To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

I t was very late. Eugenie could feel the perspiration cooling on her body. She was aching in places she hadn’t known existed until now, but again she didn’t care. She felt a wild, recklessness inside her, a throw-caution-to-the-wind type of mood that had gotten her into trouble more than once. But this was trouble of a new sort.

She sat up halfway and looked down at Sinclair. Her lover. Well, it was true, wasn’t it? He was her lover, even if it was just for one night. His hair had tumbled over his face and she brushed it back, smoothing the lines about his mouth, the firm jaw and aristocratic nose, the deep-set eyes with their thick lashes.

He murmured his pleasure at her touch, and she went farther, trailing her fingertips down over his wide throat and broad shoulders. Breathless she lay on top of him, feeling his body molding to hers, more intimate than a man had ever been. She could feel every inch of him, the heat of his skin, the rough texture, the cooling sweat from their vigorous lovemaking. She felt the tingling urge to do it all over again.

“You planned this all along, didn’t you?” she said, feeling her recklessness goading her to say things she would be better not saying.

“I’m a ruthless man. How else could I get what I want?”

“Oh Sinclair . . .”

He quirked an eyebrow. “What?”

She shook her head.

He probably expected her to ask for clothes or jewelry or a pretty barouche—all the accoutrements of being his mistress—that was the sort of world he lived in. She trailed a finger across his lips. “I cannot be your mistress. That was what I wrote in the letter . . . the other letter. I did not mean to come here at all. It would have been better if I had not. I want to end our association now and forever, Sinclair.”

He froze. She could see the shock in his eyes, before she rolled onto her back beside him on the divan. His reaction was anything but encouraging, but she had spoken now.

“What about your reputation?” he said in his most chilly voice. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Of course it does. But becoming your mistress is hardly going to mend my reputation, is it? The only way in which you can repair my reputation now, Sinclair, is to marry me.”

“Marry you?” he said, and laughed.

The words had just popped out but she instantly wished them back again.

“My dear girl,” he drawled, in a hatefully superior tone, “let me explain the facts of life to you. The reason I asked you to be my mistress was because we deal so well together; we enjoy each other’s company. If you wish me to be poetical, then you would be my sanctuary from the tedium of my everyday life. My—my bower of joy. That is what a mistress is, Eugenie. A wife—a duchess—is something else altogether.”

His voice had gained strength and certainty now, and a core of steel.

“When I marry it will be for reasons other than my own personal gratification, although I would hope to find my wife at least moderately attractive.”

“For breeding purposes,” she said, and her voice was without emotion, although her feelings were such an angry jumble she felt as if she might choke on them. Her emotions confused her—she knew she could never have married him—and yet the way he was speaking to her upset her.

“Yes, I will need an heir and a spare,” he drawled, and his lip curled. “I must marry someone with similar bloodlines to my own—and forgive me, Eugenie, but your family is hardly what I would call a suitable prospect. To be raised to such heights as Somerton would only cause them grief. No, my wife must be someone who has been brought up to put the name of my family and my position in society before any personal preference. She will do as she’s told and make no difficulties and help me to run Somerton and my other estates.”

“Make no difficulties?” Eugenie repeated, with a faint laugh. “Is there such a woman? I think you will find few of us able to subjugate our feelings to that extent, especially if we are unhappy. What if she meets someone she likes better than you? You say you will have a mistress. Can your wife have a lover?”

“If she is discrete—very discrete—and only after she has given me my heir and a spare.”

“And will you be discrete?”

“I will not cause her any embarrassment, but it is different for men.”

“Of course it is.”

“Then you do understand!” he said, relieved.

She nodded her head, and then sighed. “You’ve answered my questions completely.”

She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the divan, reaching for her discarded clothing. Her hands weren’t trembling, and yet she felt shaky. Was it anger or hurt or a combination of both? Despite all her declarations to the contrary had she wanted to marry him after all?

“You are no fool, Eugenie,” his voice went on, reasonably. “You know the rules of the world we live in. I cannot believe you really expected me to agree to marry you. Being my mistress is the best offer I can make, and I do so with all my heart.”

She turned to face him, eyes searching his face in the candlelight. If she was any other woman she might give in now and say yes to his offer, but Eugenie knew she would never be content. When she married she wanted to be the most important woman in her man’s life, she wanted to share with him the highs and lows of marriage, to have his children and to stand beside him knowing he was entirely hers.

And if she couldn’t have that then she’d rather have nothing.

“I should go,” she said, and continued to dress, hastily now, wanting nothing more than to get away from this place. She’d been a fool, but she wouldn’t blame Sinclair for seducing her. The blame was on her side, too. She could have stopped him.

The simple truth was she hadn’t wanted to.

“Eugenie, for God’s sake,” he began, getting to his feet and coming toward her with his arms open. “Give me some hope.”

She let him embrace her but stood unmoving in his arms, and eventually he heaved a sigh and let her go.

“Very well,” he said gruffly. “But we will talk again.”

She didn’t answer him and after a moment she felt tidy enough to leave.

“May I have my letter now?” she said, holding out her hand.

He frowned, but went to a chair where he’d placed his coat and hat, and returned with the letter. Eugenie took it without looking, stuffing it hastily into her sleeve, simply relieved to have it back.

“Thank you,” she said. “And for this evening . . . this glorious evening . . .”

The words caught in her throat and she turned away and hurried out into the dank passageway and through the front door into the night. It did not occur to her to check the letter until she reached home, and by then she was too tired and shattered and fell upon her bed. So it was morning when she finally held the letter in her hands and realized she had been tricked.

Sinclair had given her a letter from his tailor and inside was a bill for a new waistcoat costing fifty pounds.

* * *

Sinclair dressed and proceeded to snuff out the candles, one by one. The fading of the light felt somehow symbolic, as if . . . well, as if now that Eugenie was gone so had the brilliance she brought to his world.

Had she even for a moment expected him to marry her? He found such an idea incredible. Marriage for a duke was a business arrangement, nothing to do with feelings of the heart, while a mistress was someone he chose himself.

The last candle fluttered out.

He stood alone in the dark.

She was young, he reminded himself, and perhaps for all her grow-up ways she still had some girlish dreams. She would come to understand the impossibility of marriage and agree to what was possible. And he would sweeten her surrender with an endless supply of presents and treats.

He smiled, imagining it. She was the one woman in the world he both admired and was intrigued by. He doubted he’d ever understand her completely, but that was part of her charm. Thinking of her now he felt his body tighten, wanting her again with a combination of tenderness and primitiveness that astonished him.

Sinclair reached to put on his coat and remembered the letter Eugenie had been so keen to secure. Barker must have taken it to the house, and no doubt it would be waiting for him there. He hadn’t told Eugenie that. She’d seemed so fidg-ety, as if she might run out into the night, and he’d wanted her to stay. No doubt she knew by now he’d fobbed her off with his tailor’s bill.

He smiled to himself as he imagined her expression. She could take her feelings out on him the next time they met. He just hoped it would be soon.