Kieran Kramer - If You Give A Girl A Viscount

“I don’t feel it hanging in the air at all.” She huffed.

“That’s because you’re all business. It’s time you had some fun.”

“This is an inopportune moment.” She flapped her hands at her sides. “We have an idea. A marvelous idea.”

“It’s never the wrong time.”

Never?

“Not even during church?” she demanded to know.

“That’s the best time.” His voice was like silk.

“Are you saying you’ve kissed someone during church?”

“ Behind the church. Does that count?”

“Yes. And it’s very bad of you.”

“Don’t criticize until you try it.” He stood at the ready.

She leaned up and then—

She pulled back. “I can’t. What if someone sees?”

“No one will observe us,” he said, “especially if we retreat here.” He pulled her behind the beech tree.

She bit her lip. “I have to do this fast. Cassandra would be furious if she knew. And I can’t risk that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She and my stepmother have threatened to get rid of Hester and Joe if I spend too much time with you. And that can’t happen. They mean more to me than anyone in this world. So please—don’t push me.”

Concern lit his eyes. “They’d do that?”

Daisy nodded. “Even though I’m supposed to be your fiancée, Cassandra still plans to be your viscountess.”

“Have they made any other threats to you?”

Daisy hesitated. She could never tell him about the other. “No,” she lied. “But that one is enough.”

“I should say so.”

“I’m warning you now,” she said, “to be prepared in case I appear standoffish in their presence.”

“I see. But you’re standoffish now, too.”

“No I’m not. You’re used to flirts in London. I’ve no interest in flirting.”

“Why not?”

The viscount’s was a face that had probably caused many a virgin to consider leaping into bed with him.

“Because I have responsibilities,” she enunciated clearly, more for her own benefit than his. She wished she were one of those badly behaved virgins—it wasn’t as if she’d ever get married, here in a remote village with a dearth of young men. She wished she didn’t have to rebuff him. But it was true. She did have responsibilities.

Besides, you don’t deserve what your parents had. Never. Ever.

She closed her eyes against an image of Cousin Roman with his glib smile and open shirt and wished she didn’t have to say such cruel things to herself.

But she did.

She must.

“Are you all right?” Lord Lumley’s words, rich and rough, penetrated her thoughts.

She opened her eyes again.

His gaze was intense, worried, his face mere inches from her own. “Surely even a young lady with responsibilities can find some time for amusement.”

She shook her head. “Not until Castle Vandemere is safely back in my possession.”

And not even then, she thought, although she’d never tell him.

“Then I am more committed than ever to securing those funds,” he said, oblivious to her inner turmoil, so unaware how deep it went, how unchangeable her position was.

After Mama died, Papa used to call her his North Star. It was a loving observation—his whole world revolved around her, he’d said. But now she felt she must be pinned to the sky like a fixed point, reaching and shining … but never blurring her borders.

Never touching.

Never connecting.

“I’d like to see you lighthearted, Miss Montgomery,” the viscount said. “I’d like to see you bat your lashes at me and beg me with your eyes to kiss you behind a rhododendron bush, after a picnic. Do you go to picnics?”

“No.” She couldn’t help it. Despite her dark thoughts, she laughed. “You’re impossible, Lord Lumley.”

“So some people say.” His mouth tipped up, but he said it as if he were very lonely. And as if she were the only person in the world who could make him happy again.

He was a roué.

She knew it, but even so, something propelled her out of her darkness. It urged her to lift up on her tippy toes and kiss him. Full on the mouth.

He kissed her back.

Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kept kissing him, all the while feeling like a tree with loving branches enveloping a needy boy-turned-man who’d come to sit among her leaves and admire her.

Which made no sense, but for some reason, she felt as if she’d known him for a lifetime—and that this branchy-tree feeling she had when she was kissing him was natural.

Perfectly natural.

Like the eddies on the burn. And the snap of grass drying in the sun. And the sigh of the wind brushing the mountainside.

I must be dreaming, Daisy thought.

I’m a hussy, she realized.

And rather liked the idea.

A few weak-kneed moments later, the viscount released her.

“I can think again now,” he said. “And the first thing I’m thinking is that we will never do that again.”

“Right.” She felt vastly disappointed and concerned that perhaps she was a very bad kisser. But he was good to remind her they shouldn’t. They couldn’t risk it.

“At least not anywhere your stepmother and stepsisters can see,” Lord Lumley continued. “I wouldn’t dare put your Hester and Joe in peril.”

“No. Never.” She felt vaguely hopeful again. And guilty. Nothing could ever imperil Joe and Hester.

“So have no fear,” the viscount said. “Next time, we’ll be completely secluded, so you can enjoy yourself.”

Her head was still spinning, and her lips were tingling. “But I did enjoy myself.”

“Not as much as you could,” he said.

“There will be no next time,” she reminded him, because she did have fear—those fears about Hester and Joe. And the other fear, the one the Furies had taunted her with last night. But she was also angry that things had gotten to this point—that her stepfamily had made her so afraid that she couldn’t live without worrying about people she loved.

“What strategy will you employ with Mr. Beebs to get him to agree to our using the Keep?” asked the viscount.

Not only had he completely changed the subject, he appeared to be thinking clearly, while she was still blinking, trying to forget the feel of his hand caressing her back and his lips teasing her own.

“Mr. Beebs doesn’t mix with the neighborhood,” she said, “but it appears he has a fondness for Cassandra. Perhaps he’ll say yes for that reason alone.”

But inside, she was thinking that the viscount’s lips had done magic, had cast her under a spell in which she couldn’t concentrate on anything but getting another kiss.

“Then Cassandra should ask him,” he said.

“Ask him what?”

“If we can borrow the Keep.” Lord Lumley squinted at her. “Are you listening?”

“Of course.” Daisy blushed and gave a nervous shrug. “I wouldn’t recommend that. Cassandra’s so rude, Mr. Beebs might catch on she doesn’t like him. No, I think I’d better. Let’s go. Right away.” She began the walk to the Keep, hugging herself as she stumbled along, wondering if their idea was so preposterous that Mr. Beebs would laugh it off or call the constable.

But she was also thinking about how she’d kissed the viscount.

Three times now .

Lord Lumley joined her with all their fishing gear and the bag of trout. “If Mr. Beebs says yes, we’ll have to make a plan.”

Her hand swung close to his side, the side with the trout. But she was thinking about how she’d seen that hole in the back of his breeches the day before and how sad it was that he wasn’t wearing the same pair any longer.