He inhaled and spoke without thinking, ignoring their audience. “What has happened?” “You know full well, Your Grace, for what – who – I fight.” Her eyes were glittering and he couldn’t believe it, but the evidence was clear. Tears. His goddess should never weep. He took her arm. “Artemis.
Very well.” Artemis blinked, her sweet lips parting as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard. “What?” “I’ll do it.” He turned to go, his mind already making plans, when he felt her fingers clutch at his sleeve. “You’ll take him from Bedlam?” “Yes.” Perhaps his decision had already been made from the moment he’d seen tears in her eyes. He had a weakness, it seemed, a fault more terrible than any Achilles’s heel: he couldn’t stand the sight of her tears.
What do you want?” There was silence, broken only by a faint rustling. When he opened his eyes she was buttoning his banyan over her chemise. “Nothing, I think,” she said to her hands. Then, “My freedom, perhaps.” Freedom. He stared. What did freedom mean to such a wild creature? Did she want to be entirely quit of him? “I’ll not let you go,” he snapped. She glanced up at him and her look was sardonic. “Did I ask you to?” “Artemis –.
She pulled back and murmured, “I’m still mad at you.” “Are you?” His wounded voice had descended into Stygian depths. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to her jaw. “Yes.” She yanked at his hair in emphasis. He grunted, but her grip didn’t prevent him from lowering his mouth to hers again. He nipped at her lips and then licked at them, softening the sting. “I’ll have to see what I can do to regain your good graces.
We all know that we’ll die someday, but believing it is another thing entirely.
Edward shot a glare at Davis that held the promise of dismemberment, mayhem, and the apocalypse.
I’m afraid I’m rather used to females making themselves shameless for me.
Tell me, Miss St. John, are you on the hunt for a husband?
It would be the height of idiocy for the Duke of Wakefield to pursue the cousin of the woman he wanted as wife. And yet, for the first time in his life, Maximus wanted to let the man rule him instead of the title.
She watched his chest rise and fall and remembered and reflected. All her life things had been taken from her: Apollo, Thomas’s affection, Mama and Papa, her home, her future. No one had ever asked her opinion, garnered her thoughts on what she wanted or needed. Things had been done to her, but she’d never had the chance to do things. Like a doll on a shelf, she’d been moved about, manipulated, flung aside.
She’d never find another man like him as long as she lived. He was ruining her for any other, and the pleasure of it was beyond bearing.
Well, Scarborough cares, doesn’t he? Maximus doesn’t – not really. No doubt he’s a bit compelled by the chase, but if he doesn’t win” – she shrugged her shoulders – “he’ll simply find another suitable heiress. She – Lady Penelope herself – doesn’t really matter to him. And if it comes right down to it, wouldn’t you chose passion – however old – over dispassion?
Yet she could imagine him so – intent, focused on his goal, his woman. He’d guard his chosen mate, make her both fear and long for his attention. She shivered. He would be relentless in his pursuit, unmerciful in his victory.
Miss Greaves drifted behind them, silent as a wraith. He had the most persistent urge to turn and confront her – make her say something to him.
In that moment Apollo resolved that no matter how ridiculous their mating might be, he wasn’t going to let her change her mind. She was his now – and if he had any say in the matter, she’d be his always.
People make mistakes. Ideals don’t. Think that’s the first lesson that must be learned in any marriage.
Apollo widened his eyes, trying to look harmless – sadly, nearly impossible. He’d hit six feet at age fifteen and topped that by several inches in the fourteen years since. Add to that the width of his shoulders, his massive hands, and a face that his sister had once affectionately compared to a gargoyle’s, and trying to appear harmless became something of a lost cause.
She knew about young boys – she’d spent the last year taking care of them. They were tough and reckless and yet at the same time so very sweet and vulnerable. Their cheeks were soft and their eyes apologized even as they fought to assert their independence with too smart mouths.
The peach gown she’d chosen was the color of the sunrise, the rippling watered silk seeming to subtly change from rose to pink to nearly orange in different lights. She’d fallen in love with it at once.
Oh, how she wanted this man! She wanted to hold him like this tomorrow and fifty years hence. She wanted to be by his side every morning when he woke, she wanted his to be the last voice she heard before she fell asleep at night.