Chapter 16

CHAPTER16

The arrogant man. The indignation, the presumption—oh! What a man am I to marry!

Violet just kept walking. She had no sense of what direction she was going in. All she knew was that she had to get as far away from the party and from Xander as possible. She walked between the trees, avoiding the path and stepping over the tree roots.

She had no idea how far she walked before she realized that someone was following her, but by the time she noticed he was there, twigs had caught on her skirt and torn it, and her feet were sore from stepping so fast over the tree roots.

“Leave me be,” she called.

Xander looked wild as he pursued her, his dark hair tousled around his head and his eyes fixed on her.

It was the first thing she had said quite willingly to him. Mostly, she was choosing to ignore him, to not be the one to start a conversation, for she was so fearful of what sort of married couple they would be.

“I said, leave me be!” she called to him again.

She left the trees and ended up on some path in the parkland. All around her were tall oak trees, so vast and wide that she couldn’t even see a way back to the house. She chose a direction at random and walked that way.

“We should have a chaperone if you are to follow me.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Violet.”

He didn’t sound like he was laughing. He sounded furious.

She glanced over her shoulder to see he was gaining on her.

“I will talk to you, Vi.”

“No,” she called back to him. “You think anything would induce me to talk to you now after the insult you just made?”

She swiped away the nearest tree branch and chose another path. This one dropped down by a glistening lake. To one side was some Romanesque pavilion, the yellow stone like sunshine in this golden light. She thought of taking refuge in the pavilion, then realized she would be trapping herself, so she walked down the path beside the water instead.

“Insult?” Xander called. “What insult?”

“The idea that I am a woman who would flirt with every man at this party. Do you not hear the insult in that?” She turned back, walking backward now in her eagerness to get away.

Xander was so close that he could reach out and touch her at any minute. She turned around once more, grabbed her skirt, and tried to run away from him, but he caught her, his hand closing over her arm.

“No! Let me go.”

“Not yet.”

“I said, let me go.”

She pushed against his chest, but he was as solid as a rock. She looked down at her palms on his chest as they staggered together, in danger of losing their balance. She could still remember the way his strong body had moved above her the night before.

The power he’d had over her with those touches was still too much for her to bear.

He’s always had power over me, has he not? From the day I looked at him in that bookshop, I was at his command.

“Release me,” she said in a slow, shuddering breath.

But now his hands had moved. They rested on the top curve of her hip, and, for some reason, she was no longer pushing against his chest to make him release her.

“I have no wish to look at you right now. That’s what it means when someone walks away from you, Xander. It is not an invitation to follow me.”

“You think I’m going to let my betrothed walk around this land alone? Anything could happen to you.”

“We’re on your private estate!”

“With men flirting with you,” he hissed darkly, “rather me following you than Mr. Garrett.”

“Oh, enough.” She pushed against his chest again and this time managed to release herself. She hurried off once more, rounding the lake as quickly as she could in an effort to get away from him. “I’m trying to be alone, so leave me be.”

“And I am trying to talk to you.”

“About what? About your indignation that I played a game with another man? If this is jealousy—”

“It is not jealousy!” he snapped loudly behind her, his voice booming.

“Then possessiveness?” she threw back over her shoulder. “I want nothing to do with it. Do not imagine I will be a meek and mild mouse when we are married, that I will be at home, sitting in one room where you can keep an eye on me.”

“I did not say you were.”

“Then what does any of this mean?” she called and looked back.

He was so near now that he could have touched her again. The fact her gut curled with excitement at the thought was wrong, indeed. She thought of him kissing her, of those lips crashing on hers, of his tall body pressed against hers.

Would he show her more of what they had experienced the night before? Would he introduce her to more pleasure?

“Vi. Vi, look where you are going!” he roared, but it was too late.

Violet had marched right into the edge of the lake, though at a glance, she had thought it was simply a continuation of the path. The water line was so low here and dried up in the heat of the sun that it was more bog than water at all. Her boot sank deeply into the mud, so much so that the damp bog reached her ankle.

“Oh,” she gasped in surprise, pulling at the skirt of her gown so she could look down at her boot. She pulled at her other foot, trying to walk across the bog and reach the safety of dry ground on the other side.

Perhaps he will not follow me over there. He is a duke, is he not? Perhaps he will not like to be dirtied by the mud.

