The Regency Season Collection: Part One. Кэрол Мортимер

once told of my condition could not refuse the earl’s offer of marriage. Not without causing scandal and ruin for all of us. I was well and truly trapped. Into marrying a man I not only hated, but also had every reason to fear—’ She broke off as a sob caught at the back of her throat.

      Darian inwardly cursed himself for having forced the subject to the point that he had put Mariah through the pain of reliving those unhappy memories of her past.

      The memory of the taking of what Darian was sure would have to have been her young and inexperienced body.

      A body that now trembled almost uncontrollably against his own as Mariah battled to stop the tears from falling.

      Darian had no doubt they were tears Mariah should have shed eighteen years ago. For the manner in which she had lost her innocence. For the babe, conceived in fear on Mariah’s part and greed on Carlisle’s.

      For the twelve years of unhappiness she had spent as wife to the very man who had raped her.

       Chapter Ten

      Darian shifted slightly so that his arms were beneath Mariah’s thighs and shoulders as he lifted her up and against his chest before striding across to sit down on one of the ledges along the outside of the temple. He settled Mariah comfortably on his thighs, her head, for the moment, resting against his shoulder.

      Darian held on to her tightly. ‘I believe it would be better if you now tell me all, Mariah, when you have already come so far.’

      She gave a shake of her head. ‘And I do not care to talk, or think, any more about those horrible memories.’

      ‘The memories of when Carlisle raped you. What he did was the rape of an innocent, Mariah, nothing more, nothing less,’ Darian insisted grimly as she stiffened in his arms.

      ‘I am well aware of what it was.’

      ‘After which, he then forced you into years of suffering an unhappy marriage with him, because of your daughter.’ Darian could barely contain the violence he felt at learning of Carlisle’s brutish behaviour. An impotent violence, in view of the fact that Carlisle was no longer alive to feel the lash of his tongue or the flash of his blade. Carlisle might have been an excellent swordsman, but Darian knew he was better.

      ‘I may not have wanted the marriage, or Carlisle, but I have loved Christina since the day she was born,’ Mariah instantly defended. ‘She has always been the one shining light in my life.’

      Darian nodded, only too well aware of the protectiveness she felt towards her daughter.

      As he was also now aware of her reason for objecting so vehemently to the idea of Lady Christina marrying anyone at the age of only seventeen years. The same age as Mariah had been when she was forced to marry Carlisle.

      ‘But there was no heir?’ Darian prompted slowly.

      ‘Carlisle did not— He had no interest in my producing his heir. He had a younger cousin he was perfectly happy should inherit the title. His only reason for marrying me was to attain a portion of my father’s considerable fortune.’

      ‘I have noted that marriage has a way of producing children, whether they are wanted or not,’ Darian drawled ruefully.

      ‘And I have already told you that Carlisle was completely indifferent to me as his wife.’

      Darian looked down at Mariah with incredulous eyes. ‘Are you saying— You cannot possibly mean—’

      ‘What, Darian?’ Mariah lifted her head to look up at him, her eyes dark and shadowed in the pallor of her face. ‘I cannot possibly mean that my husband’s uninterest in me was such that he did not share my bed, even once, after we were married?’ Her smile was completely lacking in humour as she gave a shake of her head. ‘Why can I not mean that, Darian, when it is the truth?’

      A truth that Darian could not even begin to comprehend, when his own desire for Mariah was such that he found it difficult to sleep at night, to stop thinking about her day and night, of the ways in which he wished to make love with her. She had been Carlisle’s wife for twelve years. Surely the other man could not have—

      Mariah took advantage of his distraction to pull herself abruptly out of his arms before standing up and turning the paleness of her face away in profile, a shutter seeming to have come down over her emotions—no doubt because she deeply regretted having revealed them in the first place.

      ‘Why should Carlisle have need of the attentions of his very young and very inexperienced wife,’ she continued drily, ‘when his mistress of over twenty years was the housekeeper of our London home?’

      ‘Carlisle kept his mistress in your home after you were married?’ Darian stood up slowly.

      It was well known that many gentlemen of the ton kept a mistress after they were married. But never, ever, in the same house as their wife. It was not done. It simply was not done. And yet, it appeared that that was exactly what Carlisle had done.

      ‘In truth, I was grateful for Mrs Smith’s existence.’ Mariah shrugged dismissively as she briskly pulled her glove back on to the hand she had earlier dipped into the heated pool. ‘And I was not made uncomfortable by the arrangement, visiting London rarely during the first ten years of our marriage. I much preferred to remain in the country with Christina.’

      Darian breathed deeply. ‘But something happened to change that? Did you and Carlisle perhaps reconcile?’

      ‘There was nothing to reconcile.’ She turned to frown at him. ‘How could there be, when we had never been husband and wife in the true sense of the word?’

      ‘But something did change.’

      Mariah knew she had said too much already, revealed too much—more than she had ever told anyone else about the past and the reason for her marriage to Martin. The only thing she had not shared with Darian was Martin’s treasonous behaviour. And the lie that was the rumour of her numerous affairs...

      She had never confided as much to anyone about the past as she now had to Darian Hunter. Knew she had only been lulled into doing so this time because her emotions had already been disturbed by what she had seen and done in the temple. From her imaginings as to what it would be like to engage in those acts with Darian. Imaginings that had deepened, flourished, during the kiss that had followed.

      And that momentary weakness had now cost her dearly.

      Damn it, she had told him of Carlisle’s brutality. Her forced marriage. She had cried in Wolfingham’s arms. She, who never cried, preferring never to show any sign of weakness. To anyone.

      And she did not intend to continue to do so now where Wolfingham was concerned, either. Had made a vow to herself long ago not to allow anyone, apart from Christina, to come so close to her, to know her so well, they were capable of hurting her. ‘Do you still wish to continue with our walk, or has all this ridiculous emotion dampened not only your shirt but your enthusiasm for walking?’ she prompted coolly.

      That astute green gaze remained narrowed on her as Wolfingham stepped closer. ‘There was nothing in the least ridiculous about your upset just now, Mariah.’

      ‘And I believe it to have been an utterly ridiculous waste of time,’ she insisted coldly, ‘when the past, talking about it, changes nothing.’

      ‘And what of the future, Mariah?’ He stepped so close to her now that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her brow. ‘What of your future?’

      She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Once this weekend is over, I do not believe that to be any of your business.’ Mariah clasped her hands together so that Darian could not see they were trembling still, evidence that her emotions were not as back under her control as she would have wished them to be. Her complete lack of control, just minutes ago, now made her feel vulnerable, in a way she found most disturbing.

      Wolfingham