Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire

Her figure was that of a mature woman, of course, but her face was smooth and unlined in the sunlight, her eyes a clear Mediterranean turquoise, despite her having hosted a ball the previous evening and no doubt having retired very late to her own bedchamber.

Darian felt that stirring of his arousal, which was rapidly becoming a familiar reaction to being in this woman’s company, as he gazed upon her natural loveliness through narrowed lids. ‘I fear that peace will not last for too much longer, now that Napoleon has returned to France and is currently reported to be on his way to Paris,’ he rasped in an attempt to dampen his physical response to this woman.

‘I do not interest myself in such boring things as politics and intrigue,’ she drawled dismissively. ‘Nor does any of that explain how you came to receive such a wound.’ She continued to look at him pointedly, before a derisive smile slowly curved the fullness of her lips at his continued silence. ‘Can it be that the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham has recently fought a duel? Over a woman? Surely not?’ Mocking humour now gleamed in her eyes.

Darian had not cared for the disparaging way in which Mariah Beecham had earlier said his reputation was one of sober respectability. Or that she now referred to him as the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham. Nor did Darian like the implication that she doubted he had ever felt so emotional about any woman that he would have fought a duel over her.

Admittedly, he was, by nature, a private man. One who had long preferred his own company or that of his few close friends. But he’d had no idea, until now, that this privacy of nature had resulted in society, in Mariah Beecham, believing him to be sober—boring?—as well as cold and haughty—arrogant?

As the elder son of the sixth Duke of Wolfingham, and Marquis of Durham from birth, Darian had been brought up to know he would one day inherit the title of Duke from his father, along with the management of all the estates entailed with the title. An onerous and unenviable responsibility, which had become his at the age of only five and twenty; much earlier than might have been expected, but his father had been but sixty years of age when he died.

With the title of Duke and its other onerous responsibilities had also come the guardianship of his younger brother, Anthony.

All of these things had made it impossible for Darian to continue with the hedonistic pursuits he had previously enjoyed with his close friends and that, along with his soldiering, had hitherto occupied much of his time.

He had not realised until now that it had also rendered him as being thought stern and sober, as well as haughty. By society as a whole, it would appear, and by this woman in particular.

Nor did he care to be thought so now, for it made him sound as old as Methuselah and just as uninteresting! A circumstance Darian did not enjoy, when he considered his own undoubted physical response to Mariah Beecham.

His mouth tightened. ‘I am sure you are as aware as I that the fighting of duels is forbidden.’

She arched blonde brows. ‘And do you always follow the rules, Wolfingham?’

Darian gave a humourless smile. ‘Your opinion of my reputation would seem to imply as much.’

‘But we are all so much more than our reputations, are we not?’ Mariah Beecham replied enigmatically.

‘Do you include yourself in that statement?’ Darian studied her through narrowed lids, taking note of that curling golden hair, the smoothness of her brow, those clear and untroubled blue eyes and the light blush that now coloured her alabaster cheeks, her lips both full and succulent.

A face that appeared utterly without guilt or guile.

Misleadingly so? Or could that air of innocence, so unusual in a woman of four and thirty, possibly be the real Mariah Beecham?

In view of this woman’s reputation, Darian found that impossible to believe; the countess could no doubt add ‘accomplished actress’ to her list of other questionable attributes!

* * *

Mariah did not at all care for the way in which Wolfingham was now studying her so intently.

Having Wolfingham point out, the previous evening, that his younger brother had shown a marked interest in her these past weeks was irritating enough. But to have the far too astute, and equally as intelligent, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, show an interest in her, for whatever reason, was not only disturbing, but could also be dangerous.

For Mariah was most certainly not all that her reputation implied. Indeed, she did not believe, after Wolfingham’s revelations the night before regarding that reputation, that she was much of any of what society, or this man, believed her to be.

Deliberately so. For who would suspect that the scandalous Mariah Beecham, the widowed Countess of Carlisle, was also an agent for the Crown, and that she had been so these past seven years and more?

