Wayward by Carole Mortimer

Chapter Two

At least, she presumed the very tall, aristocratic, and elegantly dressed gentleman who now strode forcefully into the sitting room was her guardian.

The scars on the left side of his face appeared to confirm that was exactly who he was.

Strangely, Lydia did not find those scars to be in the least repellent. Indeed, in her opinion, they complemented rather than detracted from the harsh beauty of this man’s completely masculine face: dark jutting brows over pale gray eyes, a long aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a hard slash of a mouth above an arrogantly square jaw.

His overlong hair was as dark as his brows, with the odd streak of distinctive gray at his temples.

His clothing was fashionable and perfectly tailored, despite those same Society gossips having said the duke had not set foot in London in the ten years since “the scandal” that had caused him to take up residence in this remote estate in Cornwall. He was very tall, his body muscular, with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and powerful hips and thighs.

Charlotte, having been seated on one of the couches as they waited for Lydia’s guardian to appear, rose hastily to her feet the moment he strode purposefully into the salon. There was a look of apprehension, or aversion, on her face as that gentleman’s scarred and imposing presence seemed to dominate all and everything—everyone?—in the room.

Lydia could not claim to feel dominated by him, but her body had certainly reacted to him in a manner she had never experienced before with any other man.

Her breasts felt as if they had swelled inside the bodice of her gown, the nipples tingling. An unaccustomed heat had centered between her thighs, causing a gush of hot juices to dampen her drawers.

That damp material now brushed against the sensitive flesh between her thighs as Lydia stepped farther into the room, increasing her arousal.

Gideon Rhodes didn’t even spare a glance in her direction as he stepped toward Charlotte and took one of her gloved hands into his much larger one. “I am Gideon Rhodes. You may call me Gideon, or Esher, if you prefer it.” He bowed his much taller body over that gloved hand before releasing it. “I trust your weeklong journey here by carriage has not been too arduous?”

“Er— Um— Not too much so, no. I— Um—” Charlotte, having already revealed an aversion to the duke’s scarred face, now sent Lydia an appealing glance mixed with the confusion she felt at his having greeted her first.

Lydia, on the other hand, was able to guess exactly the mistake the duke had just made.

Both she and Charlotte had relinquished their cloaks and bonnets to the butler when they entered the house, but Charlotte was still dressed in mourning black from head to toe, whereas Lydia’s silk gown was of the same russet color as her hair.

It was not too difficult to guess that Gideon Rhodes believed the woman dressed in black was in mourning for her father and so must be his ward, Lydia Montague. That therefore the woman in the russet-colored gown must be her companion, Miss Charlotte Babcock.

A logical assumption for Esher to have made in the circumstances.

It was, unfortunately for him, a wrong one.

Lydia was determined to put an end to this misconception as quickly as possible. Especially as she could see Charlotte was having increasing difficulty in restraining her urge to bolt from the room so that she was far away from the scarred and imposing duke. “I believe there has been a mistake, Your Grace—”

“I believe I was talking to Lydia?” Esher silenced her coldly.

Lydia’s eyes widened at this deliberate set-down. She had been trying to avert what could be an embarrassing situation if Charlotte gave in to her obvious need to run, and instead, she was now being subjected to this man’s innate arrogance.

Pompous arse!

Lydia was almost tempted to let him remain in ignorance of her identity for several more minutes to see what else he might say to embarrass himself. Almost. Because she doubted that this cold and aristocratic gentleman would appreciate being made to look a fool if the mistake were allowed to continue.

Her chin rose, and she straightened to her full height of two inches over five feet. “I am Lydia.”

That cold gray gaze swept over her, from her silk-slippered feet, to her fuller figure in the russet gown, to her red-gold hair, slightly disheveled after a morning of traveling. Lydia had tried to tidy and secure her hair back into the pins after removing her bonnet, but there was really only so much she could do with no mirror to guide her.

There are no mirrors here, Lydia realized.

There was not a single one to be seen in this elegantly furnished salon, nor had there been one in the cavernous entrance hall when they arrived so that she might tidy her appearance before meeting their host.

Deliberately so?

So that Esher, with those scars upon his face and down his throat, did not have to constantly see his own disfigurement every time he passed a mirror?

It seemed a somewhat extreme measure to take, if that were the case. But she had a feeling Esher, despite his outward veneer of cold and controlled deliberation, was also a man of extremes.

He maintained an outwardly rigid visage, while at the same time, there was a smoldering heat in the depths of his eyes which said he would either like or loathe a person. That there was no room inside him for any emotion in between those two.

That narrowed gaze also said that whether he was going to “like or loathe” Lydia had yet to be decided.

The knowledgethat the beautiful and glowing redhead was his ward was enough to ensure Gideon’s cock didn’t so much as make a twitch of renewed interest as he looked at her.

Instead, he knew he was about to embark on two years of physical torture on top of the ten of emotional torment he had already suffered through.

