“You are a duke’s son, a duke’s brother, and now a duke yourself.” Her thumb stroked his cheek. “I am sorry, Benedict.”
At last, his raw grief won him her use of his given name. It was a hollow victory.
“I do not want your pity, my love, but your understanding,” he bit out. “Along with your promise to become my wife.”
She froze. “You have my understanding, but I cannot make you a promise I cannot keep.”
“Keep it then,” he gritted.
“Benedict, you—”
“Enough,” he interrupted, and then the frayed rein he had kept upon his control snapped.
He covered her lips with his. He kissed her with everything in him. All the love, the need, the desire, the frantic, cursed want. She had him broken apart, like a ship beating upon rocky shoals in a violent storm. She decimated him.
She kissed him back, her mouth moving with the same urgent hunger she had always shown him, kissed him so sweetly and desperately. With her lips, she saved him. With her kiss, she gave him hope again.
Simple kisses between them were no longer enough. Not after what had happened that morning. He licked into her mouth. She tasted of wine and Isabella, and nothing had ever been more delicious. Her tongue writhed against his, stroking boldly. A delicious sound of surrender tore from her throat.
Yes.She could deny him all she wanted. She could say she would not marry him. She could call him a duke and herself a mere proprietress of a lady’s typewriting school all she wished. But this kiss made a lie of all her words.
Her every protestation fell at their feet like dust motes.
Visible in sunlight. Gone with the wave of a hand.
The sun had set. The moon was high over London. Darkness blanketed the city. And tonight, he would have her in his bed. It would be the first of many such nights, he vowed.
He broke the kiss, breathing harshly as he plucked the final pin from her hair. Freed from her ruthless chignon, her hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back like liquid gold. Her eyes were limpid pools of fire.
“Come with me.” The demand emerged from him. Not a question. Not a lover’s plea. But a command. He had not meant to be so autocratic.
She kissed him again.
The priceless susurrus of her acquiescence fanned over his lips. “Yes.”
He kissed her harder, and then he took her hand and wordlessly led her from the library.
For the secondtime in one day, Isabella found herself squarely within Benedict’s territory. Even without his presence earlier when she had deposited her goodbye letter on his dressing room table with shaking hands, the room had been overwhelming. Everything about it, from the bold, stark colors of the wall hangings to the pictures on the walls, to the heavy, baroque-style wooden furniture, was him. His scent had lingered on the air.
But now that she was in his chamber, alone with him, in the midst of the night, her senses alight, their fingers entwined as he tugged her over the threshold, her earlier, clandestine visit could hardly compare.
She felt as if she had entered the lion’s den.
One more time, her foolish heart said.
This would have to be their goodbye, and she knew it. Being here in his chamber with him was wrong. The risk was great.
The reward—Benedict—was greatest of all.
The door closed softly behind them. The light in his chamber was warmer and lower than the library’s lamps had been. The book she had been reading was abandoned, and she neither knew nor cared where. All she cared about was the man whose fingers had tightened upon hers.
He thought he wanted to marry her. In the morning, he would regret his haste, but she would not be here to witness it or to suffer a broken heart. She would be gone.
But he did not know that yet, and his glimmering eyes were upon her, hard, searching. Seeing more of her than she wanted, as always.
“You are serious, sweetheart,” he observed solemnly.
If he were a cruel man, she could resist him. If he were as arrogant and unkind as she had once supposed, she never would have been vulnerable to him. But beneath the façade of handsome, golden god, he was not fashioned of cold stone at all. He was all too real. Warm flesh, breakable bone, a heart that pounded beneath her hand when she flattened her palm over his chest.