She had not set out for it to be so. She had become embroiled in the intrigues of the English court quite by accident, after discovering that her own husband was a traitor to both his country and his king.

Having no idea what to do with that knowledge, it had taken Mariah some weeks to find a member of the government to whom she might pass along that information.

Only to discover that once she had done so the first time, there was no going back. That her position in society could, and did, open many doors, as it invited confidences from both ladies and gentlemen of the ton.

And so, from that time on Mariah had made a point of forming her friendships only with those ladies and gentlemen who might have knowledge that would be of benefit to, or was opposed to, the English monarchy or government.

She had been brought up in the knowledge that her parents’ only expectation of her was that she become the wife of a titled gentleman, even if she did not love that gentleman. Her father was himself extremely wealthy, but not completely acceptable to all of society. Indeed, greater acquaintance with society had shown her that love was not a requirement of any of the ton’s marriages.

Her husband’s only expectation of her had been that she bring a considerable portion of her father’s fortune to their marriage, his own fortune having become depleted almost to extinction.

Mariah loved her daughter dearly and, because of that, had willingly sacrificed the years she had suffered of being thought of as just an adjunct of her husband, Lord Martin Beecham, the Earl of Carlisle.

Finding herself suddenly of use, her opinions of importance, had caused Mariah to relish the new role in her life.

As a consequence, the past seven years were the first ones where Mariah had felt useful and valued for herself alone.

She would be unable to continue along that path if anyone in society were to ever discover that she used her title and wealth only as a way in which she might work, and spy, for the Crown.

If the shrewd Darian Hunter, Duke of Wolfingham, were to ever discover her work as a spy for the Crown...

She forced a teasing smile to now curve her lips. ‘Surely that is for me to know and for others to find out?’

Darian drew in a sharp breath at Mariah Beecham’s huskily flirtatious tone, a quiver of awareness tingling down the length of his spine as his body responded.

At the same time, he sensed that Mariah’s flirtation was somehow not genuine, but forced, although he had no idea why that should be.

Indeed, nothing about this woman, or her actions, was in the least clear to him. And until such time as it was, if it ever was, he would be well advised to remain wary in her company.

‘Considering that you have refused my request to discourage my brother’s interest in you,’ he answered her briskly as he stood up, ‘and the amount of times our paths have chanced to cross these past seven years or more, I very much doubt there will be any opportunity in future for me to know you any better than I do at this moment.’

‘Do I detect a note of regret in your tone?’ she taunted.

‘Not in the least,’ Darian dismissed harshly. ‘I am more than ready to leave and so end our acquaintance.’

‘Then you had best do so,’ she drawled unconcernedly.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Did you dismiss my carriage last night?’

The countess laughed huskily. ‘Tempted as I was to do otherwise!’ She nodded in confirmation. ‘It might have been amusing to see how you would have explained that occurrence to any who cared to ask. But, of course, you are Wolfingham, one of The Dangerous Dukes,’ she continued drily. ‘And like your four friends, Wolfingham does not care to explain himself, to any man or woman!’

Darian’s eyes narrowed. ‘You do not have a very good opinion of me, do you?’

‘Until yesterday evening I do not believe I held any opinion of you whatsoever,’ she assured uninterestedly.

His breath caught in his throat at that dismissal; if he did not care to explain himself to man or woman then it was equally as true that same man or woman would never dare to question him, either! ‘And now?’

‘Now I know without a doubt that you are both arrogant and insulting.’

Darian winced at her dismissive tone, knowing that he had been both of those things in his dealings with this woman. ‘If you would kindly send word to Wolfingham House, via one of your obviously capable footmen, and inform my butler that I have need of my carriage, I will then be able to remove my intrusive self from both your household and your presence!’

Mariah felt a sense of disquiet at the abruptness of Wolfingham’s departure. ‘I had not expected you to capitulate quite so easily, Wolfingham, in regard to my continuing friendship with your brother?’ she mocked.

‘I am not capitulating, merely withdrawing in order to rethink my strategy,’ he assured drily.

