Darian Hunter: Duke of Desire. Carole Mortimer

or possibly three, and thirty.

      Nevertheless, it was far safer for Mariah to take in the tousled appearance of Wolfingham’s hair than to allow her gaze to move any lower. To where the removal of his top clothes had rendered Darian Hunter naked from the waist up, apart from the bandage and sling the doctor had placed about his left shoulder and arm the night before.

      And a very masculine and muscled chest it was, too, with a light dusting of dark hair, which deepened to a vee down the firm and muscled length of his stomach, before disappearing into the loosened waistband of his black evening trousers.

      None of which Mariah was at all happy to realise she had taken note of! ‘The doctor remarked that the original injury to your shoulder has all the appearance of being a bullet wound,’ she said challengingly. ‘And was possibly inflicted a week or so ago?’

      ‘Six days ago, to be precise,’ he conceded gruffly. ‘I would now have your word that you will not discuss this with anyone else,’ he added harshly.

      Her eyebrows rose. ‘And will you trust my word if it is given?’

      ‘I will.’ Darian had little choice in the matter but to trust to Mariah Beecham’s discretion. Besides which, there might be plenty of gossip in society in regard to the countess, but he had never heard of her having discussed with anyone the gentlemen with whom she was known to have been intimately involved.

      ‘Then you have it.’ She nodded now. ‘Nevertheless, I should be interested to learn how you came to receive such a wound. Unless England is already once again at war and I am unaware of it?’ She arched mocking blonde brows.

      Darian knew that for most women, this would have been her first question upon entering the bedchamber and finding her uninvited guest had finally awoken from his stupor!

      But, as he had learnt yesterday evening, Mariah Beecham was not like most women. Indeed, he truly had no idea what manner of woman she was. Which only added to her mystique.

      And attraction?

      Yesterday evening Mariah Beecham had given the appearance of being the sophisticated and confident woman of society that she undoubtedly was. Today, free of adornment or artifice, Mariah Beecham looked no older than her seventeen-year-old daughter.

      Her figure was that of a mature woman, of course, but her face was smooth and unlined in the sunlight, her eyes a clear Mediterranean turquoise, despite her having hosted a ball the previous evening and no doubt having retired very late to her own bedchamber.

      Darian felt that stirring of his arousal, which was rapidly becoming a familiar reaction to being in this woman’s company, as he gazed upon her natural loveliness through narrowed lids. ‘I fear that peace will not last for too much longer, now that Napoleon has returned to France and is currently reported to be on his way to Paris,’ he rasped in an attempt to dampen his physical response to this woman.

      ‘I do not interest myself in such boring things as politics and intrigue,’ she drawled dismissively. ‘Nor does any of that explain how you came to receive such a wound.’ She continued to look at him pointedly, before a derisive smile slowly curved the fullness of her lips at his continued silence. ‘Can it be that the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham has recently fought a duel? Over a woman? Surely not?’ Mocking humour now gleamed in her eyes.

      Darian had not cared for the disparaging way in which Mariah Beecham had earlier said his reputation was one of sober respectability. Or that she now referred to him as the cold and haughty Duke of Wolfingham. Nor did Darian like the implication that she doubted he had ever felt so emotional about any woman that he would have fought a duel over her.

      Admittedly, he was, by nature, a private man. One who had long preferred his own company or that of his few close friends. But he’d had no idea, until now, that this privacy of nature had resulted in society, in Mariah Beecham, believing him to be sober—boring?—as well as cold and haughty—arrogant?

      As the elder son of the sixth Duke of Wolfingham, and Marquis of Durham from birth, Darian had been brought up to know he would one day inherit the title of Duke from his father, along with the management of all the estates entailed with the title. An onerous and unenviable responsibility, which had become his at the age of only five and twenty; much earlier than might have been expected, but his father had been but sixty years of age when he died.

      With the title of Duke and its other onerous responsibilities had also come the guardianship of his younger brother, Anthony.

      All of these things had made it impossible for Darian to continue with the hedonistic pursuits he had previously enjoyed with his close friends and that, along with his soldiering, had hitherto occupied much of his time.

      He had not realised until now that it had also rendered him as being thought stern and sober, as well as haughty. By society as a whole, it would appear, and by this woman in particular.

      Nor did he care to be thought so now, for it made him sound as old as Methuselah and just as uninteresting! A circumstance Darian did not enjoy, when he considered his own undoubted physical response to Mariah Beecham.

      His mouth tightened. ‘I am sure you are as aware as I that the fighting of duels is forbidden.’

      She arched blonde brows. ‘And do you always follow the rules, Wolfingham?’

      Darian gave a humourless smile. ‘Your opinion of my reputation would seem to imply as much.’

      ‘But we are all so much more than our reputations, are we not?’ Mariah Beecham replied enigmatically.

      ‘Do you include yourself in that statement?’ Darian studied her through narrowed lids, taking note of that curling golden hair, the smoothness of her brow, those clear and untroubled blue eyes and the light blush that now coloured her alabaster cheeks, her lips both full and succulent.

      A face that appeared utterly without guilt or guile.

      Misleadingly so? Or could that air of innocence, so unusual in a woman of four and thirty, possibly be the real Mariah Beecham?

      In view of this woman’s reputation, Darian found that impossible to believe; the countess could no doubt add ‘accomplished actress’ to her list of other questionable attributes!

      * * *

      Mariah did not at all care for the way in which Wolfingham was now studying her so intently.

      Having Wolfingham point out, the previous evening, that his younger brother had shown a marked interest in her these past weeks was irritating enough. But to have the far too astute, and equally as intelligent, Darian Hunter, the Duke of Wolfingham, show an interest in her, for whatever reason, was not only disturbing, but could also be dangerous.

      For Mariah was most certainly not all that her reputation implied. Indeed, she did not believe, after Wolfingham’s revelations the night before regarding that reputation, that she was much of any of what society, or this man, believed her to be.

      Deliberately so. For who would suspect that the scandalous Mariah Beecham, the widowed Countess of Carlisle, was also an agent for the Crown, and that she had been so these past seven years and more?

      She had not set out for it to be so. She had become embroiled in the intrigues of the English court quite by accident, after discovering that her own husband was a traitor to both his country and his king.

      Having no idea what to do with that knowledge, it had taken Mariah some weeks to find a member of the government to whom she might pass along that information.

      Only to discover that once she had done so the first time, there was no going back. That her position in society could, and did, open many doors, as it invited confidences from both ladies and gentlemen of the ton.

      And so, from that time on Mariah had made a point of forming her friendships only with those ladies and gentlemen who might have knowledge that would be of benefit to, or was opposed to, the English monarchy or government.

      She had been brought up in the knowledge that her parents’ only expectation