Chapter 18

"Aaron, my heartiest congratulations!" Nicholas said with a smile as he greeted his old friend in the hallway of Dawford House. "I confess that I wasn't expecting to hear from you for some weeks yet. Are you not lost in wedded bliss with your over-tempting wife?"

"Too lost perhaps," Aaron returned, not entirely in jest. "A man cannot spend his whole life between the sheets, however delectable the woman he finds there. I need some less distracting company for a while, or I shall never be able to pull myself away and attend to my business."

"Ha! I shall not take it in bad part that you find me less distracting than your new wife." His friend laughed. "I am nowhere near as pretty, I suppose. Will the Duchess not mind my stealing you away to the club for billiards only a few days after your wedding?"

"I can only hope I have exhausted my Duchess sufficiently that my absence will not be noticed this afternoon," Aaron answered, accepting his hat and walking stick from Toynton. "God knows, I have tried."

Given their three couplings last night and a passionate clinch over the desk in his study after luncheon, this might have been a fair hope with any other woman. But the sexual whirl of the first days of his marriage with Dorothy had taught him that her appetite for his body was at least as great as his own for hers.

"It sounds as though she is giving you a run for your money in the bedroom." Nicholas chuckled.

Aaron gave a non-committal shrug, unwilling to share the intimacies of recent days, even with his oldest friend.

"My new wife is never dull, Nicholas," he said shortly. "It seems also that Dorothy is not unhappy with her new state in life."

It was actually flattering to his ego that his wife should be so easily aroused by his touch and reach such heights of pleasure in his bed. Aaron reveled in Dorothy's enthusiasm as much as her physical charms, enjoying her growing confidence in her sexual powers.

Still, this was a heady mix, and Aaron knew he could easily lose sight of everything else—his estate and business responsibilities, his friends and contacts, and the wider world beyond the bedroom. As Dorothy herself had pointed out, they might be married, but they barely knew one another. It would be dangerous in every way to lose himself so much in a virtual stranger.

Even those who professed friendship or loyalty were sometimes not to be trusted, as his own mother had learned to her detriment all those years ago. Aaron himself trusted almost no one. He was determined to never again put himself in a position where his life or his estate relied so much on the integrity and good intentions of another human being.

"I must get out of here," he muttered to himself as they descended the steps towards the carriage.

Nicholas heard his words and clapped him on the back with amusement. "The perils of marrying a hot-blooded younger wife, my dear Aaron. You have brought this on yourself…"

An afternoon of billiards and easy conversation about mutual acquaintances and their business interests cooled Aaron's blood. After a brandy in the club library and a conversation about transport with a junior minister, he felt almost like his usual self.

"I suppose I should return you to your wife in good time for dinner, Aaron." Nicholas grinned as the library clock struck six. "I would not want to be seen as a dubious single friend who leads you astray and find myself cut off from the Duchess's future invitation list."

"I will be expected for dinner," Aaron agreed, rising from the comfortable club chair and stretching out his long limbs. "Let's neither of us blot our copybooks tonight."

On the short journey home, the balance of his regained equanimity began to erode as he wondered what Dorothy would wear that evening. Aaron hoped for the evening gown in rich brown silk overlaid with golden gauze. It was the lowest cut of her dresses he had seen, although hardly daring by Society's standards, at least for a married woman.

Reflecting further on this point, Aaron fantasized about his wife in some new gown with even deeper décolletage—a simple golden necklace set with some fiery gem like topaz or carnelian would set off the creaminess of her skin and the glimmer in her eyes. This could be his wedding gift to her…

"Have you been listening to a word I've said for the past five minutes?" Nicholas accused in mock offense. "I believe you haven't. Never mind, I shall forgive you. But it is certainly time to deliver you back to the person I suspect is occupying your thoughts so completely."

Aaron absently smiled back, unable to deny his friend's suspicion. As the carriage was drawing up at his gate, there was no need to say anything further, and they took their leave from one another.

Walking down the corridor towards his study, Aaron planned to respond to a letter from his agents before dinner, after which he was bound to be distracted by his new wife, whatever she chose to wear tonight.

The sound of young women giggling made him stop and smile outside the slightly open drawing room. So, he was not the only one who had taken advantage of the afternoon to catch up with a friend.

