The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (13 page)

As soon as the door closed behind him, Lisette whispered, “You must promise never
to do that again.”

Max’s eyes blazed at her. “Why?”

She glanced away, unable to face that heated look. “Because I have no intention of
ending up a duke’s mistress. Bad enough that I watched Maman throw her life away on
a man who could not love her. I will not follow in her footsteps.”

“Ah.
That
reason I can understand. I was afraid you were going to claim you didn’t feel desire
between us.” His gaze bore into her, clearly seeing far too much of what she fought
so hard to hide. “We both know that would be a lie.”

She wanted to deny it. She wanted to argue that his arrogant assumption was wrong.

But he hadn’t said it arrogantly. And she wasn’t in the habit of denying what was
blatantly true. “So you agree to do as I ask? Never to . . . kiss me?”

“If you will agree to do something for me in return.”

Her gaze shot to his. “What?”

“Never lie to me.”

She stared at him, perplexed. “To my knowledge, I never have.” She’d omitted bits
of the truth but had spoken no out-and-out lies.

“This afternoon, when you burst into tears, for a
moment I . . .” He muttered a curse. “I couldn’t tell it was feigned. I knew it had
to be, but it felt real. It felt horrible. With my father, I was never sure—”

He halted, then turned coolly nonchalant. “I understand that in playing this ‘role,’
you’ll have to say things that aren’t true. But when you and I are alone, I want to
be sure you’re speaking the truth to
me
, being forthright in your dealings with
me
. Can you promise that?”

“Yes, of course.” How many lies had he endured in his life to make him even ask such
a thing? To make him so bothered by her pretense of tears? What was it that he’d never
been sure of with his father?

She would dearly like to know, but it was clear he didn’t want to tell her.

“Thank you,” he said tersely. “Then I believe we have a bargain.”

“I believe we do.”

Thank goodness. She did not need him bringing all his sensual powers to bear on her
for his temporary amusement. Because what other reason could he have for it? He would
never consider marriage to her.

But as they sat down to dinner, with the air between them still thick with desire,
she realized that for some tiny, aberrant part of her it didn’t matter whether he
would consider marriage to her.

That part of her would still very much like to have him kiss her again.

D
INNER WAS A
tense affair. Not that Maximilian was surprised. He’d just been ravishing Lisette’s
mouth, after all. It would be damned near impossible for either of them to forget
that.

And what a mouth she had, too—soft and far too sweet. He’d expected more resistance,
more outrage. He certainly hadn’t expected the fire that had flamed between them the
second his mouth touched hers. At least now he knew he wasn’t alone in his attraction.
She had definitely responded to that kiss.

The thought of it aroused him all over again, made him ache to touch her, to caress
her. Her skin was as delicate as wild rose petals, as silken as any man could want.
And he had wanted, oh, how he’d wanted, to lay her down on that settee and show her
what real desire was.

That hunger still coursed through him, the need that had made him take her mouth with
overwhelming force and intensity and—

Passion. He’d never considered himself a passionate man. There had been too much passion
in his parents’ lives—too much emotion and chaos in general—which was why he kept
an iron control on his mind and body, relegating his feelings to the dungeon in the
fortress of his heart.

Oh, he satisfied his urges when necessary, and he and his friend Gabriel Sharpe had
done some sowing of wild oats in their time, but not that often. He hadn’t been that
keen on going to demireps, all too aware that his father had once caught syphilis.
He’d always thought it odd, since Father had never struck him as the kind to go to
whores, but perhaps in his younger days he’d been indiscreet.

Father had been lucky—the disease hadn’t had any lasting physical effects—but Maximilian
had never wanted to take any chances. Especially since he hadn’t found casual swiving
satisfying. It had always been purely physical, like scratching an itch or quenching
a thirst.

Kissing Lisette had been more than scratching an itch. The damned female got under
his skin as no woman ever had.

So he wasn’t altogether disappointed that she wanted to halt it before it blossomed
into anything. Because he didn’t like feeling that much out of control of his senses.
It reminded him that one day he could expect to be like Father—completely out of control
of his senses.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

He started to pour himself a third glass of wine, then reconsidered. This was no night
for drowning his fears in drink.

Lisette was toying with her own wineglass. “I take it that you’ve had some experience
with people lying to you.”

Bloody hell. He should have known she would be clever enough to ascertain why he’d
made his demand. “Some, yes.”

When he would have left it at that, she prodded, “Who would dare to lie to a duke?”

A cynical laugh escaped him. “Nearly everyone. The servants who will say anything
to keep me happy, the tradesmen who will say anything to sell me something, the matchmaking
mamas who will claim anything to gain their girls a duke for a husband, and my family,
who—”

He caught himself. He hadn’t meant to say
that.
But she had this way of drawing things out of him with her forthright nature.

“Your family?” she said, pouncing on his slip.

He scrambled for an explanation. “I have a few spinster cousins who plead poverty
regularly, in hopes that I will pay their gaming debts. To save the honor of the Cale
name, of course.”

“And do you?”

“Sometimes. Depends on the cousin. And the debt.”

“Of course.” She steadied her shoulders. “I thought perhaps you meant your parents.”

He had, but he wasn’t about to reveal that. Because
then he’d have to explain what they’d lied about and why.

Her long, slender fingers turned her wineglass round and round. “My own parents lied
to me a great deal.”

The bald statement took him by surprise. “About . . .”

“Oh, Papa lied about how he was going to marry Maman one day, which he never did.
And Maman lied about how Papa loved us madly.”

“Perhaps that was true.”

“Then he should have provided for us,” she said stoutly. “He shouldn’t have made it
so we had to leave our home the day after his death.”

