The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ for so many years disturbed Mariah most of all, so much so that she had spent the past four hours, since they parted downstairs after returning from their walk, attempting to shore up or replace that barrier.

      Only to have taken but a single glance at Darian’s reflection in the mirror as he strode forcefully into her bedchamber just now to know that those efforts, determined as they might have been, had been a complete waste of her time.

      What was it about this man in particular that affected her so? Oh, he was handsome enough. Forceful enough. But he was far from the first handsome or forceful man to have expressed a desire to bed her. Desire she had found absolutely no difficulty in rejecting in the past.

      No doubt because she had not felt a return of that desire for any of those other men.

      The same desire that had so shaken and disturbed her earlier, to a degree that she had confided more of her past to this man than she had ever wished anyone to know.

      The very same desire that made her feel so vulnerable whenever she was in his presence.

      ‘I have absolutely no interest in what they do or do not think,’ Darian answered her impatiently now, the scowl still dark upon his brow as he stepped further into the room.

      Mariah turned slowly, a slight frown creasing her own brow now. ‘Has something happened?’

      Darian stared at her incredulously.

       Had something happened?

      As far as Darian’s life was concerned, Mariah Beecham had happened.

      So much so that just one look at her, when he entered her bedchamber just seconds ago and saw how beautiful she looked in an afternoon gown of the palest turquoise, her breasts a creamy and tempting swell, the very low and curved neckline of that gown revealing the tops of her nipples as being a deep rose, and he was forced to endure a hard and painful throb inside his pantaloons yet again.

      At the same time he felt a ridiculous desire to cover up those beautiful breasts, so that no other man could look at or see any part of them. Or become aroused and tempted by looking at them, as he undoubtedly was.

      A ridiculous reaction, when Mariah’s coolness towards him this morning, once they had left the temple, and then completed their walk about the lake together in complete silence, had spoken only too clearly not only of her need to put a physical distance between them, but also of a return of that emotional one.

      Darian had lingered in the hallway to have that promised word with Benson while Mariah went up the stairs alone. By the time he arrived up the stairs, the door to Mariah’s bedchamber, and the door adjoining their two rooms, had both been firmly closed. He had known instinctively that Mariah meant them as a barrier between the two of them. One he crossed at his peril.

      Because she had revealed too much about herself to him this morning? Because he now knew things about her life, her marriage to Carlisle, that perhaps no one else did?

      Darian did not believe that Mariah was the type of woman who would confide her deepest, darkest secrets easily. To anyone. And he knew from personal experience that Mariah’s role as an agent for the Crown would also make it difficult for her to have close friends, male or female, for fear they might discover her secret.

      The murderous rage Darian had felt earlier today, towards Martin Beecham, had not abated in the slightest in the hours that had passed since Darian and Mariah had parted so stiffly. Her husband had been an out-and-out bastard who had raped and terrified a young and inexperienced girl for the sole purpose of forcing his child and marriage on her, trampling all of the young girl’s romantic dreams into the dust beneath his own greedy need for the bride’s portion of her father’s money.

      Not only that, but Carlisle had doubly insulted Mariah by having his mistress in residence as housekeeper in one of the homes Mariah herself had necessarily to visit on occasion.

      How did any woman survive that? But especially one as young and innocent as Mariah had been then?

      Darian knew it would be difficult for a woman of any age to have survived such base and selfish cruelty.

      Yet here Mariah stood before him, a lady in every sense of the word. So graciously beautiful, as well as being the most desirable woman he had ever known.

      Nor was it any wonder, after all that she had suffered at Beecham’s hands, that Mariah had turned to the comforting arms and desire of other men, both during and after her marriage.

      Had any of those other men made love to her? Darian wondered as he continued to admire her beauty and poise. Truly made love to her? Showering Mariah with the gentleness, the care and consideration that was her due?

      Or had they all without fail, as she had so scathingly scorned earlier, treated her as just another conquest in their bed? So that they might afterwards claim, to their male friends and associates, to have bedded the beautiful Countess of Carlisle?

      ‘Darian?’ Mariah prompted again, her expression having become wary at his continued silence.

      Darian had spent most of the past four hours pacing his bedchamber and thinking of Mariah. Of all that she had told him of her past, at the same time as he now knew it was that past that had made her the woman she was today: cool, poised and determined to remain totally removed from emotional entanglements with any man.

      It had brought Darian to the question that concerned him the most: how the two of them were to now proceed—or if Mariah would allow them to proceed at all.

      For he had promised himself he would not use any type of force upon Mariah. That he might perhaps allow himself to cajole, tease and seduce her, but he would not, could not, ever use coercion or force of any kind.

      ‘Nothing has happened.’ He drew in a ragged breath. ‘I want— I need— No, I ask—’ He broke off abruptly, only now appreciating how difficult it was going to be to keep the promise he had made to himself earlier, when just to look at Mariah again made his blood burn in his veins and his erection throb.

      Mariah was now truly alarmed by Darian’s behaviour. Of what might possibly have happened to put the arrogantly assured Duke of Wolfingham in such an obvious state of uncertainty. ‘Yes?’ she prompted tensely.

      He straightened his shoulders, emerald gaze fixed intently upon her as he spoke abruptly. ‘I would ask if you will allow me to kiss you before we go downstairs?’

      Darian Hunter was a man Mariah had every reason to know was always and completely assured as to the rightness of his own actions.

      As he had believed he was in the right two weeks ago, when he had warned her not to encourage his younger brother in his attentions to her.

      As he had believed her friendship with Aubrey Maystone must be one based on intimacy.

      As he believed her to be a woman who had indulged in many affairs, both during and after her marriage.

      Wolfingham had believed he was in the right in all of those things.

      Admittedly, he had already been proven wrong in two of those things, but the latter? Darian still believed in that legion of lovers Mariah was reputed to have had these past seven years, no doubt believed them to have been her comfort for the coldness of her marriage.

      And СКАЧАТЬ