Aaron was happy to learn that Dorothy had interests and acquaintances beyond him. It was as well that she maintained her own life and did not develop a heavy dependency on his time or energy. He hoped that in time, they could lead separate lives in a civilized manner, coming together in the bedroom to satisfy their physical needs as nature dictated.

"Marriage certainly suits you, Dorothy," said a voice, clear, bright and confident in its tone. "If your Duke is really responsible for bringing such roses to your cheeks, then perhaps I should finally accept the hand of one of the old buffers seeking wife number two or three…"

"Nonsense, Lauren!" Dorothy protested. "With your looks and wit, you might still marry whomever you choose, no matter how many Seasons you've seen. You are still said to be the best dancer among the ladies of the ton, too."

"An ancient widower would leave me with more time on my hands than a younger man, and more money too if my waltzing proves too strenuous."

Aaron's smile faded a little at the poor taste of this joke, in whichever way its speaker intended it. There was also something in her voice that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. He decided not to eavesdrop any further and pushed open the door.

Dorothy and a tall, slim blonde woman sat together companionably on the sofa nearest to the far window, a table of tea cups, empty plates, and cake crumbs showing that it had not been a short visit. His wife wore one of her simple white muslin dresses with a green sash today, while her friend was attired in a more sophisticated dove-colored silk walking suit.

They both turned to him and smiled as they stood up. Dorothy's pleasure in his return was sweet enough that it took several heartbeats to realize what some part of his brain had been screaming at him since he entered the room.

"Aaron! I'm so glad you came home. This is my friend, Lauren Talbot."

"Your Grace, how wonderful to see you again after all this time," the blonde woman said in a too-silky, too-confident voice.

"Get out," Aaron uttered stonily, unwilling to feign even basic politeness now that his mind had caught up with his instinct.

"But, Aaron, Lauren is my good friend, and I understood that you knew one another from childhood."

Dorothy looked between the two of them with consternation as she spoke. Lauren Talbot was unlikely to have told her anything like the truth, and although he was too angry to be civil to the intruder, Aaron could not blame his wife for her mistake. Deceit and deception ran through the Talbot family like a hereditary disease.

"I know exactly who that woman is, and she is not welcome in my home—not today, not ever!"

Once, he had chased Lauren Talbot's father from his home. If she had been a man, he might have done the same today.

"Aaron! You cannot treat a guest in our home like this," Dorothy threw back at him. "I will not have it!"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Dorothy," he snapped and turned his attention back to the blonde woman. "Out!"

While Dorothy seemed inclined to launch into a full raging argument, Lauren Talbot put a hand on her arm and smiled sweetly.

"I must go, Dorothy. This is not entirely unexpected to me, and I will not make myself the cause of a domestic dispute. Thank you for the tea."

Gracefully, Lauren sauntered through the drawing room and out the door past Aaron's figure. He stalked behind her right up to the front door, wanting to watch her go.

"What a beautiful home you have, Your Grace," the blonde woman purred as she donned her hat and retrieved her parasol. "And such a beautiful wife, too. You have grown up well."

"You have not," he retorted through clenched teeth. "Get out of my home and never return."

Dorothy joined them at the front door, her face exceedingly vexed. "I've just rung to have Lauren's carriage brought around to the gate…"

"She can wait for it in the street. I believe I've made myself clear."

She gasped, appalled. "Then I shall wait outside with her," she declared angrily, taking Lauren's arm and marching down the steps with her.

Aaron watched, stony-faced, from the front door, unwilling to take his eyes off that viper of a woman for even a moment while she was in Dorothy's company.

Who knew what poison Lauren Talbot was pouring into his young wife's ear? Dorothy might be a woman of strong principles and certainly knew her own mind, but the experience of twenty sheltered years was nothing in the face of the Talbot family's wiles. He must find a way to speak to her later and ensure this relationship was cut off at its root.

Once Lauren had been loaded into her coach and driven away, Dorothy returned to the house with blazing eyes.

"I have some business to attend to before dinner," Aaron told her before she could launch her inevitable attack. "We will speak of this later."

