The Duchess (Montgomery/Taggert 16)

Her hands moved over his back. How could she ever have thought him thin or old? She ran her palms up to his arms, felt the muscles there, then back down to his ribs and waist. Her hands moved lower and she knew she shouldn’t, Lord help her but she knew she shouldn’t, she ran her hands over his buttocks.

The next moment she turned her head away from him. “Stop,” she whispered. “Please stop. I can bear no more.”

Immediately, Trevelyan moved away from her and for a moment they stood apart, not touching, but looking into each other’s eyes. Claire knew he was waiting for an invitation from her. She knew that all she had to do was hold her hand out to him and he’d come to her. And she knew that if she touched him again she wouldn’t be able to stop. Her heart was thundering in her ears and her breath was coming in jerks, but she had enough self-control to keep her hands at her sides.

After a long moment he turned and walked away. This time she didn’t call him back, but slowly, on weak legs, made her way up the stairs.

Inside her room Brat was sleeping in her bed. Claire reached out to wake the child, but then pulled her hand back. Her sister’s livelihood depended upon her, Claire.

Claire sat down on the stool by her dressing table and looked about the big room. This was a room in the house of a duke, the house of a man she was to marry, yet she had just been kissing someone else. Kissing him, wanting him.

And what would happen if she gave in to her baser lusts? She would lose Harry; her parents would never approve of a man like Trevelyan and so Claire would lose the money her grandfather had left her. Then what? Her parents would no doubt spend her nearly ten million dollars within a couple of years.

Claire put her face in her hands, feeling disloyal. Her parents had been good to her and she owed them a great deal. But she wasn’t a fool. If she married Harry, then the money would come to her and she’d be able to control it. She could invest it, watch it grow, and she could parcel it out to her parents, who had no idea how to control their own impulses. She could plan a dowry for her sister, see that Sarah Ann married a good, stable man, a man like Harry. A man who bought pictures and horses, Claire thought and began to cry. Now she was betraying the man she loved and all because she’d kissed a man and felt lust for him.

“What’s wrong?”

Claire jumped when Brat put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Nothing,” Claire said, drying her eyes. “I’m just tired, I guess. You’d better go to your own bed now.”

Sarah Ann didn’t move. “It’s Trevelyan, isn’t it?”

“No, of course not. Why should I cry over Trevelyan? I’m just tired. I would really rather be alone.” Claire went on dabbing at her eyes and didn’t look up until after Sarah Ann had left. She began to undress for bed.

Nyssa greeted Trevelyan at the door to the sitting room with open arms, but he pushed her away. He went to the bottle of whisky on a side table, poured himself a full glass, and drank it like water.

“What has happened?” Nyssa asked in English.

“N

othing has happened,” he snapped at her.

She watched him as he refilled his glass and drank again. “It is around you.”

“What is?”

“Desire.”

He gave her a cold look.

“I can feel it; I can almost see it. All around you is desire. But it is not for me.”

“Nonsense. You’ve listened to too many romantic stories.” He went to the table where once his notes on Claire had been. Now there was a chessboard set up. He moved a white piece, a black piece.

“This woman means a great deal to you.”

“You’re crazy. I told you that she’s to marry Harry.” He looked at her, his eyes hot. “I desire a great many women. Perhaps she’s one of them. She’s no more than that.”

“This desire you feel for this woman, how does it compare to what you’ve felt for other women?”

Trevelyan picked up the white queen. “Were all the women I have had and all the women I have wanted rolled into one, they would not equal my desire for her.”

Nyssa was silent for a while. “Then you must go to her.”

With that Trevelyan swept his forearm across the chessboard, knocking pieces to the floor. “And become her lover? Shall I love her, then stand back and watch while she marries Harry? Shall I remain here and wait until Harry leaves, then go to her?”

“Being the lover of a married woman has never bothered you before. I have heard you brag that you could climb in any window. I have heard you say that married women are your pleasure because they give to you their joy and to their husbands they give their misery.”

“I want her misery too,” he said softly.