Well, if she
was going to die a spinster, she was at least going to experience the joys of passion while she was still young. She wanted to experience those joys with the duke, because she dashed well did not want anyone else.
And there was the rub.
Would the duke kiss her again? Did he want to? He had pulled away, because her kiss had been inadequate.
It was a demeaning and lowering thought.
When would she see him again? Did she want to? Oh yes, annoying and domineering he might be, but she wanted to be with him again. She rolled over and closed her eyes.
Quietly, and with a presence that sent heat rushing through her blood and coursed anticipation in her wildly pumping heart, he appeared and stood before her. His shirt was open displaying his broad muscular chest and his eyes spoke volumes.
The world around them did not exist. They were alone...
He reached for her and took her ardently into his embrace. He touched her lips with his own, parting them so that his tongue could enter and literally make her toes curl.
She held on to him and felt a wave of intense need shoot through her body. Her tongue melded with his and sparks of desire burned through her blood. She had been waiting for this.
His hand moved to her breast, sliding in beneath her shirt as his fingers found her hard nipples and…
She awoke with a start. Faith! She had been dreaming. Only dreaming.
It was over too soon.
Why did she have to wake up?
And what was wrong with her? She was supposed to be a ‘good’ girl and wait for marriage, but what if she never got married? This returning question seemed to stand out and haunt her. Why should she wait? A man wasn’t expected to wait…why should a woman?
She wasn’t alone in asking this question. Closeted with her friends, it was all they had talked about in school days past, after reading articles by the Godwin women about women’s rights.
She was being absurd. As though the duke would ever even notice her again. And if he didn’t, what then?
She simply had to stop thinking about him. And still she heard his voice whisper in her ear…
* * *
Just as Mandy lay awake determined not to think about the duke, he was sitting up in his room, going over the strange tense conversation he had experienced with Skip during dinner and trying to force her image out of his mind.
Skippy was never given to moods and bleak utterances and yet, the evening had showed him a side of his friend he had never witnessed ever before.
Skip always had something to say and jest about in his habitual urbane manner, but the viscount clearly was reticent during their evening together, almost to the point of rudeness.
They had been too close, too long for the duke not to wonder about this and say, “Skip, I have no wish to intrude on your privacy, but perhaps I may be able to help with whatever is troubling you?”
“Help? Who said anything about needing help?” retorted the viscount shocked out of his meandering.
The duke had been sure that his friend was blushing. “You didn’t have to say anything about it. ‘Tis obvious to me,” retorted the duke surprised even further by his friend’s attitude.
“Well, nothing is troubling me. What’s more, going to bed,” the viscount said suddenly getting up and putting down his unfinished glass of port.
“No, really old boy. Doing it too brown ain’t you?” the duke was actually stunned by this. “Going to bed at eight? What sort of gudgeon do you take me for?”
The viscount leveled a look at his friend and said, “Devil is in it that…never mind…got this headache, Brock. Don’t feel quite the thing. Rest…that’s the ticket, ole boy. Sorry to be such a poor host…but can’t be helped.”
“Right, well then, off with you,” the duke returned. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He had not believed a word Skip had uttered, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do about it at that moment.
Thus, he had gone up to his own room earlier than he was wont to do in London and wondered how the devil he was going to get any sleep. What sort of hell had he plunged himself into in Yorkshire? Every sense, every nerve knew something was toward with the viscount, but if Skip wouldn’t speak of it, there was nothing he could do.