The Dangerous Love of a Rogue. Jane Lark

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СКАЧАТЬ your marriage as blissful as you hoped…” he was being sarcastic.

      Her mouth opened, but she did not answer, as though she didn’t know what to say. Well there it was then. Another cold loveless society marriage that would end in shame, and sin. He did not wish it for himself. He wished for more in the marriage he sought, underneath all else, he sought loyalty too. He may have cuckolded dozens, but he did not wish for that from his wife.

      Drew saw Pembroke over her shoulder, whispering with Elizabeth, already perhaps agreeing to play his poor wife false. Drew had an urge to play the same game, why should Pembroke have what Drew wished for and then treat it ill.

      Besides Drew had been brought up to be wicked. He leaned to the Duchess’s ear speaking as he spun her again, toning his voice to the pitch of seduction. “Pembroke is dull. Perhaps when you tire of him you might think of me. I would be willing to warm your bed if it is cold.”

      The woman snapped her head back, as though he’d slapped her, and the look on her face implied horror. “I will never tire of my husband, my Lord…”

      Her rejection was an insult, another kick. He wished to be good enough for a woman like this. “But there is much to be said for variety, my dear, and your husband knows it, look, see, he’s speaking with my sister, an old flame he probably wishes to rekindle.”

      She looked as he turned her, her head turning as he turned, so she could keep looking at Pembroke. When she looked back at Drew pain shone in her eyes, pain and something else… She cared for Pembroke. Truly cared. Her eyes were shimmering with tears, and she had bitten her lip to stop them falling. Her fingers clawed on his shoulder and gripped his hand a little harder as though she was saving herself from falling as much as trying to prevent her tears.

      His hand, which had been seductively spread across her back to feel the movement of her body beneath her gown, now slid a little downwards, to hold her up if needs be, as they took the last few turns.

      He did not know what to say.

      When he looked beyond her, unable to look at her eyes filled with sparkling tears, he saw Pembroke coming. The man had disposed of Elizabeth and was crossing the room with a look of thunderclouds in his eyes, walking through the dancers for God sake.

      Pembroke did not in general show his emotion. Drew had truly believed him no more movable than stone. He had thought this woman had been selected to be a future Duchess and was on the verge of a life of hell. But the look in Pembroke’s eyes, the anger, implied the man felt as much for his wife as his wife clearly felt for him. Drew had made an error in this.

      Fortunately before Pembroke collided with a couple the dance came to its natural end, and when he reached them, as the last notes played, he gripped his wife’s arm, with a force that said, she is mine and no one else will touch her. Then he hissed at Drew. “I’d already made a note this evening to warn you off – I do not want you dancing with my sister – and now I see I must also warn you off my wife. Just so that you know, Framlington, hunting my sister is pointless, I would not agree the match and never pay you her dowry, and if you touch my wife again, I’ll kill you.”

      Drew smiled as he stepped away from the Duchess. He wished to laugh. Well who would have known that Pembroke had a heart? And who would have known that Pembroke could make a woman fall for him so deeply.

      As Drew walked away he saw Miss Marlow, Pembroke’s sister, being returned to her parents, by her latest partner. Her gaze turned to Drew, as it had earlier. He smiled and nodded slightly in recognition.

      She had not heeded her brother’s and her father’s warnings.

      He returned to the fake marble pillar and watched Miss Marlow. She spoke with her family as her dance partner walked away.

      Several of the men in the Pembroke group had hands resting at their wives’ waists, and the couples stood close, barely inches between them. Some of them had been married for years…

      The Earl of Barrington turned and said something to his wife, then kissed her lips. Barrington was Mary’s uncle on her father’s side, and Drew had heard he’d been a rake, as wicked as they came, until he’d married. Now he was never in town unless he was with his wife.

      Wiltshire, another Duke, The Duke or Arundel, who was as hard-nosed as Pembroke, laughed about something, then mid-conversation he turned and looked at his wife, lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, then merely turned and continued the conversation.

      Drew saw Marlow lean and say something in his wife’s ear and she looked up at him and smiled then shook her head laughing, her answer from him was a kiss on the cheek and another whisper as he gripped her fingers and then kept a hold of her hand.

      They were all affectionate. Every pair. Mothers with their husbands, and the elder daughters with theirs. He was looking at a utopia. Of course it could be as false as the damned pillar he leaned against. But if it were true…

      If it were true then there was no doubt about his choice. If Miss Marlow was as capable of constancy as the other woman in her family, why would he choose another?

      Yet it would not be easy to win her. They would wrap her up and keep her away from him now. But he wished to be sure of this. He wanted to be confident in the fidelity of his wife, and he now wished for something new, after tonight… How could he expect a loyal wife if he did not ask the same of himself? He wished to know that he could be faithful to the wife he chose too. He knew exactly what he wanted now. He wanted what the Pembrokes had. Commitment… Exclusivity… Constancy… Even affection… perhaps…

      He had made his choice, for a wife. He wished for Miss Marlow, but he would wait and not rush – to be certain. He had a little more credit he could call on, his need for her dowry was not desperate.

      “Are you ready to retire?” Peter’s hand settled on Drew’s shoulder.

      Drew also had a friend with generous pockets.

      “Aye.” Drew straightened, looking back at his friends, Peter, Harry and Mark, his brothers… His family. “Did you fair better than I?”

      “Richest of us did.” Mark quipped. “The man who does not need it.”

      “I won back your losses and more.” Peter clarified. “So I say that earns us a drink and a pretty bird of paradise each.”

      “I’ll take the drink, but I shall pass on the whore…”

      Spending the money he’d earned from the women he now hated, on younger, prettier women of his choice, had been the way he’d balanced his soul for years, a little silent kick in the teeth of his mother’s friends. But now he was done with women until he took a wife. The thought of sleeping with a woman other than the one he’d chosen for marriage was now abhorrent.

      “Then I shall have yours as well as mine.” Harry laughed.

      Drew smiled at his friends, but as they walked from the ball, he glanced at Peter. The only one of them who usually attended these sorts of events with Drew. “What do you know of the Pembrokes? The sisters, and their daughters…”

      * * *

      Mary was sitting on her bed, with her knees bent up and gripped in her arms. Her bare toes peeped from beneath her nightgown. She watched her mother put her garments away; she’d dismissed the maid.

      “Mama, СКАЧАТЬ