Turning, he walked away towards his study, cursing this further distraction to his concentration today. He had scarcely entered the room and seated himself at his desk when a rather pink-faced Dorothy burst in after him.

"How dare you speak to my friend like that! I really had hoped that our first meeting had been a misunderstanding, that you were not really so rude or uncivilized in your manners as you appeared to me on our first acquaintance. But today, I find that I was not mistaken. In fact, you are worse than I first thought. You are arrogant, ill-mannered and?—"

Aaron had risen from his desk as she spoke, her voice rising in volume and her hands gesticulating to emphasize her words. Pulling her into his arms, he bent his head and silenced her with a kiss, his wife too surprised to resist until she no longer wished it.

"You cannot just kiss me as though nothing happened," she said breathlessly when he paused, but she remained in his arms, one hand already on the nape of his neck, urging his face back down to hers.

Later, when his roiling emotions had calmed, Aaron reflected that he should have simply continued to kiss her, and perhaps even taken her again on his desk in the manner she had so enjoyed earlier in the day. Instead, he decided to speak, impulsively giving voice to the old anger and resentment that had driven his reactions from the moment he saw the blonde woman in his house.

"Never mind how I speak to such a creature as Lauren Talbot, you will never speak to me as you did in front of guests. That was more ill-mannered than any action of mine this afternoon."

Dorothy made a loud sound of disbelief and disagreement while shoving him away from her with small but determined hands. "Who do you think you are, Aaron Clark, to speak as you do?"

"I am the Duke of Dawford, and I am your husband. Both of those qualifications deserve some respect—at least from you, of all people."

She let out a dismissive laugh, all erotic possibilities vanished from her expression.

"On both of those accounts, the standard of your own behavior should be higher than that of others, Aaron, not lower. How can I be expected to respect a man who is so rude, not only to me but to my friends? Your behavior today has diminished my respect, not enhanced it."

Aaron's anger towards Lauren Talbot rose again. That infernal woman had already succeeded in driving a wedge between him and his new wife. It was intolerable.

"I never want you to see that woman again, Dorothy. Do you understand me?"

"You cannot control me, Aaron!" his wife shot back. "I am neither a toy nor a young child to be directed by my elders."

They were now in the midst of a serious row, and Aaron had no idea how it had come to this so quickly. When he'd left the house earlier that afternoon, it had never crossed his mind that Dorothy would not be welcoming him back later with open arms, and thighs.

"You do not understand anything, Dorothy! If you did, you would not speak like this. You do not know her as I do. That woman must never cross the threshold of this house again. This much is certainly under my control."

"Damn you, Aaron Clark!" she cursed, such words doubly shocking coming from a young woman's lips. "You may have the right to keep Lauren out of the house, but you shall not keep me in it while you act like this!"

Slamming the door loudly behind her, Dorothy stormed out of the room and down the corridor. Initially stunned by her departure, Aaron followed a few seconds later, only to hear her steps proceeding to the front door, also slammed in its turn.

"Dorothy!" he called out, too late to be heard.

Surely, once she knew the reason for his reaction to Lauren Talbot, she would not persist in her obstinate and destructive attitude. But how was he to explain when her temper was running so hot? Or his own, he now admitted ruefully. Neither of them was thinking clearly right now.

In such a frame of mind, where might Dorothy go and what might she even do? It was half past seven, not an hour when young ladies, single or married, should be roaming the streets alone.

For a moment, Aaron imagined her striding angrily through the park by herself, not noticing the thief eying her jewelry from the bushes on one side nor the rake eying the beauty of her face and her curvaceous figure from the under the trees on the other side. Dorothy had a headstrong innocence to her that could prove very attractive to such predators.

Regardless of their argument, it was his duty as a husband to protect his wife from these kinds of dangers. Waving away the curious Toynton, who had been summoned by the slamming of doors, Aaron walked outside and hurried to the gate after Dorothy. He was just in time to see a glimpse of her white-clad figure further up the road, turning into the gate of Lord Prouton's property.

With a sigh of relief, Aaron turned back and walked up the path to Dawford House. At least Dorothy would come to no harm in her father's house, and perhaps some time in the company of Patrick Hoskins might even remind her that her husband was not so bad, after all.