BLACKTHORNE WAS AWARE of his grandmother’s probing gaze focused on him as he paced her sitting room, waiting for Miss Wentworth to make her appearance for their engagement at the theater that evening. Rather than have the dowager remark on his restless behavior, he forced himself to stop in front of the crackling fire and put his hands out, as though they needed warming.
Actually, he was already so warm he would have been more comfortable without his coat, and he wouldn’t have minded loosening his tie as well. The girl made him jumpy. Uneasy. Edgy. And for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why.
Maybe it was this forced evening alone with his soon-to-be bride. The dowager had insisted that he be seen at some public gathering with his fiancée at least once before their wedding.
She’d given him a choice between a musical evening hosted by one of her cronies and a night at the theater. He’d figured the theater would bring him into contact with the fewest people to whom he would need to be effusive about the merits of the woman he’d chosen to marry, since he planned to arrive late and leave early, and visitors could only stop at his box during the interval.
To his chagrin, he was more eager and excited to be spending time alone with Miss Wentworth than he’d expected—or wanted—to be. He’d been surprised to discover, over the past week, how much he enjoyed his fiancée’s company. Young misses weren’t exactly his cup of tea.
But so often, when Miss Wentworth spoke, he found himself agreeing with her, as he had this afternoon at the zoo. It was unusual to hear a young woman voice such an unpopular opinion. He suspected her forthrightness was a result of growing up in America, where people spoke their minds more freely. It was one more reminder that she was completely unimpressed—and undaunted—by his royal title.
Miss Wentworth also seemed to have a great deal of common sense. She’d worn a hat at the zoo to keep the sun off her face, but there had been no concoction of fruit or flowers on it. Her dress had been almost plain, with simple buttons down the front and a fitted bodice and waist that had prompted him to remove the garment in his imagination and take the feminine assets he found beneath it into his willing hands.
Because Miss Wentworth had seemed so levelheaded, he’d been more amused than irritated when she’d squeaked and turned to him for succor when the lion roared. When he’d taken her in his arms, she’d fit perfectly there, her chin reaching his shoulder, her brow level with his mouth.
It would have taken no effort at all to let his hand drift into her silky blond curls, something he’d been yearning to do, or to press his mouth to the soft skin at her temple. The temptation had been there to touch, but he’d resisted it. He’d meant what he told her. There was no room in their marriage for emotional attachments—on either side.
What he’d found most disturbing was his physical desire for the woman he planned to wed. What magic web had this slip of a girl spun in the brief time he’d known her to make him want her so badly? The need to kiss her, to hold her, to thrust himself deep inside her, had become intolerable. He’d never experienced anything like it. Not with Fanny. Not with any woman since. Whenever he was with her, he found himself in an excruciating state of arousal. He swore under his breath as he realized that just thinking about her had accomplished that dreaded result.
His wedding couldn’t come soon enough. Once he’d had Miss Wentworth, the froth would be off the beer. The bloom would be off the rose. He’d be satiated and satisfied, and this unbearable longing would be over and done.
Miss Wentworth came tripping into the room wearing a robin’s-egg-blue evening gown, a smile on her face that revealed bewitching twin dimples, her wide-spaced blue eyes open and unguarded behind the ridiculous spectacles perched on her upturned nose, and said, “Good evening, Your Grace.”
His heart jumped. And then pounded hard in his chest, as though he’d been running in place the fifteen minutes he’d been waiting for her. His body sprang to agonizing life, reminding him that he was no more than a savage beast, determined to mate with the most alluring of its kind. He felt a flare of embarrassing heat in his chest and neck and prayed it wouldn’t spread to his cheeks, where his grandmother could see and remark upon it later. He had to clear his throat to reply, “Good evening, Miss Wentworth. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes. I’ve never been to the theater.”
“Never been?” the dowager interjected. “Why not?”
Miss Wentworth looked flustered for a moment before she said, “I mean, not in London. Of course I’ve been to the theater in America.”
Blackthorne realized he had no idea how long his fiancée had been in England, or even why she’d come here in the first place. The subject had never come up. Maybe he should ask a few more questions of his bride, before they were tied together for the rest of their lives.
But he was in no hurry to discover her secrets. From the moment Miss Wentworth had taken his large hand in her small one and dragged him out into the street to unharness some carter’s nag, he’d known there was something about her that was out of the ordinary, something about her he wanted to examine at greater depth, something that might take him a lifetime to uncover.
He’d seen and spoken to a great many prospective brides. The moment she’d lifted her chin and met his gaze from behind her gold-rimmed spectacles, bringing him up short for failing to offer her a proper proposal he’d known: This is the one.
Marrying someone was a financial necessity. He was glad he’d found a woman, just in the nick of time, who he thought might suit him. It was galling to admit that he was beginning to crave having her in his bed.
He held out his arm for her to take. “Shall we go?”
She curtsied to the dowager and said, “Good night, Your Grace.”
“Don’t be late,” the dowager said, pinning him with a stare that made him feel like a gauche boy.
He shot her a quizzical look, wondering why she’d considered the admonition necessary. He had no intention of spending any more time with Miss Wentworth than it took to drive to the theater, see the play—something by Sheridan or Shakespeare, he wasn’t sure which—and return her to the dowager’s townhome. Since he was a grown man, not a ten-year-old child, he didn’t see the need to explain or excuse whatever he decided to do during his evening with his intended bride. So he said nothing, as he escorted his fiancée from the room.
