Julia James - The Lady Most Willing

Leadership was a good attribute for a countess.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, hesitated, and then turned into the library rather than the drawing room. Even given his new determination to consider Marilla as a countess, it was something of a relief to find that she wasn’t in the room.

In fact, the library’s only occupant was Marilla’s sister, Fiona. She lay on a sofa before the fire, reading a book, dark red curls tumbling down one shoulder. Her spectacles were surprisingly winsome, he thought. Really, it was enough to make one think that they might become fashionable.

As he walked over to the fireplace, she looked up from her book, and her brow creased for a moment. He could tell perfectly well that she had momentarily forgotten who he was. This was a woman truly unimpressed by his consequence.

“Lord Oakley,” he prompted, adding, “but please call me Byron; we are all on terms of the greatest familiarity at Finovair.” It wasn’t at all hard to ask her that. In fact, he would rather like to hear his name on her lips.

She swung down her legs, rose, and dropped a curtsy. “Lord Oakley,” she said, her eyes shadowed by curling eyelashes.

Byron bowed to the young lady and then walked over to stand in front of the sofa. He nearly sat down without being invited to do so, because that was the way people on easy terms behaved. Or at least, so he thought. But his breeding got the better of him and he remained on his feet. “We all agreed to address each other by our Christian names,” he informed her, hating the hectoring tone of his voice even as he spoke. “Mine is Byron.”

She regarded him silently for a moment. Her eyes were just as green as they had appeared last night, and her spectacles perched on a delightfully pert nose.

“In fact, you and my sister made that agreement between you, though I must presume that the Duke of Bretton and Catriona have agreed to the same informality. Does all this lack of ceremony distress you?” she asked, avoiding use of his name, he noticed. And not offering to allow him to use her own.

“I am not accustomed to it,” he admitted. “Do I remember that your name is Fiona?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, again not granting him permission to address her as such.

Despite himself, he felt a little stung. “I apologize for interrupting your reading,” he said, making up his mind not to leave the room directly, because it was good for him, one might say instructive , to remain with people who took no account of his importance. Fiona certainly fell into that category. “May I ask what volume has caught your interest?”

The earl was dangerously beautiful, Fiona thought. But so controlled. Did he even perspire when he made love? Did his face turn red, did he make inelegant noises, did he . . .

“I am reading a novel called Persuasion ,” she said, jerking her mind from that disgraceful (though interesting) subject. As it happened, she had not personally acquired information about intimate encounters of that nature, but she had heard all about them. Nothing she had heard about grunting, sweaty encounters sounded terribly appealing.

“You have found your way into the wrong room, Lord Oakley,” she said, tucking herself back into a corner of the sofa. Her finger marked her place in her novel. When he first entered the room, the pompous Sir Walter of the novel and the pompous earl in front of her were confused in her mind; she had blinked at Byron as if he had somehow materialized out of the book’s pages.

In reality, her comparison wasn’t fair in the least. Oakley was young and remarkably good-looking, with white-blond hair clipped very short, and winged black eyebrows. He reminded her of a medieval saint carved from ivory: all dignity, virtue, and pale skin.

But he was still Sir Walter, under that lovely exterior. A man who could not conceivably feel other than disgust for her.

“Everyone is doubtless having a wonderful time in the drawing room. They will be missing you,” she said encouragingly.

“I am too old to play games,” he countered, as if she’d shown the faintest interest in his age.

“Does that mean you actually played games as a child?” she asked, with a queer mix of genuine curiosity and a strong wish to puncture his rigid control. He looked as if he had been born in an immaculately pressed—and elegantly tied—silk neck cloth.

“Certainly, I did.”

Frankly, while the man might be an exceptional physical specimen, he was not a very captivating conversationalist. All the same, it would be rude to simply resume reading in front of him. “Is there something I might help you find in the library?” she asked, her tone once more implying that he should take himself elsewhere.

Instead, he sat down beside her.

Fiona took a deep breath, and then wished she hadn’t. He even smelled good, like starched linen and manly soap. She didn’t like English earls. In fact, she didn’t like Englishmen in general. This one was distracting her from her book. He made her . . . he made her think about things she had given up.

Men, for example.

She had agreed to marry once, and that was enough. Though, of course, her betrothed had been nothing like Oakley. Dugald had been an oaf—and a violent, drunken one at that. The earl didn’t look as though he ever relaxed enough to drink spirits.

“Lord Oakley,” she said, rather less than patiently, “would it bother you greatly if I continued to read my book?”

“May I ask you a blunt question before you recommence, Miss Chisholm?”

“If you must,” she replied. “But only if you give me the same courtesy. What on earth are you doing here? You should be in the drawing room being wooed by adoring young ladies.”

“Adoring young ladies?” He seemed genuinely confused.

“I hope you are not wounded by Catriona’s defection to the duke. Either my sister or Lady Cecily would be a splendid countess, and I’m certain they are waiting with bated breath for your return to the drawing room.” A less severe man might have been thought to smile, she noticed. Perhaps he did smile, with his eyes, though not with his lips.

“I gather that you deem Miss Burns and yourself as birds of a feather.”

“You wouldn’t want me to adore you,” Fiona assured him. “I have a ruined reputation. That being the case, I think we could simply skip the part where I try to entice you into an unwise marriage based on our unexpected propinquity, don’t you?”

“That was a very long sentence.” Yes, he was smiling. Amazing.

“I can translate it, if you’d like,” she offered.

“I cannot decide how I am to take your wit. I seem to be the target of it, so presumably, I should not laugh. But if I am not to laugh, then who is the recipient?”

Fiona took a swift breath. “You have put me in my place. And,” she admitted reluctantly, “I deserved it. I should not have made fun at your expense, particularly since my jests were weak. But, in truth, Lord Oakley, I’m certain everyone is awaiting your return to the drawing room. I mustn’t keep you with this foolish babble.”

He was silent for a moment. “I suppose I am looking for someone to adore me. Though it sounds remarkably arrogant, put so.”

Fiona winced. “I have offended you again. I am truly sorry. I have no right to judge your demeanor, and I would never consider you in such a light.” She didn’t know where to look, so she glanced back at her book.

“I’ll leave you to your reading. If I might ask a question first?”

“Absolutely,” she said, and then, unable to stop herself: “Though I’m positively dying to finish this novel, so I would be grateful if you would ask your question immediately.” It wasn’t the book, not really. There was something very dangerous about the earl, doubly so because he was so domineering and arrogant—and yet at this moment there was also something slightly uncertain about him.