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But the worst of it, the absoluteworstthing to have happened was that Princess Amelia had managed to capture him. She’d taken her flimsy butterfly net and had swooped him up like a fat slug. He had believed himself to be untouchable, and moreover, that she was the very last person in the world who could touch him. And somehow, she’d done it—and he hadn’t even known it was happening. She’d forced his surrender with hardly a touch, had pulled him in with her smile and her beauty and the outrageous things that she said, and it wasunfair,unfair,unfairthat he’d turned into such a pitiful man.
She was lush—her lips, her body, all of her—irresistible in a way that no one had ever been. Never Diana. Not even Sarah. Her mouth was as succulent as he’d remembered from the night on Iddesleigh’s balcony. The kiss last night had been utterly molten—a volcano melting him from the inside out. His desire had erupted, spilling hot throughout his body, and before he knew what was happening, he’d pulled her into his chest and was kissing her while his thoughts raced through all the ways he wanted to kiss her, all the places of her body he wanted to taste.
And she’d arched into him because she knew that he wanted her, and she’d bent her knee, pressing against him there, too, feeling his raging hardness for her. He was bewitched, out of his mind, his abstinence having created a monster in him that had clawed its way free.
Thank God his corrupt conscience had somehow fought through the fog and stopped him from doing harm.Tremendousharm. What in the hell did he think he was doing, entangling himself with a foreign princess who was here for the sole purpose of finding a husband? He was not that man.He wasnot that man.
He was as far from that man as he could possibly be.
He’d killed one woman already.
He’d spent hours tossing and turning before his common sense had slowly returned to him and began to reconstruct the wall he’d painstakingly built over the last few years. A wall his lust had very nearly torched to the ground.
He was to meet with his solicitor, Mr. Darren, today in Iddesleigh. Tomorrow, he was going to pay a visit to that school to get to the bottom of how she had come to know what he’d written.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THEDRIVETOIddesleigh went exactly as Amelia expected—Lila full of questions, Beck amused by it all. Lila wanted a full accounting of what had happened yesterday. How had he come upon her? What did they do once they were safely at Hollyfield? What did they talk about? What did they eat? Where did she sleep?
Amelia answered all the questions with calm indifference. She said the entire experience was tolerable, when it had been the most astounding thing to ever happen to her. She said they didn’t do much but wait out the rain, when she’d let her guard down and talked about so many things to someone who was not family. She said she went to bed early as she was exhausted, but then had lain awake all night, thinking about him.
And as they rolled up to Iddesleigh House, she feigned exhaustion and asked that she be left alone for a few hours to rest.
She didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
The whole thing had left her feeling more restless than she’d ever felt in her life. She couldn’t think of anyone but him, didn’t want to meet anyone else but him. Every other gentleman on Lila’s list looked flat and lifeless in comparison. That man, that duke, was not despicable after all, but surprising and exciting and all the things everyone wanted her to feel for Mr. Swann. Things she couldn’t possibly ever feel for Mr. Swann but felt so easily for Joshua.
What was she to do? Joshua had made his intentions quite clear. He was not her suitor. He was leaving. He had loved his wife deeply and he’d kissed Amelia but he’d left her and it was quite obvious to her that was the end of it. He’d told her very plainly that he wanted to live alone. That children were not for him.
And Lila was talking about London again.
Amelia wanted to go home to Wesloria. Except that she didn’t. She wanted to go to London. But she couldn’t bear the thought of all that small talk and polite drawing room conversation. She wanted to bathe and change clothes and go to Hollyfield and ask him why.Why not her. Why was it so wrong.Could he really never love again, was it even a little possible?
She wanted desperately to talk, but she had no one to talk to. Justine was too far away. Blythe? Never—Blythe would flutter anxiously about and insist Mr. Swann was a perfect match. Lila would read too much into anything Amelia said, and then would want to help her solve her problems or point her to an available man.
Amelia didn’t want that sort of help.
What she wanted was to understand what made a man love a woman.
There was one person she could pose the question to: A Concerned Resident of Devonshire.
This afternoon, she was to go to the village with Lila and Blythe to pick up some gloves and shoes. Afterward, she would write her letter and leave it at the school.
THEPRINCESS’SFATIGUEwas not from walking several miles in a blinding rain, Lila had decided on the drive into Iddesleigh. There was something else on her mind, and if Lila was a betting woman—and she was—she would bet that it had to do with a dark and morose duke. Unfortunately, Lila couldn’t get to the bottom of it because Blythe had come along for the ride into the village today.
“I ordered the gloves ages ago,” Blythe was explaining as they drove into the village. “Donovan was to bring them out, but they weren’t ready when he went to pick them up.”
The princess stared out the window as Blythe talked on about her history with this particular pair of gloves. She didn’t seem to hear a word that was being said. Not that she missed much—Blythe seemed not to notice that no one in that coach was interested in hearing the very long tale.
In Iddesleigh, the princess perked up a bit in the dressmaker’s shop. There was hardly anything to the village of Iddesleigh, but there was a dressmaker who’d set up shop in the front of her thatched roof cottage. She had just received new silks and satins that caught the princess’s eye, and she and Lila went through them, holding up finished dresses in the mirror, then both selecting fabrics for new gowns.
When Blythe determined she would like a new sun hat, Lila and the princess stepped out to the street for a bit of air while Blythe perused the various hats for sale. Lila was trying her best to make conversation, but the princess seemed miles from where they were. Until the moment she suddenly straightened, her gaze locked on something up the street.
Lila followed her gaze. The Duke of Marley had just come out of Mr. Darren’s offices. He was walking purposefully toward a horse, but he happened to look up and his gaze fell on the princess. He faltered, midstride. He tipped his hat to the two of them then carried on to his horse. In a few moments, he’d mounted and was riding away.
Next to Lila, the princess physically deflated, sinking back against a wall.
“What is the matter?” Lila asked, even though she suspected she knew full well what was the matter.
