Darius rather liked the angry flush that had entered her cheeks. It made her eyes appear darker, the fullness of her lips redder. Lips that it would no doubt be a pleasure to kiss and explore, he noted. ‘Nevertheless, you have been out for two Seasons now, with no hint of a betrothal being announced.’
Those expressive dark eyes flashed her displeasure. ‘Is it your opinion, then, that all young ladies are so giddy and empty-headed that their only aim in life must be to snare themselves a suitable husband?’
He raised enquiring blond brows. ‘By suitable I presume you mean wealthy, as well as titled?’
Her pointed chin rose challengingly. ‘It is the enlightened year of eighteen hundred and seventeen, Your Grace, a time when not all women feel that they need a husband—any husband—by which to justify their very ex is tence!’
‘Then it is not your intention to marry?’ he asked curiously.
‘Not for some years, no,’ she answered stubbornly. ‘A pity.’
Her brows drew together. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Darius shrugged broad shoulders. ‘At nineteen a woman’s body is still firm and ripe—’ He broke off as Arabella gave a shocked gasp and attempted to pull away from him, yet Darius easily prevented her withdrawal by tightening his arm about the narrowness of her waist and his fingers about her tiny gloved fingers.
Her eyes glittered up at him angrily when she found herself forced to continue dancing, the softness of her thighs pressed against his much harder ones. ‘Release me at once, sir!’
Darius grinned down at her unrepentantly. ‘I am merely endeavouring to show you what you are missing by spurning the idea of marriage whilst you are still young enough to enjoy it.’
Arabella had not grown up with three older brothers without learning at least some of the mechanics of a man’s body. And at the moment she could feel exactly what she would be missing as the hard press of Darius Wynter’s thighs became a shocking torment against hers. A shockingly sensual torment.
Her legs felt weakened by the intimacy. Her breasts were swelling against her gown, her palms becoming slightly damp inside her gloves, and her cheeks were burning as she glanced about them self-consciously.
Luckily there was such a crush of people attending the celebration of her brother Sebastian’s wedding to his darling Juliet that no one—not one of her brothers or their wives, nor indeed her many aunts and uncles and numerous cousins—seemed to have noticed the Duke’s over-familiarity with Arabella.
Arabella’s eyes gleamed as she turned back to face him. ‘Surely it is not necessary for a woman to marry in order for her to enjoy such … intimacies?’ She looked up at him challengingly, hoping to shock him.
The Duke narrowed his eyes. ‘Perhaps you have already done so?’ he retorted.
Of course Arabella had not. She might not as yet have found any man interesting enough to even think of marrying him, but for her to go to her husband on their wedding night as anything but pure and untouched would cause the most tremendous scandal. Besides which, her three over-protective older brothers would never allow it.
However, she considered this taunting mockery from a contemporary of her eldest brother Hawk intolerable. At one-and-thirty years of age, he should know better! ‘Perhaps …’ she echoed enigmatically.
Those sculptured lips curved into a hard smile. ‘Why is it I find that so very hard to believe, Lady Arabella?’
She drew in a sharp, indignant breath. ‘Are you calling me a liar, Your Grace?’
‘I believe I am, yes,’ Darius murmured.
Arabella St Claire really was a wayward little baggage, he acknowledged with admiration as he continued to twirl her about the magnificent candlelit ballroom. A wilful baggage with a complete disregard for the fact that she was playing with fire by behaving in this flirtatious way with a man she had refused to marry so condescendingly the previous year.
She held herself very erect, her challenging stance pushing up the full swell of those creamy breasts so that Darius now felt their warmth against his chest.
‘I do not tell lies, Your Grace.’
He quirked a brow over lazily sensual blue eyes. ‘Prove it.’
Her eyes opened wide at the challenge. ‘I beg your pardon?’
They might have been the only two people in the room as Darius regarded her from between narrowed lids. The air between them was charged with expectation as he noted the loss of colour to her cheeks and the shocked uncertainty that now shone in those previously rebellious brown eyes. ‘I am merely inviting you to prove your claim, Arabella,’ he repeated softly.
‘I—But—How am I to do that, Your Grace?’
His mouth repressed a smile. ‘Surely there is only one way in which a woman might prove her … experience in the matter of physical intimacy?’
Arabella stared up at Darius Wynter in disbelief. He could not seriously mean for her to—? He did not expect her to—?
Yes, he did!
His intent was blatantly plain for Arabella to read in that single raised brow. In the deep blue of his eyes. In the cynical half-smile on those perfect lips.
Darius Wynter, Duke of Carlyne, was openly challenging her to indulge in physical intimacy with him!
Arabella’s heart fluttered wildly in her chest at the mere thought of the muscled strength of this man’s hard, naked body pressed against her own; those wide shoulders, the firmness of his chest and stomach, his powerful thighs and the naked glory of his—
‘I assure you, sir, that the infamous Darius Wynter is the very last man I would ever contemplate becoming intimate with,’ Arabella bit out with deliberate insult.
He looked down his aristocratic nose at her. ‘Is that so?’ he responded icily.
She nodded. ‘You are undoubtedly the rake everyone believes you to be. A rake and a scoundrel. A man who married for money before being suspiciously widowed only a month later.’
‘Suspiciously?’ His voice was deceptively, dangerously soft.
‘Conveniently, then,’ Arabella substituted recklessly. ‘As you were then able to keep your heiress’s money without the bother of the heiress. In other words, sir, you are a man no decent woman should ever align herself with, as wife or mistress, regardless of your newfound wealth and respectability as the Duke of Carlyne!’
Arabella was instantly aware of her serious error in judgement in insulting this particular man as those dark blue eyes narrowed dangerously in a face gone hard with displeasure. His mouth was a thin, uncompromising line above a clenched and unrelenting jaw. That very stillness was in itself a warning of the coldness and depth of his anger.
Arabella swallowed hard. ‘Perhaps I have said too much—’
‘Only perhaps? ‘ Darius grated menacingly.
She had said too much. Far too much, and most assuredly to the wrong man. That the Duke had challenged her into being so indiscreet Arabella had no doubts. That she should not have taken up that challenge was also beyond doubt. As was the retribution promised in the hard blue of his eyes.
‘I believe we should retire somewhere a little less … crowded so that we might continue this conversation in private,’ Darius growled, his fingers firmly gripping Arabella’s elbow as he left the dance floor to pull her along at his side through the crush of people.
‘We cannot be seen leaving the ballroom together,’ Arabella hissed self-consciously, hoping that at any moment one or other of her brothers would arrive and demand to know what they were about.
Darius did not so