‘Sorry?’ He stared at her. ‘What is there to arouse your pity, pray?’
‘It kept me awake last night, thinking about it,’ she confessed. ‘I was so angry with her, and so frightened at the damage I feared she could do you. But gradually I began to think about her all those years ago. She was very young and, I have no doubt, completely under the influence of her parents, as any well-bred girl would be. What they said was law. She fell for you and I am sure they encouraged it, for you were an exceptionally good match. And then someone—probably her mother—realised that your father’s roving eye had fallen on her. Not the heir, but the marquis himself. They didn’t care that he was old enough to be her father, or that she had a tendre for you. He was the better match and that is all there was to it.
‘They would have told her to encourage him, she would have found herself alone with him when she might have expected to be chaperoned.’ Dita shivered and looked up at him as he stared back at her, appalled. ‘He had a reputation, did he not? This was not some kindly, fatherly figure. This was a mature rake and she was an innocent little lamb.’
‘My God. She was unwilling?’
‘She did as she was told, as was expected of her,’ Dita said and he heard the anger quivering in her voice. ‘I wonder if the fact that you look like him made it better or worse. But I doubt she ever thought she had a choice; young girls in our world do not, you see. They are raised to make a good match at all costs. That is what the Marriage Mart is, a market, and they are the lambs brought for sale.’
‘All of them? What about you?’ he asked and her fierce expression softened.
‘I have exceptional parents.’ She chuckled, ‘And I am a disobedient and difficult daughter. Evaline is not like me,’ she added, a frown creasing her forehead. ‘She is the dutiful one, like Averil. I hope she will be all right; this is her first Season.’
‘I won’t be in London for another week at least, but I will keep an eye on her,’ Alistair promised. ‘And then you and I will talk and you will realise by then that marrying me is the right thing to do.’
Her face must have changed for the arrogant male certainty of his expression softened. ‘Dita? Are you all right?’
‘No. I am not,’ she said. ‘I am thinking about those young women like Imogen was. Like Evaline. All those hopes and expectations, all that duty and ignorance. A few months when they are the focus of attention, their virtue and their bloodlines and their dowries on display—and then a lifetime to live with the results of the bargains that are struck.’
‘It is the way it has been done for people of our class for hundreds of years.’
‘And it suits the men very well, does it not?’ she flashed back. ‘Listen to yourself: the complacent marquis. You will keep an eye on my sister and make sure she finds a suitable man, never mind her true feelings. You will satisfy your own pride and sense of honour by trying to force me to marry you. Not because you love me, or even because I am suitable, but because you took my virginity.’
Too angry now to sit at his feet, she scrambled up. ‘Nothing else matters, does it? Such a little thing to make such a fuss about—a thrust, some pain. But that makes the woman your possession and you will duel and kill for that. Was that what it was with Imogen? Your father had her virginity and you did not even stop to think about her feelings? Damn you and your honour.’
‘Honour and desire,’ Alistair said, and closed the distance between them in two strides. He took her wrist and bent his head even as she reached to lash out at him. ‘Let me show you.’
He had taught her well. She had him twisting to avoid her knee, grunting as her stiffened fingers found his stomach, cursing under his breath as her teeth found the back of his hand.
‘So you will force me now?’ she panted as he crushed her back against the tree.
‘But you want me. Tell me you don’t want me.’ Almost eye to eye the amber gaze held hers, demanded the truth, made her knees tremble.
‘Damn you.’ But she stopped struggling. I love you, you arrogant creature. Why can’t you love me? I want you.
‘Tell me to stop,’ he said. His body heated hers; the thrust of his erection felt as though it had the power to pierce their clothing. Her mind emptied of everything but need.
‘Let go of my arms,’ she managed to say and he did, his eyes darkening at what he must think was her refusal. Dita curled her arms around his neck and brought her mouth, open, to his. There was a moment of stillness, then his tongue thrust in to take possession.
She expected urgency, roughness, anger. Instead, he stilled again, then began to lavish languid strokes into her mouth. She had time to taste him and savour every texture, the slide of her tongue across his teeth, the muscular agility of his tongue, the soft, wet interior of his mouth, the firmness of his lips. This was kissing as luxurious as the most decadent dessert and she surrendered to it with soft whimpers of delight.
His hands cupped her breasts, his fingers seeking her nipples, frustrated by the tight weave of her tailored habit. She slid her hands between them, fumbling with the buttons until the top opened and he could push aside the short habit-shirt and free her breasts from the constraint of the light corset she wore for riding.
In contrast to his mouth his fingers were not gentle as they found the peaking nipples, trapped them, rolled them until they became aching pebbles and the sensation lanced down through her belly to where she throbbed for him.
Dita found the fall of his breeches, opened it, clumsy with her haste, and sobbed with relief against Alistair’s mouth as she closed her fingers round the hard silken shaft. He lifted his head as his hands left her breasts and took hold of her skirts, but the length and weight of the voluminous habit defeated him.
‘Down,’ he rasped, pulling her to the grass. ‘Like this.’ She found herself on hands and knees, her skirts up to her waist, her jacket hanging open as he bent over her. ‘Dita.’ He buried his face in the nape of her neck, biting softly as his hands cupped the weight of her breasts. ‘You are mine.’ She felt him nudge her legs apart and gasped. She wanted to look at him, to see his eyes, kiss his mouth, but the weight of him, the excitement of what he was doing was strange and arousing almost beyond measure.
He left her breasts, one hand braced on the ground as the other parted her. ‘Such sweet honey.’ She should be embarrassed that she was so wet for him, but she was beyond that now, pushing shamelessly against his probing hand. One finger slid into her, then another and she moaned as he caressed her deeply, withdrew, tormented the throbbing focus of her need, plunged in again. The exquisite feeling built and built to the point of pain and she gasped, wordless words that he seemed to understand.
Alistair shifted and she felt him against her, hard and implacable. ‘Yes, now!’ And he surged into the heat and the tightness. There was discomfort, momentary; it had been a long time and he was a big man, but her body opened for him, sheathed him as he entered, and she shuddered with delight as he began to move, driving them both with his passion until the spiralling tension took her, shook her, threw all conscious thought from her as she felt him groan above her and pull away.
Dita came back to herself to find she was leaning back against Alistair’s chest as he knelt, supporting her. ‘I should have got you with child,’ he said and his voice was not quite steady.
‘You—’ She did not know the words, could hardly speak.
‘I withdrew,’ he said, his arms tight when she would have twisted to look at him. ‘It makes no difference. You must marry me now.’