Page 36 of The Duke’s Suspicion

All her life, people had been urging her to be less selfish. Concentrate. Don’t lose track of time. Keep things orderly. Be more ladylike. She had told herself the criticisms were kindly meant. Don’t you want to marry someday? Mama had been fond of asking.

And the honest, though unspoken, answer had always been yes. She wanted companionship, for the world could be a lonely place. And yes, she wanted love. But a conventional marriage…?

What sort of husband do you imagine will be willing to put up with a poorly run household, forgotten meals, overlooked invitations? Not to mention pots of botanical specimens tucked into every corner…

Well, Henry had been willing. “He wanted to marry me,” she insisted, twenty years of defensiveness coalescing into a bitter kernel of anger she could no longer keep buried. “He cared for me.” Her voice dropped once more to a whisper, and despite the protection of the shadows, she could not meet his eyes. “But he was in love with my brother.”

Tristan’s response was an eternity in coming. “And did your brother…return his affection?”

“My brother is capable of loving no one but himself. I doubt he even knew.”

Somewhere in the depths of the conservatory, water dripped, whether the remnants of raindrops in the eaves or condensation falling from the leaf of a plant, she wasn’t sure. That inner voice, the one that was rarely quiet and rarely allowed her to be, urged her to seek the source of the sound. Anything but sit here and wait, and wait…

She had not realized his hand lay beside hers on the bench until his little finger brushed against hers. The very slightest of touches, though it sent a spark up her arm that lifted the fine hairs there. A mistaken movement in the darkness, almost surely. She twitched her finger to alert him to his error. But he did not pull away.

“You would have sacrificed yourself.” His murmured voice was at once mournful and incredulous. “To a marriage in name only. For such a small freedom…”

“It is not a small freedom to me, Your Grace. Nor was it, I suspect, to him. After all, people are expected to marry, to behave respectably in the eyes of society, whatever their personal inclinations to the contrary. Even if they cannot have the one they love.”

Another pause. “What about…?”

It was not difficult to guess the direction of his thoughts. “Children?” She shook her head as matter-of-factly as she could.

The truth was, she quite liked children. They tended to appreciate in her precisely the things with which adults found fault: her willingness to go for a ramble on the spur of the moment, to get prodigiously dirty in the process, to stop for an hour to observe the wonder in the petals of a flower that others dismissed as a weed. But since motherhood, as far as she had ever seen, consisted largely of teaching children not to do those things, or scolding them for having done so, she had always known she would not make a very good mother. And so she had refused to allow herself to think of it as a loss.

“With five brothers and sisters, I am sure to have nieces and nephews on which to dote,” she added, as much to reassure herself as him.

His finger moved, then, but not away. A slow, careful stroke, up and down the edge of her hand, forcing her to quell yet another shudder of longing. “I confess I had a different sacrifice in mind. Erica?”

When she turned toward the sound of her name, his other hand rose to cup the side of her face, his touch so soft, so gentle, so unlike the man she believed him to be. But, oh, the kiss! This second kiss was all him, firm and demanding, his mouth slanting across hers, compelling an eager moan from her, then swallowing it, only to give it back in the form of a groan of pure need that vibrated against her mouth and made her insides turn to honey.

Was it surrender to part her lips beneath his, to welcome with surprised delight the slick invasion of his tongue? No. This was not conquest, but liberation. Thus freed, she kissed him back. Pressing her lips against his until his own mouth softened, she then dared to touch her tongue to his. On the bench between them, their fingers tangled and curled together too, another link in a chain of desire.

Every inch of her skin craved the feel of his lips, his hands, and the pleasure they promised. But she told herself to be satisfied with his mouth on hers, the way he devoured her every inhibition. With the brush of his thumb along her cheekbone, silk against velvet. With the gentle pressure of his fingertips against her skull and the discovery that even the delicate skin behind her ear could be awakened by his touch.

Anything else, anything more, would be dangerous in the extreme.

And he seemed to know it too, for at last he dragged his mouth away on a sigh, though his fingers tightened on her scalp and neck, holding her prisoner to his heavy-lidded gaze. He was a little breathless, she noted with pride, so she spoke for him. For them both.

“You should go back to your guests, Your Grace. They will understand that you felt yourself obligated to take pity on me and guess my charade when no one else would. They will know that this was only a silly, meaningless forfeit.”

“Erica.” Half scold, half protest. It was wrong, was it not, to take such delight in the sound of her name on his lips? But she would be a fool to imagine that his kiss meant anything at all.

“I do not blame the other gentlemen, of course,” she continued. “Miss Pilkington chose a game best played among intimate friends, and I am a stranger whose motives are unknown…”

At those words, at the mention of Caroline, his softened features transformed almost before her eyes into their customary granite. His hand fell away from her face, and he rose, lifting their still-linked fingers off the bench.

Carefully, she slipped her hand free and curled it in her lap to hide its tremor. “We must all make sacrifices, you see.”

With a stiff bow, hardly more than a nod, he turned and left the conservatory.

To the moonlit plants she whispered, “Then pleasure and joy are both fled.”

Chapter 12

Tristan returned to the drawing room because he knew Erica was right. To do otherwise would invite uncomfortable speculation about what had transpired between them over the last quarter hour.

And exactly what had transpired?