This time not because of the past scandal that still haunted him, but because of the young women with whom he was now forced to share his home. A young woman who had awakened carnal urges inside Gideon he had believed to be long dead.

He felt slightly nauseous at the realization he desired Lydia Montague with a physical depth and yearning he had not felt for a woman in more years than he cared to think about.

Which was exactly why his role as her guardian, for at least the next two years, promised to be a living hell.

Despite what the ton might say of him, Gideon had never been unfaithful to Harriet, no matter how dire the situation between the two of them had become.

Nor had he taken a mistress since she died. Initially because he was so seriously burned and in such pain, he’d had no interest in sexual matters. Following that, there had only been the occasional paid female companion he visited in Truro when his physical need to feel the touch of another had been too strong for him to deny himself any longer.

Those previous years of Harriet’s distaste for him, and his now scarred appearance, meant he required no more from a woman than a willingness on her part to give him sexual release.

One glance earlier at the voluptuous redhead alighting from the carriage outside his home, and he had become lost to imagining the two of them in bed together.

Only to now learn the redhead was his ward and so not physically available to him in any way.

His jaw tightened. “Why are you not wearing black, in mourning for your father?” His tone was accusing, mainly because of his anger with himself for allowing his hopes to have been raised in regard to possibly making love to the glowing russet-haired woman.

Lydia’s vivid green gaze didn’t so much as waver in continuing to meet his. “Because it was my father’s request I not do so.”

“I do not understand.”

She shrugged. “I am too pale skinned to suit wearing black.”

Gideon scowled. “You are seriously asking me to believe that your father requested you not wear mourning, even out of respect for his death, because you are too pale skinned to wear black?”

“I am not asking you to believe anything, Your Grace,” she said coolly. “I am merely stating the truth.”

Gideon’s irritation deepened. Whether because of this young woman’s self-confidence or his own feelings of awkwardness after his earlier mistake as to her identity, he could not have said.

The latter, probably. He could not help but inwardly admire the fact that this young woman was obviously not in the least frightened of or in awe of him. Not of his scars nor of his coldness and arrogance.

To be fair, his arrogance had been immense even before the fire, and he was inclined to use it now as a means of keeping others at an emotional and physical distance from him.

As his desire for Lydia’s voluptuous body meant he must now keep her at that distance.

“Well, I am stating that, as my ward, you will commence wearing black immediately,” he bit out,“and that you will continue do so until a full year has passed following your father’s death.” He had to do something, anything, to make this young woman’s appearance less attractive to him, and if that required she wear black, so be it.

It was not helping the situation that he currently wanted to throw Lydia over his shoulder and carry her up the stairs to his bedchamber, before stripping the russet-colored gown from her body and ravishing every delectable and lush inch of her.

He had never had this totally visceral reaction to any woman before today, not even before he was married. Certainly not toward Harriet. It was doubly disturbing that it was now toward the ward whose welfare had been entrusted to him for two years and who was also eighteen years younger than him.

Except…

There was an inborn air of confidence to Lydia, a challenge, that said she would not be afraid of anything physical Gideon might demand of her. That she might even make demands of her own.

Except, she’s my ward, damn it!

A ward I did not ask for nor want.

And an innocent.

Is she?

Gideon didn’t balk at the inward conversation he was having with himself. Having been alone for so long, he often found himself discussing matters inwardly.

He gazed at Lydia searchingly for several long minutes, knowing that a lack of betrothal or marriage on her part did not mean she was still a virgin.

She’s only nineteen, just a year older than Harriet was when I married her twelve years ago.

But Harriet had possessed an air of naivete not apparent in Lydia.

That doesn’t mean she’s any less innocent.

And there, Gideon accepted, was the crux of the matter.

There were already so many reasons why he should not allow this desire for Lydia to continue or get out of hand, but if she was a virgin still then he certainly could never act upon it.

“I have something for you, left to you in my father’s will. It is in one of the trunks being taken up to my room,” she now informed him softly. “I will bring it to you once my maid has unpacked my things.”

“What sort of something?” Gideon was wary of anything Chessington might have left him—anything else the earl might have left him—when the other man had already made him guardian of his daughter.

She shrugged. “It is wrapped in brown paper with your name and title on the front of it, and tied up with string. But it is shaped like and feels like a book of some kind.”

Gideon had absolutely no idea what book Chessington might have left him. He did not recall ever lending one to the earl that he might have felt a need to see returned to Gideon after his death.

He gave a dismissive shake of his head. No doubt the puzzle would be solved once Lydia had retrieved the parcel from amongst her luggage.

His nostrils flared. “I will leave the two of you to enjoy your refreshment,” he snapped as one of the footmen entered the room with a trolley laden with sandwiches and cakes as well as a pot of tea. “Dinner will be served at eight o’clock.” He gave an abrupt bow before striding from the room.