Page 27 of A Duchess Untouched

“It had better not happen again,” the Dowager Duchess warned. Selina could tell her words carried more than a simple reprimand for her father’s behavior. Her whole future depended on future interactions with her mother-in-law and the rest of the ton.

To her dismay, as she dragged her father out of the drawing room, he still managed to call back over his shoulder, “A woman like the Dowager Duchess deserves poetry! She needs to hear all that I have within me.”

Once they were safely away from the drawing room and its many listening ears, Selina finally allowed herself to rise to her frustration. “Papa, what were you thinking? A verse? You recited her a verse in front of every friend she has in London, and you had not even composed it before you began. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

“It was a decent verse, Selina, or it would have been, had I only remembered the second line.”

“That does not answer my question.” She looked at him for a moment, her anger easing into genuine confusion. “Why would you humiliate yourself like that, especially in front of the woman you say you admire? In front of so many strangers?”

Harleigh straightened himself as much as his condition allowed, though his eyes looked somewhat glassy. “Because I truly meant every word, and a man does not often find the courage to say such things sober. I thought that if I did not speak now, I never would.”

His candid reply surprised her. She quickly regained composure, and her tone softened. “That does not justify reciting bad poetry to a woman who still considers you unworthy of her attention, Papa.”

“She will come around eventually, mark my words.”

“Not if you keep reciting poetry to her as though she were a milkmaid you mean to woo; she will not,” she said, taking his arm and guiding him toward the stairs. “Go to your rooms, get some sleep, and do not even look in her direction again until I have had a chance to improve your situation.”

She believed it was a bold promise as she finally parted from him at his door, knowing she would need all her strength to fulfill it.

Selina felt another rush of humiliation. It was her fault. Perhaps leaving her father on the streets of London would have been a better learning experience for him. Taking him in might have been a mistake. Her sisters, older and wiser, had known better.

But what could she do? She had to carry the weight of her father, not just physically but also figuratively.

She wondered if it meant sinking in the end.

While her father made her worry about their precarious position in society, she knew she had to show her husband that she was not someone he could ignore forever.

The next battle was about to begin.

Chapter 13

“Perhaps I should have just sent her back to the house,” Matthew muttered to Maximus, who was sprawled across the Persian rug in his study, with nary a care for the world.

The dog merely let out a small grunt, his eyes closed. Matthew could understand. The two of them had been working too hard for years. Sometimes, simply resting side by side was necessary.

“I wish I had your peace, my friend,” he murmured fondly, a smile breaking across his face as he rubbed the top of the mastiff’s broad head.

Once more, Selina managed to return to his reverie. She had the nerve to pretend she did not know how to fire a pistol. She had played the damsel in distress well, screaming at the sound of the shot and rolling on the grass with Maximus afterward, waiting to be found.

The Duke of Wentley had been fooled by his own wife.

What was even more mortifying was that he actually wished she were his damsel in distress. He would save her from her woes, and perhaps from himself. He groaned at the thought, dragging a heavy palm down his face.

His wife had been trying to seduce him, but not in the way other women would. She clearly had a more deliberate plan: dresses that made him rock hard in an instant, and an innocence that brought him to his knees.

Whatever she was doing was working too well.

She wants a husband. She has been alone for so long that it is natural to wish for her husband’s attention. Even if she is doing it all to gain an heir from me.

The thought should irritate him. But he could not feel cross or furious with her. Any thought of Selina sent a sharp surge of blood straight to his groin. The mere thought of her body against his made his cock achingly hard. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His breeches felt tight. Agonizingly so.

The temptation to give in to her games was so strong. It was easy, and within his rights, to pull her into his arms, strip her naked, and take what she was offering. Why not give her what she wanted?

She was his wife. It was not a matter of scandal. The ton had been waiting for them to have children. His mother demanded that they produce an heir. Then, there was Selina herself, no longer simply waiting for him to make a decision. She had been working on her art of seduction.

But then what?

If Matthew bedded Selina and packed his bags soon after, he would break her heart more than if he had left her untouched the last time. She would have had her body claimed. They would have shared a bed, only for her to be left alone in it afterward. Worse, he would break her heart if she developed feelings for him in the process.