Lady Arabella's Scandalous Marriage by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

reason to change simply because I have a wife.’
    Arabella’s eyes widened. ‘You are telling me before we are even wed that you intend to continue your relationships outside of our marriage? That you perhaps already have a mistress you intend to continue to visit?’
    Darius almost laughed at the ludicrousness of those questions.
    Ludicrous because there had been no women in his life, mistresses or otherwise, for some time now. His brief foray into marriage had shown Darius how unwise it was for him to have an intimate relationship with any woman. How detrimental that very intimacy could be to her health…
    He looked down at Arabella. She was so very young. So beautiful. So utterly and completely desirable…
    Darius suddenly realised how he could dissuade the stubbornly determined Arabella from going ahead with their betrothal and marriage. He had only to ruthlessly demonstrate how unsuitable a candidate he was as a prospective husband to send her running back to the safe and welcoming arms of her three over-protective brothers.
    Yes, Darius knew exactly how to go about achieving that end. But he also knew that having done so he would be giving up any chance of renewing his addresses to her in the future, however far ahead he was looking. That, believing herself rejected by Darius, Arabella was contrary enough to accept the next suitor who made an offer for her and in doing so making it impossible for Darius to ever claim her.
    No, as inconvenient and risky as it was for Darius to marry Arabella now, for him not to do so would certainly mean losing her for ever. A possibility that he found was even more unacceptable to him than this forced betrothal, than knowing that she only wanted to marry him now because he was the wealthy Duke of Carlyne…
    ‘I do not expect to need a mistress once we are married, Arabella.’ He finally answered her previous question. ‘I would expect you to cater to my physical needs. Whatever those might be.’
    Arabella felt a shiver of apprehension down the length of her spine as she looked up into the hard implacability of his face. His mouth was a thin, uncompromising line. His eyes as hard and glittering as the sapphires in the necklace left to her by her mother.
    It was the face of a man who would brook no challenge to his indomitable will. Least of all from a wife he felt had been foisted on him by the dictates of Society rather than one he had chosen for himself.
    Any woman not born a St Claire would have been daunted by the risk that he represented at that moment. Yet it only made Arabella all the more determined to penetrate his arrogant façade. To poke and prod at that mockery and cynicism until she reached the man beneath that apparently impenetrable shield.
    Perhaps if she had not had the cynically remote Hawk and Lucian as her brothers, or the softer but just as arrogant Sebastian, then Arabella may have believed that outer shell to be all there was to Darius Wynter. But, as their petted and spoilt younger sister, Arabella had come to know her brothers’ natures well, and she knew all of them to be capable of deep and tumultuous emotions. To be men who were all deeply and irrevocably in love with their wives….
    Was she hoping, once they married, that Darius would similarly fall in love with her?
    Arabella stifled a disbelieving gasp at even the suggestion of such a hope. Did that mean she had feelings for Darius she hadn’t even dared to suspect existed?
    Darius raised a brow as he saw Arabella’s reaction to his suggestion that she alone would satisfy his physical needs. ‘My physical needs are really not as debauched as the ton would have you believe.’ He eyed her teasingly. ‘I can at least assure you that there will be no whips or chains involved!’
    ‘Whips or chains?’ she gasped breathlessly, her face paling.
    It was a response that reminded Darius more than any other, despite her claims to the contrary yesterday evening, just how innocent she really was when