‘No.’ Richard shook his head slightly. ‘I mean no, I do not believe this.’
‘Oh.’ A small smile touched Deb’s lips. He had not rejected the idea out of hand, then. There was still a chance.
She noted that Richard’s face was grim. Perhaps there was not a chance after all. Perhaps she had made a dreadful error and also made a complete fool of herself. She hoped not. She looked at him, her brow puckered. ‘I thought that you would agree,’ she ventured.
Now he looked absolutely furious and sounded cuttingly sarcastic. ‘Did you? You thought that I would agree to teach you about love for the duration of our betrothal only?’
Deb’s breathing caught. She did not dare explain that if she let him closer than that, if she let him into her heart, she was afraid that she would never be able to let him go again.
‘I thought that if it was for that short while only then I might understand about the pleasures of physical love without any further obligation,’ she said. ‘I had no wish to constrain you in a relationship when our association is to be so fleeting…’
Richard looked suitably disgusted. ‘So you thought to order me up for a few weeks, like a servant? Good God, you have it all worked out!’
Deb got to her feet. She could feel the whole thing slipping away from her. This was not how she had imagined it at all. Perhaps she had been naive, but she had thought that a rake like Richard Kestrel would not need much encouragement. But then, she did not know a great deal about rakes and she had clearly misunderstood this one.
‘It was not like that!’ She got to her feet and put a hand on his arm, desperate to ease the situation. ‘I do not understand…I thought that you wanted me.’
She saw him draw a sharp breath. His gaze searched her face, hard and furious. Behind the anger she saw the desire and felt her heart flip. So he did want her, but for some reason this had all gone wrong. She put a hand to her head. She was starting to feel humiliated. ‘Oh, dear. I think I have made a mistake.’
‘I think you have.’
Now he sounded as stuffy as a church elder. It made Deb quite annoyed. She forgot the embarrassment in a wash of anger.
‘Well, it is not surprising if I mistook you!’ she said, firing up. ‘You are experienced and you have made no secret of your attraction to me.’
‘That is true, but I prefer to do the asking myself.’
Deb felt another rush of annoyance. ‘I see that I have offended your male pride! That is what this is about!’ She made a gesture of disgust. ‘If it comes to that, you did ask me. You asked me to be your mistress a year ago!’
‘Yes, and you turned me down.’ Richard’s tone was clipped. He came across to her and seized her arms above the elbow. ‘You have been fighting your attraction to me every step of the way, Deborah. Why change your mind now?’
Deb stared up into his face. There was a pain lodged inside her, but there was also a shimmering need. She could see the reflection of it in his eyes. ‘I have been fighting myself every step of the way, not you,’ she whispered. ‘I wanted to know-’
‘What you were missing?’
He still sounded angry, but she sensed that he was weakening. She shook her head.
‘No, not that. I told you that I was…married…but a short time and that it was unhappy.’ She blushed slightly. ‘I had never experienced passion. I thought that I should never want to, but with you I am forced to admit that the possibility intrigues me…’
Richard shook his head, as though trying to clear his mind. He was still holding her, but lightly now. Even so, she could sense the tension in him, tight as a spring.
‘You are not thinking straight,’ he said. ‘What you need is a fiance, not a lover. You need someone who can protect you from your father’s plans and act the role of your betrothed, not someone to acquaint you with the delights of love.’
Deb took a step closer, until her body was touching his. Her heart was hammering. ‘Perhaps I need both,’ she said.
She raised her hand and rubbed her fingers gently against Richard’s cheek. She saw him close his eyes as though to blot out the effect of her touch.
‘So what do you say?’ she whispered.
When Deb had first spoken, Richard had thought that he had misheard her request. His mind had been full of the pretend betrothal, the strategy they should adopt, and the necessity of persuading Deb that they should spend considerable time in each other’s company. He had noted her reluctance to his suggestions and had assumed that she had had second thoughts about their engagement. It had never occurred to him that her nervousness had sprung from a completely different source. And when she had propositioned him, told him that she wanted him to be her lover, it had seemed absurd, outrageous. He was certain that he had misunderstood.
Once he was over the initial shock, however, Richard’s second feeling was one of disbelief. He considered himself a good judge of character, but evidently he had been sorely misguided over Mrs Deborah Stratton. She was as brazen as all the rest. She had been playing a game with him and for once his finely-honed instincts had let him down. He had thought her innocent. He had been deceived.
Such reflections did not stand up to one moment of observation. He had looked at Deb and seen that her nervousness had not dissipated. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, a mannerism he had noticed she affected only when extremely disturbed. There was a stricken look in those pansy-blue eyes. Only a fool could imagine that she was an experienced woman. He had felt a savage, purely male satisfaction as he realised the stunning truth. Deborah Stratton had never done this before. She was petrified.
Her utter vulnerability filled him with tenderness as well as desire. Although her invitation was terribly tempting, he knew that he could not take her up on it, at least not yet. When she had said that she had never experienced passion, he had felt a huge gentleness as well as a strengthening of desire. He wanted to take her and show her all the things that she asked, teach her the truth about love with a sweetness and a fervour that was as intense as it was unexpected. But there was a problem and it was an ironic one for a rake to confront. He wanted to marry her before he took her to his bed. And she was about as receptive to the idea of marriage as oil was to mixing with water.
She was so close to him now that he could smell the scent of her skin. Her gentle touch against the roughness of his cheek was disturbing. It distracted him at the moment that he most wanted to keep a clear head.
‘I still say that what you need is a fiance, not a lover,’ he said.
‘And I still say that I want both,’ she said.
His arms came about her and this time he did not even try to resist his feelings. He raised one hand to skim her jaw, running his fingers into her hair as he tilted her head to kiss her fiercely. Hunger and desire slammed through him with devastating power as soon as their lips touched. The heat raged through his veins. He wanted to take her there and then on the velvet sofa. For long, shattering moments they stood locked in each other’s arms, Richard plundering her mouth with his kisses, Deb responding with all the fervour of long denial.
He felt her shudder slightly and eased back, tracing his thumb over the fullness of her lower lip, swollen from the violence of his kisses. Her eyes were dark inky blue and full of longing as he bent to kiss her again, gently this time.
‘Deborah…’ he said.
Her eyes widened as they held his. ‘Does that mean…can that possibly mean…yes?’ she asked.
Richard scanned her face. She looked innocent and hopeful and utterly desirable. His stomach clenched. He smiled at her. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Yes.’
He felt the shock go through her. She blinked. ‘I thought that you would refuse,’ she said.
Richard sat down on the sofa and drew her down on to his knee. ‘Deborah…’ he said again.
‘Mmm?’ She sounded dazed. He wanted to keep her that way because he was not at all sure that he could refuse her if she turned demanding. He sprinkled tiny kisses across the soft skin of her face. Immediately she turned more fully to him, tilting her face up like a flower to the sun. Her eyes were closed, the lashes fanned across her cheeks. Richard was stunned by the latent passion in her. It made it incredibly difficult for him to concentrate. Tracing a path of kisses down her throat, he spoke softly. ‘Deborah, you still require a fiance.’
