LITMIR.BIZ

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alone. By the time he arrived up the stairs, the door to Mariah’s bedchamber, and the door adjoining their two rooms, had both been firmly closed. He had known instinctively that Mariah meant them as a barrier between the two of them. One he crossed at his peril.

      Because she had revealed too much about herself to him this morning? Because he now knew things about her life, her marriage to Carlisle, that perhaps no one else did?

      Darian did not believe that Mariah was the type of woman who would confide her deepest, darkest secrets easily. To anyone. And he knew from personal experience that Mariah’s role as an agent for the Crown would also make it difficult for her to have close friends, male or female, for fear they might discover her secret.

      The murderous rage Darian had felt earlier today, towards Martin Beecham, had not abated in the slightest in the hours that had passed since Darian and Mariah had parted so stiffly. Her husband had been an out-and-out bastard who had raped and terrified a young and inexperienced girl for the sole purpose of forcing his child and marriage on her, trampling all of the young girl’s romantic dreams into the dust beneath his own greedy need for the bride’s portion of her father’s money.

      Not only that, but Carlisle had doubly insulted Mariah by having his mistress in residence as housekeeper in one of the homes Mariah herself had necessarily to visit on occasion.

      How did any woman survive that? But especially one as young and innocent as Mariah had been then?

      Darian knew it would be difficult for a woman of any age to have survived such base and selfish cruelty.

      Yet here Mariah stood before him, a lady in every sense of the word. So graciously beautiful, as well as being the most desirable woman he had ever known.

      Nor was it any wonder, after all that she had suffered at Beecham’s hands, that Mariah had turned to the comforting arms and desire of other men, both during and after her marriage.

      Had any of those other men made love to her? Darian wondered as he continued to admire her beauty and poise. Truly made love to her? Showering Mariah with the gentleness, the care and consideration that was her due?

      Or had they all without fail, as she had so scathingly scorned earlier, treated her as just another conquest in their bed? So that they might afterwards claim, to their male friends and associates, to have bedded the beautiful Countess of Carlisle?

      ‘Darian?’ Mariah prompted again, her expression having become wary at his continued silence.

      Darian had spent most of the past four hours pacing his bedchamber and thinking of Mariah. Of all that she had told him of her past, at the same time as he now knew it was that past that had made her the woman she was today: cool, poised and determined to remain totally removed from emotional entanglements with any man.

      It had brought Darian to the question that concerned him the most: how the two of them were to now proceed—or if Mariah would allow them to proceed at all.

      For he had promised himself he would not use any type of force upon Mariah. That he might perhaps allow himself to cajole, tease and seduce her, but he would not, could not, ever use coercion or force of any kind.

      ‘Nothing has happened.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I want— I need— No, I ask—’ He broke off abruptly, only now appreciating how difficult it was going to be to keep the promise he had made to himself earlier, when just to look at Mariah again made his blood burn in his veins and his erection throb.

      Mariah was now truly alarmed by Darian’s behaviour. Of what might possibly have happened to put the arrogantly assured Duke of Wolfingham in such an obvious state of uncertainty. ‘Yes?’ she prompted tensely.

      He straightened his shoulders, emerald gaze fixed intently upon her as he spoke abruptly. ‘I would ask if you will allow me to kiss you before we go downstairs?’

      Darian Hunter was a man Mariah had every reason to know was always and completely assured as to the rightness of his own actions.

      As he had believed he was in the right two weeks ago, when he had warned her not to encourage his younger brother in his attentions to her.

      As he had believed her friendship with Aubrey Maystone must be one based on intimacy.

      As he believed her to be a woman who had indulged in many affairs, both during and after her marriage.

      Wolfingham had believed he was in the right in all of those things.

      Admittedly, he had already been proven wrong in two of those things, but the latter? Darian still believed in that legion of lovers Mariah was reputed to have had these past seven years, no doubt believed them to have been her comfort for the coldness of her marriage.

      And yet he now asked if he might kiss her?

      To say Mariah was flustered by Darian’s request would be putting it mildly. Especially when she had every reason to know that the arrogantly self-assured Duke of Wolfingham never ‘asked’ permission to do anything, let alone asked permission to kiss her. The notorious and scandalous Mariah Beecham, Countess of Carlisle...

      She attempted a sophisticated and dismissive laugh, hoping Wolfingham did not recognise it, as she certainly did, as sounding more nervous than assured. ‘I thought we had agreed not to continue with that conversation until after we have returned to London.’ She gave a pointed glance to where her shawls and handkerchiefs were once again draped over those peepholes into her bedchamber, in order to preserve her privacy, both while she’d bathed and changed her clothes earlier.

      A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘I find that my desire to at least touch you again cannot wait that long.’

       His desire to touch her again!

      It was Wolfingham’s touch that had been her undoing from the beginning. Not just once, but so many times. On the terrace of her own home. In the guest bedchamber of her home, where he had necessarily to stay in order to recover after his collapse. In the gallery of Lady Stockton’s home. And here. Here at Eton Park she had allowed Darian to touch her more intimately than any other man had ever done before.

      Mariah now feared her response to his touch.

      Not because she thought Darian would ever physically hurt her—she was already sure he would never use force upon any woman. She had come to know him these past two weeks, knew he was not a man who showed his strength or power through physical dominance over others, but by the sheer force of his indomitable will.

      No, she did not fear Darian would physically hurt her, as Carlisle had hurt and humiliated her, to such an extent she had never cared to repeat the experience.

      Darian Hunter was capable of hurting her in a much different way.

      She was not only aroused by him, felt desire for him, she also liked and admired him. His strength. His honesty. His family loyalty. His devotion to his country. He was, as she had learnt these past weeks, in all things an honourable man.

      A man she might love.

      And Mariah did not wish to love any man, even one as handsome and honourable as she now knew Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, to be.

      The independence of nature she so enjoyed now had been hard won, after years of living only half a life, hidden away in the country, and for the most part ignored by the husband she hated and despised. For the past seven years, since revealing Martin’s treasonous behaviour to Aubrey Maystone, she had no longer had reason to fear Martin, or anything he might try to do to her. Aubrey Maystone had taken care of that.

      For the first time in her life Mariah had done exactly as she pleased, her worthwhile work for the Crown enabling her to become a woman she could not only respect, but also like.

      For her to fall in love, with any man, would, she believed, be to put all of that at risk.

      To fall in love with Darian Hunter, the much respected and admired Duke of Wolfingham, would most certainly lead to heartbreak on the day he cast her aside and left her for another

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