‘Ah.’ Mariah nodded knowingly. ‘I remind you that the doctor instructed that you were to remain abed for the next three days at least.’

Having now crossed to where his clothes lay draped over the bedroom chair, Wolfingham turned to look at her with those narrowed green eyes.

Green eyes surrounded by the longest, thickest, darkest lashes Mariah had seen on any man.

Indeed, Darian Hunter was a man of startling and masculine good looks; the nakedness of his back was exceedingly broad and muscled for a man who supposedly ran his estates from the comfort of his home here in London. As were his arms and the flatness of his abdomen, his legs also appearing long and muscled in those black evening trousers. Even his feet, sans his boots, bore a long and elegant appearance.

And Mariah could not remember the last time she had noticed the masculine beauty of any man, fully clothed or otherwise!

Perhaps when she had been Christina’s age, and on the brink of womanhood, she might have allowed her head to be turned a time or two by a handsome gentleman, but certainly not at any time since. The very nature of her marriage to Martin Beecham had meant there had never been any further inclination on her part to indulge in those girlish infatuations.

But Mariah could not deny, to herself at least, that she had noticed, and been aware of, every muscle and sinew of Darian Hunter’s muscular torso these past few minutes. And also been affected by it, as the slight fluttering of her pulse, the warmth in her cheeks and the aching fullness of her breasts all testified.

And she did not want to feel any of those things for any man!

Warning her that Darian Hunter more than lived up to his dangerous reputation, not only to her continued work for the Crown, but also to Mariah’s own peace of mind.

‘Nor shall I once I am returned to it,’ Darian now answered the countess huskily, aware of the sudden, sexual, tension in the heavy stillness of the bedchamber. ‘As for my brother, if all else fails, then I fear Anthony must learn of the vagaries of women in the way that all men do—the hard way!’ he added derisively.

‘Now you are being deliberately insulting again, Wolfingham, not just to me, but all women.’ An angry flush now coloured Mariah Beecham’s cheeks.

A blush that only succeeded in enhancing her beauty; her eyes glittered that deep turquoise, her cheeks glowing, her lips having become a deep and rosy red.

A very kissable deep and rosy red...

‘That was not my intention,’ Darian dismissed softly.

‘No?’

‘I believe my remark was more specific than that,’ he assured huskily, holding Mariah’s gaze as he slowly crossed to where she stood so stiff and challenging in the middle of the bedchamber. ‘Might I ask for your assistance in dressing? I realise it is usual for a man to ask a woman for help to undress,’ he added drily as Mariah’s brows rose in obvious surprise at his request, ‘but I am unable to pull my shirt on over my head on my own.’

Mariah accepted that Wolfingham’s request for assistance was perfectly logical, given his injury, and yet she still baulked at the thought of performing such a task of intimacy for him.

She very much doubted that Wolfingham—or any in society!—would believe it if told, but Mariah had seen no man, other than her husband, even half-naked as Wolfingham now was. And Martin, twenty-five years her senior, had certainly never possessed the same muscular and disturbing physique Wolfingham now displayed so splendidly.

Her mouth firmed. ‘I will send for one of my footmen to assist you.’

‘There is no need for that, surely, when you are standing right here before me?’ Darian murmured throatily, his good sense having once again deserted him as he was again assaulted by Mariah Beecham’s unique and arousing perfume. An arousal he was finding it more and more difficult to control when in this woman’s presence.

In view of Anthony’s infatuation with Mariah Beecham, it would be unwise for Darian to allow his own attraction to her to develop into anything deeper than the physical discomfort it already was. Even if Mariah Beecham was herself agreeable to taking it any further, which he already knew that she was not.

On a logical level, Darian knew and accepted all of those things.

Unfortunately, his aroused and hardened body had a completely different opinion on the matter!

‘If you please?’ His gaze was intent upon her face now as he held out his shirt to her, allowing him to note the deepening of the blush that coloured her cheeks and the pulse throbbing at the base of her slender throat.

