didn’t say a thing, her expression unreadable.
But she was his for the next dance whether she liked it or not, and his for supper, too. He meant to make the most of it.
If it’s any consolation,” he murmured, “I had a miserable time last night.”
“Good. You deserved to.” She smiled. “Not that I care one way or the other.”
“Stop pretending that you don’t care,” he said hoarsely. “We both care, and you know it. I care more than you can possibly imagine.”
She wanted to believe him, but how could she? “You say that only to coax me into your bed.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “I don’t need to coax women into my bed, my dear. They usually leap there of their own accord.” His smile faded. “This is the first time I’ve apologized to a woman. I’ve never given a damn what any woman thought of me, though plenty of them tried to make me do so. So please forgive me if I’m not handling this to your satisfaction. It’s not a situation I’m accustomed to.”
He was holding her so tenderly, it made her want to weep. Every move they made was a seduction-his leg advancing as hers went back, his hand gripping her waist, the waltz beating a rhythm that made her want to whirl around the ballroom with him forever. Her mind told her she should resist him, but her heart didn’t want to listen.
Her heart was a fool.
She gazed past his shoulder. “My father used to go to a brothel. He never remarried, so he went there to…er…feed his needs. I had to go fetch him a few times when my cousins were working and my aunt was looking after my grandmother, who lived nearby.”
She didn’t know why she was telling him this, but it was a relief to speak of it to someone. Even her aunt and cousins preferred to pretend it never happened. “It was mortifying. He would…forget to come home, and we would need money for something, so I would have to go after him.”
“Good God.”
Her gaze locked with his. “I swore I’d never let myself be put in such a position again.” She tipped up her chin. “That’s why I’m happy to have Nathan as my fiancé. He’s genteel and proper. He would never frequent a brothel.”
Oliver’s eyes glittered darkly at her. “No. He would just abandon you to the tender mercies of men who do.”
She forced a smile. “There’s more than one way to be abandoned. If a woman’s husband is forever at a brothel, he might as well be halfway across the sea. The result is the same.”
A stricken expression crossed his face as he stared at her. Then he glanced away.
You sound like Gran.”
“I don’t mind. I’m beginning to like her.”
“I like her, too-when she’s not plaguing the hell out of me.”
Maria eyed him curiously. “Why do you curse so much around me? Other men don’t. And you don’t curse around other women, as far as I can tell. So why around me?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can be myself around you, I suppose. And since I’m a foulmouthed son of a bitch in general-“
She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say that. You’re not as bad as you’re always making out.” Then realizing that people were noticing her intimate gesture, she returned her hand to his shoulder.
“That’s not what you thought earlier,” he said in a rough rasp. His hand swept her waist surreptitiously, as if he couldn’t keep from caressing her.
“Let’s just say I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
They finished the waltz in a silence that only increased her agitation. His eyes couldn’t seem to leave her face, nor hers his. Every step together seemed to bring them closer, until she was sure they were dancing far too close for propriety. Yet she didn’t care. It was pure bliss.
As he strode across the room after Lady Tarley, Maria found herself smiling. She ought to be furious with him, knowing that the gossip might make it into the London papers and get back to Nathan. So whywasn’t she?
Because he’d done it to save her from embarrassment. And because Oliver rarely said anything on impulse. Considering how he’d fought the idea of marriage, it was astonishing he would let something like that slip. It made her hope…
No, she’d be mad to hope for anything more from him-especially given his clear alarm over how he’d misspoken.
The woman Lady Tarley had been talking to hurried to Mrs. Plumtree, who broke into a cat-in-the-cream smile after the woman said a few words to her. Mrs. Plumtree glanced over at Maria, and to Maria’s shock, she winked.
Winked! Maria didn’t know what had happened in the past few hours, but somehow Mrs. Plumtree had gone from disapproving of her as a wife for Oliver to approving of her wholeheartedly.
Oh dear. She had a sinking feeling that this evening was about to head in a direction Oliver hadn’t anticipated.
And the worst part was that a tiny, ridiculous corner of her heart was glad.
Suddenly he spotted Gran deep in conversation with Kitty’s closest friend, and relief coursed through him. Gran would squelch the tale at once. And once she tried to quash the gossip, he would win-because he could then threaten to send notice to the papers of his betrothal if she didn’t back down. She’d have no choice but to give up on her scheme.
Except…she wasn’t acting as if she meant to squelch it. She was talking to the other woman with great animation. And when she met his gaze from across the room, beaming from ear to ear, he realized in a flash that he’d misunderstood everything. Everything.
She hadn’t been bluffing him. All the rot about trying to buy Maria off, the disapproving looks and snide remarks…all along, Gran had been goading him toward what she wanted. God preserve him.
With a sickening sense of inevitability, he saw her go to the duchess’s side and whisper a few words, then saw the duchess rise and tap her glass to indicate she had an announcement to make. With a triumphant smile, Gran announced the engagement of her grandson, the Marquess of Stoneville, to Miss Maria Butterfield of Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
All eyes turned to him, and the whispers began anew.
He couldn’t believe it. How could he have been so blind? He’d lost the battle, maybe even the war.
I’m sure you tried to prevent that. For all we know, Nathan may not even be where he can see a London paper. As long as word doesn’t reach him, it’s fine.”
It was always her precious Nathan who concerned her, her damned “genteel and proper” fiancé. “I hope word does reach him.”
Her clear gaze met his steadily. “Do you?”
“Yes. Despite doing my best to make sure it doesn’t, I hope that bloody arse reads it and realizes what he’s thrown away. He deserves to lose you.”
