The less she, and Christina, had to do with Darian Hunter, the dangerous Duke of Wolfingham, the better Mariah would like it. Her lifestyle was such, most especially her work for the Crown, that she did not wish to have such an astutely disturbing gentleman as Wolfingham taking an interest in it, or her.
‘I believe the music and dancing have now stopped for supper, your Grace.’ Mariah had noted the influx of people into the room and strolling towards the supper tables. ‘It appears to be raining outside, so perhaps you might care to accompany me for a stroll in the West Gallery?’ At which time she intended to warn him to stay away from her daughter!
Darian was not particularly proud of himself for having used Lady Christina Beecham as a means of securing Mariah’s company, but neither was he about to apologise for it. Not when it had succeeded in accomplishing his aim, which was to talk with Mariah again. In private.
Although he wasn’t sure that being alone with Mariah was an entirely good idea, given his painful state of arousal.
*
‘You will stay away from my daughter!’ Mariah barely waited until the two of them had entered the long and deserted picture gallery, lit by a dozen candles or more, before removing her hand from Wolfingham’s arm and glaring up at him, her cheeks hot with temper in the candlelight.
‘Will I?’ he came back with infuriating calm, dark brows raised in equally as mild query.
‘Yes—when it is not a serious interest, but merely a means of punishing me.’
‘That is not very flattering to Lady Christina.’
‘But true.’
‘Is it?’ he returned mildly.
‘What do you want from me, Wolfingham?’ Mariah looked up at him in exasperation. ‘A public declaration of my uninterest in your brother? Would that appease you? Reassure you?’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘It would most certainly not appease or reassure Anthony.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Nor would it do anything for my own future relationship with him, if you were to tell him that I had been instrumental in bringing about the sudden end to your friendship.’
Mariah drew in a deep breath through her nose. ‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before you chose to so arrogantly interfere in his life a week ago?’
‘What is your relationship with Maystone?’
Mariah was momentarily disconcerted by this sudden change of topic. As she was meant to be?
She and Aubrey Maystone preferred to keep the true nature of their relationship private and as such it was rare for them to pass any time together in public. Indeed, they would not have done so this evening if Aubrey had not expressed a wish to speak with her urgently. A conversation that had been cut short by the arrival of Darian Hunter.
But the manner of the public acquaintance between Mariah and Lord Maystone was such that Wolfingham could not possibly have guessed that there was a deeper, more private, connection between the two of them. Could he?
Mariah was quickly learning that it would not be wise on her part, or anyone else’s, to underestimate the intelligence or astuteness of Darian Hunter.
‘My acquaintance with Lord Maystone is a long-standing one,’ she answered frostily. ‘Come about because he was once a friend of my late husband.’
‘And is that all he is to you?’
‘What are you accusing me of now, Wolfingham?’ Her tone was impatiently exasperated, deliberately so. ‘Do you imagine that I am currently enjoying a relationship with Lord Maystone, as well as your brother? Would that not make my bed very overcrowded?’ she added scathingly. ‘And what business would it be of yours, even if that were the case? I am a widow and they are both unattached gentlemen, so there is no prior claim to hinder the existence of either relationship.’ She gave a dismissive shrug.
A nerve pulsed in the duke’s tightly clenched jaw. ‘Except a moral one.’
‘You are a fine one to preach to me of morals, Wolfingham, when you are currently sporting the bullet wound you received whilst fighting a duel over some woman!’ Her eyes flashed in the candlelight.
Darian glowered his frustration down at her, wanting to deny the accusation, but knowing that to do so would then bring the real cause of that wound back into question. A question he would not, could not, answer.
Having no answer, he decided to act instead.
Although that was possibly an exaggeration on his part, when his arms seemed to have moved of their own volition as they encircled Mariah’s waist and he pulled her in close against the hardness of his body.
Her exotic perfume immediately filled all of his senses as his head swooped down to capture her lips with his own. Soft and delectable lips that had parted with surprise, so allowing for further intimacy as Darian’s tongue swept lightly across her lips before plunging into the heated warmth beneath.
She felt so slender in his arms, the fullness of her breasts crushed against his chest, her lips and mouth tasting of honey. A silky-soft sweetness and heat that drew Darian in even closer, as he attempted to claim, to possess, that heat as his own. To claim, to possess, Mariah as his own.
Mariah had been totally unprepared for Wolfingham taking her into his arms, let alone having him kiss her. So unprepared, that for several stunned seconds she found herself responding to that kiss as her hands moved up to cling to the lapels of the duke’s evening coat, her body crushed, aligned with Wolfingham’s, as his mouth continued to plunder and claim her own. Making her fully aware not only of the hardness of his chest, but also the long length of his arousal pressing against the warmth of her abdomen.