He was insinuating she did not.
Her spine stiffened. “I, too, act rationally and make decisions wisely. I know there is no hope in a union between a shopkeeper’s daughter and a duke who only asked for her hand out of guilt.”
“Tell me if this feels like guilt to you,” he bit out, and then he yanked her into his chest, taking her lips with his.
Just like that, she was lost. There was no resistance in her. She felt, instead, as if she had come home. The trembling hands she had hidden in her skirts rose to frame his face as she moved her lips against his, opening to the seductive onslaught of his tongue. This was not just a kiss; it was a claiming.
His jaw was warm, prickly with whiskers. He had not shaved that morning, and she wondered if she was the reason. She told herself it did not matter, and that she must stop kissing him. But somehow, she could not stop.
At last, he stopped for her, ending the bruising kiss.
His head lifted, his eyes glittering. “I asked you to marry me because I want you to be my duchess, Isabella. I do not give a damn if your father was a shopkeeper. I obtained a license this morning. We can marry any time you wish. The sooner, the better.”
He could not want to marry her, not truly.
She frowned at him. “You are not thinking clearly. Yesterday was fraught with a great deal of upheaval.”
“On the contrary. I have never thought more clearly than I am now.” He was steadfast. His voice was strident. Confident.
She shook her head as if doing so could clear the fog threatening to take up residence there. “I will not give up my Ladies’ Typewriting School.”
“Nor have I asked you to do so.” He cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb over her skin in slow, soothing strokes.
He had not.
However, she was not naïve enough to believe a duke would countenance his duchess operating a school.
“If I were to marry you, I would have no choice,” she said, telling herself she should release him.
Instead, she could not seem to stop clinging to him. Why had he not stayed away?
“When you marry me, you can carry on just as you have done,” he told her calmly. “The only difference is that you will not leave me at dawn, and nor will you typewrite my reports. And if I have my way, you will never again wear black or buttons to your throat.”
He toyed with the high neck of her gown as he spoke, his fingers grazing over her bare skin just above it. She shivered. But she was not cold. The ache between her legs returned, and her nipples were hard beneath her corset. Her body was a traitor. Fortunately, her mind was not.
“You know as well as I that a duchess cannot be the proprietress of a Ladies’ Typewriting School.” She swallowed as his fingertips danced over her skin, undoubtedly finding her racing pulse.
Her heart beat so fast.
His delicious scent filled her senses.
His strength and heat burned into her body.
And her body…well, in return, it burned for his.
“The Duchess of Westmorland can be whatever she wishes,” he said softly.
She wanted to believe him, fool that she was. But she had learned her lesson long ago. “My mother’s family largely disowned her when she married my father. If I were to marry you, I would be a social outcast from the onset because of who I am. Imagine the scandal of a duchess running a school.”
“There have been worse scandals.”
“You are not taking this seriously,” she accused, at sixes and sevens.
“I have never been more serious about anything in my bloody life, woman,” he rasped, his voice low. “There are dynamitards running about London, and I am here, with you, when I am needed in a dozen different places.”
“Why?” The whispered question left her before she could rescind it.
His brow furrowed. “Why am I serious about marrying you? Or why am I here with you when I have a mountain of duties awaiting me?”
