Even if he accepted the invitation he read in the maid’s eyes, it wouldn’t make him feel better. It might alleviate the ache in his groin that had started the moment he woke with Alyse, but it would not get Alyse out of his mind. Or wipe the taste of her from his lips. Or rid his ears of her voice.
No, soon he’d be back to wanting her and he would feel the perfect wretch for slaking his lusts on some hapless maid whose name he would not remember within the week.
He sighed. Wanting Alyse. He feared that was now a perpetual condition. At least until they got to Kilmarkie House. Then they would resume their proper and respective roles. He probably wouldn’t even notice her anymore. She’d do what housekeepers did and he would do what he . . . did.
He helped himself to another glass of whisky and brooded. Brooded. There was no other word for it. The fireplace burned, casting the comfortable parlor in a warm red glow that was almost demonic and fitting for his mood.
Gregoria entered the room and sashayed over to him, the invitation he’d read in her eyes from earlier still clear as day in her eyes now. She took his glass and refilled it. There was no mistaking her look or the hand that lingered on his thigh as she poured his whisky. She would be agreeable to a tryst. He considered it. Except, he soon discovered as he searched inside himself, that was not his desire, at all.
Nursing his drink, he stared blindly into the fire.
His father would not have turned down Gregoria’s overture. Hellfire, he would not have walked away and left Alyse untouched—well, largely untouched—in that bed. Not before slaking his own needs first. He would have used her and still refused to call her his wife. That was his father’s way. Take. Use. Leave.
“Bloody hell.” He downed the remainder of his glass, but it did no good. Two whiskys and he could still taste her.
He should not have touched her at all . . . should not have groped her breast the moment he grew aware of her rubbing against him. His father would have done the same thing, of course. He would have touched, grabbed and fondled her without invitation. Not Marcus.
He had stopped himself and he would be more circumspect in the future.
He and Alyse would resume their journey and even if they had to share a bed the entire way north he would not touch her. Even if she invited him, he would not go there. She could strip naked and launch herself at him and he would have all the restraint of a monk.
He wasn’t a slave to his base desires. He had more restraint than that.
Even so, he did not wish to test his strength further this night. He’d pushed himself far enough. It was all too fresh. The taste of her. The sensation of her satiny flesh beneath his lips . . . fingers. She felt too good.
He’d never have thought the temptation of her would be so overwhelming. He’d had several alluring women over the years, and they knew the power of their allure. They worked tirelessly at it and wielded it with utter proficiency. Their skin fragrant and soft from lotions and perfume. Their hair styled to silkiness. They were artfully arranged.
Alyse Bell did not require such manipulation. She was no skillfully wrought construction of feminine beauty. She was just as she was, fresh off a farm and sold at auction without any embellishment.
So, contrary to his earlier avowal, he moved to the sofa. He removed his boots and set them on the floor. He was too tall for the piece of furniture. His feet hung over the end, but the discomfort wasn’t enough to send him back upstairs.
It was a decidedly better sleeping arrangement than the temptation of returning to that bed with Alyse.
It did not take him long to fall asleep.
Only it wasn’t the peaceful rest he’d craved. It was a dizzying collage of faces. Alyse. His stepmother. His sisters. Colin. They all called his name, pulled at him and chased him.
Then, he saw his father’s face, angry and contorted, spittle flying from his lips as he shouted.
Marcus woke with a start, his ears still ringing with their voices.
He was gasping, the sounds wet and ragged in his ears. He dragged a hand over his face. He hadn’t trembled like this since he was a child. He laughed hoarsely. Last night he admitted to Alyse that he’d suffered nightmares before, too. Except it hadn’t been recently. Perhaps the ailment was contagious.
He glanced around the room. The fire had died overnight. He inhaled and rubbed at his chest, hoping to massage loose the painful tightness.
He glanced to the room’s single window. The gray of dawn pressed against the glass panes. It was time to greet the day.
They left a little after dawn, taking the road north just as the sun rose to streak the sky in shades of pink and orange. It was cold and grew only a little warmer as they moved north—a condition he expected to continue.
When he had returned to their room to rouse her, she had looked at him as though he were some unwanted vermin sneaking in from the cold.
“Did you sleep well, sir?” she’d asked icily as they packed their things. That stiff sir and her cold eyes and the colder tone of her voice said it all. She thought he’d taken her suggestion to heart and spent the night in another female’s bed. Let her think that. Better she thought him loose with his favors than harboring a tendre for her.
Noticing she was shivering atop her mule, he stopped and foraged through his pack. Finding an additional jacket and pair of gloves, he tromped back to her.
“Put this over your cloak,” he advised, staring at her on the mule. Her lips were ashy.
She opened her mouth and he knew some fool protest was about to emerge. “Come now,” he snapped. “It’s cold and only going to get colder. I don’t need you to freeze to death.”
She relented with a nod and slipped the jacket over the cloak. The scarf followed. She wrapped it several times around her face and pulled the fabric up to cover her lips and nose.
She flinched when he seized her hand and guided his too big gloves on over the well-worn wool gloves she already wore.
“In the next village we will see about outfitting you better for this weather.”
She nodded stiffly, watching him with those wide topaz eyes as though he might lunge at her. Tension crackled between them.
Last night crackled between them.
He wasn’t so stubborn he wouldn’t admit that to himself. He’d tasted this woman. Touched her. Felt her shudder and come apart in his arms. Usually when he knew that much about a woman he knew everything about the woman. He knew what it felt like to be inside her, how she fit around him.
He could only imagine what that would be like with Alyse Bell. He didn’t know. He would never know.
Swallowing back a curse, he turned away and remounted, determined to cover as much ground as they could today. Every moment with her increased his urgency to reach Kilmarkie House, where she would be firmly implanted as his housekeeper and he would again be the Duke of Autenberry and not some random wanderer who buys brides in irrational flights of pity and then spends way too much of his time lusting after said bride.
As they continued on, he looked behind him several times to make certain her mule didn’t lag too far behind.
“Bucephalus,” she would call as though his gelding were a cat or hound that she might lure back to her side.
“You needn’t call for him,” he finally instructed. “I won’t leave you behind.”
“Only being cautious. You did warn me to trust no one.”
Yes. He had uttered those stupid words. Not that it had seemed to help.
Last night she had placed her trust in him. She had responded to him, kissing him back and arching under his touch as though he were the lover she had counted on rescuing her from the auction block. The lover who had abandoned her. The man she had known and loved and trusted.
At the thought of that faceless bastard, his temper sparked along with a deep throb of possession. That man had failed her. He lost her.
She belonged to him now. Him . . . Marcus. No one else.
Shaking off the troubling line of thought, he realized she was speaking again.