Lady Arabella's Scandalous Marriage

She blinked. ‘Yesterday evening you mentioned the necessity for heirs.’

His mouth compressed. ‘Which I would be just as capable of fathering in ten—twenty years as I am now. Arabella, have you seriously considered what it will mean to become my wife?’ he continued impatiently. ‘I am a man most of the ton still believe beyond the pale. A man who has only attained a tenuous respectability because of a title which should never have become mine.’ His expression darkened. ‘That would not have become mine if my brother had not died so suddenly and his legitimate heir, my nephew Simon, had not already been slain at Waterloo.’

Yes, of course Arabella had considered all of those things during the long hours of a sleepless night. But ultimately they had all been rendered insignificant against her own inexplicable desire to become this man’s wife.

Inexplicable because Arabella refused to search her heart too deeply in order to find the answers to that particular puzzle.

‘In that case, marriage to a St Claire can only but add to your newfound but shaky respectability!’

Darius could see from the firm tilt of those highly kissable lips and the stubborn light in those deep brown eyes that Arabella would not be swayed from her decision, that she was wilfully determined to become his wife whether he desired it or not.

And he most certainly did not.

But not for any of the reasons he had so far stated.

He admired Arabella St Claire. Desired her. He would not have offered for her eighteen months ago if he had not—an offer she had not hesitated to refuse when he was penniless and lacked a dukedom, he reminded himself testily.

He crossed the room in two long strides to reach out and grasp the tops of her arms, totally impervious to her sudden look of alarm. ‘I advise you to be sure of exactly what you would be doing by marrying me, Arabella,’ he growled.

Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed nervously. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I am a man used to doing as I please. Going where I please, when I please, as I please. A circumstance I would see no reason to change simply because I have a wife.’

Arabella’s eyes widened. ‘You are telling me before we are even wed that you intend to continue your relationships outside of our marriage? That you perhaps already have a mistress you intend to continue to visit?’

Darius almost laughed at the ludicrousness of those questions.

Ludicrous because there had been no women in his life, mistresses or otherwise, for some time now. His brief foray into marriage had shown Darius how unwise it was for him to have an intimate relationship with any woman. How detrimental that very intimacy could be to her health.

He looked down at Arabella. She was so very young. So beautiful. So utterly and completely desirable.

Darius suddenly realised how he could dissuade the stubbornly determined Arabella from going ahead with their betrothal and marriage. He had only to ruthlessly demonstrate how unsuitable a candidate he was as a prospective husband to send her running back to the safe and welcoming arms of her three over-protective brothers.

Yes, Darius knew exactly how to go about achieving that end. But he also knew that having done so he would be giving up any chance of renewing his addresses to her in the future, however far ahead he was looking. That, believing herself rejected by Darius, Arabella was contrary enough to accept the next suitor who made an offer for her and in doing so making it impossible for Darius to ever claim her.

No, as inconvenient and risky as it was for Darius to marry Arabella now, for him not to do so would certainly mean losing her for ever. A possibility that he found was even more unacceptable to him than this forced betrothal, than knowing that she only wanted to marry him now because he was the wealthy Duke of Carlyne …

‘I do not expect to need a mistress once we are married, Arabella.’ He finally answered her previous question. ‘I would expect you to cater to my physical needs. Whatever those might be.’

Arabella felt a shiver of apprehension down the length of her spine as she looked up into the hard implacability of his face. His mouth was a thin, uncompromising line. His eyes as hard and glittering as the sapphires in the necklace left to her by her mother.

It was the face of a man who would brook no challenge to his indomitable will. Least of all from a wife he felt had been foisted on him by the dictates of Society rather than one he had chosen for himself.

Any woman not born a St Claire would have been daunted by the risk that he represented at that moment. Yet it only made Arabella all the more determined to penetrate his arrogant façade. To poke and prod at that mockery and cynicism until she reached the man beneath that apparently impenetrable shield.

Perhaps if she had not had the cynically remote Hawk and Lucian as her brothers, or the softer but just as arrogant Sebastian, then Arabella may have believed that outer shell to be all there was to Darius Wynter. But, as their petted and spoilt younger sister, Arabella had come to know her brothers’ natures well, and she knew all of them to be capable of deep and tumultuous emotions. To be men who were all deeply and irrevocably in love with their wives..

Was she hoping, once they married, that Darius would similarly fall in love with her?

