The Duke’s Desire by Margaret Moore Page A

“Naturally I said she was more than welcome. But I don’t think she’s coming out of any great desire to see me. ”
    Galen tried to look happy with this news. Indeed, he tried to be happy. He wanted a wife, hewanted a family, and he knew no reason he should not seriously consider Lady Mary. She seemed sweet and gentle, she was titled, she was rich and her father influential. “When are they arriving?”
    “Impatient, eh, you dog? Tuesday afternoon.”
    Thank heaven it was not sooner.
     
    “Stay back from the edge and try not to get wet,” Verity admonished Jocelyn as her daughter set yet another twig afloat in the little stream that babbled through the wood. Overhead, the trees rustled and gray clouds moved swiftly with the brisk breeze. It was not yet raining, however, so she had decided to take Jocelyn to meet with the duke. She had not been precise about the time, though, and the air was chilly, so she hoped he would come soon.
    She rubbed her gloved hands together. Try as she might to be calm and composed—and oh, how she had tried!—she might as well admit she could not be. She had never known a man who affected her as the duke did, even before she had met him in person.
    She had thrilled to hear Eloise’s whispered stories of his exploits. He had sounded like some sort of daring, handsome pirate-knight-Casanova all in one, a hero from tales of long ago who would not have been out of place at Arthur’s Round Table.
    When she had unexpectedly encountered him inthe flesh at Lord Langley’s, she had been so thrilled she had hardly been able to speak. Then she had realized that compared to the self-confident, handsome Duke of Deighton, her future husband was ancient and as mild as a lamb.
    So she had made her bad decision and gone to Galen.
    To her surprise, when he sat up in his bed, so obviously naked, he had looked at her not with arrogant satisfaction, or lustful pleasure, but with a questioning vulnerability. If he had been arrogant or lustful then she might have fled at once. Instead, to see that doubt and wonder in his eyes, to see the query forming on his soft, full lips…
    Silently he had touched and caressed and aroused with both tenderness and urgency, a potent combination she was helpless to resist.
    No, not helpless.
    She had eagerly given herself over to the pleasure he kindled. She had welcomed him into her willing body as if he were her lawful husband and that their wedding night.
    Only afterward, when he had gently withdrawn, did she appreciate the full measure of what she had done.
    She had given herself to a man not her husband, a man she hardly knew, as if she were a whore. Remorse—burning, agonizing remorse—had hit like a blow, and she had run away.
    “I think somebody is going to have wet boots.”
    Verity jumped as if a snake had dropped down the neck of her pelisse and whirled around to see the duke coming toward her along the path.
    He led his marvelous, impatiently prancing black stallion, and she didn’t doubt it took an excellent rider to control such a beast.
    “Pray forgive me,” the duke said as he tied the horse’s reins to a low branch. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    “I was…thinking,” she replied without meeting his direct gaze.
    Jocelyn turned and her eyes widened with surprise before she ran toward him, then halted awkwardly a short distance from his mount. “Hello, Your Grace. What are you doing here?”
    “This is a delightful surprise! I am visiting Sir Myron, a friend of mine.”
    His horse snorted, making Jocelyn jump. “Don’t mind Harry. He sounds more fierce than he is. Are you fishing?”
    “No!” Jocelyn cried, appalled. “That means touching worms!”
    “Oh, dear,” the duke replied gravely.
    He glanced at Verity, who couldn’t help smiling.
    “I think I need to rest,” he remarked, sitting on a convenient stump.
    He didn’t look like a man sitting on a stump, though. With his long dark hair, broad shouldersand regal bearing, he