“Will you marry me, Lady Madeline?” The words were harsh, his voice like ice.
She set down the teacup, fluttered her long lashes again, and spoke with soft earnestness. “Thank you, Your Grace. You do me a great honor, but I fear that I cannot accept your proposal in good faith, although our families dearly wish for us to marry. To state it quite simply, I am in love with another. I hope you are not too disappointed. Please consider me your friend. I could not bear for anyone to believe that there were any ill feelings between us. Now if you will please excuse me, I must return to our guests. Good evening, Your Grace. Papa.” Lady Madeline turned and glided from the library, leaving the two men standing there quite speechless.
“How did she take it?” Lily Sherwood asked, handing the Duke of Woodborough a crystal glass filled with the finest bourbon his money could buy.
“Thank you.” He kissed her cheek as he gratefully accepted the drink from her. “She handled it better than I expected. Lord Maxwell actually seemed to take it harder than she did. But then again, he has to live with her and her disappointment. Poor old man.” He shook his head grimly as he sipped his bourbon.
Lily gave a little laugh. “Well, as I said earlier, all of London is under the impression that you are going to marry this girl. You’ve been buried out at Ridge Haven and Summerfields since Christmas and have ignored all the talk about you and her.” Lily’s dark eyes sparkled with a seductive gleam. “You have to admit, it was rather an ingenious plan. She even had your father’s consent. You can’t blame the girl for trying.”
With her silky black hair, clear white skin, supple body, and long legs, Lily Sherwood had once been an acclaimed ballerina. But she was over thirty years old now and well past the time when she could dance for a living. The duke met her six years ago after one of her performances at the theater. He had been taken by her stunning beauty and quiet manner. So much so that he set her up in an elegant house in a fine neighborhood and provided very well for her, an arrangement of which she did not take advantage. They had a good relationship and they enjoyed each other’s company immensely, both in and out of the bedroom.
“I’m going back to Ridge Haven tomorrow. I need to get out of London.” He laid down on his back, settling into the comfortable pillow-strewn sofa.
“But you only arrived a few days ago.” She brushed her hand along his arm. “We’ve hardly seen each other.”
He groaned at the prospect of remaining in the city. He could not stomach another Season of greedy women vying for his attention. The first Season he had participated in during his early twenties had soured him on the whole marriage business. It wouldn’t matter if he were a miserable miser with a hump and one eye, as long as he was the Duke of Woodborough and had money, women would seek him out to be his wife. Since his father’s death, his obligation to marry had been brought to light with more urgency, and he had steeled himself to participate in the coming Season. And once again, he found himself the object of acquisitiveness in women. The last straw had been that conniving Madeline Maxwell and her mother. The entire situation left him with a sordid feeling. Imagine the gall of that girl in demanding that he propose so that she could refuse him to save face in circumstances of her own creation! At least the matter was done now. Marriage! It turned females into crazed creatures and turned him off the entire thought of it. Oh, he knew marrying well was his duty, and he had every intention of fulfilling that duty, but for some strange reason he needed to know that he was wanted for something more than just his title and wealth.
“I know. But I cannot abide all these marriage-hungry mothers, throwing their dreary daughters at me. It’s appalling. I spent most of the evening outside to get away from the matchmakers.” His hands set her long hair free from its knot atop her head, sending it cascading in dark silky waves around them.
She made mocking tsk, tsk sounds as she teased him. “Poor baby. Women falling at your feet. All men should have such troubles.” Her sheer negligee barely covered her as she stretched her lithe dancer’s body on top of him.
He laughed with ease and kissed her, but inwardly he wished Lily understood what he meant. He wanted something special. Something different from anything he had yet to find. And not for the first time this evening, an image of Caroline Armstrong flashed through his mind.
“You have to marry, and once you do, all these women will leave you alone. Or so one would think.” Her long fingers caressed the masculine line of his jaw. “You’re too handsome by far, Alex.”
He took Lily’s hand in his and kissed her fingers one by one. It seemed throughout his childhood he was reminded that he would inherit the highly vaunted title of Duke of Woodborough one day. To that end, he never knew if he was valued for himself or for his title.
“Just get married. Just get married. Carry on the family name. Have sons. Pass on the title. That is all I have heard my whole life. It was my father’s dying wish to me last summer, and it was my father who began all this nonsense with the Maxwells in the first place, all the while knowing that I had no desire to marry that spoiled, vain, little twit. Now it seems that every female of my acquaintance has taken it upon herself to see that I get married.”
“So marry someone,” Lily suggested, placing feathery kisses along his jawline until she encountered his ear, where she began to nibble delicately, which she knew from years of experience that he adored.
“Do you think I haven’t thought about doing that? But I cannot marry just anyone.”
She began to undo the buttons of his finely starched, white shirt. “Men do it all the time. Choose some biddable young girl with a pretty face, a good family, and a large dowry, and marry her,” she said somewhat sarcastically.
He playfully swatted her bottom. “I don’t wish to marry someone simply because she has the proper pedigree. These empty-headed girls only want me for my title and my money. They don’t want to know me. Who I really am. I need something more from a wife. I want to marry…” His voice trailed off as he thought of a green-eyed beauty who did not wish to marry.
Lily suddenly stilled her movements, her heartbeat increasing its pace. “You’re actually looking for a love match, aren’t you?”
He caught her hands in his. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I am.” With a brooding look, he formed into words the thoughts that had been buried within him for years. “I’ve seen too many marriages turn out badly, full of bitterness and anger. I want a marriage similar to the one my parents shared. They truly loved each other and were genuinely happy together. Why should I have to settle for less to fulfill an ancestral obligation? I want to marry someone I actually wish to spend my time with. Someone intelligent and passionate. Not one of these mindless girls on the marriage mart.”
Lily blinked, her dark eyes wide. He had never talked of his feelings about marriage to her before. Being a realist, she knew he could never marry her, a common dancer from the East End slums of London, nor had she expected it of him. She clearly understood that a duke had to marry. It was his familial duty. However, she cherished the idea that one day he might love her. She wouldn’t care if he married some dim-witted society girl like Madeline Maxwell. A girl like that could never make him happy, which is precisely why she didn’t mind. He could keep his little society wife and still love Lily. She had loved this man for five years and, if she knew nothing else, she knew without a doubt that if he married for love then it would be over between them. “What if you don’t find that someone?” she asked in a breathless whisper.
He smiled seductively and tugged at the silken ties of her negligee, revealing her creamy white breasts. “Then I’ll remain a bachelor all my life.”
Lily placed her mouth on his and kissed him with an eager need, and he pulled her against his aroused body, blocking all thoughts of marriage from their minds.
CHAPTER 4
The Fairchild townhouse was awash with fresh flowers the morning