Keepsake (The Distinguished Rogues Book 5) (21 page)

“I should like you to continue your promise to only discuss the past with me.” He rubbed his hands together and the muscles of his chest flexed in a disturbing way. “I do not want a repeat of last night’s supper debacle. I don’t want you made upset again.”

She shrugged as her attraction to his body grew despite her best intentions to keep her mind on the discussion at hand. Supper had been his fault, but not even that memory could seem to pour ice over her growing lust. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t expect me to dine with your friends and family.”

He nodded slowly, as if agreeing. “I should also like to know where you are, where you’re planning to go, and who you spend your time with when I am not with you.”

Any desire she’d felt in his presence vanished. “You mean to be my keeper.”

“I mean to have the intelligence any married man expects.” He came closer, close enough that she could almost reach out and touch the hard flesh that was tempting her to crawl into his arms. “If you accept an invitation, I should like to know so I may fit my plans to yours and vice versa. For example, before your return I had accepted an invitation to the Huntley soiree tonight. I should like your presence on my arm.”

“I see now why so many gowns were required and in such a rush.” Miranda slipped from the bed before she did something truly stupid and showed him how he disappointed her. The night ahead he planned would be awkward and uncomfortable. Strangers joking about Taverham’s need for an heir would be tedious when she couldn’t speak of Christopher’s existence to anyone. She headed for her bedchamber. “I can manage the farce that we are happy together instead of what we really are: strangers that married for my dowry.”

Taverham stormed after her. “It wasn’t just that.”

Miranda picked up her hairbrush from the dresser and gripped it tightly before she slapped him for lying to her face about his lack of feeling. “Please do not insult my intelligence. The lie that you desired more than my dowry has worn thin.”

“Damn it, woman, as impossible as it seems to you, I did miss you.”

He stared down at her and then his gaze shifted to her lips. In the face of Taverham’s scrutiny, her mouth grew dry. “Not soon enough. It was not as if we were a marriage of equals, not with only my dowry and common connections to recommend me.”

“I tried so hard to find you.” His lips crashed against her suddenly, bruising and bold. His tongue demanded entry to her mouth, and the feelings he had stirred in her before from just looking at him returned to shake her to her core. Taverham could still blind her to the truth with a single kiss. The only thing that mattered to him was her money and satisfying his lust. Any moment, she expected him to cart her back to his bed and finally claim what he believed was his.

When the door to the hall opened, they both glanced at it quickly. Miranda’s new maid squeaked an apology, blushing furiously, and jerked it closed again. Miranda closed her eyes, knowing that within an hour the whole household would be talking about how they were discovered, with her undressed and in his arms, about to make love.

“Ignore it.” Taverham kissed her again and drew her close, curling his hand around her head and the other over her bottom. He forced them together, and Miranda could not miss the signs of his arousal pressed low against her belly. His fingers dug into her bottom brutally as he ground her pelvis against his length. Miranda fought not to be affected, but after last night her resistance crumbled all too soon.

She wanted him and she hated herself for falling for his charms in the bedchamber again. He made her crazed with inexplicable lust.

When he spun her about to face away from him, she whimpered. Yet he didn’t immediately whip up her nightgown to take her from behind as he had done on one occasion before their marriage when speed had been his aim. He touched her legs possessively, moving aside her robe and finally inching her nightgown higher so that he touched the bare skin of her inner thighs.

Miranda couldn’t think. Couldn’t reason with herself to end this before he went too far. As his fingers skimmed higher to touch the curls between her legs, her eyes closed of their own accord. Taverham had always gotten what he wanted when it came to the bedchamber. She was still as powerless now to tell him to end it as she’d been at seventeen. He was right that he’d never forced her into bed with him. One touch and she was lost.

His fingers dipped inside her and he groaned. “For a woman who claims not to want her husband, you are incredibly aroused.”