Arabella stifled a disbelieving gasp at even the suggestion of such a hope. Did that mean she had feelings for Darius she hadn’t even dared to suspect existed?

Darius raised a brow as he saw Arabella’s reaction to his suggestion that she alone would satisfy his physical needs. ‘My physical needs are really not as debauched as the ton would have you believe.’ He eyed her teasingly. ‘I can at least assure you that there will be no whips or chains involved!’

‘Whips or chains?’ she gasped breathlessly, her face paling.

It was a response that reminded Darius more than any other, despite her claims to the contrary yesterday evening, just how innocent she really was when it came to physical intimacy. ‘I am sure you will very quickly learn to satisfy all my very normal sexual appetites, Arabella.’

Once again her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed before raising her chin proudly. ‘As, no doubt, you will learn to satisfy mine?’

She was a vixen. A little hellcat. Verbally spitting and clawing despite her obvious unease at discussing such an intimate subject with him. ‘That part of marriage I am already looking forward to with the greatest of pleasure,’ Darius assured her throatily.

A challenge entered the deep brown depths of her eyes. ‘I would prefer us to have a lengthy betrothal in order that we might become better acquainted with each other on a social level before—’

‘No.’

She eyed him uncertainly. ‘No?’

Darius looked down at her between hooded lids. ‘No,’ he repeated firmly. ‘If we are to marry at all, then it must be immediately.’

‘I—But—Why?’ Arabella didn’t even attempt to hide her bewilderment.

She had been envisaging spending the winter months as Darius’s betrothed. With perhaps the wedding planned for next spring or summer. Six, possibly nine months when the two of them could spend time together, tormenting and challenging each other if they must, before contemplating the complete intimacy of marriage.

The implacability of Darius’s expression told her that such an arrangement was totally unacceptable to him. ‘Take it or leave it, Arabella,’ he stated uncompromisingly. ‘You will either marry me by special licence next week or we will not marry at all.’

Next week? Was he insane? Arabella pulled out of Darius’s grasp to move away from him. ‘I cannot possibly organise a wedding by next week!’

‘I fail to see why not.’ Darius appeared unmoved by her obvious shock. ‘Obtaining a special licence should pose no problem. All of your family and the majority of the ton have already gathered in town in order to attend your brother’s nuptials yesterday. Hawk’s duchess has proved she is capable of being hostess to a wedding supper at short notice. As I see it, a week is more than time enough for you to obtain a suitable wedding gown.’

As he saw it, perhaps. As Arabella saw it the idea of marrying this man as early as next week was unacceptable. Terrifyingly soon, in fact.

‘Why the rush, Darius?’ She made her tone deliberately light. ‘I realise that this situation has been thrust upon us by—by certain actions that took place between us yesterday evening, but we both know that there is no real reason for such a hasty wedding to take place.’ Her cheeks burned at the memory of the intimacies the two of them had shared the previous evening.

Darius felt a sharp stab of sympathy for Arabella’s obvious bewilderment as to his insistence on a short betrothal and a hasty wedding. Reminding him that for all Arabella was a St Claire, and as such in possession of the same arrogant self-confidence as her three older brothers, she was nevertheless still only nineteen years of age. A very young and innocent nineteen years, despite her previous claim otherwise.

He wished that he could grant Arabella the lengthy betrothal she so obviously desired—months during which the little minx had no doubt intended to tempt and bedevil him!—but the truth was, once their betrothal was publicly announced, Darius simply dared not leave her for any length of time without his full protection.

He dared not.

‘Next week, Arabella. Or there will be no wedding.’

Arabella looked up at him searchingly, knowing by the grimness of Darius’s expression—the stern set of his mouth and the coldness of his blue eyes—that he was unshakeable in his decision that she would marry him next week and be damned, or the two of them would not marry at all.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Very well, Darius.’ She gave a tiny inclination of her head. ‘I will inform Hawk that we have decided to marry as early as possible next week.’

‘I will be the one to inform your brother as to our intentions, Arabella,’ Darius cut in decisively, a cynical curl to his top lip. ‘As is my right as your future husband.’ He quirked one arrogant brow.

Arabella bit back the argument that had been hovering upon her lips, wisely deciding that prudence was probably the better course at this point in time. There would be plenty of opportunity after they were married for her to show Darius that she had no intention of being a conventional meek or obedient wife….