The son of a gentleman would read poetry and speak fluent Latin and French. He would know how to hunt and shoot and ride the finest horseflesh. He would not be impressed by a library.
Instead, he was a by-blow.
A drop of the amber liquid clung to her lower lip, then slid down her chin.
For some reason, he caught it with the swipe of his thumb, then brought it to his lips, sucking the drop, leaving the digit clean. Their gazes melded. The air between them became charged.
“I am not ordinarily so clumsy and gauche,” she whispered.
Christ.
The Duchess of Longleigh was nothing at all as he had supposed she would be.
And he was soused. Surely he must be. Surely that was the only explanation for what he was feeling now.
He wanted to kiss her. The urge was strong, a fire burning to life. He brought his glass to his lips, drained the rest of his sherry, and laid it upon the carpets. Then he plucked hers—scarcely touched—from her fingers and placed it on the floor beside his.
“You are neither clumsy nor gauche,” he told her, meaning those words. Confused as hell. “You are beautiful and kindhearted.”
Adrian did not think he was wrong about that assessment. He believed, in this moment, and to his marrow, that the Duchess of Longleigh was every bit as much a victim of the duke as he was, merely in a different sense. And whether it was that commonality, the wine he had consumed over the course of dinner, or the base desire he felt for the woman seated so near him, he could not say. All he knew was that bedding her would not be a dreaded task. Seducing her would be a pleasure.
This was not meant to be, and yet, it was. Nothing could have prepared him for this. He cupped her cheek, finding her skin softer than the silk of her dress. Her warmth kissed his fingertips. Her gaze settled on his lips.
She wanted him to kiss her.
Awareness thundered through him.
He wanted it, too.
He lowered his head, sealed his mouth over hers. More softness. Her lips were full and lush. She inhaled as if shocked at the first touch of his mouth to hers. He held still, proceeding with painstaking care. Slowly, tenderly, he kissed the corners of her mouth, the Cupid’s bow, the full sweep of her bottom lip. Nothing more than the slightest brushes of his lips over hers.
Her hands crept to his shoulders, settling there hesitantly at first, and then gripping him with greater urgency. Her fingers dug into his muscles in pleasant pain. Still, the kiss remained almost chaste.
In the years since Amelia’s death, he had kissed other women. Had eventually bedded others as well. Lonely souls as eager for a respite from the troubles of their world just as he was. Nothing had compared. Nothing had moved him in the way the duchess—Tilly—did.
So much passion. So delicate. So elegant. So forbidden. So delectable.
Mayhap he was every bit the monster the man who had sired him was. Because as he kissed Tilly, the longing rising to a crescendo within him could not be tamed. He wanted this woman, and he was going to have her. Not because he was being paid handsomely for the duty but because he wanted to. Because kissing her made his cock twitch to life, his ballocks ache. Because touching her filled him with flame. Because he had to have her beneath him, had to be inside her.
Elemental.
He hated himself for the reaction, for the undeniable urge.
Adrian did not dare deepen the kiss. Not on this first night. He meant to woo her, not to fuck her on the library furniture the very first evening he was in residence. Instead, he collected his restraint and broke the kiss.
Her eyes were closed. He did not know why he took note. Nor why he remained near enough to feel the warmth of her breath fluttering over his mouth. But he did. He was somehow reluctant to move away, to sever this bond they had forged this evening. Unexpected. Delicious.
Wrong.
And yet, here he was, nothing left to lose. Certainly not his soul. Not his heart.
“You are not at all what I expected, Tilly.”
The realization was a happy coincidence that would make the next month far easier than he had envisioned. She was not just startlingly beautiful, but she was intelligent and kind. Certainly not the sort of female he would have envisioned the Duke of Longleigh wedding.
How had the frigid old bastard managed to ensnare a lively, lovely woman like Tilly? And how long would it be before he completely crushed her spirits and stole the joy from her life as he had done to Adrian’s mother?
But these were not questions he should ask himself. They were not questions he should ponder, for they had no bearing upon what he had to do over the days to come. This bargain he had made was for himself. For his future.
