The Deception (Baron 3)

She couldn’t explain why she did it, she just did. She eased down onto her knees beside his chair and looked up into his dark-shadowed face. “My nightclothes are more modest than a nun’s. Don’t try to embarrass me, although you do it very well. I’m sorry that you’re unhappy. I’m just worried about you.”

“I don’t want or need another mother.” His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t just that she was wearing her nightclothes. Her hair was loose down her back, some of it falling over her shoulders.

He reached out and began to wrap hair around and around his hand. “I don’t think it was very wise of you to come in here with me, Evangeline. You’re not ignorant. You’ve been married. You know what men want with women.” “You took my candle.”

He kept wrapping her hair around his hand, slowly, ever so slowly. “I’ll let you keep to that little lie, at least for the time being. So the pleasure of my company had nothing to do with it?”

She’d never known a man like him could exist. She was completely aware of his hand wrapping around her hair, pulling her close now, and then he leaned toward her. His fingertips traced the line of her jaw. He tugged the mass of hair wrapped about his fingers to bring her face even closer.

Evangeline fell utterly still, as if she’d been set here with this man, his hand in her hair, his fingertips lightly caressing her. She wouldn’t have moved if the house was on fire. She just closed her eyes, waiting to see what he would do.

“Did I tell you that your hair is exquisite?” She opened her eyes to see him gently rubbing a thick tress against his cheek. A fleeting look of anger or pain—she couldn’t be certain which—darkened his eyes.

“Your grace?” She closed her fingers over his large hand. “I’m not your mother. I have no wish to be your mother. I just want you to be happy. Is it the lady who wed another man? This Phillip Mercerault?” He pulled slowly away. She wished in that moment that she’d kept her mouth shut. She wanted him close, wanted him to touch her. She couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Then she felt cold filling her. She was betraying him.

She watched him look into the fireplace. He was still holding her with his hand wrapped around her hair, but more loosely now. “Sabrina?” he said. “No, she didn’t break me, Evangeline. There are other things at work here that make me crazed with helplessness.” He sighed. “You’re a romantic, like most ladies. No, I didn’t love her. No, she didn’t break my heart, whatever that means. I sometimes believe that such an emotion is quite beyond my ken. But I wanted her. I wanted to take her to bed, and that, Evangeline, is what most men want of women, nothing more, nothing less. Marriage is forced upon us so that we have an heir that springs from our loins and not from another man’s.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying that. Why would a woman do such a thing? There is love, at least I’ve heard that there is. I’ve read about it. So much has been written, so believably. Just because I’ve never felt it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”

She realized in that instant what she’d said. She grew utterly still, her eyes locked on his face.

“Ah, we’re back to the esteemed André, that superior man who was your husband. You didn’t love him. What was it, a marriage of convenience? At least you have to know that I’m speaking the truth—a man weds a woman so that he can bed her whenever and wherever he likes.”

“Andre wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a marriage of convenience.”

“You didn’t love him.”

“Of course I did. I was speaking philosophically.” “I believe,” he said, and there was something intent in his dark eyes, something that held her and frightened her and excited her all at the same time, “that you lie more fluently that you doubtless speak French. I will have to show you, remind you how things really are between a man and a woman.”

He lowered his head, and she felt his warm breath at her temple. She felt his hand stroke her throat, and when his lips lightly touched hers, she felt something she’d never felt before. It was hot and deep in her belly and spreading throughout her body and she didn’t want it to stop, ever. His mouth was open, his tongue against her lips, pressing lightly. She parted her lips to feel his tongue. Without realizing it, she arched toward him, clasped her hands about his shoulders, drawing him closer to her. He released her mouth and rained gentle, caressing kisses upon her eyes, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. He drew back a moment, and his eyes were on her breasts. He watched his fingers move downward. Then he watched them begin to mold her breasts through her cotton nightgown and wool dressing gown. It wasn’t enough, and it was more than she could begin to imagine. “Oh,” she said, and leaned into his hands. “So many clothes,” he said. She didn’t move, scarcely breathed when he pulled her dressing gown open. She watched him as he unfastened the ribbons of her nightgown. She knew this wasn’t right. She didn’t know this man. He was going to see her breasts. She should stop him, but she wasn’t about to. All she wanted was his hands on her bare skin.

She shuddered when his hands slipped into her opened nightgown and lifted her breasts. She breathed in sharply through her nose. Her back arched. What she was feeling, she couldn’t have imagined such a thing. It was too much, and, at the same time, not nearly enough.

“Yes,” he said, “give me more of yourself. I knew you’d be beautiful. You’re very white, Evangeline, and your breasts fill my hands. You like me touching you, don’t you? You like my hands moving over your flesh.”

He leaned down and began kissing her again even as his hands played over her, stroked her.

She was betraying him. She felt awash with bitter knowledge. She pulled back slowly. His hands stilled on her breasts. She felt heavy and, oddly, very hungry. She looked at his mouth, at his dark eyes. “I’m sorry, your grace. I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m the one to be sorry,” he said on a sigh, but still he didn’t release her breasts. “You’re so beautiful. I hadn’t ever thought this could be so difficult.” Again, he was looking down at h

is hands holding her breasts, feeling them, stroking them. “I must release you, I must.” Slowly his forehead furrowing in near pain, he eased his hands away from her. He put his hands in his lap, folding them. He leaned his head back against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t dishonor you. You’re under my protection. You’re safe from everyone. In particular, you’re safe from me. You have to be. Please, close your clothing, Evangeline. Please. I can’t touch you again. It was hard enough for me to stop this time.”

She stared up at him, mute, not moving. He wasn’t looking at her, but she felt him, felt him throughout all of her.

He opened his eyes again and looked down at her. “You’re a very responsive woman, Evangeline. The sainted André was a very lucky man to have you.”

“No,” she said, without thinking. “Really, this is the first time—oh, no. I’m sorry.”

She still made no move to cover herself. The duke stared down at her bowed head. She was passionate. What if she hadn’t stopped him? He would have stopped himself, then. He wasn’t an animal. Her words struck the wrong chord in his mind. He shook his head. He was drunk. Everything was strange, off key when he was drunk, which he was too often these days. He had to bring it all to a halt. It was time to return to his life the way it had been, before Sabrina, before Robbie’s violent murder.

He would prove to himself that he was again in full control. “Close your nightgown.”

Still she didn’t move. It seemed that she couldn’t move. He laced her nightgown together over her breasts. He pulled her wool dressing down closed. Then he sat back, his chin resting on his fist. His flesh tingled from touching her.

“Was your husband a selfish man who didn’t care for your pleasure?”

Why had he thought that? She shook her head, trying to drag her wits back into her brain. “I don’t know what you mean.”