Anna Campbell - What a Duke Dares

Her lips firmed with impatience. “I’m not being funny. A woman is safer in a harem than she is in a nunnery. Apart from the eunuchs and the Sultan, the harem is a female preserve.”

“What about your affair with Count Rosario?” An affair which had never taken place, Cam realized.

Hostility sparked her gaze. “The Count is seventy if he’s a day.”

“You and he traveled together for weeks.”

“I joined a party of scholars to see the excavations on Rosario’s estate outside Palermo. The weather was bad and the count was kind enough to take me into his carriage. His arthritis has stopped him riding.”

How thoughts of the count had tormented Cam. Now Rosario loomed in his imagination as a geriatric bookworm. “What of the Prince of Castrodolfo? He’s a young man. And you two spent a night alone in the Apennines.”

Amusement lit Pen’s annoyance. “At thirteen, the prince is certainly young. Most people consider him hopelessly bookish. His mother fears difficulties in securing an heir, unless she can awaken his interest in the fair sex.”

“What about Goya? Word is that he painted you wearing what only the most intimate associate would wear.” Which meant wearing nothing at all. The idea of another man feasting his eyes—and other things—on Pen’s glorious nakedness made him livid. He knew he was a primitive, but despite everything, he looked at this woman and his heart beat mine, mine, mine.

Her cheeks went pink. “He’s a great artist.”

Cam started to feel like a schoolmaster quizzing a troublesome pupil. “So that rumor is true?”

“He swore that he’ll never show the painting to another living soul. I believe him.”

“And Sir Andrew Melton?”

Pen laughed dismissively. “Now there’s a fellow whose mother has definitely given up hopes of awakening his interest in the fair sex.” Umbrage sharpened her voice. “My refusal on the yacht must have stung, given you believed that every man in Europe has shared my bed. And a few in Asia too.”

He struggled not to squirm under her taunts. “Not so many. Definitely one or two.”

“You kept careful note of my supposed paramours.”

Another jibe that hit home. “Our childhood connection spurred my interest.”

He was mortified to admit how agonizingly jealous he’d been of Pen’s lovers. Especially when she showed no interest in Camden Rothermere.

Her lips tightened. “If I’m so notorious, nobody would think you a cad if you didn’t marry me. I only gave you what I’d given a hundred men.”

“There have been plenty of wanton duchesses.”

When she caught the bitterness in his voice, her expression softened. “Cam, not every woman is like your mother.”

“You’re not.”

The thaw ended abruptly. “You thought I was.”

“No, never,” he said emphatically. “My mother’s every act was a betrayal. Of her husband. Of her rank. Of her family.”

“I had no idea that people thought me such a trollop. You sacrificed yourself to this marriage to save my good name. Now I discover that I have no good name to save.”

As her indignation faded, Pen looked tired and wretched. He should let her go back to bed—without him—but he knew how quickly she’d rebuild her defenses. He needed to get to the truth now.

“Don’t forget that I was preserving my good name too. A man who seduces a girl he’s known from childhood then abandons her to insult is beyond the pale.”

Her smile held no amusement. “Even if the childhood friend goes to the dogs?”

“You’re still a Thorne.”

“And now I’m a Rothermere.” Clearly a fact that gave her no pleasure.

Why should it? She’d exchanged independence for life with a man who had treated her like a doxy. Remorse twisted his guts anew. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Hell, Pen, you’re twenty-eight years old. For nine years, you’ve run wild with a louche crowd under your aunt’s inadequate supervision. Not to mention that any man would want you. What in Hades was I meant to think?”

Bleak humor flickered in her black eyes. “Don’t sound so peevish, Cam. Most men would be delighted to discover that their bride was a virgin.”

Was he blushing? “Perhaps so, but not in the circumstances that I did.”

“Poor boy,” she said sarcastically.

“You have every right to anger. There’s no excuse for my behavior. I should crawl on my knees to you and beg forgiveness.” Cam gestured with his free hand. “But we’re together for life and we need to reach some understanding.”

Her expression was cynical. “So you can touch me again.”

Devil take his blundering, she spoke of his possession like dire punishment. “Do you mean to bar me from your bed?”

