Page 64 of Her Beast

“Basingstoke’s family has estates in both places. Nice and remote.”

Malcolm didn’t like the sound of the other man’s name on her tongue, not that he had any right to feel proprietary about her tongue or any other part of her body.

You could change all that, Mal…

Malcolm ignored Sukey and asked, “And that is where you would like to go—Scotland and Wales?’

“What I like will have no part of it.”

Malcolm paused, opened his mouth, then closed it.

“What?” she asked, pausing in the act of slathering strawberry jam on a slice of bread. “You look like you wanted to say something.”

He wanted to demand why the hell she would marry such a toffee-nosed stuffed shirt. Instead, he said, “Are you eager to marry Lord Basingstoke?”

“Eager?” She repeated, her expression uncharacteristically jaded. “I wouldn’t use that word.”

“What word would you use?”

She shrugged, looking ten years older than she’d looked a mere five minutes earlier. “It is an excellent union—for both of us.”

“I know what he gets from marrying you,” Malcolm persisted, seething at the thought of the bastard putting his hands on the woman across from him. “But what do you get?”

“Most people would say thatIam the one benefitting.”

“Most people are idiots.”

She gave a delighted chortle. “I appreciate the sentiment, but it isn’t quite fair to his lordship.”

Malcolm merely raised his eyebrow.

“Oh come! He will be a duke one day. Do you know how many there are—dukes, that is?”

“It seems to have slipped my mind,” Malcolm said dryly.

“Fewer than twenty-five. Just think,” she went on, “that is twenty-five people out of”—she frowned. “How many people are there in Britain?”

“I take your point.”

She poured more tea into her cup, doused it with milk, and then licked the tip of one of her fingers.

Malcolm bit back a groan; watching her eat was more erotic than the Dance of the Seven Veils.

“Besides,” she said, utterly unaware of the havoc she was causing in his trousers. “One marriage is much like the next.”

Ah, now there she was exposing her youth.

Tell her, Mal! Tell her how marriage to the right person can be heaven on earth, Sukey piped up.

And should I also tell her how losing that person can be hell?he shot back.

Sukey had no answer for that.

“What about you… Malcolm?”

“What about me… Julia?”

Her lips flexed into a smile at his teasing manner. “I haven’t met a Mrs. Barton. Are you married?”

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