How to Tempt a Viscount. Margaret McPhee

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      She digested that in silence and he wondered if he should have been quite as honest about his struggle. The minutes passed. The music played. The dance wove them tighter with its steps. There was no change in his state and, if he were honest, there was only one manner of relief that he wanted.

      ‘It does not seem to be working.’ She smiled; a knowing, teasing smile.

      ‘And neither will it, madam, if we continue as we are,’ he said and opened up a distance between them. It sounded as pompous as something his father would say. His father… The problem resolved itself in an instant.

      He tried to get Ellen to leave the ball early. There were matters that needed to be discussed between them. And there were other things, too. Things that, being faithful to his marriage, he had gone too long without. But Ellen was adamant that leaving early would cause offense, and would not hear of such a thing. She had returned to enjoy London and it seemed she was determined to do just that. The ball went on so late that by the time he got her home she was tired and went straight to bed.

      Marcus sat on his bed and stared at the closed door in front of him. It was the door to the connecting bedchamber. He felt the pull of temptation. His body was humming with desire. Aching with it, giving him little chance of sleep. He thought of the tease of her body against his on the dance floor and knew she was as aware as him of the attraction that crackled between them. He wanted her but given how their marriage had started he was not about to make the same mistake again. He wanted to get to know her. He wanted to actually talk to his wife before he climbed into her bed and made love to her.

      Chapter Two

      Despite the lateness of the previous night Ellen rose early. She had slept poorly, her night a mess of agitated wakefulness and confused dreams, all of them centred round Marcus. But she was not tired. Anger and determination had a way of overcoming fatigue.

      She did not let herself think of last night, of what it had been like to be held in his arms. She did not let herself feel. There was too much danger in even thinking of that route. Instead, she told herself the past two nights had been just as they should have. Marcus had bitten, she was sure of it, but there was still work to do if she wanted to reel him in. And she was very determined to reel him in.

      She took great care over her toilette, slipping on the dress Kitty had had made for the occasion. Marcus was still sleeping when she wrote the note and left it for him, and departed for the British Museum.

      It took only thirty minutes before he arrived, and she worried for every single one of them that he would not come, standing there in the classical gallery with her maid, trying to concentrate on reading the information cards attached to each of the ancient stone sculptures, and not keep glancing up at the door. She saw his tall, dark-clad figure entering at the far end of the room even before the maid whispered her warning, and felt almost weak-boned with relief. She deliberately remained staring at the card as if she were reading it. Only when she heard him say her name did she glance at him as if in surprise.

      ‘Marcus, I thought you were busy today. Did you not say that you were in Westminster this morning?’

      ‘Indeed, but I have rearranged the meeting.’

      Marcus had never forgone his work for her before. Indeed, he had spent so much of those first two months of his marriage in meetings and working that she knew it had been a means to avoid her. But he was not avoiding her today. He had come, just as she had planned. She suppressed a small grim smile of satisfaction and let her gaze wander over him. His hair was ruffled and dark as a raven’s wing. His eyes were a dark intense blue. Last night’s shadow of beard stubble had gone, and she had the sudden urge to reach her hand out and run her fingers over the clean-shaven strong lines of his face. His tailoring was immaculate, dark and pristine, his shirt bright white and freshly ironed. His manner was relaxed, arrogant almost, so that, had she not known better, she would have believed his journey here to have been unhurried.

      In the cool clear light of day he looked devastatingly handsome. So handsome that she felt shaken by it and remembered the man she had fallen in love with, and all of the emotions that she had thought she had managed to suppress threatened to resurface with a vengeance. She turned away that he would not see, trying to get a grip on herself, telling herself what she was here to do, and reminding herself why. And when she glanced at him again her resolution was repaired and she was as distant and untouched as he had been all those months ago.

      ‘I did not realise you had such an interest in classical sculpture,’ she said.

      ‘I do not.’ His eyes met hers and she felt a shiver ripple right through her. And the tension between them escalated all the more.

      ‘Then perhaps I can persuade you to develop a liking for Greek antiquities.’ She sent her maid off with his footman and slipped her arm through his. She was standing so close she could smell the clean masculine scent of him, so familiar that it sent the butterflies flocking in her stomach just as it had the very first time she had met him. She quelled them with a ruthlessness that had not been there then.

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