Chapter 6

Jack strode into the well appointed, if feminine, room, ready and eager to shock his astonishing young woman with his deft skills in teasing out her location. Once she was suitably impressed, they could continue their rather odd yet captivating meeting. As sure as he’d been that he should stay away just the night before, he couldn’t drive her from his thoughts and felt certain that by meeting with her once more, especially in the light of day, he would be able to allay his curiosity and discover she was indeed average in every way. Or at least not worth his considerable interest.

Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of his good friend the Duke of Hunt’s wife, Kathryn, and his young woman, looking decidedly primmer even than when he had first set eyes upon her, and his sister all in animated female chatter.

In the same room.

“What the hell are you doing here, Gemma?” he roared, completely disregarding a reasonable approach. Reason and his sister did not mix.

He knew his mother was out to ruin the girl, but this? This was too much. Gemma’s being in the presence of these two women, their feet firmly planted in scandalous behavior, was nothing short of corruption. Kathryn, though a duchess, had been one foot away from total ruin this time last year, and his young woman clearly was not far behind given that she’d been alone at night in a tavern.

Gemma squared her shoulders, the frills of her frock trembling, and arched her black brow in the infamous Hunt fashion. “I was merely greeting your wife. I’m glad to see you’ve come to do the same.”

“You know grandmama is going to have a fit at—” his voice died off abruptly.

Wife.

He most certainly wasn’t married to Kathryn or his sister so the only possible lady in question was Cordelia. His eyes swung too her, waiting for her to deny it. Praying with every fiber of her being that she would.

She did not. In fact, she stood stoically, her face a most fascinating mask of chagrin and seeming annoyance that he had appeared.

He blinked. Searching through the mire of memory to that date he had been shackled to some young chit in a far off land all because his father thought it a lark to gamble his most abhorred son away.

Cordelia.

The name.

He should have remembered it, but he’d been trying to forget it since the first day he’d heard it proclaimed in that dry and boring ceremony some odd fifteen years ago. He’d said it once and never uttered it or gave thought to it again. No one else had either, thusly driving it to the furthest and dustiest corner of his recollections.

Now the name thundered forth like the booming of a Beethoven symphony.

She stood so straight one might have thought she’d had a poker rammed up her lovely backside. She looked as pained as if someone had indeed done such a thing to her gorgeous posterior, a posterior which he had found himself fantasizing about in a voracious manner.

His mother’s words rattled through his brain like the gunshot of a firing squad. Cordelia Basingstoke was in a marriage where the husband wasn’t present.

A neglected wife.

How interesting that his mother should refrain from mentioning that neglect wasn’t even the half of it. It was hard to treat a woman badly when he’d never met her or spoken of her, except in a sort of vague boyish understanding that he could never ask a girl of his choosing for her hand. But neglect? He’d entirely pretended that she wasn’t in existence. So thoroughly pretended that he’d succeeded in forgetting all pertinent facts about her.

When next he saw his mother, the woman was going to be laughing her beautiful head off, and he might just have to commit matricide, but that was for later. Right now, he wanted to hear what the hell Cordelia was doing in London, acting like a woman out to ruin herself, and having the gall to meet him and not disclose their relationship immediately. She’d let him believe they were complete strangers. . . Which they were and yet . . . Damn it. This wasn’t to be tolerated. “Explain yourself, madam,” he boomed.

Her face flushed and anger snapped in her shockingly blue eyes. “You sir are behaving like an ass,” she ground out. “And I will not explain myself to an ass.”

“Ass?” he repeated dryly, fairly sure she could not have just laid down such a hot-blooded challenge. No. Not even she would have the gall to act the wounded party in this absurd situation? She’d come to London to make his life hell and she’d made a fool of him last night, that whole meeting, where she held the upper hand, knowing their relationship whilst she left him in the dark. What a fool she must have thought him, when he asked if she were married.

“Yes,” she said tightly, her whole body suddenly shaking with fury. “You have no right to ask me anything given your irresponsible behavior since I have come of age.”

Rights? He had more rights than she had hairs on her head if she was indeed his wife. He could chuck her into their coldest castle in the most northern tip of Scotland and never ever think on her again and be perfectly within his rights. There were one or two other rights that suddenly occurred to him and caused his entire body to tense with a sudden awareness.

Even as he considered that he could send the other two women from the room and shag her senseless as her husband, he couldn’t ignore the fact she had a valid point. He had indeed left her to her own devices.

