Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire (Dangerous Dukes 3)

Mariah looked ethereally beautiful this morning, in a fashionable gown of the palest lemon, her blonde curls a golden halo about the pale delicacy of her face and throat.

A pallor that implied that perhaps Mariah’s claim, of being indisposed yesterday, had indeed been genuine?

‘Are you feeling any better today?’ Darian prompted gruffly as he crossed the room to where she now stood, taking the gloved hand she raised to him in formal greeting.

‘Such politeness, Wolfingham. Indeed, I should hardly recognise you,’ Mariah taunted drily as she deftly removed her hand from his before resuming her seat, the gold brocade sofa a perfect foil for her golden loveliness. Deliberately so?

His mouth thinned. ‘Could we perhaps at least attempt a modicum of politeness between the two of us, rather than begin to argue immediately after we see each other again?’

‘I do no

t believe it is a question of us arguing, Wolfingham. We simply do not like each other!’

He drew in a sharp breath, knowing that for his part that claim was untrue, that he liked—indeed, he desired—Mariah Beecham far more than was comfortable.

Mariah studied Wolfingham from beneath lowered lashes as he made no reply to her taunt.

It had been her dearest wish never to find herself alone with this gentleman again. She had only agreed to this morning’s meeting because she knew he was not a man she could continue to avoid indefinitely, if he had decided it should be otherwise. Her claim of being indisposed yesterday, as a way of avoiding Wolfingham when he called, had not been all fabrication; Mariah had stayed in her bed late yesterday morning, her head aching after suffering a restless and sleepless night.

Because she had not been able to stop thinking of Darian Hunter. Or his having kissed her.

Or remembering that she had responded.

A response that was so unprecedented, and had troubled Mariah so deeply, that she had found it impossible to sleep these past two nights for thinking of it.

A response she had since assured herself would not happen again.

Could not happen again!

So it was entirely frustrating for her to acknowledge her awareness of how arrogantly handsome Wolfingham looked this morning, dressed in a dark green superfine and buff-and-green-striped waistcoat, his linen snowy white, buff-coloured pantaloons moulded to the muscular length of his long thighs above his brown-topped black Hessians. His hair was in its usual fashionable disarray about his sharply etched features.

As she also noted the pallor to those sharply etched features and the dark shadows beneath his deep green eyes. As evidence, perhaps, that Wolfingham had not rested any better than she had herself these past two nights?

Although she doubted it was for the same reasons.

Against all the odds—her dislike of Wolfingham and the years of her unhappy marriage to Martin—for the first time in her life Mariah had found herself actually enjoying being held in a man’s arms two nights ago.

Even more surprising was the realisation of how she had responded to that depth of passion Wolfingham had ignited in her.

Her marriage to Martin had been completely without love and affection from the onset, on either side, and equally as without passion. Indeed, for the first ten years of their marriage, the two of them had spent very little time even living in the same house, Mariah languishing in the country with their daughter, while Martin preferred to spend most of the year living in London. At best they had been polite strangers to each other on the rare occasions they did meet, for the sake of their daughter, and more often than not they had ignored each other completely.

That had changed slightly seven years ago, when Mariah began to spend the Season in London, Martin necessarily having to accompany her to at least some of those social engagements. But even so, those occasions had only been for appearances’ sake, and they had continued to retain their separate bedchambers, and for the most part live their separate lives, on the occasions they were forced to reside in the same house together.

So, it had been all the more surprising to Mariah that she had not only responded to, but enjoyed being held in Darian Hunter’s arms and being kissed by him, the night of Lady Stockton’s ball. Not only an unprecedented response, but an unwanted one as well, and ensuring that Mariah was all the more determined it would not occur for a second time.

‘Did you have something in particular you wished to discuss with me when you called upon me yesterday morning, then sent a note requesting a convenient time you might call again today? Or is it as I suspected and you merely wish to add to the insults you invariably make when we meet?’

Darian’s breath left him in a hiss at this deliberate challenge; at least when he was breathing out his senses were not being invaded by Mariah Beecham’s heady and arousing perfume.

Darian had once again been aware of that perfume the moment he stepped into the salon. Indeed, he believed he now knew that unique aroma so well he would be able to pick Mariah Beecham out of a roomful of veiled and heavily robed women, just by the smell of that heady perfume alone.

Seeing Mariah again this morning, being with her again, his senses once again invaded by her beauty and aroused by that heady perfume, made a complete nonsense of his denials of yesterday to Rotherham and Sutherland, in regard to his not having the slightest interest in pursuing a relationship with Mariah Beecham.

He might not want to feel this desire for her, but he did feel it nonetheless.

‘Oh, do stop scowling, Wolfingham, for it is giving me a headache,’ Mariah snapped at his continued silence. ‘I am sure there are many women who might find all this brooding intensity attractive, but I am not one of them.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘Personally, such behaviour has always filled me with a burning desire to administer a weighty smack to the cheek of the gentleman in question.’

The situation in which Darian currently found himself did not at all call for any sign of levity on his part. Consequently he did try very hard not to give in to the laughter that threatened to burst forth.