But somehow, his lips would not form the three words which may help his suit most. The emotion was too raw, too new. Too unlike him. He, too, had been determined to avoid marriage. He had thought, at the very least, if he determined a need for an heir in the future, he would deal with the unwanted particulars then.
“You could be carrying my child,” he said instead. “Have you considered that?”
Her lips parted, a furrow marring the delicate skin between her brows. “I…no.”
“We need to marry as soon as possible,” he pressed, thinking perhaps he had found a vulnerability in the defensive walls she had erected around herself during the hours he had been gone.
“If there is a child, I would not hold you responsible.” Her stubborn nature came to the fore once more.
“For God’s sake, Isabella, I would hold myself responsible,” he thundered, hating the way she was retreating from him. She was in his arms, warm and lush, and yet it was as if she had already left him. “I was reckless with you earlier. I did not take precautions as I ought to have done because I lost my head. But in truth, I do not regret it. I do not want to marry you because there may be a child. I want to marry you because I want you. I want you as my duchess, by my side, beneath my roof, always.”
It was the closest he could come to a declaration. And for a man who had avoided emotional entanglements for thirty years, it was one hell of a step. Especially on the heels of watching the magnitude of his own failure today. First with Isabella, then in his duties as Special League leader.
She was pale in the firelight and the glow of the lamps, her beautiful eyes a sea of mystery and shadow he longed to chart. “You do not mean that. Today was a trying day for you, and the hour is late. Undoubtedly, you are out of your head.”
“Yes, I am out of my head.” At last they had found a point on which they could agree. He was grim, his grip on her waist tightening. “I am out of my head with wanting you.”
“Your Grace,” she protested weakly.
But though she clung to her formality, he detected the breathlessness in her voice, giving her away. The air was hung with the heaviness of their attraction. Undeniable and potent as ever.
He wanted her more now that he had made love to her. She was a fever in his blood. Besotted did not begin to describe him. He slid his hands up her spine, caressing her slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. He hoped to God they did. Hoped he could mow down her resistance, make her his in name as well as deed.
“Benedict,” he corrected her, drawing her more firmly against him. Although he was exhausted to his soul and wading in his own self-hatred, his need for her had never diminished. He was hard as a marble bust.
He ground himself against her, his cockstand pressing into the softness of her belly. Her maidenly dressing gown and night rail did nothing to hide just how much he longed to be inside her. She had been so tight, so wet. Her heat had been perfection. She had been everything he had imagined she would be so many nights as he took himself in hand. Only, she had beenmore.
Her eyes were luminous now, the jet discs of her pupils wide and dilated with the evidence of her own desire. She could deny him, but she could not hide the way she wanted him.
“This madness cannot continue,” she whispered.
But as she spoke, her hands were traveling over his chest. She was caressing him through his shirt, reminding him that he, too, had been stripped of his civility. He was clad in his shirtsleeves and trousers.
“Walk away from me, then,” he dared, knowing full well she would not. “Go, Isabella. Run. Flee this library and me, and never look back.”
A frustrated cry tore from her, and she bit her lower lip once more in an action he was coming to recognize betrayed her inner turmoil. “Why do you do this to me?”
“Because I want to make you my wife.” That was the easy explanation. The finite one. The real explanation was far more difficult to decipher, rather like Egyptian hieroglyphics. But this one would have to do.
She plumbed his gaze with hers, seeking something—answers, he supposed. “I will not be your wife out of duty or guilt.”
“Then be my wife because I want you more than I want my next breath.” His hands moved with a life of their own, caressing the fragile strength of her neck, his fingers caressing her nape, plunging into her chignon. He wanted to muss her perfection. To take down her hair and her resistance as one. “Because you are the only person in my life I cannot fathom living without, aside from Callie. Because I am yours, and you are mine, but you are too bloody stubborn to admit it.”
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You speak such pretty poetry. But what will you say when you tire of me? When you are shunned for marrying a woman so far beneath you?”
If she believed he would ever grow to resent her, she did not know him at all.
“I am not a poet,” he told her, spreading his fingers through the heavy, silken threads of her hair. Pins scattered to the floor with dull little thumps. “I am a man. Not even a duke. I was never meant to be Westmorland. This library, this house, the title—it was meant to be my brother’s. Never mine. I hated the day I had to take up his burdens.”
She stilled, her expression questioning.
He realized it was the first time he had ever mentioned Alfred to her. His beloved brother was not a subject he discussed with anyone save Callie.
Until now.
“You and Callie had a brother?” she asked softly, her hand coming up to cradle his cheek in a touch so tender, he could have wept.
But he kept his composure by the barest measures. “We did. He died a year ago, quite unexpectedly. So you see? I was never meant to be duke. You cannot hold it against me.”