Yet, as she placed down her other foot, she sank further still.

“No!” she cried, her foot sinking up to her knee.

She tottered, in danger of falling face-first into the mud. She regained her balance, then glanced back to see Xander standing calmly at the edge of the bog, his arms folded.

At least I was right in one regard. He will not follow me.

“And this was all I had to do to be free of you?” she called to him.

Something in his expression darkened, and he suddenly walked forward, closer to the bog.

“What are you doing!?” she cried. “No, you are not to follow me in here.” He kept stalking her way. “God’s wounds, Xander, do you not know when a woman has no wish to speak to you? When she’s trying to find a moment’s peace?”

“In a bog?”

“Anywhere!”

“Then get yourself out, by all means.”

He halted a step away from her, giving her a chance to escape. She pulled her first leg out, but her other leg was so trapped that it was hopeless. She put her first foot down again and sank even more than before.

“Ah!” she yelped in surprise, but a hand caught her waist. “Xander…”

“Don’t say my name like that out here if you wish me to behave, Vi.”

She held her breath, startled by the sudden shift in the depth of his tone. She looked around to see his boots were braced against large rocks in the bog that she had not seen before. He kept his hand on her waist, keeping her steady, as she looked at him in wonder.

“Don’t say things like that,” she whispered.

He cocked a single eyebrow questioningly, and her gut tightened once more. There was that power he had over her again, the ability to make her want to throw herself at him, to beg for a kiss or for him to touch her—just with a single movement of his eyebrow.

“Hold onto me,” he whispered.

“No,” she murmured, though her voice was weak.

He bent toward her, though his lips were beginning to curl. “There wasn’t much resistance in that tone.”

He looked at her, never once glancing away. They both knew they were not so much talking about her getting out of the bog now, but other touches.

“Hold onto me,” he urged.

This time, she did as he asked. She placed her hands on his shoulders, but he took hold of them and shifted her grasp, moving her hands around to the back of his neck.

“That’s better,” he whispered, then wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her body against his.

She bit her lip at their closeness, thinking of the way her body was pressed against his, and then he lifted her. Slowly, her boots were released from the mud.

He didn’t once put her down, but he carried her as if she was some sort of Bartholomew doll, his plaything, hanging loose in front of him. He carried her across the bog, stepping on rocks at all times, and then he dropped her onto her feet again when they reached the riverbank, but neither released the other.

“You are avoiding speaking to me,” he said darkly, “do not deny it.”

She didn’t, for it was the truth. Speaking to him meant admitting that what had happened between them was a reality. It meant admitting that she was about to marry a man who could never love her, though he would be possessive.

“You were jealous,” she murmured, mirroring his tone.

She moved her hands now, shifting them from behind his neck to his shoulders and down his chest. Her palms rested on his waistcoat, just beyond the lapels of his tailcoat, and he inhaled sharply as if her touch affected him.

“I was not.”

“Then what was with your anger toward Mr. Garrett?”

“You are… mine to protect now,” he said, the pause interesting her, though he pushed on as if it had not happened at all. “I will protect you.”

“From a nice man who wished to play croquet with me?”

He cocked a single eyebrow, clearly not believing that was all Mr. Garrett wanted.

“The Dark Duke,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure what made her say the words. They just fell from her lips.

Abruptly, in reaction to her words, his hands shifted across her back, and he pulled her closer toward him. Apparently, he didn’t mind if his clothes became as muddied as hers already were.

“Mine,” he whispered again, so quietly this time that she wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly.

It was as if he was about to kiss her, but then it didn’t quite happen, his lips hovering over hers.

“We… we should have a chaperone,” she whispered, her eyes looking repeatedly between his and his lips.

“Should we?”

Then, his lips found her skin, but it wasn’t her lips. He found her neck, isolating that sweet spot he had found the night before. He kissed all the way down her neck and to a spot at the top of her collarbone, where he nipped her playfully.

“I should mark you again. Let everyone know—”

“You wouldn’t,” she murmured breathily, thinking only of the tingles he was causing to her body with those kisses. “Not somewhere it could be seen.”

“Fine, then somewhere it can’t be seen.”

He pulled the shoulder of her gown to the side and kissed her once more. Unlike last time, when he had given her such a pink mark on her shoulder, this time, he chose the swell of her breast that was just visible above her stays.

