“Matthew…”
Why did he have to find her like this? Unprepared. Vulnerable. Yearning.
Taloned dragons carved into each door reared up like heraldic bearers to frame him. But Matthew was the one who looked ready to breathe fire. His face was hard and expressionless and his eyes were dark as burned toffee. A line of color marked his cheekbones and his body vibrated tension.
He didn’t return her smile. Foreboding shivered through her. What on earth was wrong? He looked angry. Aggressive. And utterly in command.
“Matthew?” she said even more tentatively. Her smile faltered and faded. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t act like a man on the verge of a marriage proposal. Of course he didn’t. She was a fool to imagine he still wanted her. He’d had a year to discover that Grace Paget’s charms were tawdry currency.
Had he come to tell her he’d formed another attachment? If so, she owed him a calm reception and a generous farewell. Even while her heart shattered into a thousand jagged shards.
She’d braced herself for this, known it must come. But nothing primed her for the chill that crept through her blood as though she died from the inside out.
She’d avidly followed his progress in the newspapers and from letters her mother received from the London friends with whom she’d recently resumed correspondence. Ever since Matthew’s triumphant return to society, rumors had flown of his engagement to any number of well-bred beauties.
He must have finally made his choice. What other reason could bring him here in such obvious disquiet?
Oh, lucky, lucky girl. Grace couldn’t stifle a surge of bitter envy as she thought of the unknown woman Matthew decided to make his marchioness.
She raised her chin and met his eyes squarely. Dear God, let him say it fast and put her out of her misery.
For a taut instant, they stared at each other like combatants.
“Grace.”
He drew out the word so it became a long, deep, guttural growl. A sound as primitive as a lion’s roar for its mate. Her skin prickled with animal awareness and the breath caught in her throat. Every drop of moisture evaporated from her mouth. Low in her belly, blood began to beat slow and hard with anticipation.
Her face must have betrayed her unfurling arousal. Or perhaps, like her, he reacted to the sudden charge in the air, as electric as the pause before a lightning strike.
Still without shifting his fierce focus, he set down the box he carried. Then he reached to close the doors and slide the bolt across.
Any doubt as to his purpose fled. A delicious thrill rippled through her. The summerhouse was raised on a platform so the windows opened above eye height. With the doors locked, it was a bower designed for private sin.
Sin was clearly his aim.
Now she looked more closely, she realized it wasn’t anger that tightened the skin over the bones of his face. It was incendiary hunger.
She should protest. Question. Demand he tell her why he was here. But overwhelming need kept her silent and pinned to the window seat.
Her pulse pitched into a drunken race as she watched him lift his hands to untie his neckcloth. Carelessly, he discarded the length of linen. The soft drift of the white strip to the parquetry floor made her shift restively on the silk cushions. She was already ripe for him. Her sensual dream had left her moist and ready. A year’s frustrated desire crawled through her veins.
The angles of his face sharpened. His glance flickered to where her thighs clenched together under her pale blue muslin skirts, twisted revealingly tight after her disturbed sleep. Molten gold flared between his luxuriant black eyelashes.
Oh, yes, she knew that look. She knew what that look promised.
Delight. Surrender. Love?
With a smooth movement that stirred her volatile senses, he shrugged out of his beautiful dark blue coat and flung it down near his crumpled neckcloth. All the time, his eyes seared her with such heat, she felt greedy flames licking at her skin. She shivered with another surge of wicked excitement.
He now wore only a cream brocade waistcoat, a fine white shirt, and buff breeches tucked into high black boots. Now he’d discarded his coat, she could see he’d filled out during the year. For the first time he didn’t seem too thin for his height, although he’d always be a lean streak of a man.
Her eyes traveled over his broad shoulders, across his powerful chest and down to his narrow hips. Her already heated cheeks burned as her attention finally settled on the bulge in his breeches.
No question he wanted her.
Her head jerked up as he muffled a groan. Her wanton focus on where his sex swelled and hardened had broken some barrier in him. Swifter than a hunting lion, he crossed the polished floor, casting off his waistcoat on the way.