“So everyone says.” Celeste fought to keep the frown from her lips. She had been shocked when her father had told her a marriage had been arranged. She had hoped to marry for love, and she had never even met His Grace. But what family would refuse a duke? And with her father’s heavy hand, she truly had no say. She had wondered about the marriage bed with a man she knew so little of, but enduring even that act had to be better than living as a spinster under her father’s roof.
Grandmum sat down on the marble bench just to the side of the door. “Do you wish to speak of it?”
“There is nothing to speak of.” She turned toward the drive and the flickering of the candle glow that lined the circle.
In the distance, two men stood on the steps, waiting for their carriage. She stepped into the shadow of the large pillar and peeked at them. They stood tall, with refined features. The shorter and stockier of them passionately waved his hands, shouting in a language she could not understand. The taller one, the one who had knelt before her, shifted his stance and slowly turned. His blue eyes branded her soul. He stared unwavering, directly into her.
Her stomach flipped, and tingles raced up her arms. She sucked in a breath and caged her reaction in her lungs. Across the distance, his eyes, the color of the bluest of seas, caught the moonlight and glowed.
Everything about this man called to her. He was handsome, without doubt, though her reaction to him came from the way he gazed at her. He needed her. As he had fallen before her, a strange and powerful desire and longing captured her. He needed just her…and no one else.
Celeste turned away, pressed her back against the cool, smooth pillar and stared up to the painted wood overhang above her. She swallowed. No man had ever regarded her that way. She slowly let her breath out and closed her eyes. Gather your fortitude. You have to know what he knows.
Heat bloomed around her, and her skin dewed. A gasp caught in her throat, and warm air filled with the scent of the sea puffed against her face.
“I will court you, if that is what you desire. But you are mine. You will not bed Hudson.” His deep, calm voice tightened the breath in her chest.
A warm need lapped her nipples and settled deep in her belly. Don’t open your eyes, Celeste. If you see his face again, you will want more. Yes, she needed to be rational.
She fidgeted with her hands and clasped them in front of her skirts, just above a budding ache that spiraled through her.
He stepped closer, pinning her hands between them. Her palms pressed firmly to the mound that made her a woman. Hard male flesh encased in the smooth silk along his upper thigh captured her knuckles. Gracious, that was his…
“Quite so,” his voice jagged out.
Her face prickled with heat. He’d read her thoughts.
She licked her lower lip. She needed to move her hand. Gently pulling her elbow higher, she trailed her hand up along his dress pantaloons.
The ridge beneath her knuckles distended within the fabric.
“We are destined, my beauty. My mark is on your neck.” His fingers grazed the small scabs beneath her lace collar.
The flesh he touched throbbed, and a quiver shot straight down her body, through her belly, to between her legs. Pleasure spiked through to her toes. She couldn’t breathe. The small marks were her only wounds from that unknown event. The voice in her head that she’d heard since made her fear that they represented far worse than a scratch. Something unreal. And now him. It was far worse. “I need to know about that…” Her words came out a squeak. “Them,” she said with fortitude. “I mean, what happened.”
“Jordan!” a man called from the carriage circle. “What the blazes—”
Steady puffs of his breath came closer and closer to her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut tighter.
“My mark,” he whispered, “and you live.” His lips slightly brushed hers but did not press to them at all. “That is what is important.”
She leaned forward, desperate to hear more and needing to feel what he offered her. The air grew cold around her. She bristled, and her eyelids shot up.
He was gone.
She turned toward the carriage as the coachman lifted the reins and pulled away. “My mark…and you live” swayed back and forth in her mind. What did he mean? And how had he gotten from here to there so hastily?
“Oh dear. That was certainly…” Grandmum raised her fan, flicked it open, then waved it vigorously before her flushed face.
Celeste stepped on shaking legs toward her. Reaching the stone bench, she trembled as she sat down next to her. “Daft.” She swallowed the lump that lodged in her throat and grasped Grandmum’s small gloved hand in hers.