His hand closed over her breast and squeezed. His lips and breath scorched the skin of her neck and shoulder as he slid her nightgown aside with his teeth. He penetrated her with his fingers deeply, and she shuddered at the pleasure of it. She couldn’t help it. He excited her and she was unable to prevent the moan passing her lips. It would not take long to climax, given how intent he was on arousing her needs to fever pitch. He made her his possession, his amusement to bend to his will. There was nothing her body liked better than moments when she had his undivided attention, especially with his fingers sliding over her clitoris in little circles and dipping inside her body.

When she was close to coming, she clamped her jaw shut.

“No.” He released her breast to cup her face, fingers sliding gently over her jaw to break her resistance even further. “There’s no need for silence now that we are married. I’ve waited a long time to hear you scream my name. Say it at last, wife. I need it.”

She couldn’t say it now. She wouldn’t do it.

Miranda closed her eyes as he brought her to the brink time and again, fingers sliding in and out of her body firmly. He played with her clitoris until she thought she would come, but then he’d stop and focus his attention inside her body, his cock bumping against her bottom restlessly. The fingers of his other hand stroked her throat softly, then drifted down to her breast. He pinched her nipple suddenly and Miranda’s control shattered. She screamed his name—Kit—and sobbed aloud to discover herself so weak against him.

He turned her to face him and kissed her mouth hungrily while she shook and shook, his hot body crowding hers against the table behind them. The pressure of his cock against her sex brought on more shudders of pleasure. She caught the edge of the table with one hand, bracing herself for whatever position Taverham demanded next for further intimacies. She touched Taverham’s chest with her other hand and discovered his skin was scorching hot and slick.

He drew back, his green eyes bright with passion, his face flushed. Miranda had never made love to him in the daylight, and he appeared utterly unlike the careful aristocrat she’d left behind all those years ago. His wide chest rose and fell rapidly, and she couldn’t look away.

He caught her face and lifted her gaze to his again. Miranda dug her fingers into his shoulders, grasping for purchase.

He kissed her soundly before drawing back again. “This is the passionate woman I married,” he murmured softly against her lips. “The one I’ve waited my whole life for. Don’t ever leave me alone again.”

He jerked away suddenly, storming back into his own bedchamber and slammed the door behind him.

Without Kit for support and no notion of when or if he’d return, Miranda settled to the floor in an untidy heap beside the dressing table, little caring how she looked should her maid come back. Her body trembled. Her breath wouldn’t settle. Her heart raced frantically.

Passion had never been their problem. It was what happened outside the bedchamber that made them an incompatible match.

CHAPTER TWENTY

If all men had sex on their mind, then all women must secretly wish their contemporaries ill couplings. One hour into morning calls, Kit found himself thoroughly disgusted by their many exuberant callers. Throughout the long morning, Miranda had shown remarkable restraint given the thinly veiled queries, more insults and sneers, aimed at her and the resumption of their marriage
. Oh, you have no children do you? So sad that you’ll never understand what a worry they can be
or any variation on that theme was fast growing tedious.

Clearly they had no children. They’d barely had a marriage.

He folded his arms across his chest as yet another woman spoke of her children so fondly as she departed. “Take the knocker off the damn door, Addison.”

His mother gasped. “You cannot do that. I have friends coming specifically to call on us today.”

He glanced at Miranda’s drawn face and joined her on the long chaise lounge where she’d perched. “As my wife pointed out, it’s my house.
Our
house. We can do whatever we want. I, for one, am sick of visitors, and I think Miranda may be too. I’d like a quiet hour with my wife if you don’t mind.”

He stretched out on the remaining space around Miranda and sighed. A cozy afternoon couldn’t be guaranteed, but he’d certainly try for it. “Tea, Miranda?”

“Yes, that would be very welcome,” she said hesitantly.

