Mortified by her feelings, she covered her heated cheeks with her hands. She wanted to scream and giggle and cry all in the same instant. How could she have behaved so disgracefully? What had come over her? She had not wanted his kiss to end. She had wanted it to go on and on, and when it did end, she wanted to cry out with the loss of it. How could she feel this way about a complete stranger when Stephen’s kisses had never made her feel this way?
Stephen!
She clutched her stomach and rocked back and forth, now feeling slightly ill. Not once had she thought about Stephen Bennett. Oh, she was shameful. Dreadful. She had no business kissing another man. A man she didn’t even know!
Yet that was what was so extraordinary. Alex didn’t feel like a stranger.
Caroline couldn’t shake the sensation that she knew him. But that couldn’t be. She had only just met Mr. Alexander Woodward.
Your Grace.
The young man on the balcony had called Alex “Your Grace.” That was the form of address for a duke. And there was only one duke she knew of that would be at the Maxwells’ ball tonight.
This could only mean that Alexander Woodward was none other than the Duke of Woodborough.
The well-known, handsome, wealthy, sought-after Duke of Woodborough had just kissed her passionately in the moonlight. She couldn’t suppress a bubble of feminine pride from rising up within her, and she giggled. Then she suddenly stopped.
The Duke of Woodborough was practically engaged to Lady Madeline Maxwell. At least that’s what everyone was saying.
Then what was he doing, hiding on the balcony at the home of his intended betrothed, saying he didn’t want to get married, and kissing Caroline? What was he about with his heated kisses and his wonderful hands on her when he was practically engaged to another? A tiny pang of jealousy pricked her at the thought of him marrying that haughty Madeline Maxwell.
Laughing at herself and the ridiculousness of the situation, she wondered idly whatever happened to the reasonable, sensible Caroline. Quite sure she didn’t know, she sighed deeply, knowing she had better hurry back to the ballroom. She quietly returned to her grandmother, seated in a dim corner. The loud music and steady hum of conversation now irritated her already frayed nerves, so it was not difficult for her to feign an illness when Olivia asked where she had been.
“I just went out for some fresh air. I have a crushing headache.”
“You do look a little flushed,” Olivia noticed with some concern, smoothing her hand across Caroline’s forehead. “And you look more like your mother than you will ever know,” she said with a bittersweet smile. Then she became stern. “Lord Summerton came to claim his dance with you.”
“I’m sorry, Grandmother, but I fear I’m not up to dancing at the moment. I feel ill,” she murmured, placing her hand to her temple. Sensing her grandmother’s disappointment that she was not making the great impression expected of her, she truly felt ill and was no longer capable of acting her role of the boring old spinster this evening. She had just been kissed by a complete stranger and was stunned by the impact. How could she now dance with awkward boys and pretend to be a bluestocking? Nervously, her eyes scanned the room hoping to catch a glimpse of Alexander Woodward. Yet she feared that she would. For whatever would she say if she did see him?
Then she saw him.
Her heart began to thud in her chest, and her stomach fluttered in a nervous reaction that was new to her. Alexander Woodward was standing across the room, speaking with Lord Maxwell. In the light, she was amazed by just how strikingly handsome he was, even in profile. The sight of him took her breath away. The strong line of his jaw, the aquiline nose, the chiseled features—it was as if he were carved from marble. His black hair gleamed. His eyes flashed. He seemed taller than she remembered, because he practically towered over every man in the room. He had an energy around him that fascinated her. There was a distinctly displeased look on his face at the moment, however. He seemed more than irritated. His sensual mouth was set in a grim line. The unusual thought that she would never want to cause him to look at her that way flickered briefly through her mind. She preferred the way he looked at her after they had kissed. It was an intimate, knowing look. It made her feel special. She couldn’t help but wonder what so displeased him now with Lord Maxwell. Surreptitiously she continued to watch him over the brim of her white lace fan.
Alex didn’t seem to notice her at first, but then, as if feeling her gaze, he deliberately turned and looked in her direction. He smiled as their eyes met across the room. It was a secretive smile. A suggestive smile. A smile that said nothing at all, yet spoke volumes. It flooded her with a feeling she couldn’t describe, but that feeling reached all the way down to her belly, almost taking her breath away. She smiled back, unable to do anything else. Then embarrassed, she quickly averted her eyes and chatted absently with her grandmother. When she dared to look up again, he was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER 3
“I have absolutely no intention of marrying your daughter. I do not appreciate being placed in this awkward position. You must put a stop to your wife and daughter’s gossip and misleading statements about me, or I will. And if I am the one to end it…Well, you know what that could do to her reputation. But this must end,” insisted Alexander Woodward, the seventh Duke of Woodborough, as he stood in the elegant, if rarely used, library of Lord Albert Maxwell, while hundreds of guests were downstairs dancing in their crowded ballroom. The only reason he was attending this ball tonight was to clear up this situation once and for all.
“Your father and I always thought that you and Madeline would make a fine match, Your Grace. Madeline was the toast of London last Season and held off many offers of marriage with the understanding that she would eventually marry you,” Lord Maxwell mumbled, a note of sadness in his tone. He was a very short man with a paunchy middle, typical of his years. He had a round red face, from which bulged pale, watery blue eyes, and his mostly bald head was topped by thin wisps of white hair. His white tie was askew, adding to his usual rumpled appearance, for which his wife, Ellie, was forever berating him.
Alex sighed in weariness. “I understand you were a good friend to my father, and I am sorry that you were given the impression that I was going to marry your daughter. But I made it very clear to my father before he died that I would find a wife of my own choosing. However charming Madeline is, I do not think that we would suit each other. I have known her since she was a child, and I have no interest in her. Since my father died last summer, your wife and daughter have deluded half of London into believing that I am about to offer for her. Even my own friends are beginning to believe it!” Noticing the expression on Lord Maxwell’s face, he tried to reiterate it more kindly. “Madeline is a lovely young lady and will make a wonderful wife for some man. I am simply not that man. And not at any time have I ever led her, or you, or my own father to believe otherwise.”
The last thing he wanted was a marriage to a spoiled little society chit like Madeline Maxwell. Everyone had heard the stories about her childhood and the excess to which her parents had spoiled her. The Maxwells had given their little girl her own miniature pony and cart at four years old, an extravagant Worth gown from Paris made especially for her at age ten, and a diamond and ruby tiara for her sixteenth birthday. How would one ever satisfy a wife with those expectations?
An uncomfortable silence ensued before the duke added, “If you do not wish to inform Madeline of my true intentions, I will discuss the matter with her personally.”
“It is just that she has her heart set on you and I don’t know how to break the news to her.” Lord Maxwell’s small, beefy hand shook as he took a gulp of whiskey. “Or to my wife.”
The duke ignored that last statement. “Tonight we can say that Madeline has changed her mind and that she does not wish to marry me.”
Lord Maxwell scoffed at the very idea. “Who would believe that?”
The