However, that didn’t stop his lack of intention to yield in the face of her sudden appearance. “Leave us,” he commanded his sister and Duchess Kathryn without letting his gaze trail from his opponent. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate word for her in this circumstance.

“But I wish—”

“Gemma,” he said, her name a low warning. As much as he loved his sister, he didn’t wish her to be present at the destruction of a non-existent marriage between two people obviously capable of such duplicity, lack of caring, and neglect to propriety. He knew his excuse, he couldn’t possibly imagine what Cordelia’s could be, a supposedly well-bred woman.

“Not until I have your assurance you won’t make Cordy hate you,” Gemma huffed.

“Cordy?” he echoed. His sister had not just called his. . . his. . . Damnation, he couldn’t say it. ”Out,” he ordered.

“It’s for the best,” Cordelia, Cordy, said kindly to his sister making him seem a complete and utter bear. “Truly, all shall be well.”

Gemma’s chin wobbled slightly and then she stormed up to him and punched him sharply on the shoulder. “I like her.” Her violet eyes glittered with truth and warning. “Don’t let her divorce you.”

He gaped down at his sister wondering if there was anyone else who could blast away with such a font of shocking information in so short a span of time.

Divorce?

Which could only mean one thing. His. . . That woman had definitely had intimacy with other men. It was the only reason she would request a divorce, because they most certainly had never consummated their marriage. Not that her fornicating about should be any sort of surprise. Nor should he be so profoundly out of sorts about it. He had left her to her own vices for years for Christ’s sake, and it wasn’t as if he had thought she’d be some sort of nun. . .

But the full knowledge she had been with other men drummed his sense into the corner of his brain, letting some other far more dominant beast out. He should have known she wasn’t innocent.

A virgin would have declared herself immediately in the bold light of day in the presence of some toad of a chaperone not brazed her way into his presence in such a scandalous place.

Jack’s breath tightened in his throat at the slow dawning that in all aspects of society, she belonged to him. The growing realization of this point and the contemplation of her lush body wrapped in such a chaste gown was heating his loins in a most infuriating fashion.

She belonged to him.

There was even a paper in his parish church to prove it.

With an audible sniff, Gemma bolted from the room, Kathryn in her wake. However, Kate paused and threw him a knowing glance. A glance which made him long to throttle the woman for taking his. . . his. . . (He still couldn’t say the word). . . into her house. Kathryn was a scandalous woman but one who wouldn’t hesitate to go into battle for a friend. She might even try to enlist her husband to side with Cordelia. The idea of being at odds with his closest friend, Ryder, only enraged him further. He answered her look with a haughty rise of his brow.

She let out a huff, muttering about stubborn asses as she left the room.

When at last they were completely alone, the tray of brandy on the small table between them, he allowed himself to take her in. He was expecting a pert creature with an odd sort of sensuality about her. The same creature who had so engaged him before.

Terse words, cutting eyes, and an underlying presence of continual questioning made one long to be in her presence despite her bold and blunt nature. Too bad she was such a liar.

Jack ground his teeth down in an attempt to direct his growing frustration to some outlet. Her uncanny allure was far worse than the night before, if only because of her dress.

Her dark blue frock, which should have made her seem a dowdy, clung to her curves like a second skin. The austerity of the costume only emphasized the snapping intelligence in her eyes and her innate confidence.

It was utterly clear that though she was not beautiful and quite possibly unaware of her true potential to effect the male sex, Cordelia Eversleigh, Duchess of Hunt, did not need adornment to rip a mans soul out and hold it in her hands.

With her governess inspired gown and her haughty gaze, her very presence announced she would not be cowed before him. Quite the contrary. She was an insurmountable height that could only be climbed by the most intrepid and determined of men.

In other words, she was that thing which men prized above all else. . . A challenge. A bona fide intelligent and simultaneously, sensual challenge.

She lifted her chin a notch, not even a hint of weakness or intimidation in her as she demanded quietly, “Did you come here for the woman you met last night my lord, or your wife who you have doubtlessly now read or heard about, a prepossessing harlot?”

Her harsh words slapped him. Slapped him hard enough he had no ready reply. But the more he imagined her entwined in the arms of other men, their cocks deep within her hot sheath, the angrier he became. It didn’t matter that it was irrational, that he had never claimed her, that she deserved a lover, or that she looked like a fiery seraphim.

