When the Duke of Harbury swept sweet, mild-mannered Cassandra Wainwright into a scandalous waltz at Almack’s, he only wished to mask a much older heartbreak from the ton’s prying eyes. But his rash act didn’t just destroy Cassandra’s future, it threatened the security of her four orphaned sisters. Honor-bound, he accepts her proposed marriage of convenience, while internally vowing to protect his shattered heart.
Marriage’s stark intimacy strips away Cassie’s gentle façade, revealing a fiery soul neither she nor Harbury expected. At the same time, his small gestures of consideration and irresistible kisses reveal a devastatingly captivating man beneath his reserved exterior. And so, Cassie finds herself trapped between her newly awakened fury and her deepening desire as estate troubles mount, unearthing secrets that threaten their tentative bond.
Now, to save all they hold dear, Harbury and Cassandra must decide how much of their guarded hearts they are willing to risk.
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Excerpt
She arched, simultaneously raising her gaze and parting her lips. His face blurred as he tilted his head and claimed her mouth. The kiss was long and still, a brand, a deep impression, but for the way their bodies subtly rocked as they breathed.
Wanting to hold him closer, she fanned her hands away from his chest, up and over his mounded muscles. As her palms came to rest against his upper arms, his bicep flexed. She’d never been more aware of his power, and yet, she was no longer scared.
He withdrew. She wet her lips. His small, responsive smile embodied triumph.
“Why did you kiss me?” she asked, as though the pressure against her belly did not make the answer obvious.
“This time”—an amused light slowly dawned in his eyes, transforming his grin into a self-satisfied smirk—“we both required distraction.”
Distraction. She scowled.
Why had he turned such a lovely moment into a jest? Not only a jest, but a joke calling forth the most difficult of their encounters.
“I could throttle you,” she whispered.
“To throttle me”—he cocked a brow—“you’d have to put your arms around my neck.”
“Hands,” she corrected.
“Very well,” he acceded lightly, “hands. Though hands are implied, I would argue, by the word arms.” He paused, and for a long moment, the only sound was that of their comingling breath. “Show me.”
Her gaze dropped to the part of his neck completely male. His Adam’s apple. His throt-bolla, in Old English. There, he was vulnerable, too. What would he do if she had him at her complete mercy the same way she was always at his?
She could turn away. Give him a dose of his own medicine.
Tell him, for instance, she had letters to write.
But the drive to claim him was too strong. So instead, she dragged her hands up his arms and onto his shoulders, staying fully connected to his heat. She rested her thumbs on either side of his throat just above his collarbone and her fingers on the back of his neck. There, she counted his heartbeats as they throbbed against her finger pads.
“Precarious,” he murmured.
She felt him swallow. “I know.” She raised her gaze. “If I pressed hard and long enough, just here…” Lightly, she demonstrated. “You would faint.”
“Interesting tidbit of knowledge.”
“A lady must know how to protect herself.” Her turn for a small smile.
“From her husband?”
“Especially from her husband.” And even more so when, like herself, the lady was in love with her husband’s oblivious self. She ventured another upward glance. “By the way, if your intent was to distract me, your plan has failed miserably. I’m not distracted at all.”
“Quite the opposite, in fact,” he agreed, with inexplicable cheer. “I’m fully aware, too.”
“Are you admitting another impulse of yours went awry?”
“I wouldn’t say awry…my impulse has led us here, no?”
“What’s here?”
“Whatever we make it.”
Her sense of triumph wavered. Was she ready? She glanced to the bed and back. Could her bruised heart survive another intimate encounter without placing her fully, irrevocably in his power?
Then again, who was she jesting?
She was already fully his. She had been, since she’d first laid eyes on him at Almack’s.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she admitted. “Not just this, but…be married. Married to someone I barely know.” And hopelessly, unrequitedly loved. “But…”
“But what?” he encouraged.
“But I want to know you.”
Her confession surprised them both.