A devilish smile appeared on the Duke's lips. “A good quality, wouldn't you say?”
Gemma's cheeks blazed. “How dare you?” she managed, but her voice was trapped in her throat. She knew well enough that her actions spoke for themselves. The Duke just laughed.
Gemma straightened her shoulders and tried to smooth the creases from her skirt. Tried to ignore the desperate pulsing between her thighs. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
The Duke shrugged airily and sank back onto the chaise. “Perhaps I should. But you are the one who seems to be blushing.”
Gemma gritted her teeth. She fought the urge to slap the self-satisfied smile off his face. Fought the urge to throw herself onto the chaise longue and beg him to finish what he had started.
Never would I give him that satisfaction!
On shaky legs, she made her way over to the door again and tried the handle. Still, it refused to budge. She bent to peek through the keyhole, but as far as she could tell, the passage beyond was empty. Drawing in a breath to steady herself, she turned back to face the Duke. Her heart was still pounding and the very sight of him sprawled back on the chaise made the warmth in her cheeks intensify.
His dark hair was slightly tousled, and the faint redness of his lips hinted at her ravaging. But beyond that, he looked completely unflapped. How could he look so relaxed after what they had just done? Was such a thing really so commonplace for him that he might manage to look utterly unfazed?
Gemma knew the answer as soon as the thought had formed. While the Duke of Larsen might have been the first and only man to have elicited such a reaction from her, she knew she was just one in a long string of ladies to have felt his lips against her own.
She perched back on the edge of the pianoforte bench and squeezed her hands together.
“Forgive me,” said the Duke after a moment. “You are right. I should be ashamed of myself. I should not have… mistreated you in such a way. I shan't do it again. I promise.”
Gemma blinked, caught off guard by what seemed a genuine apology. She nodded, barely trusting herself to speak. “Thank you,” she managed. She kept her eyes glued to her folded hands. “What will you do?” she dared to ask. “About Miss Henford? Will you marry her, even knowing all the dreadful things she said about your family? And about her plans to rid Larsen Manor of your mother and grandmother?”
The Duke sighed. “I don't know,” he admitted. He rubbed a hand over his square jaw. “I feel it is too late to change my mind. We are to be married in two days' time.”
“But you do not wish to marry her.”
“I do not wish to marry anyone at all,” he said flatly.
Gemma found herself smiling. It was such a rare thing to find someone else in thetonwho shared her aversion to marriage. Although she felt quite certain that the Duke's reasons were very different from her own.
“You do not wish for an heir?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I do notwishfor an heir, no,” he said. “It is merely what is required of me.”
Gemma smiled faintly.What is required of mewas an all-too-familiar concept to her as well. “I do not wish to be married either,” she told him. But as she spoke, she became suddenly aware that, by shunning marriage, she would also be giving up the chance to feel the kind of pleasure that the Duke had just made her feel. Would be giving up the chance to see where such a thing might lead. Because though she was doing her best to keep her face expressionless, and her mind on the conversation at hand, she was aware of her eyes drifting to the Duke's lips. His hands. And once, treacherously, toward that bulge beneath hisbreeches. She longed to feel those hands, those lips, back on her body. Longed to experience the heights they might take her to.
Half an hour ago, Gemma had had no qualms with eschewing her wifely duties. Sacrificing the chance to ever feel a man inside her. But now she found herself craving it. And those wifely duties… they felt like anything but an obligation.
How can I be thinking such things about a rake like the Duke of Larsen?
She prayed her desire did not show on her face. Regardless of the passion with which he had kissed her, Gemma had no doubt that, once this party was over, the Duke of Larsen would never think of her again.
The knowledge stung inexplicably. Gemma cursed herself. How could she be bothered by such knowledge when she had come to this party in the first place to celebrate hiswedding?
“You do not wish to marry?” the Duke repeated.
“You sound surprised.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I assumed all young ladies wished to marry.”
Gemma snorted. “What a limited understanding you must have of young ladies.”
The Duke gave her a frail smile that she struggled to read. “I suspect you may be right.”
“Why should I wish to spend my life as nothing but a means for a gentleman to produce an heir?” said Gemma. “Am I not worth more than that?”
A smile appeared in the corner of the Duke's lips, but he did not speak.
