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.”
Hisplan. 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.
He was beautiful, her husband.
Sebastian,he had insisted, though it still seemed odd to think of him in intimate terms. To be standing in such proximity to him that his scent, hints of pine and musk, washed over her. To be alone with him in a bedchamber—her bedchamber.
Odd and somehow intoxicating. Her every sense was heightened, her body awash with anticipation. She could feel his stare like a caress, from her hardened nipples to the ache between her thighs. She wanted him, but he didn’t want her. His blood sullying the sheets, the cut on his thumb, the hard set of his jaw, all bespoke antipathy. And she couldn’t blame him. He was a man whose hand had been forced, who’d been saddled with a sudden, unwanted burden.
Except that he wasn’t staring at her now with the same rigid expression he’d worn since crossing the threshold. No, indeed. He was looking at her rather in the same fashion she imagined a mountain lion appeared just before clamping its jaws around its prey.
He was looking at her like he wanted to consume her.
“You want me to help you disrobe?” he asked, his voice a low, gruff rumble that sent a thrill skittering through her.
“Yes,” she blurted. Dear Lord, she was only making things worse. “That is, of course I will require assistance. If you want the servants to believe we’ve… consummated the marriage, then you cannot propose to leave me standing alone in my chamber, with mytoiletteintact. I’m afraid I can’t undress myself, given the construction of this gown. Therefore, it stands to reason that you’ll need to aid me.”
