He had made her laugh. Had kissed her with such persuasive finesse.
“Oh dear,” she said faintly, taking in the expressions on her friends’ faces. “I think perhaps I may like him after all.”
“You maymorethan like him,” Angeline said.
“All the more reason to cry off this nonsensical arrangement of ours,” Clementine said.
Before she allowed herself to fall any further beneath the spell of one silver-tongued, handsome devil of a marquess. And before he broke the heart she had no longer thought was hers to give.
* * *
Dorset woketo a rigid cockstand and, ultimately, after he took himself in hand and performed his morning ablutions, a conclusion.
He would seek out the source of his morning discomfort—one Lady Clementine Hammond—immediately following breakfast. They could take a quiet, chaste walk by the River Derwent. He would enlist some of his fellow houseguests lest he get any amorous thoughts for the duration.
He thought Wilton would do. And mayhap the scholarly chit who was always chattering on about the Roman ruins. Miss Tree, wasn’t it?
No, L’arbre. That was the surname, equally silly though it was, and bearing the same meaning.
It hardly mattered. All thatdidmatter was that he kept his bloody hands and mouth…and tongue and teeth and cock…far, far away from Lady Clementine. The river would prove the perfect destination. If he could not contain his ardor, he could always pitch himself headlong into the water.
Thoughts of Clementine and her delicious lips—to say nothing of her responsiveness and her tempting bosom and those creamy legs he had spied beneath her gown that day in the gardens—had his cock threatening to rise once again.
Thankfully, his valet returned to aid him in dressing and shaving, providing sufficient distraction.
“You delivered the ointment to Lady Clementine’s lady’s maid?” he asked Winston as mildly as possible.
“I did, sir,” his valet confirmed, wearing an uncharacteristic half smile, as if he were privy to some sort of joke.
Dorset could not help but wonder over the source of that mirth. “Something is amusing, Winston?”
He had a relaxed relationship with his valet. Winston had been at his side since Dorset had first inherited the title nearly a decade ago. He’d been twenty years old and terrified.
Now he was thirty and equally as terrified, but no longer of the title and the weight of the duty upon his shoulders. He was merely terrified of life itself in all its brilliant, hideous, cruel beauty.
“I have not often seen you in such a state, sir,” his valet said. “Not since…”
Although Winston’s voice trailed away, Dorset was more than aware of what he had been about to say.
“Not since Lady Anna, you mean. The Marchioness of Huntly now.”
Strangely, acknowledging her name and position—as another man’s wife—no longer produced the same singular pain it once had. Was it time that had healed his wounds, or was it the way he was feeling for another?
Blast, blast, blast.This was not good. Lady Clementine was like a poisonous flower. Lovely to look upon but dangerous.
Potentially lethal.
What was it about her?
One peek beneath her skirts, and he was ruined.
Or to be more specific, she had been ruined.Almost.
He had saved her with their betrothal. The same betrothal he now needed to end. As quickly as possible before he did anything more foolish than merely kissing Clementine senseless in the library. And the moonlit gardens. And…
He sighed.
Winston scraped the razor along Dorset’s jaw, seeming to choose his next words with care. “It was not my intention to invoke the past.”