Her expression wary, she slid from the bed and reached for her wrapper. “And what about me? Don’t I deserve a good husband?”
He tugged the wrapper from her fingers, then tossed it to the floor. “Hyatt couldn’t possibly make you a good husband.”
“So I’m to live alone, then?”
“No.” Snagging her about the waist, he drew her close. “You’re going to marry me.”
The minute he spoke, he realized it was exactly what he wanted. Her as his. Forever. Even if that scared the hell out of him.
Apparently it scared her a little, too, for she was staring at him with shock. “Why would I do that?” she whispered. “Why would you?”
“It’s the only way I can have you, isn’t it?
Say you’ll marry me, angel. You have to marry me.”
With his tale of heartbreak in her mind, she feared that he wanted this for all the wrong reasons. “You just want to save me from Nathan.”
“Nothing so unselfish, I assure you.” He trailed his mouth down her throat. “I want you. I need you. God, how I need you.”
He spoke of need, but not of love. Then again, he didn’t believe in love. And though that stung, at least he was honest about it. He’d always been perfectly frank about what he wanted.
“You need me in your bed, you mean.”
“Not just there, and you know it.” He drew back, firm resolve sharpening his features. Cupping her head in his large hands, he met her gaze with an intense look. “I’ll prove it. Agree to marry me, and I’ll leave you to sleep alone tonight and every night until we’re joined in matrimony. I’ll behave like a respectable gentleman. And I’ve never done that for anyone.”
Her blood thundered in her ears. She could well believe it. And something beyond desire shone in his face. Or was she just wishing on rainbows?
“I don’t know, Oliver. Until I can find Nathan-“
“Nathan!” A change came over him, dark and tempestuous. “Forget about Nathan. I won’t let him have you.” His eyes smoldered with a passion like the one seething in her own breast. “I won’t.”
He started backing her toward the bed in an unconscious imitation of his blatantly sensual steps in the waltz earlier, and a thrill shot through her. “You said you would leave me to sleep alone.”
“Not so you can think about him and what you owe him. I’ll make love to you before I let that happen. Because one way or the other, I mean to have you as my wife.” Raw determination shone in his harsh features. “Even if I have to ruin you to manage it.”
That errant thrill made her shiver again, no matter how she tried to suppress it. “Then you won’t need to marry me. You’ll have everything you desire from me.”
A ragged laugh escaped his lips. “It will take a lifetime to have everything I desire from you.”
His words gave her pause. Perhaps he really did need her. Perhaps he felt something even more.
“Besides,” he said with a wry smile as he shucked his coat, then his waistcoat, “my family will roast my ballocks on a spit if I ruin you without making an honest woman of you.”
“I haven’t agreed to let you ruin me,” she pointed out.
His black eyes glittered in the candlelight. “Ah, but you will.
Relax.” He held her gaze with his heated one. “Our bodies are made to do this, strange as it seems. And no matter what you’ve been told, it’s the most natural ting in the world.”
“It doesn’t feel natural.”
“That’s because you’re resisting it.” He nuzzled her cheek, then whispered, “Don’t fight it. Let go. I promise I won’t hurt you any more than necessary.”
“That’s not terribly reassuring,” she said as he pushed farther inside her.
With a strangled laugh, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Shall I tell you a joke to keep your mind off it?”
She arched one eyebrow. “A naughty one, I suppose.”
“Of course.”
When he eased deeper into her, she stiffened, unable to prevent it. It was too strange-having him inside her, so thick, so unwieldy. “A-all right.”
“An old man asked his daughter what sort of plant she thought grew the fastest. She said, ‘A saddle pommel.’ ‘How so?’ he asked. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘when I was riding behind the footman and I was afraid of falling off, he told me to reach around his waist to grab the pommel. It was no bigger than a finger when I grabbed it, but by the time we reached home it was as big around as my wrist!
Deuce take it, he was in over his head.
But it didn’t matter. He’d ruined her, and marriage was the only way to fix that.
“Oliver?” she whispered.
He stared down at her delicate features, flushed from their exertions, and felt the same swell of possessiveness that had made him claim her with all the subtlety of an ox. Mine…mine…mine. The words still rang in his ears.
Definitely in over his head.
This was certainly a fitting end to Valentine’s Day.” She slanted him a glance. “Tell me, was it really just chance that you drew my name at the ball?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Celia told me on the way home that she thought it was Fate.”
He arched one eyebrow. “Only if Fate’s helper is the Duke of Foxmoor. He rigged the drawing for me.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I thought perhaps you’d spotted my name by chance, but deliberately cheating…You have no principles whatsoever, do you?”
“Not where you’re concerned,” he said.
That answer seemed to please her. Reassured of her ability to bewitch him, she stretched beside him like a cat, her full breasts moving enticingly under the sheet.
It roused him instantly. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, my dear.”
“Do what?” Her gaze was full of curiosity.
“Display yourself so deliciously. Or I’m going to make love to you again.”
A coy smile tipped up her lips. “Are you really?” She slid up next to him, her hand drawing a line down his bare chest in a motion worthy of the most experienced courtesan.
He caught her hand. “I mean it, minx. Don’t tempt me. I’ll have you on your back so fast you won’t know what happened.”
“And what would be wrong with that?”
He entwined his fingers with hers. Why couldn’t he stop touching her? “It was your first time. Your body needs to rest.”
“Oh.” She frowned. “I suppose I am a little sore.” She cast him a teasing glance. “Who could have known that making love would be so…vigorous? Or addictive?”
“You have no idea.” Already his cock was rock hard beneath the sheet. “But after we’re married, I’ll be happy to add to your store of experience.
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