A surprising physical reaction, surely, coming from an experienced woman reputed to have indulged in many affairs, both during her marriage and since?

Darian’s gaze narrowed searchingly as she stubbornly lifted her chin to meet his challenging gaze. She still made no effort to relieve him of his shirt. ‘Unless, of course, you find the idea, and me, too repulsive...?’

It took every effort of Mariah’s will to hold back the choked, slightly hysterical, laugh that threatened to burst from her throat, at the mere suggestion that any woman, that she, might find anything about Wolfingham in the least repulsive.

For the first time, in more years than she cared to remember, Mariah found herself wholly and completely physically aware of a man.

Of Darian Hunter, the arrogant and contemptuous Duke of Wolfingham, of all men.

Nevertheless, Mariah was aware. Of his reassuring height. His rakishly handsome good looks. And the lean and muscled strength of his body.

And she did not welcome the sensation.

She placed a disdainful curl on her lips. ‘It is certainly true that I have always been...particular...as to which men I choose to be intimate with.’

‘All evidence to the contrary, madam!’

Mariah drew her breath in sharply at the unexpected and contemptuously delivered insult, before just as quickly masking that response; the sophisticated and experienced Mariah Beecham—a public persona she had deliberately nurtured these past seven years—would laugh derisively in the face of such an insult.

Which was exactly what Mariah did now. ‘I am flattered that you should have even taken the time to notice such things in regard to myself, Wolfingham.’

His nostrils flared. ‘You take delight in your reputation?’

Did she?

Oh, yes!

It was Mariah’s own personal joke on society, that they should all perceive her as being one thing and she knew herself to be something else entirely. Only her darling Christina, now seventeen, and currently enjoying her very first Season, had necessarily been informed of the true reason for Mariah’s flirtatious behaviour in public. It was a risk to share that confidence with anyone, of course, but Mariah simply could not have borne for her darling daughter, the person she loved most in all the world, to ever believe the nonsense society gossiped about her.

‘No doubt as much as you do your own,’ Mariah now dismissed enigmatically.

Darian scowled as he recalled what this woman had described as being his reputation. ‘Then that would be not at all.’

She smiled. ‘Unfortunately, even you cannot dictate what society thinks of you.’

‘Even I?’

‘Why, yes, for you are the omnipotent Duke of Wolfingham, are you not?’ she dismissed airily. ‘Your shirt, if you please,’ she instructed briskly, reaching out to take the item of clothing from him. Wolfingham continued to hold on to it, standing far too close to her while he did so.

Darian looked down at her intently, wishing he knew at least some of the thoughts going on inside that surprisingly intelligent head of hers. Before speaking with Mariah Beecham yesterday evening, Darian would have described her, had considered her, as nothing more than an empty-headed flirt, with little in her beautiful head but the pursuit of her own pleasure.

He still had no idea of what or who Mariah Beecham truly was, but an empty-headed flirt she certainly was not.

Rendering her flirtation with Anthony, a man fully ten years her junior, all the more puzzling.

‘Mariah—’ Darian broke off his husky query as there was the briefest of knocks on the door to the bedchamber before it was opened.

‘Mama, I—’ Lady Christina Beecham stopped what she had been about to say as she stood in the open doorway, eyes wide as she took in the apparent cameo of intimacy between her mother and their half-dressed guest.

Darian had certainly never been discovered in quite such a scene of apparent intimacy by the daughter of any woman, and he now found himself momentarily nonplussed as he searched his mind for something appropriate to say or do. He frowned down at Mariah Beecham as she looked up at him. She began to chuckle huskily, before that chuckle became a full-throated laugh of pure enjoyment.

At Darian’s obvious expense...

Chapter Three

‘I trust, Lady Christina, that you do not think too badly of me for the circumstances under which we last met?’ Darian murmured politely as the two of them danced together at Lady Stockton’s ball, fully a week after their first momentous meeting in a guest bedchamber at Carlisle House.

A week in which Darian had necessarily to spend most of his time in his own bed, recovering from the setback from his bullet wound. For much of that time he’d found his thoughts returning to that morning in Mariah Beecham’s guest bedchamber.