Kit twisted to look at the door where the butler hovered, apparently torn over whom to take orders from—him or his mother. The fact that this still continued to happen after a dozen or more years as marquess irritated him. He was the Marquess of Taverham. His mother lived here by his invitation and good grace. “Addison. Bring tea for my wife and me. Perhaps Mother, too, if she wishes it, but we are done accepting calls for the day.”

His mother huffed and straightened in her seat. Any stiffer and he could attach a sail to her and have her glide away. “Sit up, Taverham,” she ordered. “Show some respect for your position.”

Kit let his mother’s thoughts on how a marquess should behave in his own home go in one ear and out the other. He watched Miranda instead and saw a small smile lift the corners of her lips when he didn’t move to accommodate his mother’s wishes immediately. Interesting.

He crossed his feet at the ankles and laced his fingers together behind his head. “Mother, do stop your nonsense. When do you leave for Twilit Hill?”

The dowager sniffed. “Not for several days yet, I suspect. I’m needed here.”

Miranda glanced down at her hands, the beginnings of her smile vanishing. Blast. For a moment she’d almost been happy. “When shall we leave, wife?”

She whipped her head around to stare at him. “Leave London?”

He wondered at her surprise. He’d never spent more than a month or two in London each year and never together in a row. She’d told him once she’d been pleased by that as she liked the country better than Town. Had that changed? “I’ve no need to be here for the season, and I’d rather spend my time with you than suffering through parliament. I thought you might be keen to see Twilit again. Our home is very different now. I’d like your opinion on the improvements we’ve made.”

Miranda licked her lips. “I’d like to stay and see more of my cousin Agatha. I wanted to go to her today, but with so many visitors…”

He recalled she’d made mention of going out today a few times, and so far he’d managed to put her off with one distraction or another. She must have missed her cousin, but the notion that the outside world and her family held more appeal than being with him stung a little. He’d better reconcile himself to becoming her shadow if he wanted to keep her happy.

He huffed at the thought of being second in her good graces but could see no reason to deny her wish to remain close to her cousin for the time being. The estate ran itself now, allowing him freedom to come and go at will. There was really no reason to rush home to the country. No reason to rush anywhere at all. “Of course. The Carringtons customarily do not remain in London for terribly long. Perhaps when they have returned to the country we can too. I’ve no objections to that. Mother can go on ahead and prepare the servants for our return. I’d like a smooth transition and no awkwardness about your removal to the dower house, Mother. You may request any staff member to join you there, and do write to us with your requests for additional comforts. I am sure Miranda will want to change things, as is her right.”

When his mother began to protest, attempted to change Kit’s mind but failed to make headway, Miranda smiled for the first time at him, with more warmth than he expected.

Happiness trickled through him. At last—a small thawing of her resistance. He ignored his mother’s furious departure to drink in the contentment he found in pleasing his wife. She was the marchioness, and he would support any changes she wished made.

Before he could put those thoughts into words, the butler slipped back into the room, clearing his throat in a manner Kit found extremely irritating. “I said we were not to be disturbed.”

“Forgive me. Lord Louth has called to see the marchioness and will not take no for an answer. He’s become rather cross in fact.”

Miranda sprung to her feet. “I’ll see him at once, Addison.”

She took a few steps away but then clutched the backrest of a chair tightly and squeezed her eyes shut. Kit watched her, uncomfortably aware that she was eager to see another man. A friend. Kit rolled to a sitting position and nodded to the butler, anxious himself to see how the pair greeted each other.

When Lord Louth strolled in, he shook Kit’s hand firmly, then his eyes narrowed on Miranda. “My lady, a pleasure to see you again.”

“Lord Louth. So nice of you to call on me here.”

A deep vee formed between his eyes. He took her gloved hand in his and brushed his thumb across her clenched fingers as he looked at her face closely. “Please sit,” he murmured, then led her to a high-backed chair and eased her into it. Miranda settled comfortably, and when Louth nudged a footstool in her direction, she accepted the fussing wordlessly and placed her feet upon it.