She came to a panting halt at the bedroom window and stared sightlessly across the dark trees to where she knew the wall stretched. Outside that boundary, the world went on as it always had. Inside, the rules that had governed her life no longer applied.
One of those rules was that she was immune to men and their false promises of physical pleasure.
She shivered, although the night wasn’t cold.
She wanted Lord Sheene.
There, she admitted her soul’s shameful secret.
When had desire stirred to life? She’d been terrified of him when she woke bound and sick and stupid from laudanum. Even then, some devil inside her had recognized his masculine beauty. That beauty had lured.
That beauty still lured. A searing memory arose of how he’d looked downstairs, his dark hair ruffled and his smooth skin bare in the golden light. Josiah had been an old man, thick through the middle and with a heavy pelt of gray hair over chest and shoulders and back. She now knew Lord Sheene was completely different. Lean with sharply defined musculature and just enough hair to make him breathtakingly male. Supple in the waist. Bony, straight shoulders. Long, sinewy arms.
The devil within lusted to see what the blanket had concealed. The narrow hips, tight buttocks, long legs.
The organ that made him a man.
She curled trembling fingers over the sill, seeking stability in a reeling world. The wood bit cold and hard under her palms. Hunger beat inside her like a ceaseless drum.
She’d never wanted a man before. The relentless physical urgency dismayed her, astonished her.
She fell to her knees and rested her head between her hands on the ledge. It was the position for prayer. But her thoughts were shockingly profane.
Desire for the marquess burned with a raging fire.
She couldn’t give in to temptation. Women like her didn’t surrender their chastity to any handsome face. Women like her found satisfaction in duty and principle. If she let hunger for Lord Sheene drive her into his arms, she couldn’t blame John Lansdowne for turning her into a whore. The guilt would be hers alone.
You’ll end up no better than a bawd.
Her father’s cruel words when he’d banished her after her wedding haunted her, as they’d endlessly haunted her during her unhappy marriage. However far she’d fallen in the world, she hadn’t yet fallen to selling herself. She was an honest woman, or so she’d believed until these last days.
The marquess disliked and mistrusted her. In that lay her only salvation. Her will was dangerously weak. His will wasn’t even engaged.
Her fingers tightened on the sill to the point of pain. Astoundingly, she’d forgotten the most important fact of all.
If she didn’t bed Lord Sheene by Saturday, she would die.
Chapter 9
The next morning, Grace found Lord Sheene in the courtyard, staring at a potted rose on his workbench. He was in shirtsleeves and his fine dark hair was disheveled as if he’d raked his hands through it more than once. The bleakness in his face made the breath snag in her throat.
She must have made a sound of distress because he looked up. The blankness receded from his golden eyes and he focused on her. Yet another reminder, should she need one, that she was far from his major concern.
Wolfram, who snoozed in the pale sunlight, lifted his head. When he saw who it was, he returned to his dreams.
“Mrs. Paget,” the marquess said neutrally.
“My lord.” She descended two worn stone steps to the grass around the rose beds. He looked tired but not angry. That gave her encouragement. She tightened her grip on the straw hat she carried and braced herself to breach the fortress of his mistrust. “I know you don’t believe me, but you misunderstood what you saw yesterday. I’d never met your uncle before and I’m not party to his schemes.”
That’s true now, her conscience taunted. Will it be true by Saturday?
Lord Sheene’s expression didn’t lighten. “What does it matter what I believe?”
She swallowed but couldn’t help her voice emerging as a husky whisper. “It matters to me.”
That revealing statement invited questions she didn’t want to answer. To her relief, he merely studied her in silence. She wondered what he saw. She wore the yellow gown again. It was still the dress that fit best. She’d pinned her hair into its accustomed severe style. Part of her was a virtuous widow. Part of her was a whore touting for trade. Enough truth lurked in both descriptions to make her cringe.
Did he divine the secret lechery skulking in her heart? Dread had kept her awake after she left him last night. Dread. Humiliation. And forbidden longing to touch his strong, beautiful body.