Not that there had been a great deal for him to remember and think about once Christina Beecham had appeared in the bedchamber so unexpectedly.

Mariah’s amusement at the interruption had been short-lived, her movements having then become brisk and businesslike as she had helped Darian on with his shirt before excusing herself to go downstairs and see to the ordering of his carriage. The two ladies had left the bedchamber arm in arm together.

Darian had felt surprisingly weak after having completed dressing himself as best he could, sitting on the side of the bed to recover as he awaited the arrival of his carriage. Once arrived, his groom had then helped him down the stairs and into that carriage, necessitating that Darian’s words of gratitude for the countess’s assistance be brief.

Once returned to Wolfingham House, he had sent for his own physician, who’d agreed with his colleague’s diagnosis, as he confined Darian to bed for the next three days at least, and rest thereafter for several more days, unless Darian wished to shuffle off his mortal coil completely.

Darian despised any form of weakness, in himself more than others, and that enforced time abed had not sat easily upon his shoulders, despite receiving several visits from his closest friends to help relieve the boredom. Anthony had also called upon him several times and been told that Darian was indisposed and not receiving visitors, which allowed Darian to at least avoid that particular confrontation until he was feeling more himself.

He had to trust that the countess would keep her promise in regard to discussing with others the bullet wound to his shoulder and the night he had necessarily spent in her home. But he had no doubt Mariah would have taken great delight in regaling Anthony with the details of Darian’s efforts to persuade her to end their friendship.

Once he felt well enough, Darian had dictated a letter of gratitude to his secretary, to be delivered to the countess, carefully worded so as not to reveal the full extent of his indebtedness to her. He had received no acknowledgement or reply to that missive. As if Mariah Beecham, like himself, would prefer to continue as if that night had not taken place at all.

Consequently, this was the first occasion upon which Darian had been able to offer his apologies in person, to the younger of the two Beecham ladies at least, for the manner of his indisposition the week before.

Mariah Beecham had proved somewhat more elusive this evening than her daughter, always flirting or dancing away on the arm of some other gentleman whenever Darian had attempted to approach her. Christina Beecham had proved far less averse to his request that she dance a set with him. No doubt, unlike her mother before her, Christina Beecham was fully aware of the compliment being paid to her, as the Duke of Wolfingham did not, as a rule, dance at any of these occasions.

She looked up at him shyly now from between thick blonde lashes, her eyes the same beautiful turquoise colour as her mother’s, her blonde-haired beauty also similar to that of the countess. ‘Mama has already explained the situation to me, your Grace,’ she now dismissed huskily.

Darian would be very interested to hear how Mariah had managed to do that, when he was not altogether sure how to explain the situation himself. To himself, as well as to others.

‘Indeed,’ he murmured noncommittally. ‘She seems to be fully occupied this evening.’ Another glance about the ballroom had shown him that Mariah Beecham was no longer in the room.

Christina gave a smile of affection. ‘Mama’s time, and dance card, are always fully occupied at such entertainments as these, your Grace.’

Darian looked down searchingly at the younger of the Beecham ladies. ‘And are you not bothered by having to witness the spectacle of seeing so many gentlemen flirting and leering at your mother’s— Forgive me,’ he bit out stiffly. ‘That was unforgivably rude of me.’ And, he realised, far too close to his feelings on the matter for his own comfort.

Mariah was wearing a red silk gown this evening, with a very low décolletage that revealed the full, ivory swell of the tops of her breasts. A fact Darian had noted several gentlemen taking advantage of as they talked or danced with her.

‘Yes, it was,’ Christina Beecham answered him with the same bluntness as her mother. ‘But then, Mama had already warned me you are very forthright, in both your manner and speech,’ she added pertly.

Darian found he did not care for being dismissed so scathingly. Nor did he believe Mariah had used a word so innocent as ‘forthright’ to describe his previous manner and conversations with her. ‘I meant no disrespect to you,’ he bit out tersely.