LITMIR.BIZ

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nodding abruptly and releasing her before stepping back. ‘Then again I suggest we continue with our walk.’

      Mariah was more than a little unsettled by the abruptness of Darian’s acceptance of her withdrawal as she led the way out of the marble temple. Could it be that he had actually wanted to remain in the temple and indulge in those sexual fantasies depicted by the paintings and statues?

      Sexual fantasies that still made the blood boil in her veins and her body ache for—for Darian.

      Only for Darian.

      She had never felt this attraction to any other man. Never felt this ache for a man’s touch. Never wanted, hungered for, a physical closeness with any man. Never burned for the promise of pleasure his lips and hands had evoked.

      Until Darian.

      She looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes once they were outside again in the crisp March air. ‘I apologise if my words of earlier led you to expect otherwise, Darian. But I simply could not bear the thought of us being together in such a place.’ She gave a shudder of revulsion. ‘It was—’

      ‘Unpleasant at best and thoroughly disgusting at worst?’ He nodded grimly. ‘I thought so, too.’

      ‘You did?’

      ‘I did,’ he rasped harshly. ‘You may rest assured, I shall be having words with Benson on the subject once we have returned to the house,’ he added grimly.

      ‘You are not disappointed?’

      A frown appeared between his eyes. ‘Why should I be disappointed?’

      ‘I gave the impression earlier—I all but implied—that we, the two of us, might—’ She straightened her shoulders. ‘I am aware that a man does not take sexual disappointment well.’

      ‘From your husband?’

      ‘No!’ Mariah gasped in protest, only to quickly seek composure as she realised how telling her answer might have been. She strived to adopt a derisively dismissive smile. ‘No man needs suffer sexual disappointment in regard to his own wife, when the law allows him to do with her whatever, and as often as he wills it.’

      Wolfingham’s eyes narrowed. ‘Were you happy in your marriage, Mariah?’

      She eyed him coolly. ‘I believe I have already intimated to you, in a previous conversation, that I was not.’

      ‘Ever?’

      Her mouth tightened. ‘No.’

      Darian could read nothing from the stiffness of Mariah’s expression. Or perhaps that stiffness was telling in itself.

      ‘Was Carlisle cruel to you?’ He found himself tensing as he waited for her answer.

      Her chin rose proudly. ‘Only if indifference can be called cruelty. And in the case of my husband, I did not consider it to be so.’

      ‘His indifference? He did not love you?’ Darian’s gaze sharpened on the paleness of her face.

      ‘No more than I loved him, no.’

      ‘Then why marry him at all?’ Darian frowned. ‘Your daughter’s age now intimates you yourself were barely out of the schoolroom when you married. That it was in all probability your first Season. Surely, as you informed me regarding your daughter, there was no hurry for you to accept the first offer of marriage made to you?’ His mouth twisted harshly. ‘Or perhaps you fancied yourself as being a countess?’

      ‘No!’ Her denial came out sharply this time, her eyes glittering as she looked up at him coldly. ‘Sometimes—sometimes we cannot do as we wish but as we must,’ she added tautly as Darian continued to look down at her beneath hooded lids.

      ‘And you must needs marry Carlisle?’

      ‘Yes!’ she hissed vehemently.

      Darian’s gaze narrowed as he studied her intently, looking, searching for the answers he knew Mariah had not yet given him. That the closed expression on her face said she might never give him...

      Part of Mariah’s mystery was her unwillingness to discuss the past with him. Her past. A past that he was now sure had made her the coolly detached woman she so often was today.

      A past that had also led to her being here with him now, acting as an agent for the Crown?

      ‘Talk to me, Mariah. Help me to understand,’ he invited gently. ‘Explain why you felt you had to marry Carlisle when, as you have said, you did not love him, or he you, and you did not fancy yourself as becoming his countess. Was your family in financial difficulty? Did your father have debts owing to Carlisle directly? Help me to understand, Mariah,’ he repeated gruffly.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I need to!’ he ground out harshly.

      ‘Again, why?’

      Darian forced all trace of anger from his voice and expression, already knowing that Mariah did not react well to either. ‘Perhaps you might humour me by doing so?’

      Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘There was nothing in the least humorous about my marriage.’

      He sighed. ‘Perhaps I chose the wrong word. It would please me if you would do me the honour of confiding in me, Mariah,’ he amended softly.

      She looked at him searchingly for several long seconds, no doubt looking for sarcasm or mockery in his expression, but surely she would find only sincerity.

      ‘Please, Mariah,’ Darian encouraged again gently.

      She breathed heavily. ‘I married Carlisle for none of the reasons you have mentioned.’ Her tone was still cold, uncompromising. ‘My father was—still is, a very wealthy man. But Carlisle’s coffers were bare and he required some of that wealth.’ She shrugged. ‘Enough to marry a woman he did not love and who did not love him. As might well be expected from such an ill-matched alliance, it was not a happy marriage. For either of us. And that is an end to it.’

      Darian doubted that very much. ‘And is that the reason you had affairs with other men? Why you now attend licentious weekend parties such as this one?’

      ‘You are being deliberately insulting!’ Her cheeks were flushed.

      ‘I am trying to understand.’ Darian drew in a deep and controlling breath as he saw the way in which Mariah drew back at his forcefulness. ‘Can you not see, I am trying to understand you, Mariah,’ he spoke more calmly, evenly, knowing his impatience would not endear him to Mariah, or encourage her in the confidences he wanted, needed, to hear from her.

      ‘Why?’ She eyed him challengingly. ‘What should it matter one way or another whether or not you understand me?’

      Darian ground his teeth together. ‘It matters to me.’

      She smiled without humour. ‘That is no answer at all.’

      He sighed. ‘Can you not see I am puzzled as to why any young and beautiful woman would marry a man she admits she did not love, who did not love her and who was so much older than herself? I could better understand it if Carlisle had been rich and you or your family had been in need. Or even if you fancied yourself as being Carlisle’s countess. But you have denied any and all of those as being the reason for entering into a marriage that you admit to knowing would bring you no happiness. I can think of no other reason why—’ Darian broke off abruptly, eyes widening as a third alternative began to take form and root in his mind.

      A third alternative that would most certainly have required that Mariah must marry Carlisle.

      Could that possibly be the answer to this puzzle?

      Mariah admitted to being four and thirty, and her daughter, Christina, was now aged seventeen, which meant that Mariah could only have been sixteen when that daughter was conceived.

      ‘You were with child when you

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