Page 2 of Starlight and the Duke (Cherish and the Duke #5)

He understood the logic of her reasoning and was infuriated by it. “Do not ruin your life simply thinking to save mine,” he said with a growl.

She frowned at him. “Why not?”

“It won’t work and you’ll only make yourself miserable.”

“I won’t.”

“Fiona, you will.”

She sighed. “You are the most stubborn person I know.”

He frowned back. “Oh, no. You are.”

“No, you are.”

They laughed at the same moment, for they both sounded like children.

“Truce?” she asked.

He nodded, although he had no intention of giving up on her. It would be a different matter entirely if she truly did not care for him. But what had once been a true friendship had turned recently into something more.

Something far deeper.

There was heat between them, and not only coming from him. She felt those fiery sparks as much as he did.

Dexter lumbered up the terrace steps past them, pausing to toss Fiona an angry and insulting look.

Rob was about to step forward to wipe the insolence off the drunken sot’s face, but Fiona put her hand back on his arm. “He isn’t worth it.”

“I could have told you that before you ever walked out of the ballroom with him,” he grumbled, knowing he was being unfair to her.

“Are you done scolding me?”

He let out a breath and nodded. “Just do me a favor and stop encouraging those clots.”

“Then you must do me a favor and start encouraging those debutantes.”

It wasn’t going to happen. And Fiona knew him well enough to see the refusal in his eyes.

“So this is how you are going to play your hand, is it?” She peered into the ballroom. “Ah, there’s Lord Wilton. He’s recently widowed. I think I shall go forward and throw myself at him.”

“Damn it, Fiona. Don’t.”

“How are you going to stop me?”

With a kiss, came to mind.

A hot, toe-curling, swallow-each-other-up sort of kiss that scorched one’s soul into eternity.

He’d been wanting to do this for months already.

She saw the heat in his eyes and groaned. “Rob, we cannot go on like this.”

“Like what? Never touching each other and pretending we are not meant for each other? There’s an easy remedy.”

“Yes, there is. But it is not what you are thinking.”

He was thinking marriage, and she knew it.

“I have a proposition for you,” she said slowly.

He was willing to listen to any idea that would bring them together. “Go on.”

She looked up at him with her big aquamarine eyes and casually brushed back a dark curl that had loosened from its pin and was now dancing against her ear in the night breeze.

This was why he found it impossible to move on. She still glowed with an inner beauty that would never fade. Her smile was shimmering starlight.

He could teach her so many things, if only she would let him. But he wanted to teach her as her husband, show her how to let her passion flow as he knew she had never done with her late husband, Lord Albert Shoreham.

This was part of the problem.

Her husband had been a good man and devoted to her, but he was about as exciting as a limp dishcloth. As improbable as it may be, Rob did not think Shoreham had ever…

The point was, Fiona did not know what true passion or arousal were. He could not even imagine what those two had done between the sheets. Clothes were probably kept on at all times.

In truth, he did not want to know.

“Here’s the proposition,” she said, clearing her throat. “You want me.”

Had he not made this abundantly clear?

“But you only think you do.” She sighed. “You only want me because I have been a challenge.”

“I want you,” he said with insistence, “because you are what my heart needs.”

She regarded him in that stubborn, pursed-lips way again. “You need to move on and marry someone suitable, someone young and vital who can share a lifetime with you.”

How was this not her?

But he knew the rest of it, the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head that she was not expressing. The quiet despair and impending sense of doom she always felt because, in all their years of marriage, she and Shoreham had never had children.

She blamed herself.

Rob blamed no one. Some things just were what they were—no fault to lay at anyone’s feet. Not hers or Shoreham’s.

“Tell me the rest of it,” he prodded when she did not immediately continue.

She took a deep breath, no doubt finding their situation as difficult as he did. “You need to get over me and find yourself the next Duchess of Durham. So, get over me.”

“What?”

“Get on top of me. Under me.”

He choked out a cough. “What?”

“Come up to Shoreham Manor a week before Gawain and Cherish’s summer house party begins…and share my bed.”

“Fiona.” His heart broke, for he knew where she was going with this.

“You shall have me to yourself for the entire week, and then you can simply ride next door to join Gawain and Cherish at Northam Hall, no one the wiser.”

“You think they will not know I have just spent a week with you beforehand?”

“My servants would never talk.”

Yes, they would. Perhaps not to the outside world, but they would blab all to the Northam Hall staff, many of whom were related to the staff at Shoreham Manor, since they were neighboring properties, not to mention Fiona and Cherish were as close as sisters.

However, Rob was not going to fight about it. He wanted to hear the rest of her doomed-to-failure plan.

“A week with you,” she continued, refusing to see the impending disaster of her idea, “and then we can pretend we are just meeting the following week at Cherish’s house party.

Perhaps I’ll merely ride over daily, not participate too much in order to give you time with the young ladies they have invited. ”

“No, Fiona. I’m sure Cherish has invited you to stay over for the duration of her party. She’ll expect it of you and question your reasons if you don’t. Besides, it isn’t safe for you to be traveling home every night after supper or whatever events they have planned.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said with a nod to acknowledge his point about the dangers lurking in the wee hours. “No need to make a decision on that yet. Gawain is my cousin and Cherish is my best friend. If I need a room, they will accommodate me.”

But Rob wished to know more about this proposal of hers. Offering to spend a week in bed with him had to come with strings attached. “And what is the price I am to pay for this week-long frolic in your bed?”

“Cherish has invited several young ladies to her house party, all of them lovely and more than suitable to be your duchess. Once the party begins, you must promise to give each one serious consideration.”

“That’s it?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “And you must promise to choose one of them to be your bride by the end of the house party.”

“That is no bargain,” he grumbled.

Fiona held up a hand. “Do not be so hasty to refuse, for there is no other sensible solution. You shall have me, all of me, before they arrive. An entire week alone with me to get me out of your system.”

His heart was not a system .

She cast him a pleading look. “Don’t you see? It is your unfulfilled fantasies that are the problem, Rob. So I am giving you permission to fulfill them.”

“Full access to your body?”

And your heart, Fiona. It is your heart that I want.

She cleared her throat again. “Yes, full access. What do you say? Does this proposal meet with your approval?”

No, it was a terrible idea. Incredibly foolish. He would have to be out of his mind to accept.

But he nodded. “Yes, let’s do it.”