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and that one occasion had been the most horrible, degrading, painful—

      ‘Where have you gone, Mariah?’ Darian had not liked the way in which her expression had grown distant, turned inwards, her thoughts giving a shadow to the depths of those beautiful eyes. He liked it even less when she had given an obvious shudder just now of what seemed like revulsion...

      Because she did genuinely fear the coming events at the Nicholses’ home?

      Or because she felt revulsion for the idea of even that pretence of an intimate relationship with him?

      Unfortunately, Darian had no answer to that question.

      She roused herself with effort, purposefully pulling her hands from his as she straightened, a bright and meaningless smile now curving those ruby-red lips, a smile that did nothing to take away the shadows in her eyes. ‘Why, I am right here in the carriage with you, Wolfingham,’ she assured him with unmistakable brittleness. ‘And I do believe we are now on the driveway approaching Eton Park,’ she added with obvious relief.

      Darian leant back abruptly against the cushions, knowing that their brief moment of tenderness was over. If it had ever really begun on Mariah’s part.

      His expression was grim as he turned to look out of the window to view the brightly lit house in the distance. He inwardly cursed himself for being a fool. He might have spent the past days and nights thinking of, desiring, Mariah, might even have anticipated being with her again, but she had shown him time and time again that she did not feel that same desire towards him.

      He gave a shake of his head as he once again turned his own thoughts to the business of the weekend ahead. ‘What sort of entertainments might I expect to endure this evening?’

      Mariah shrugged. ‘The full entertainments will not begin until tomorrow, obviously, but after dinner this evening I expect there will be cards and dancing.’

      Darian grimaced. ‘Sounds boringly normal to me.’

      She chuckled huskily. ‘I assure you there is nothing “normal” about cards and dancing in the Nicholses’ home!’

      Darian eyed her speculatively. ‘Meaning?’

      A small, secretive smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. ‘You will see soon enough!’

      Darian disliked the sound of that. As he disliked feeling as if he were at a disadvantage, as he surely was where such weekends as this were concerned.

      And meaning that he would have to look to Mariah for guidance as to the correct way for him to behave.

      But first, it seemed, he had to endure the simpering and coquettish Lady Clara Nichols as she gushingly welcomed him to her home, whilst her husband showed Mariah similar attentions. Attentions, he noted with satisfaction, that she laughed off quite easily.

      Darian was not so successful where Lady Clara was concerned, as she proudly introduced them to the rest of the company still assembled in the drawing room after tea: several lords, an earl, half a dozen Members of Parliament, some with their wives, but most not. There were also a dozen or so other female members of the ton, a titled lady or two, several Honourables, three well-known actresses and an opera singer, and all without the escort of their husbands.

      Lady Clara then insisted, her arm firmly linked with Darian’s, on personally accompanying them up the stairs to show them to their bedchambers.

      Darian felt quite sickened by her attentions by the time that lady finally took herself off to rejoin her other guests and no doubt indulge in gossip about the duke and the countess.

      His top lip curled with distaste the moment the door of the bedchamber had closed behind his simpering hostess. ‘There is something particularly sickening about a lady of possibly forty years giggling like a schoolgirl.’

      Mariah chuckled, no doubt at the look of disgust on his face, as she untied her bonnet and threw it down on to her bed. ‘How very ungrateful of you, Darian, when I do believe, from their situation of being at the front of the house and the opulence of these bedchambers, that Clara and Richard must have moved out of their own bedchambers in order to accommodate the two of us.’

      As expected, the two of them had been given adjoining bedchambers, the door between those rooms having been left pointedly open, and no doubt the reason Darian had been subjected to Clara Nichols’s girlishly suggestive giggles when she reminded them that dinner would be served in a little over two hours. No doubt she expected the two of them to indulge in some love play before that time.

      Darian’s room was acceptable, but Mariah’s—Clara Nichols’s own bedchamber?—was a ghastly nightmare of pink and cream lace and flounces. ‘How will you ever be able to sleep in such an explosion of pink?’ He grimaced as he stood in the doorway between their two rooms.

      Mariah gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I shall simply blow out the candles and then I shall not be able to see it.’

      Darian admired the picture of grace and beauty Mariah made in the candle and firelight as she stood in the middle of that ghastly pink room. A veritable vision in turquoise and cream, her hair appearing like spun gold, colour now warming her cheeks.

      His blood stirred and he felt that tingling at the base of his spine and between his thighs, the rising and thickening of his erection, as he imagined how much more lovely Mariah would look without any clothes on at all.

      Would the curls between her thighs be that same gold or possibly a shade darker?

      Would her nipples be the same ruby red as her lips?

      And would the folds between her thighs—

      ‘If you would not mind, Darian?’ Mariah’s voice softly interrupted his erotic musings. ‘My maid will be here shortly to help me bathe and dress for dinner, as no doubt will your own valet. Oh, and, Darian...?’ she added as he gave a terse bow of acceptance before turning to leave, waiting until he had slowly turned back to her before speaking again. ‘Close the door on your way out, please.’

      His jaw tightened at the dismissal as he stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him, knowing he needed the privacy in order to take care of the need throbbing through his body, before he dared to rejoin Mariah!

      * * *

      ‘You are not intending to appear in that gown in public!’

      Mariah turned from where she had been gazing at her reflection in the mirror as she put the last of the pearl clips into her hair, to now look at Wolfingham as he once again stood in the open doorway between their two bedchambers. His appearance was as resplendent as usual in black evening clothes and snowy white linen, an ebony sheen to his hair, his features once again as hard as granite.

      It was the look of horror on those hard features, as he gazed back at her unblinkingly, that now brought a wry smile to her lips. ‘You do not like it?’

      Like it? Darian had never seen a gown like it before! Well, not outside the walls of a brothel, at least.

      The gown left Mariah’s shoulders bare except for two tiny ribbon straps and was made of some diaphanous cream material, lined with the sheerest of lace. It clearly revealed the bare outline of the curvaceous body beneath and darkening at the apex between Mariah’s thighs—revealing the nakedness of the darker curls covering her mound.

      As for the bodice of the gown! It was almost non-existent, just that cream diaphanous material covering the fullness of Mariah’s breasts, the nipples plump berries and clearly showing through as being as ruby red as her lips—that ruby colour aided by rouge, if he was not mistaken.

      His traitorous body had surged back into full attention the moment he looked at the reflection of those plump nipples in the mirror, and imagined Mariah applying that rouge to those succulent berries. ‘I see that a certain part of you does, at least.’ Mariah looked pointedly at the unmistakable evidence of his arousal.

      Darian did not in the least enjoy feeling like a callow youth taking his first look at a naked woman.

      Except

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