But he’d never seen any woman look at him the way Mariana had this afternoon.
He finally understood the single word that described how he’d felt when he’d seen Giancarlo’s hands on her:
Mine.
James had been willing to do violence for her, because he wanted her.
It was perhaps precisely that primal.
Why have you never kissed me?
Simmering beneath their civility, beneath his control, beneath the tightening weave of intimacy, this feral want had been biding its time.
This notion played hell with his equilibrium. He was the one who commanded. He had imposed his masterful control and order on the chaos of war. And his entire being had been shaped around protecting, as best he could, people—and an entire country—from terrible dangers and bad decisions. He’d made excruciatingly difficult choices and shouldered impossible responsibilities without complaint because he was needed. Because he could.
And because his pride would not release him from a contract with himself.
He might be known throughout the land; he knew he was admired, if not revered.
He didn’t suppose he was loved.
He drew the silk folds of his cravat slowly through his fist. Imagining, as he did, sliding his hand along her lovely throat to cup her breast, and thumb her nipple erect beneath the muslin as her eyes went dark and hazy.
Lust was a bolt through him. His vision all but blurred with it.
He breathed through it like pain.
How the ton would laugh at him if they knew the run of his thoughts: Valkirk brought low by the Harlot of Haywood Street. Because he was just one more man who wanted Mariana. One more man on the precipice of making a fool of himself over a woman other men had made fools of themselves over.
He’d spent a lifetime ensuring he’d never be spoken of in the same breath as “other men.” And he wouldn’t tolerate being thought of as a fool.
And it was quite the irony that his desire to take her was precisely as ferocious as his desire to protect her from men like himself. And from nasty little bits of gossip like that. So she could go on being herself, safely. So she could have what she wanted from the world. So she could rise.
Because other men would not see her. They would only partake of her. And this notion, for some reason, he found unbearable.
He could not deny that his pride was satisfied that she wanted him, too. Not because he was a duke. But because she, like he, just couldn’t help it. It was simply how things were between them.
What is the honorable thing? What is my duty here? Those had always been his lodestars. Once he located them, it was easy enough to navigate his way through any thorny circumstance.
He jammed on his hat, reached for his walking stick and his overcoat.
Took one final look at himself.
It had always been up to him to protect everyone, including himself. He’d do that here, too.
If he burned, he could, and ought to, marry one of those young titled women.
It would be the right thing to do.
And he always did the right thing.
The duke was out all evening at the behest of one of those engraved invitations he was forever receiving, so he’d missed Mr. Delacorte’s triumphant announcement in the star-and-rose-making factory the sitting room had become.
“The Cain and Abel Theater burned last night!”
Captain Hardy winced. “That place was bound to, eventually. Den of vice,” he informed a room of wide-eyed listening ladies.
“But not all of it burned.” Delacorte was full of suppressed excitement. “Guess what remains?”
“Chairs?” Lord Bolt got it on the first try.
“Hundreds of ’em, so I’m told. I’ve never been inside.” Delacorte’s taste in amusements didn’t run to any vices outside of a truly rank cigar or interesting liquor. “Do you know what they might be like?”
“Haven’t any idea,” Lucien said at once. Rather smoothly.
Captain Hardy flicked a sidelong glance at him.
“I suspect a number of interesting things have happened in those chairs, however,” Captain Hardy suggested carefully. It had to be said.
Thusly were the ladies presented with a second philosophical dilemma. Or was it moral? Or amoral?
“They’re free of charge. We’ll go pick out the best ones, slap on some whitewash, cover ’em with paper roses,” Delacorte suggested.
“More providence,” Delilah murmured to Angelique. “Den of iniquity chairs to go with our contraband handkerchiefs.”
Neither of them mentioned the previous history of The Grand Palace on the Thames, but there was a reason the word “rogues” was still faintly visible on the sign outside, and why every now and then a young man would show up with an ancient, yellowing printed price list and request The Vicar’s Wheelbarrow. He would be sent away, red-faced.
The Grand Palace on the Thames was such a fine and respectable establishment now.
The current presence of notorious opera singers notwithstanding.
“Shall we have a look at the chairs?” Captain Hardy turned to them.
“Yes, please,” Delilah and Angelique said at once.
Mariana listened as she alternately folded a paper rose and studied her Italian vocabulary, excruciatingly conscious that all of this fuss was so she could earn her room and board and launch their new ballroom. She could only hope they hadn’t wagered on the wrong horse, because she was accruing so many benefits she wasn’t certain she deserved, including Helga’s cooking, chess lessons, Italian lessons, and the expression she’d seen on the duke’s face this afternoon in the reception room, after Giancarlo had unceremoniously departed.
She had reviewed this in her mind, over and over. Taking it out as though it were a new treasure, a bit like the pink ribbon given to her for her tenth birthday, for the pleasure and terror of it. For the way, each time, a stab of exhilaration stopped her breath. For the rest of the day, the weather inside her was like that moment during their trip to the seashore when she’d smelled salt on the breeze well before the vast, endless ocean came into view. In comparison to this feeling, the whole of her previous eventful life might as well have been a small locked box. A trip inside a carriage.
She thought she might die if she did not ever kiss him. Although how this death would occur she couldn’t quite envision. She could imagine the item of gossip: “Diva sets fire to The Grand Palace on the Thames with her burning loins. Nothing remained but the chairs.”
She did not know where it would lead if he did.
She already knew, however, that if she went down that road, there would be no return.
The following morning, Mariana awoke to find that anticipation seemed to have shaved away a fine layer between her and the rest of the world. Between the moment she opened her eyes and three o’clock, every sound, every color, landed exquisitely and painfully on her senses; anticipation flavored the very air she pulled in.
She knew the duke would not pretend nothing had changed. He didn’t say frivolous things; he was not a flirt. Like the duke chess piece she’d imagined, she knew he would only make forward moves. She knew she could not use that expression she’d seen on him yesterday as a crystal ball to predict her future.
She tried very hard not to want anything at all, and instead focused on the things she knew would happen. She completed the work he’d asked her to do. She had a good look at the dress she’d decided she would wear for the Night of the Nightingale, reviewing the nacre-colored satin for stains or tears. The hem needed some delicate sponging. She would wear her hair down, she’d decided. Like a nymph the audience had stumbled upon out in the dark woods.