Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [68]
An urge to confide swelled inside her. It came on quickly, unexpectedly, provoked by the intimacy, she was sure, and not by any rational considerations. The words were nearly on her lips before she checked herself. She forced the impulse down.
“You misunderstand what is only a woman’s natural caution, and my worry about putting faith in the word of a man who is not known for denying himself.”
“I see.”
That was hardly agreement, but she was glad to let the query die with that.
“I heard that Latham visited you,” he said.
“Who told you that?”
“He did. He said that you received him. You add insult to insult in doing so, since you do not receive me.”
“I agreed to receive him in order to see what he wanted. And to see if I might learn something that would enable me to bring him down.”
“You are not to attempt that. I forbid it.”
“Where did you get the notion it was your place to forbid anything?”
He rose up and looked at her. His expression said it all. That in giving her favors, incompletely though it had been, he would assume it was his place as long as he wished.
“You are not a person equipped to battle such as he.”
“Well, someone has to do it.”
“Why? He is not the first peer to be of poor character. Hell, look at me.”
“It is not the same.”
“Close enough. Do not entertain this foolhardy notion, Daphne. Do not entertain him either, damn it.”
The little argument provoked her. He played with the ear bobs again, causing them to tap against her skin.
“I know that you have been living a fraudulent history, Daphne.”
Her breath caught. The world seemed to freeze, and a chill slid down her back.
She looked at him, searching to see what he knew and what he might not.
“The records show no Captain Joyes dying in the war,” he said almost gently. “Did he even exist? Were you even married?”
She silently cursed his curiosity and her naïveté in thinking that dodging him would discourage him.
Now what? Would today only make that worse or dull his fascination?
“You do not speak,” he said. “I think I will choose to be flattered that you do not want to lie to me more.”
“You should not have pried.” Fury burned in her, and she wanted to hit him. “It was nothing more than a way to pass the time for you.”
“I always pry if I am inclined to. I think I know what happened. I only do not know if there ever was a Captain Joyes and if you were ever married or are married still.”
He thought he knew it all, but he would be saying more now if he did. That relieved her trepidation, and she forced her anger into control.
“Never,” she said. “I was never married.”
It was what he expected, she could tell.
“Latham knew, didn’t he?” he said. “He knew about you and his father. He thinks to take his father’s place in more than the House of Lords. Do not demur. I know of what I speak. This is why you are not to receive him again. Doing so will tempt me to call him out, and it would be best if I don’t kill him over you.”
“I doubt either of you would be moved to such drama over me, let alone to contest who receives my favors.”
“I would not know yet, since I have not had all your favors. In a few days’ time, however, I may take it very badly if another man, let alone Latham, tried to displace me.”
A few days’ time. He did not sound like he expected those physician’s letters to take even a week to procure.
Worse, he spoke of a fascination that did not die with victory, but increased.
She had lived almost invisibly for years, and now this man’s interest threatened to rend her privacy to pieces.
She closed her eyes when he began touching her again. She wallowed in the intimacy and warmth of this sultan’s bed. She made herself feel each pleasure as much as possible while he caressed and kissed her, and as abandon made her free.
Sadness gathered around the edges of her emotions, however, even when she cried from the intense release that shattered her need. She succumbed more than she ever had, because she dared never do so again.
She left as dusk fell. She rode back to Park Lane in Summerhays