Page 17 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars
Was it the good nuns from her former home, then?
His eyes narrowed.
Most likely it was that passel of hypocrites!
And what was that about her finding it unnecessary to pack? That she had nothing to her name besides that hideous monstrosity they managed to pass for a wedding dress? Why, the only thing it was good for was a heap on the floor.
But then, without it, she would be…
Undressed.
Unclothed.
Naked.
The image of her dressed in nothing but a thin shift stirred something in his loins—a feeling he had long since buried in the deepest recesses of his mind.
Aaron gritted his teeth, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
No. No. No!
This was madness. A line of thought he needed to sever before it consumed him.
She had already been through so much—from the nunnery to the neglect of her parents. The last thing she needed—or deserved—was a rampaging beast set on devouring her.
Which he was very well on his way to being, if he could not subdue his unruly desires.
When he had read Her Majesty’s edict, he had thought that compliance would be an easy, although highly unpleasant, matter. He had not thought that the woman the Queen had managed to foist on him would not only thwart but alsotempthim at every turn.
“It has simply been too long since I have been with a woman,” he growled to himself, running his hand through his hair in sheer frustration.
The last woman who had been brave enough to face his bed had been a courtesan, and she had run out of the room. Nothing deflated a man’s ego—and his cock—faster than a woman running from him in sheer horror and disgust.
He was not so cruel as to subject another woman to the mental torture of gazing upon his twisted visage. Especially not his wife.
He stalked outside to where a groom was holding the reins of his stallion. The beast’s dark coat shone in the morning sun, its eyes regarding its current handler with the same arrogance of one who knew its worth—all one hundred and fifty guineas of it. It stomped its hooves in a display of impatience, snorting all the while.
“Your Grace!”
He turned around to find the Marquess running up to him.
“You are leaving?” He gasped, trying to catch his breath.
Aaron regarded him with a cool gaze. “Why do you sound so disappointed?”
The Marquess recoiled as if he had just punched him in the gut, but he was a gentleman through and through. He managed to collect himself and his dignity before Aaron could stomp further on it, unfortunately.
“I have prepared a carriage for your journey back to Blackwell Manor,” he informed him stiffly. “It is brand new, outfitted for comfort?—”
“Riding will be faster,” Aaron cut in, grabbing the reins from the groom.
“Yes, but you are no longer traveling alone.” Exasperation was clear on the older man’s face. “Your Grace, you aremarriednow.”
“I am not so old that my memory escapes me before the noontime, nor am I so lacking of wits to forget that particular fact, Lord Wyndham.”
The Marquess’s shoulders sagged. “You… you will treat her well, will you not?”
Aaron went still and looked at the man. Lord Wyndham may have abandoned his daughter to that godforsaken nunnery, but at that moment, he looked like a father who genuinely cared for his daughter.
