For a few seconds, he observed her futile wriggling. “Come here.”
“Thank you.” She stepped around the couch and presented her back.
He stood. “Lift your hair.”
With a grace that jammed the breath in his throat, she raised the glorious tumble of silver. He stared transfixed at the elegant line of her neck and shoulders. Sweet heaven, she was lovely everywhere. He kissed her nape. She shivered and released a little exhalation of pleasure.
He smiled as he made short work of the dress’s fastenings. The primitive who came to the fore with Eleanor wanted her half naked. Hell, completely naked. But they were in another man’s house and while they’d been left alone, that happy state mightn’t continue.
She returned to the argument. “The duke and his friends were kind.”
He sat. “So?”
“So I’m a fleeting visitor. I’m not a permanent fixture.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure.”
She turned in a swirl of dark blue silk. “You’re talking nonsense. I can’t marry you.”
He surveyed her, hands clasped loosely between his spread thighs. “Does that mean you don’t want to?”
“I don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret,” she snapped.
That didn’t answer his question. Interesting. “Why should I regret it?” he asked, still in that even tone.
“Because I’m a peasant and you’re a great lord,” she almost snarled, stepping away as if distance could silence him.
He smiled. “You’re a natural aristocrat, Eleanor. My mother recognized it. That’s why she made you her companion.”
Eleanor didn’t look pleased. Given rotten apples like his uncle, she mightn’t aspire to join the aristocracy. “Your mother would be appalled to think you contemplated marriage with a poor sergeant major’s daughter. She’s plotting a brilliant political alliance with a powerful family.”
Leath fell back on an uncontroversial answer. “She likes you.”
“As a servant, not as a daughter-in-law.” Her eyes narrowed. “What about your career? If you marry me, your dreams of influence are finished. You’ve hated the recent scandals that exiled you to Yorkshire. Imagine the scandal if you marry the girl who scrubs your floors.”
He glimpsed searing regret beneath her anger. He surged to his feet. “The girl who advised my mother on her reading, who’s the best secretary I’ve ever had, who’s at home in a ducal residence, who’s charmed everyone on my estate. The girl I want in my bed.”
“I will be in your bed. For as long as you want me.”
He made a slashing gesture. “You deserve more.” His voice deepened into urgency. “You’re not made to be my light of love. You’re made to be my partner, mother of my children, mistress of my house.”
She took another uncertain step back and he caught her arm to save her getting too close to the fire. She was trembling. He hadn’t realized that. She sounded so calm.
He expected her to pull away, but she remained unmoving. “I can’t have all that and have you.”
His heart slammed to a stop, then began to race. The declaration blared through him like a fanfare. Staring into her wide golden eyes, he wondered if this admission meant that she loved him. “You can have me if we marry.”
“Not without destroying everything you want,” she said in a dull tone, breaking free.
“I’ve learned over the last weeks that I can live quite happily away from the corridors of power,” he said mildly.
“In the short term. In the long term, you’ll repent sacrificing your hopes because you feel guilty about seducing a virtuous woman.” Her caustic laugh startled him. “What a fool I was to think you a rake. I couldn’t be further from the truth.”
He glared at her. “You make that sound like an insult.”
Her sigh was weary. “I want you to see reality, my lord.”
She used the formal address deliberately, to emphasize the gulf between them. Resentment roughened his tone. “And what of the reality of my child growing in your womb? Do you see yourself bringing up a clutch of bastards? Where will your pride be then?”