Читать книгу The Regency Season: Decadent Dukes: Rufus Drake: Duke of Wickedness / Griffin Stone: Duke of Decadence / Christian Seaton: Duke of Danger - Кэрол Мортимер, Carole Mortimer - Страница 22

Chapter Four

Why was Bella so surprised to learn that the Duke of Rotherham had a wife?

He was a very handsome gentleman, and wealthy too, judging by the meticulous condition of this beautiful estate. Of course such a man would have a wife. A beautiful and accomplished duchess, to complement his own chiselled good looks and ducal haughtiness. And, no doubt, to provide him with the necessary heirs.

Was it possible he already had several of those children in his nursery?

Bella swallowed before speaking again. ‘I did not know... I had no idea... I had assumed—’ She had assumed that Griffin was unmarried. That the way she felt so inexplicably drawn towards him was acceptable, even as she acknowledged it was altogether impossible that that interest would ever be felt in return for the vagabond she currently was. ‘Why have I not yet been introduced to your wife?’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched cheek. ‘Obviously because she is not here.’

Bella felt totally bewildered by the coldness of his tone.

‘Then where is she?’

His eyes were now glacial. ‘She has been buried in the family crypt in the village churchyard these past six years.’

Oh, dear Lord!

Why had she continued to question and pry? Why could she not have just left the subject alone, when she could see that it was causing Griffin such terrible discomfort? The stiffness of his body, the tightness of his jaw, and the over-bright glitter of his eyes were all proof of that.

But no, because she was irritated with him over his earlier behaviour, those ridiculous assumptions he had made concerning her conversation with Arthur Sutton, she had continued to push and to pry into something that was surely none of her business. Into a subject that obviously caused this proud and haughty man immense pain.

‘Do you have children, too?’

His mouth tightened. ‘No.’

‘How did she die?’ Bella knew she really should not ask any more questions, but the look on Griffin’s face indicated that if she did not ask them now she might never be given another opportunity. And she wanted to know.

Besides which, Griffin could only be aged in his early thirties now, and he said his wife had been dead for six years, so surely that wife could not have been any older than her early to mid-twenties when she died?

‘She drowned,’ he bit out harshly.

‘How?’ Bella gasped.

‘I will not discuss this subject with you any further, Bella!’

Bella knew she really had pushed the subject as far as Griffin would allow, as he turned away to look out of the bedroom window.

She hesitated only briefly, her gaze fixed on the rigid set of his shoulders and unyielding back as she swung her legs to the floor, before rising quickly to her feet to cross over to where the Duke stood. ‘Now it is my turn to apologise.’ Her voice was huskily soft as she stood behind him. ‘I should not have continued to ask questions about something that so obviously distresses you.’

He made no response, indeed he gave no indication he had even heard her.

Bella waited for several long seconds before lifting her arms up tentatively and sliding them gently about his waist, hearing him draw in a hissing breath as she did so. She could feel the way that his body became even more rigid beneath her hands as she rested them on his abdomen.

Realising her mistake, she started to draw away.

‘No!’ Griffin’s hands moved up to hold those slender arms about his waist. ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he ordered as his body relaxed against Bella’s warmth and the soft press of her breasts against his back.

It had been so long since any woman had voluntarily offered him the comfort of her arms other than for that brief prelude occasionally offered before the sexual act began.

Griffin’s eyes closed as he now savoured the sensation of just being held. Of having no expectations asked of him, other than to stand here and accept those slender arms about his waist. At the same time as Bella’s softness continued to warm him through his clothing.

Griffin had not realised until now just how much he had missed having a woman’s undemanding and tenderness of feeling. He had not allowed himself to feel hunger for those things that he knew could never be his.

He had to marvel at Bella, giving that tenderness and warmth so freely, when circumstances surely dictated she was the one in need of that comfort.

For the moment Griffin did not want to think about those circumstances, to give thought to the fact he knew nothing about this young woman. Why should he, when he had known even less about the women in whose bodies he had taken his pleasure these past six years? No, for now he intended to simply enjoy the moment.

Bella had not moved since Griffin had instructed her not to. But she still couldn’t stop thinking about the wife he’d lost so tragically.

Had Griffin been very much in love with her?

Had their marriage been a happy one?

Had Griffin been nursing a broken heart since losing his wife?

Could that broken heart be the reason he had never remarried?

‘Your thoughts are so loud, Bella, I can almost hear them,’ Griffin chided dryly.

‘Can you?’ she breathed shallowly, sincerely hoping that was not the case. Griffin seemed such a private man, so closed off within himself, that she was sure he would not appreciate learning of the many questions about him still raging inside her head.

‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured as he slowly turned in her arms.

Bella’s breath caught in her throat as she found herself so suddenly facing him. It had been so much easier to hold Griffin when she was not looking up into his mesmerising and handsome face.

When she could still breathe.

When her thoughts had not suddenly turned to mush.

When he could not see how her body was betraying her responses to him. Her face felt flushed, eyes fever-bright, and the tips of her breasts had become swollen and sensitive beneath the material of her overlarge gown. She also felt an unfamiliar sensation low down between her thighs.