She gasped at the intimate touch of his lips, the way it made a wetness pool between her legs as his palms gripped her waist tightly. She didn’t ask him to stop and made no movement to get away. She just let him kiss her breast, nipping it playfully, and causing another of those marks.

I should stop this. I am weak to him. He does this out of possession, not love!

Yet, she didn’t stop him. Her mind was full of more wild images now. She thought of that pavilion a short walk away. Would he take her there if she asked him to? Would he introduce her to more pleasure, reach beneath her gown and kiss her in other more private places? Would he enter her with his fingers, driving her to an oblivion of pleasure just with the power of his hand?

“Xander? Where are you?”

The sudden voice made them both freeze. Xander lifted his head from her breast, and she shifted her gown back into place as they looked around in panic, neither one of them releasing each other.

“Xander!” the voice called again. It was Lord Huxley.

“It’s Anthony,” Xander muttered. “Hide yourself.”

“What?” Violet whispered.

“Well, you were the one who didn’t wish to be caught again without a chaperone, were you not?”

He shifted her away from the riverbank, still moving her with the palms of his hands on the curve of her waist. The fact he still hadn’t released her, despite the threat of further discovery, did something to her stomach. It knotted tight, and she had no wish to release him either.

He found a shadowed space in the trees.

“Hide here until I manage to get Anthony away. I won’t have further rumors about the two of us.” Then, he released her and moved back toward the lake.

As he let go of her, Violet tottered on her feet in surprise. She placed a hand on her chest, thinking of the love mark he had left on her skin, the possession, the thrill, the touch, and, strangely, how she had wanted to be marked by him, and wanted to be his.

Is he protecting me by leaving me here? Or is he trying to protect his own reputation?

She couldn’t answer that question. Instead, she dropped her hand and hid herself behind the nearest oak tree, masking her body with the trunk.

“There you are,” Lord Huxley called.

Violet didn’t dare peek around the tree to watch the pair of them, out of fear of discovery. She stayed where she was, holding her breath so she didn’t make a sound.

“What happened to you? You fell in or something?” Lord Huxley asked, evidently noticing all the mud on Xander’s clothes.

“Something like that,” Xander whispered. “I’ve been looking for Violet, but I can’t find her. I expect she’s gone back to the house.”

“Perhaps so. They’re all talking about the pair of you again.”

“Well, what a surprise,” Xander muttered drily. “They seem to do little else but talk about me, and now Violet, too.”

He must have been trying to walk away, for Violet could hear his heavy footsteps.

“While I have you alone, can I ask you one thing?” Anthony called to him. He couldn’t have followed Xander, for the sound of footsteps stopped.

“What’s that?”

“Lady Violet…” Lord Huxley paused, interest in his tone. “Do you really intend to do this? You intend to marry her after being caught in one embrace?”

There was a strange silence from the other side of the tree. Violet’s hands clutched the bark, her fingers scraping the grains. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for.

Did she pray Xander would say no, that he would release her from this agreement? No, she certainly wasn’t wishing for that. Did she pray instead that he would say yes, that he would reveal there was more to this than just seeking to repair his reputation?

“I have no choice, Anthony,” Xander said coolly. “I must marry her now.” Then, footsteps followed.

Xander must have walked away, and Lord Huxley followed.

Slowly, Violet sank down to the ground, sitting on the tree roots. This was not news to her. She knew as much the night before, as Xander had told her he could not love her but would bring her pleasure when she wanted it.

Balling her hands into fists, she thought of how cruel it was, to be promised to a man for the sake of his reputation, when he could give her such excitement but nothing more. She pulled at the edge of her gown, tugging at the neckline to look at the mark he had left on the top curve of her breast.

This mark was small, barely there at all, but certainly noticeable in its pinkness. If she moved at the wrong angle, anyone would be able to see the mark he had left on her body.

She stared at the mark, confusion marring her thoughts.

“I do not understand,” she mumbled in bewilderment. “If you will not love me, ever, why are you possessive? Why mark me as your own at all?”

Slowly, she released the dress and covered the mark again. She willed herself to ignore it, not to think of how his possessiveness had thrilled her. Instead, she tried to imagine the mark wasn’t there at all.

She stood and brushed the dirt off her gown, though it was a hopeless endeavor, and she soon gave up. She took a longer route back to the house, but with every step she took, she thought of what Xander had said.

“I have no choice.”