Page 33 of Between a Duke and a Hard Place
Violet stood in the center of her chamber, the fire crackling in the hearth, its warmth doing little to soothe her jangled nerves. For the longest time, she stood there, oblivious to the passage of time until the clock on the mantel chimed. It was midnight. And when she’d walked into his study it had been only been half past. Thirty minutes. An entire half hour had passed. And he had not come.
Shaking off the stillness—the stupor that she had fallen into—Violet moved like an automaton toward the bed. She’d offered herself only to be rejected. Tears burned her eyes.
Suddenly it felt as if the thick plait of her hair was too tight, the weight of her wrapper too heavy. Shrugging out of it, shelet it fall to the floor and then tugged at the ribbon tying her hair. She swallowed hard, pacing to the window and gazing out into the darkness beyond the estate’s manicured gardens as she tugged her hair free from the braid.
Had she misjudged everything? What if he found the very idea repellent? But he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her as if he truly desired her.
She had spent so long convincing herself that she did not care for Max, that her feelings for him had long since withered into nothing but annoyance. But if that were true, then why did the thought of his rejection sting so acutely? Why did the thought of him choosing to stay away feel so much like heartbreak?
The minutes dragged on, and with every passing second, her humiliation bloomed inside her, overwhelming her.
It had been the very height of foolishness to hope. Max had never wanted their marriage, after all. He’d offered it only to save her. What more could she truly ask of him? It had only ever been intended as a temporary solution, a desperate effort to outmaneuver Eddington and her scheming relatives. He had made it abundantly clear that their union would be one of convenience, nothing more.
The animosity between them over the last years, mostly incited by her, had been too much to overcome. Any notion that he could set aside their past differences had been nothing but foolish optimism on her part.
The silence of the house pressed in around her.
He was not coming. She could wait all night, and it wouldn’t change that very real fact. Disgusted with herself, with the tears that threatened, Violet moved toward the lamp beside her bed, intending to extinguish it and slip beneath the covers to lick her wounds.
And then?—
A knock.
Violet froze, her heart stuttering in her chest.
The sound was soft, barely audible, and yet it might as well have been a thunderclap.
For a long moment, she could do nothing. Because whatever happened next would change everything.
Irrevocably.
Chapter Seventeen
Max waited until he heard her bid him enter. But when he opened that door and stepped inside Violet’s bedchamber, the sight that greeted him was simply beyond even his wildest imaginings.
She stood beside her bed, wearing only her shift. Of the finest and most delicately embroidered lawn, she might as well have been entirely nude before him for all that it concealed. And she was beautiful. Her body was simply a work of art. Full breasts tipped with delicate pink tips, narrow waist, lushly curved hips, and long, supple legs with a tempting dark V between them.
“I didn’t you were coming,” she said softly.
“I needed a moment.”
“To steel yourself for the unpleasant task?” She asked, her voice sharp.
Had she truly thought that? Of course, she had. But if they were about to completely alter the course of their relationship, it was time Violet heard the truth from his lips. So he set about telling her, even as he slowly untied his cravat.
“No. Not exactly… We’ve been fighting for years, Violet, and I can’t even say what prompted it. One day, it appeared asthough you had taken me into dislike. And in all honesty, it was convenient that you had.”
“Convenient?” She gasped.
“Yes. Convenient. Because at the time, though things had soured between us, Katherine was still very much alive… I was not free to pursue anything with you that would have been honorable and I would not dishonor you with anything less.”
She blinked slowly, clearly stunned by his admission. “You were having feelings for me when you were still married to Katherine?”
Max looked away from her for a moment, casting his gaze toward the low burning fire. He was admitting something to her that he’d thought he never would and the importance of that moment was not something he wished to rush through. “Yes, Violet. I’ve had an attraction for you for a very long time now.”
“You never gave any indication that you wished for a different sort of relationship with me,” she protested.
It was true enough. And he hadn’t done it because the risk had been so great to his mind. “Stoking your animosity, needling you? It was my way of protecting us both from that,” he confessed. “And now, my only struggle is this— I fear that I have trapped you in this marriage with me. That when you give yourself to me, it will be about duty and obligation… not desire.”
