“It’s filthy. And you don’t need to die for it to be unwholesome.”
She frowned. “Fine.” She stretched out her fingers, long and beautiful, towards him. “What are you going to do to me? Should I be frightened?”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he pulled his flask from his coat and dabbed whiskey onto his handkerchief. He took the wet handkerchief and held the tip of her index finger, rubbing off the ink and smudging the white cloth black. The feel of her hand in his had him hardening again but the activity gave him a purpose. Oddly, he felt more in control of himself now, despite the contact.
“You are treating me like a dirty child.” Her voice sounded perturbed, but the way her fingers turned in to his touch as he worked the ink off told him that she wasn’t completely annoyed by the intrusion.
“Only because you behave like one.”
She gave an exclamation of indignation yet didn’t remove her hands.
He shook his head and continued cleaning her fingers. He wished he could suck the ink off, poison be damned, but that would rather defeat the point he was allegedly trying to make.
When he was done, she looked down at her hands.
“Thank you.”
“It’s no bother.” He put the dirtied handkerchief back in his pocket and looked out the window.
From the corner of his eye, he could see she was still looking at him.
“Are you betrothed?”
“Betrothed?” He snapped his gaze back to her. Despite the invasiveness of her question, her face was neutral. It gnawed at him.
“You are a duke, young, not bad-looking, rich.” She spoke as if commenting on the properties of a fine racing horse. “The mamas of thetonmust be trying tobuyyou for their daughters. Which, I suppose, what else is a dowry for, really.”
“I will admit that some have tried. But I don’t have any plans to marry.”
“Why not? Don’t you need to continue your line? Not to mention that most noblemen like to shore up their estates with the thousands of pounds that a bride brings. Wouldn’t that help you in your current predicament? I am sure you wouldn’t be the first peer to take his wife’s dowry and give it to his sister or daughter in short order. And then there is the production of the heir. Marriage would appear key to solving all these ducal problems.”
And give me a wholeotherproblem,he thought,a goddamn wife.
“I don’t care to marry.” The words came out of his mouth seemingly of their own accord, as often seemed to happen around her. He was saying something that he hadn’t even shared with Tremberley. Not that Tremberley would ask. To his friends, marrying was the equivalent of tying a rope around the highest rafter and jumping. In their set, an aversion to matrimony was the baseline assumption. No clarification needed. “And anyway, replacing the money my father has willed to my cousin wouldn’t stop the gossips from ruining my sister’s prospects.”
“Still, your matrimonial aversion seems inconvenient given your position.”
“Not at all. I’ll enjoy myself as a duke, mind, but no wives. Let someone else deal with the whole ducal heap after my death. My cousin—not Baron Falk, thank God—would inherit the title after me. I understand he has a numerous family. Lots of heirs to be had on that side of the family.”
“Do you have a fear of women, Your Grace?” Her tone was light. Her levity seemed designed to rankle him—and he hated to admit that it was very effective.
“John,” he corrected her. “And don’t mistake me. I love women. I believe I’m quite notorious for it, in fact. I can’t be sure, however, not having read the scandal sheets as closely as yourself.”
He didn’t say the rest—that he couldn’t stand to marry a woman just to beget him heirs, when he’d wake up in cold sweats every night thinking abouther, the impossible woman sitting across from him. Even sitting here arguing with her, not able to agree on anything, he found himself wanting to close the distance between them and make her forget about their disputes in the most pleasurable way possible.
She raised her eyebrows.
“It doesn’t sound like you love women, given how you dismiss out of hand being yoked to one for life. You imply that you find carnal relations with a woman pleasurable, but that’s hardly a love of women—and clearly the carnal relations are not that satisfying or else you wouldn’t be so happy to see the women go.”
“For the love of God,” he said, unable to stop himself, once more finding his cock at full mast, “stop saying ‘carnal relations.’”
Catherine laughed. He realized it was the first time since their reacquaintance that he had heard her do so. The sound thrilled him. He wasn’t sure how much more of this torture he could take.
“And here I thought you were a hardened rake. Who knew the gossips were so wrong. You are rather squeamish, given your reputation.”
Her tone was so light. Innocent. She wasn’t even looking up from her book. He couldn’t believe, however, that she didn’t know what she was doing to him. The words coming out of her mouth, even the quotidian ones, felt like a seduction. He was a hardened rake, indeed. He cursed to himself and shifted in his seat.
He hated her beautiful face, somehow smug and wise at the same time. Even though he knew it was irrational, he felt like she knew what she had done to him on that ruin seven years ago. She could sit there, indifferent to what they had shared, while he couldn’t stop imagining taking her in this carriage.