Griffin’s large hands moved up to cup her cheeks as he tilted her face up to his, looking down searchingly. ‘Are you a witch?’ he murmured gruffly.

Bella could not look away from the compelling heat in those silver eyes. ‘I do not think so.’

He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I think you must be.’

‘Why must I?’

His eyes darkened, his expression grim. ‘Because you have made me want you!’

Her heart leapt in her chest at the fierceness with which he delivered the admission.

There was such an unmistakeable underlying anger in Griffin’s voice, telling her that he resented those feelings.

Because he still loved his dead wife, and the desire he now felt for Bella was a betrayal to those feelings?

Or was his anger with himself rather than her, for feeling that desire for someone he did not know or completely trust?

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘You can have no idea how much I envy you, Bella!’

She blinked at the strangeness of the comment. ‘Why on earth would you envy me?’ At the moment she had nothing. No past.

No future. No name. Even the dress she was wearing belonged to another woman.

Griffin’s hands tightened against her cheeks. ‘Because your lack of knowledge about your past means you have no memory of pain or loss, either. Or the mistakes you might have made,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Because the blank of that past allows you to start afresh. To decide what that past might have been, and to make the future your own.’

That was one way of looking at this situation, Bella supposed.

Except she would much rather know her past. Whatever that past might be.

To not know who or what she was gave her the constant feeling of walking along the edge of a precipice, when one misguided step or action would hurtle her over the edge of that precipice to her certain death.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. A movement Griffin followed hungrily, causing Bella’s heart to falter in her chest as she found herself suddenly unable to speak.

‘You are a witch,’ Griffin groaned throatily, no longer able to resist the lure of wanting to feel those lush and rosy-coloured lips beneath his own. He lowered his head towards hers.

Her gently parted lips felt as soft as rose petals beneath his, as he held back his hunger to plunder and claim but instead kissed her with restrained gentleness, her taste as sweet as the nectar between those petals. A nectar Griffin wanted to lap up greedily with his tongue.

Dear Lord!

Griffin groaned low in his throat, hungrily deepening the kiss as he felt the tentative sweep of Bella’s tongue against his own like hot enveloping silk, her arms now clinging tightly about his waist as she pressed the soft length of her body eagerly against his much harder one. So eager, so trusting.

Damn it, he had made a promise to Bella to protect her while she remained in his household. And she had left him in no doubt that she now trusted him to ensure her safety. Even from himself.

It took every effort of willpower on his part, but he finally managed to gather the strength to wrench his mouth from hers, breathing heavily as he put her firmly away from him before releasing her.

He hardened his heart against the look of pained rejection in Bella’s reproachful gaze. If he weakened, even for a moment, he would give in to the temptation to take her back into his arms. And he knew that this time he would be unable to stop kissing her, touching her, caressing her, and it would end with him craving more than she was ready to give.

‘It is past time I returned to my study,’ he barked before turning sharply to cross the room to the door.

Bella reached out a hand to grasp the back of the chair nearest to her, barely able to stand on her own two feet. The onslaught of emotions she had known in Griffin’s arms had left her feeling light-headed.

‘I will be going out for some time after luncheon, paying calls to some of my neighbours,’ the Duke—for that was surely who Griffin now was; that aloof and disdainful Duke whom she had met this morning!—informed her distantly.

‘Do you wish me to accompany you?’ Bella had no idea how she felt about leaving the safety of this estate. Fear, perhaps, at going out into a world she did not know?

As much as she felt a nervousness at the thought of Griffin being nowhere nearby for her to call to if she should need him?

‘I believe, for the moment, you should remain here, out of sight,’ he dismissed coldly, his back still turned towards her as he paused with his hand on the door handle of the bedchamber. ‘You may pick some flowers from the garden, and bring them into the house, if you wish.’

There was no doubt in Bella’s mind that he made the concession as an apology. Whether that apology was for his mistaken accusations over Arthur Sutton, or for kissing her just now, she had no idea.

Either way, Bella did not need to be humoured as if she were a child!

She had been a willing participant in their kisses just now, and she had revelled in the experience, in the rush of emotions she had felt at being held so tightly in Griffin’s arms: pleasure, arousal, heat.

His rejection just minutes later had been as if a shower of cold water had been thrown over her.

She gathered herself up to her full height as she stepped away from the chair. ‘I do not wish, thank you.’

Griffin gave a wince as he heard the hurt beneath Bella’s haughtiness of tone.

Because he had called a halt to their kisses?

Because she had enjoyed them as much as he had?

But what other choice did he have but to stop? She was a young woman staying as a guest in his household. A vulnerable young woman he had offered his protection to for as long as she had need of it. She said she trusted him.

Yet surely he had just violated that trust?

He would not be accused of violating her too!

Griffin gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘Do as you please,’ he dismissed coolly even as he wrenched open the door to the bedchamber and made good his escape.

Bella blinked back the tears of self-pity that now blurred her vision. She would not allow herself to cry again.

She refused to cry simply because Griffin so obviously regretted kissing her.