“I made promises to you.” She twirled the glass in her hand until the wine flared ruby.

It was the same dead tone she’d used when she said that she’d done her duty. Disappointment pierced him. But what could he expect after his rough wooing? “If duty alone compels you, our marriage bed will be a cold place. I think we can do better than that.”

“You’re an optimist.” She sighed and the resistance seeped from her body. “Cam, can you give me some time? Surely we don’t have to decide everything tonight. It’s been a long and difficult day.”

Guilt, his constant companion, stabbed deep. It had been a long and difficult few months. She’d lost both aunt and brother, and faced death several times. He’d risen to take her in his arms before he remembered that his embrace was the last thing she wanted. He subsided into his chair and surveyed her discontentedly.

A bride proved more bewildering than any mistress. His sympathy went out to the Grand Turk with his hundreds of wives. Then all impulse to amusement fled when he saw his wife’s closed expression. “Pen—”

She raised her hand. “Not… yet.”

With that he must be content. It had been a devil of a wedding night.

After dinner, Cam accompanied his wife upstairs. For a day and a half, he’d been a married man. The experience bore no resemblance to his expectations. For a start, he’d kept his hands to himself. Being with Pen without touching her—when he had every legal and moral right to roger her from here to China—was a torture he wouldn’t inflict on his worst enemy.

He’d woken with the dawn in his own bed, rigid with longing, miserable, lonely, feeling like a dog someone had kicked into the gutter. And sick with guilt over hurting Pen. At breakfast, to his bewilderment he’d encountered a stranger. This tranquil, restrained woman wasn’t Pen. Pen was impulsive and opinionated and ready to shoot a man if he wronged her. Yet this morning she’d played the perfect duchess. It could have been Lady Marianne facing him over the marmalade.

And Cam had loathed it.

He’d burned to wrench his wife from her chair and muss her neat perfection. Then fling her across the polished table and do things likely to make the butler resign.

But he’d behaved himself, although just being in the same room was torment.

The only logical choice, given his bride’s reluctance for his company, was to devote the day to business that had accumulated during his absence. So why then had he found himself showing Pen every nook and cranny of the vast house? And in return, all she’d expressed was polite interest. Not once had she called him a blockhead or objected to an arrogant remark. He worried if perhaps last night he’d done her brain some injury.

Now, confused, unhappy, and shamingly randy, he trailed after her into the duchess’s cave of a bedroom.

Pen turned with an expression of well-bred surprise that he’d never seen before. “Your Grace, what are you doing?”

Cam glared at her. “Why the hell are you ‘your grace’-ing me? You’ve called me Cam since you were toddling.”

She flushed. “As you wish. But I’d still like to know what you’re doing.”

He shut the door with a sharp click. “I’m coming to bed with my wife.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “Now?”

He stalked toward her, tugging off his neckcloth and tossing it to the ground. “Now.”

“You said you’d let me think about it.”

Clearly a welcome was too much to expect. He shrugged off his coat and flung it across the room. “Have you?”

She retreated again. “Have I what?”

Impatiently he flicked open the silver buttons on his silk waistcoat. “Have you thought about it?”

She frowned as if questioning his sanity. “Of course I have.”

He let the waistcoat fall where he stood. “Good. No need to call your maid. I’ll undress you.”

At last Pen stood her ground. “Why are you doing this?”

His smile was mocking. “My dear, you might be innocent, but you’re not that innocent.”

She raised her chin and regarded him like he’d crawled out from under a rock. In a sewer. “I’m not ready.”

“It’s like falling off a horse. You need to get straight back on.” He was deliberately crass to provoke a reaction. She’d been a blank slate all day.

“I’m not your horse,” she said cuttingly.

Briefly she disappeared from view as he tugged his shirt over his head and tossed it near the crumpled blue waistcoat. “If we wait too long, you’ll convince yourself that the experience was so awful that you never want to repeat it.”

She arched an eyebrow, although he didn’t miss how her eyes focused on his bare chest. Last night he’d found grounds for hope in the way she’d looked at him. His nakedness had intrigued rather than disgusted her.

“Too long is more than a day?”

“Yes.”

She backed until she bumped into the high bed. “I don’t think so.”