Holy God. “How was that even possible? I know your eldest half brother cut you off,
but surely your father signed some agreement with your mother that ensured you at
least had a home.”

“Sadly, no. Maman was young and naïve when they first met in France. She’d had one
spectacular season in the theater, and this handsome viscount came along, wanting
to whisk her away to England, away from the war and the poverty of her family. I think
she would have done anything to escape France at that point, even take up with a married
man. So she didn’t sign any papers.”

She glanced away, her voice turning hollow. “By the time his wife died, Maman was
well-established as his mistress. I think she really did believe they would get married
after that, especially once Tristan was born. She clung to that promise all through
the war, even when he said he dared not risk a
scandal by marrying a Frenchwoman. And after the war, he kept saying that they would
have a fine wedding as soon as Dom was settled into a law practice, or George had
married. There was always some reason it wasn’t convenient.”

Her tone grew bitter. “Then he very inconveniently died, and that was that.” She sighed.
“He was always worried about scandal or making things harder for his legitimate children.
And I suspect he thought he had plenty of time. He was only fifty-three when he died.”

Fifty-three wasn’t exactly young, something she surely must realize. “For a man of
that age to be so careless with his children, illegitimate or no—”

“Ah, but he was a careless sort, my father.” She sighed. “I loved him dearly, but
he was the kind of man who preferred to roam the world looking for adventure. We only
saw him when he got bored with travel. He would whisk in with presents and stories,
and in a few weeks, he’d be gone again.”

Maximilian knew men like him, whose own needs and wants took precedence over their
duty. He wasn’t one of them, and he felt a strange need to impress that upon her.
“Is that why you don’t trust men of rank? Because they’re unreliable?”

“And because they have a tendency to lie.”

“I don’t.”

She eyed him askance. “Never?”

“Never. There’s no need.” He shot her a cocky smile. “I’m a duke. I say what I please,
and everyone just has to put up with it.”

That made her laugh, as he’d intended. “Yes, I could tell from how you bullied your
way into my house.”

“Ah, but you got the upper hand in that encounter.”

The minx had the audacity to smile. “True.” Her smile faltered. “But not for long.
You would have left me today if either I or the Greasleys had told you where Tristan
was. You already admitted it.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have left you destitute or without resources. I would have made
sure you climbed back on a coach to London, and I would have paid the coachman to
deposit you safely on the doorstep of Manton’s Investigations.”

She studied him a long moment from beneath incredibly thick black lashes. “Why didn’t
you tell the Greasleys the truth about us? Is it because you realized they didn’t
know anything anyway? Or . . .” She dropped her gaze. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“Do you really think I would have ruined you as easily as all that?” he said irritably.
“Embarrassed you before your neighbors and made it impossible for you to live a respectable
life in Bow Street again?”

She toyed with her fork, not looking up. “No, I suppose not. But you didn’t want this,
and you could have taken the chance to get out of it.”

“Not like that. We’re not all your father, you know. Or your elder half brother.”

“I gathered as much.” The fire illuminated her tenuous smile. “You knew more about
your imaginary estate than Papa ever knew about his real one.”

“That’s because it wasn’t imaginary. I actually do
have one in Devonshire. And it does have a lot of sheep. You see? It’s as I told you—I
never lie.”

Finally, she met his gaze, but only to shoot him a skeptical look. “You’re not really
a land agent.”

“All right,” he grumbled, “but you can’t blame me for that lie. You pushed me into
it. I told you from the beginning I was uncomfortable with playacting.”

“You did, that’s true,” she conceded. “And you were clever enough to see what I could
not—that it made more sense for you to play a land agent than a cotton merchant. I
was assuming that you would be as unaware of the inner workings of your estate as
my father. And now George.”

“Rathmoor doesn’t take good care of his estate?”

She snorted. “After he inherited, he alienated all the competent people who’d worked
for Papa, including the land agent, Mr. Fowler. Then George raised the rents, forcing
several tenants to leave land they’d leased for years. Now the entire place is going
to hell in a handbasket.”

That roused his curiosity. “How do you know all this? I thought you and your siblings
hadn’t been there in a while.”

“Dom keeps abreast of it.” She thrust out her little chin pugnaciously. “If there
is any justice in the world and George dies prematurely, Dom will have to pick up
the pieces. So he has a spy keeping him informed of what goes on in Yorkshire.”

“Ah. Very wise of him.” He settled back against his
chair. “You really are close to Manton and Bonnaud, aren’t you?”

A faint smile played across her lips. “Dom and Tristan are only two years apart, so
they grew up together. Since Dom’s mother died in childbirth, my mother became a sort
of second mother to him. The boys played together, and I . . . adored them both, so
they let me come along sometimes. Papa didn’t hide us, you see. He actually encouraged
us to be one big happy family. Perhaps that was wrong of him, but—”

“The Duke of Clarence, present heir to the throne, doesn’t hide any of his ten illegitimate
children by an English actress, so I see no reason your father should have hidden
his two by a French one.” He did some quick figuring in his head. “If I remember right,
Bonnaud is two years older than you.”

“Three, actually.”

“And fond of wreaking havoc on his siblings’ lives, I take it.”

“I know it looks that way,” she countered, “but he isn’t who you think he is.”

“I’ve yet to see any evidence to convince me otherwise.”

She turned belligerent. “When I was four and frightened of dogs, it was Tristan who
lifted me onto his back whenever some mangy cur ran toward me. When I was seven, it
was Tristan who fought three village boys for drawing a vile picture on my best cloak.
When I was
eight, Tristan was the one who taught me how to read and write.”