Miss Wentworth sighed with pleasure, as she settled into the seat of the ducal carriage and ran her fingertips over the plush blue velvet. He felt his whole body tense, as he imagined her hands roaming his flesh with that same sound of satisfaction. He bit back a groan, as he seated himself on the luxurious seat opposite her.
The silence in the carriage soon became uncomfortable. Not to mention rife with sexual tension, at least on his part. “Why did you come to England?” he asked at last.
“My being here is more accidental than intentional,” she replied.
He waited for an explanation, and when none was forthcoming said, “Accidental?”
“I began traveling with my sisters, but we ended up going in different directions. I landed in England.”
Her answer told him little and left him with a dozen questions. “Tell me about your family.”
“I have three older sisters and two younger brothers scattered across the American West. My sisters are all married. My brothers live with my eldest sister. I miss them all terribly. Why don’t your unmarried sisters live with you?”
“My sisters required a female to teach them everything they needed to know to get along in the wider world. With my mother gone, that person became my grandmother.”
“Why not have your grandmother come live with the three of you, rather than sending them off to live with her?”
He frowned, unsure what she meant. “My grandmother prefers to have a home of her own. My sisters love Grandmama, and it keeps her young to have the two girls underfoot. Besides, I’ve always been there for my family whenever they needed me.”
“Don’t you miss seeing them every day?”
Was that blame he heard in her voice? Rebuke? Censure? How dare she! Did she know who he was? What he was?
He bit the inside of his cheek to cut off the critical words that sought voice. This girl—woman, he corrected himself—was very shortly going to be his wife. There was no sense getting off on the wrong foot with her. Instead of speaking, he forced himself to consider what she’d said.
Had he missed his sisters while they were growing up? Perhaps. A little. But he’d been too wrapped up in grieving Fanny’s death, and in wild behavior when he’d realized all was lost, to think of anyone else but himself for the past year. He hadn’t considered—until this moment—how selfish that behavior was. He’d shifted the burden of his sisters’ upbringing to his grandmother, and he’d delegated his nephews’ care to the governess in whose charge they’d been left. What kind of man did that make him?
He looked resentfully at the woman sitting opposite him. Where did she get the audacity, the effrontery to confront him about his behavior? He had no intention of letting his wife dictate right and wrong to him, any more than he allowed anyone in his life to dictate anything to him. Just who in bloody hell did she think she was?
Miss Wentworth looked at him with her head tilted like an inquisitive bird, her eyes shining in the softly lit interior of the carriage, her full lips inviting his kiss.
He bit back an oath at the carnal direction his thoughts had suddenly taken. Was Miss Wentworth to be excused of every insult to his character and person because he wanted her body?
Fortunately, at that moment, they arrived at the theater, and he was neither required to answer nor allowed the opportunity to give the scathing reply that had come to mind.
Miss Wentworth was enthralled by the play. It was one of Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She confessed to having read the play, but she’d never seen it performed. She was fizzing with excitement during the interlude, like an exploding bottle of champagne.
“The performance is wonderful! Are the actors always this good?”
He found her enthusiasm contagious. “I don’t know how they usually perform. I don’t often come to the theater.”
“Oh!” She put a gloved hand to her mouth in shock. “Why not? How can you resist? I would come all the time, if I could.”
She looked up at him hopefully, as though seeking his concurrence in returning to the theater sometime soon. In fact, he’d rarely come because Fanny wasn’t interested in the theater, and he had other, much better uses for the ladybirds he’d spent time with after her death. “We’ll see,” he said at last.
She didn’t beg or plead with him. She merely got a certain look on her face that told him she would be back here—with or without him.
Blackthorne was jolted by the thought that Miss Wentworth didn’t just have opinions about zoo animals. She had opinions about the theater. And about his behavior toward his sisters and grandmother. She not only had a great many opinions, she seemed entirely willing to share them. She might not have a royal title—yet—but she seemed to have definite ideas about what she wanted and no compunction about telling him.
Fanny had left all the decision making to him. Except for concealing her illness, he couldn’t think of any choices she’d made without consulting him, and she’d always deferred to his judgment. How difficult was it going to be to get along with someone, day in and day out, whose opinion he was expected to consider before choosing a course of action?
And Fanny had never, ever been critical. Miss Wentworth had already suggested he was a self-centered son of a bitch. She hadn’t said those precise words, but he’d understood what she’d meant, right enough. He couldn’t change what he’d done in the past. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to change his behavior in the future.
Neither his sisters nor his grandmother had complained about their living situation. So why was he feeling so guilty? What was it about Miss Wentworth that had him reconsidering his conduct? She was marrying a royal duke, a peer at the very top of the realm, with no one except the king himself to call him to account. He’d be damned if he was going to let some barely-out-of-the-schoolroom American girl shame him into changing his behavior.
He didn’t say another word to her, determined to show her his displeasure.
When the performance was done, she chattered on effusively about the play, seemingly unaware of his continuing silence. Which made him wonder if he was always this surly, so she simply expected this sort of behavior from him. He found her lively face beguiling. He found her busy hands, which she used to demonstrate her points, fascinating. He found her lips, as she chided him, entrancing.
His body surged to exhilarating life. Even as he sat there angry and unyielding, he yearned to taste and to touch. And he could hardly wait for the day—and night—of his wedding.