All that mattered was the all consuming, sanity stealing knowledge that she was his, and she had given herself to others. So he found himself wishing to be cruel rather than kind. . . To think with his outraged masculinity rather that his rational self. As an unfortunate result, he shrugged. “Both women seem to be strumpets, madam, do they not?”

He’d barged into this abode for that wildly intelligent young woman with the wicked eyes. He’d found her and his ruin in one fell swoop. As last night had worn on, he’d been consumed by the desire to find her, strip her bare, and give himself over to her. He didn’t want the Duchess of Hunt, his wife. He wanted the woman who worshipped rocks.

But his words, hanging in the air between them, came out cutting like the sharpest sword.

In the briefest of moments, a half breath even, everything changed. That open, unrestricted nature of hers vanished, replaced by a wall so high about her heart and soul, manifesting in her stormy eyes, it was clear that no army, no matter how fierce, could scale it.

Her face blanched, a strange pallor under her slightly golden skin. “Thank you.”

Her thanks gave him another pause. The words should have caused him to retract his venomous fury. They didn’t. They just seemed to stir his brain about until he didn’t know what he felt. For reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, anger was still at the forefront and anger’s brother, stupidity of speech, reared it’s ugly head. “I beg your pardon?”

“For your honesty,” she drawled evenly before taking in a slow breath, clearly gathering herself for imminent battle. “Let us always be honest.”

“Given your performance during our last encounter and what you say is being declared about you, I doubt you capable of honesty.” He wanted to punch himself. Why did he keep saying such provocative drivel? Full-fledged war did not appeal to him. When it came to women he was a seducer not a fighter.

Yet, for reasons unfathomable to him, he couldn’t stop himself. It was one thing when she’d been a woman to exchange pleasure with, but she was something else now. She’d come to London to make a fool of him. He shouldn’t care. All men were inevitably made fools of by women, he’d seen it often enough. Because it was her, a woman his black heart had dared to momentarily ache for, he cared. He cared with the burning force of a thousand suns and the fact that he cared only infuriated him further. . . pushing him down the verbal road of doom.

“Oh,” she countered tartly, “I do take heed to your so clearly expressed opinions of my morality or lack thereof.” She cocked her head to the side, “For which, Your Grace pot, I do believe you have called the kettle black.” Her long curls danced over her shoulder as she narrowed her eyes and finished, “You make certain my heart is hard which ensures the voracity of my intentions.”

“You have a heart, my lady?” he riposted. The words my lady drawled out of his mouth as a sort of curse that seized his heart and terrified him because in every sense of the word but one, she was his lady. God how his body sang to take her, to kiss her, to know her passionate intelligence in a binding way that left nothing between them but scorched bodies and requited lust.

“What was left of it is gone now.” She shrugged. “Hearts while pleasant things, have no practical use in the pursuit of one’s future happiness.”

“Thank the maker then that your rather attractive body and your seeming intelligence makes up for the lack of such a vital organ in a woman.”

“Vital?” She laughed, a rich, soul seducing, thought stealing reverberation. “The only vital organ I have to a man is quite a different one in my experience, and alas, it is not the brain of which I speak.”

Why was this so resoundingly horrid?

He’d hurried here, ripe for the pleasure of her unusual company not pain. Yet pain was exactly what this was, as if they were both trying to get as many cuts in before the true battle began. Where was the pert creature who’d bandied with him so delightfully? He missed her, but all too quickly, he knew that woman had been an illusion and this taunting siren was the real Cordelia, Duchess of Hunt. “A woman’s brain is known to be smaller and therefore inferior,” he said lightly, aiming the dart carefully. “No wonder men care more for this other organ. And you have not neglected it, have you? Not if you are asking for a divorce.”

Bright color stained her pale cheeks but then her brows rose carelessly, the meaning clear.

“A woman,” she said lowly, her voice final, “must find her pleasure elsewhere, Your Grace, when her husband will not do his marital duty.”

A snarl, a veritable snarl, passed his lips. He was not sure if his fury resulted from her insults, the shock of their union, or the fact that she did indeed seem to think so little of him. “You hate me then?”

She laughed again, this time the sound a rich buttery lilt. “No. Hate requires far too much effort. I feel nothing but irritation that I have a husband at all.”

“That is why you came to London?” he asked flatly, still shaken by the force of her laugh upon his body. Still undone, by the fact that her base opinion of him struck home in a way he had not known since his father first made it clear how worthless he was. “Because you feel nothing for me.”

“Except inconvenience.”

