Lily Dalton - Never Desire a Duke

“Of course my glove is stained,” she retorted. “It is your fault for startling me.”

Displeasure flickered across his countenance. “For the second time tonight, it seems.”

And yet in the next moment his lips slanted into a boyish half smile, one that sent her heart bounding about inside her chest like a happy hound greeting its master. Her heart had always responded in this manner at the sight of one of Claxton’s smiles. Only she wasn’t a sweet-tempered hound. She was a woman—and she hadn’t forgotten the bitter terms upon which they’d parted.

“The third time, actually,” she bit out. “The first being your unannounced arrival. You’ve been away seven months, Claxton. You ought to have sent word.”

He deftly lifted the glass from her hand and conveyed it to the nearby ledge. “It’s not my intention to be so startling.”

Before she knew what he was about, he’d pinched her fingertips and stolen her dampened glove from her hand. Cool air bathed her bare skin, sending a chill down her spine. While his free hand dispatched the glove into his coat pocket, the other held hers in place with a slight upward curl of his fingertips.

His lips pursed sensually. “As for your ruined glove, it would be my pleasure to escort you to your favorite shop and purchase another pair for you.”

She stared at him in bewilderment. He proposed togetherness? After months of bitterness and separation? She could only stand and stare and wonder what he was about. Her bare hand appeared small and vulnerable in his much larger one, an unsuspecting bird alighted on a wicked trap. Indeed, with a curl of his knuckles, he secured hers within his and lifted—

“Claxton—” she warned, discomfited by his sudden foray into intimacy.

“Immediately. Posthaste.” He pressed his lips to the tops of her fingers. His gaze unwaveringly held hers. “Perhaps tomorrow morning?”

The warm bliss that was his mouth moved to the underside of her wrist, where he pressed his nose to her skin and inhaled, eyes closed, as if she exuded some intoxicating perfume. A mad, delicious tingling spiraled up from her toes along the back of her thighs.

His gaze captured hers. “If only you will say the word and allow it.”

Say what word? Half-drunk on sensation, she didn’t even recall what they were talking about.

The next kiss, placed at the center of her palm, sent a languorous pleasure into her veins, awakening long-buried desires.

Involuntarily she swayed toward him, her body a traitor that for too long had wanted and ached and yearned for the husband and lover she’d believed him to be. Over his shoulder, Fox and Pitt watched, two stone-faced voyeurs. From the other side of the column came the sounds of music and laughter and conversation, while she and Claxton remained just out of sight, hidden in shadows. The clandestine nature of the moment only made Claxton’s kiss more thrilling.

More thrilling? What was she thinking?

Her husband had shown no care for her whatsoever since the loss of their child. He had betrayed the sanctity of their marriage and abandoned her. And now…now he sought to seduce her? Angry heat gathered in her cheeks.

She tore her hand away. “Everyone knew you’d returned to London but me.”

He considered her steadily, the smile fading from his lips. “Perhaps I feared that given advance warning, you would flee.”

“I don’t flee,” she retorted too loudly.

“Oh, but you do, Sophia.” His blue eyes flashed heat. “Twice tonight, within the space of a quarter hour, which makes us almost even as far as me startling and you fleeing are concerned.”

Just moments before, in the book room, she’d felt so much the lioness. For once, she’d gained the upper hand against a man who always held the upper hand, whether it were with his young wife or a political foe. And oh, la! Clearly Claxton believed all it required for him to erase his sins from her mind was a sensual look. An intimate touch.

“I’ve missed you.” He leaned closer, his gaze hot on her mouth, his intention apparent. Her husband was going to kiss her, and she had but a half second to decide whether to let him.

It took her less than that.

She planted her hand against his chest and pushed. “Do you truly believe I’m that unskilled a player of the game?”

“Game?” His nostrils flared.

She stepped back. “That I am just a sad little ingenue who, at your first warm glance, will welcome you back into my life and my bed?”

Claxton’s expression darkened. “No to the ingenue part, but…I am hopeful that I will be welcomed back into your life.” He crossed his arms over his chest and slowly leaned closer. “And your bed.”

Her cheeks, already warm, now went to flames.

After a long moment, he prompted, “Sophia?”

“It’s just that”—her voice cracked with indignation—“I’m trying to determine what about our brief time spent together this evening has given you any cause to be hopeful on either front.”

“My darling.” He tilted his head and spoke in a low, patient tone, as if he need only talk her through an irrational female moment. “I’m the first to confess that when I departed England our marriage was not on the steadiest of footholds. Indeed, considering the circumstances, I assume full blame, but I had hoped that tonight we might—”

“You hoped wrong.” Roar. The lioness had returned. She would not fall so easily. “I require more from you than this .”

When she tried to quit him, he blocked her path, maneuvering her back into the shadows.

He did not touch her, but he might as well have for as close as he stood. “A moment ago, outside the book room, why the provoking comment about Lady Meltenbourne? I’m not married to her.” His gaze moved over her possessively. “I’m married to you.”

No doubt his words and manner were intended as reassurance, foreplay for a reconciliation. Yet the presence of Lady Meltenbourne’s name on his lips was like a bucket of cold water to her face, a reminder of an infuriating reality she simply couldn’t forget.

“That, my lord”—she reached for the punch glass—“is precisely the problem.”

He scowled, the frostiness she remembered so well returning to his blue eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Stolen kisses in shadows? Sweet words of seduction? After everything that has happened, after all this time—that is all you have to offer me?” She laughed sharply. “I’m your wife, Claxton, not some dreamy-eyed girl. Not anymore. You’re going to have to do much better than that.”

An hour later, Vane emerged from Lord Wolverton’s study, along with the select other gentlemen who had been invited by his lordship to stay for further conversation, cigars, and spirits. The party was over, the ballroom empty of guests. During the season, balls and soirees lasted until the morning hours, but the chime of a clock indicated the hour to be just nine.

Several gentlemen donned their hats and coats and pushed out into the night, where their drivers waited to convey them home.

“Good night, Fox,” Vane said to the man beside him, with all the cordiality he could summon.

He was sorely tempted, however, to plant his fist in Lord Havering’s face. For the entirety of the evening, Sophia’s childhood friend had submitted him to a ceaseless barrage of acidic barbs and black glares.

Without the slightest acknowledgment, Fox continued walking, unsmiling and with his gaze fixed forward. Under his breath he muttered, “It’s Lord Havering to you.”

Accepting his hat from the footman, he disappeared into the night.