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“I followed you to that pleasure house because I wanted to disrupt your plans. I could not bear the idea of you taking a lover…kissing any other person and making love to them…because I like you very much. You are the person that is in my heart. No one else.”
The latch of the door dug into her palm, and her heart beat so fast she feared fainting. Bracing for his reaction, several moments passed where all he did was lift the decanter to his lips and take more deep swallows. Pain pinched her heart. Did her confessed feelings mean so little or had she shocked him? Calming the wild racing of her heart, she said, “Percy…will you not face me?”
He stirred, facing her, and she gasped. Frederica had never seen him looking so disheveled and like a libertine who had returned home after a night of debauchery about town. His boots had been carelessly tossed into a corner, and he stood in stockings. His jacket was removed, and cravat was undone, revealing the corded muscles of his throat. His dark hair was also a mess, an indication he had raked his fingers through it several times, and his skin was pulled taut over the elegant ridge of his cheekbones. But it was the glitter in his eyes that prevented her from entering the library fully. Frederica suspected should she cross the threshold, she would find herself most thoroughly debauched on the carpet or against the door with little care to her sensibilities. While the idea sent a tingle of excitement down her spine, she also felt afraid of his mood and intensity.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, stepping forward.
He wobbled, and with a cry, she lurched forward, rushing over to him. “My lord, you are foxed!”
“Is that what I am?” he demanded caustically in a voice that slurred.
“Please, let me assist you to your room.”
“I am capable, Miss Williams, of retiring to my chamber by my own will,” he said in a very lordly and cutting tone.
She stared at him, dumbfounded. Miss Williams? “Are you able to make the distance without tripping and hurting yourself,” she whispered.
“I am a man well able to hold his liquor,” he tossed back with disdain. “Who do you think I am?”
Yet he leaned heavily on her when she went around to his side and slipped her hand underneath his arm. The marquess allowed her to assist him up the stairs and to his chamber without speaking. It took several minutes for they moved slowly, and she sensed that it was important to him to be in command of himself as much as possible. Though Frederica thought her help might not have been needed, for she hardly felt his weight. At his chamber, he fumbled with the latch, and she reached out and opened the door. His valet jumped to his feet, trying to appear as if he had not been sleeping.
Shelton took over from her, and she dropped into a curtsy to the marquess who hardly seemed to notice and hurried from the room. In the hall, she leaned against the wall and took several calming breaths.
Had he taken a lover tonight? Was she being too impatient in wanting the truth from his lips now? Guilty, she thought a man in his cups might speak more freely than one in possession of his faculties.
Good heavens, what am I truly thinking?
She knew she must take action. There was simply too much at stake—her heart and her pride. If he had kissed her and then gone on to bedding another woman, Frederica would have never forgave him. Many at 48 Berkeley Square often joked about reformed rakes making the best husbands. Still, if the marquess revealed he had taken another this evening, then his actions would show he had no intention of reforming and that their kiss…even though earth-shattering and wonderful was an everyday occurrence for him. If his words revealed that, it would be best for Frederica to shore up her heart and try to excise him from its confines.
If her heart was broken, then she had no one but herself to blame for knowingly wanting a man with such a reputation and who by his own lips expressed a decided lack of interest in matrimony.
The marquess’s door opened, the valet exiting and making his way to the servants’ stairs. Taking another steady breath, Frederica padded to his door and entered the marquess’s room.
“My lord!” she cried, gasping at the coldness of the room.
The dratted man stood by the open windows in a silk banyan with yet another drink in his hand. Rain fell, and the wind blew the droplets inside and onto his body. He turned at her voice and blinked.
“How powerful I’ve gotten,” he murmured. “I think of you, and here you are…conjured.” He frowned. “There are limits to my powers it seems as you are not naked.”
A soft gasp slipped from her, and she stared at him in wonder. “Will you please close the window? Rain has started to fall, and the windy is rather gusty. You are likely to catch your death from the chill.”
Another sip from his glass.
“Worried about me, are you,” he drawled.
“Yes, I am.”
“Because you like me?”
Oh! He had heard her and merely chose to ignore her confession. The sting in her heart increased. Wanting this confrontation over so she might lick her wounds in private, she narrowed her eyes and demanded, “Did you…did you take a lover this evening at Aphrodite?”
His lips curled into a sneer. “As if you do not know that only you have been in my damn thoughts. It is only you I dream of, and because of my impossible hunger, I have not bedded another woman in over a year! You have been a sore distraction.”
All the uncertainty and mortification dissolved under a tide of warm happiness. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it. “Then why have you not made me your wife?”
The marquess scoffed and waved his hand in dismissal. “You are a child. I am a man of the world. We will not suit.”
“I am not a child,” she snapped. “But a woman of twenty years.”