That gave him pause. She found him to be an inconvenience? What a change in circumstance. Wasn’t it he who found women to be irrelevant and disloyal? “And you wish a divorce?”

She brought her hands together and clapped slowly. “Bravo. Does repetition improve the word?” She strode toward him, none of the sensuality or openness that had guided her the night before in her body. Instead, she seemed closed and unattainable. “I wish my independence.”

“To. . . To. . .” His skin crawled at the very idea of other men’s hands upon her.

“Be with other men?” she queried, her eyes sparking at his discomfort. “Yes, Your Grace, since you have given no indication in the past years,” her voice dropped and their was an edge of pain to it, “to ensure I had no need of them.”

“And what if now—” He cut himself off, the words completely ridiculous and inspired from his cock, not his brain. He couldn’t go down that path. It had been one of the great appeals of being married and yet not being married. He’d never had to be a husband. He’d never had to test the loyalty of his wife or risk failing so utterly again in the eyes of one he loved.

“What if you wish me now?” she finished for him. She took another few steps forward until the hem of her skirts brushed his boots. She glanced up through her lashes, her very nearness a dare. A dare born of anger and resentment. “What matters is that I do not wish you.”

Just like every one else. No one wanted him. Not the real him.

Just those few words negated any sort of chivalry he might have still held close. Didn’t want him? She wanted his body. He knew that for certain. After all, her lips, those full, heady lips, were half open and all he could think of was the night before when he had so very nearly kissed her. “And if I wished to know what I shall be missing? What I have given up?”

“By all means,” she licked her lower lip slightly, moistening it, challenging him, and yet a moment of vulnerability softened her features before she whispered. “have it, then have done.”

The scent of vanilla and cinnamon surrounded him and the heat of her near body teased his already simmering senses. His mind was playing the most devilish tricks. He’d come here to continue what they had started, but if he were to do so with his. . . With his wife. . . what would occur?

Everything would change. Absolutely everything. If he bedded her, there would be no going back because then he would have to prove her unfaithfulness beyond all doubt to be rid of her. The entire world, but most importantly, he, himself, would know that he had shared her with God knew how many others. And debauched as he was, he wasn’t sure that was something he quite wished to do. He’d had enough married women. Having his own would be perhaps one too many.

She shook her head. “You see, even now, you do not truly wish—”

Silencing the doubting voices in his head, giving way to the demands of his body, and a sadistic part of his soul, he crushed her to him and brought his mouth down on hers. It was a kiss meant to punish. To punish for putting him in such a position. For the pleasure they were meant to share and yet now could not.

A peep of indignation bubbled up from her throat and she resisted for a moment, her body tense and hard angles in his embrace as if she’d never been kissed at all.

He didn’t cease because he had to believe that what had happened last evening had not been a creation of his hunger for her, and that she truly did desire him as much as he had desired her. She had to, even her hate of him, couldn’t change that could it?

The answer came when her body softened against his and her hands slid over his arms and held him to her fiercely.

A moan of sheer need replaced her protest and she opened to him. He slid his tongue into her hot mouth, licking and teasing her. With each moment that past, their kisses were more and more consumed by the fiery exchange of breath, the hot strokes of tongues and lips.

His hard cock pressed against his breeches, proof how badly he wanted her. It was all he could do not to lay her down on the floor tug up her skirts and find the evidence of her own desire.

This kiss had to last. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her up against his chest and on the tips of her toes until the only thing keeping her upright was his strength.

When at last he’d explored every corner of her mouth, he kissed her jaw, then buried his face into the tender flesh of her barely bared neck. They clung to each other in the knowledge that at any moment they could pull apart and never touch again.

He pressed open mouthed kisses to her throat as she dropped her head back giving him all the access he could ever desire. The wild beat of her blood pounded beneath his lips, maddening his desire to tear her clothes from her limbs and kiss every last inch of her. He nibbled slightly at the delicate skin hovering above her collarbone and she gasped, her fingers digging into his arms, the pleasure as intense for her as his at giving it to her.

As he kissed slow, hot kisses along the base of her throat, he slid one hand up her tight bodice, caressing her body through the layers of silk and undergarments.

She arched against him and for a brief moment he was tempted to rip the frock to shreds.

But instead, he leaned back and gazed down on her rapt visage. It pierced him through, the pleasure on his wife’s features. Unlike all the other women he had known, there was something full of wonder on her face.

And he didn’t want to cease. Not while he had her here in this moment, not when as soon as she had her divorce, she’d no doubt be gone.