Julia James - The Lady Most Willing

It made no sense that a pang of faint anxiety should overrule her dislike of arrogant men, but there it was. She didn’t even want to meet his eyes again, for fear she would see that utterly disarming note of uncertainty.

“My question is in reference to your sister.”

At that, Fiona lifted her head and gave him a judicious smile. “You couldn’t do better than to choose Marilla as your countess,” she cooed. It was manifestly false, but family loyalty is surely a greater good than truthfulness.

“I was wondering whether her affections were otherwise engaged. A woman so beautiful must have many local admirers.”

“Not at all! That is,” she added, “of course Marilla is much adored. But she has not yet settled on the man to whom she would like to bestow her hand.”

He appeared to be brooding over something, so Fiona said mendaciously, “And I’m sure I need not tell you how admired she is. She has a very lively personality.”

“Too much so, some might say.”

Fiona stiffened. Marilla was objectionable, but nevertheless was still her sister. “What precisely do you mean by that?” she inquired, her voice as chilly as she could make it.

“Merely foolishness,” the earl said. He stood, and gave her a slight bow. “I will give your best to everyone in the drawing room.”

She felt a pang of guilt. Something like disappointment clouded his eyes. Though that was ridiculous. It was as if she caught a flash of a lonely boy, but looking at the magnificently dressed, handsome aristocrat before her, she was obviously mistaken.

“I would greatly prefer that you did not,” she told him. “They may feel the need to gather me into the game-playing fracas on the other side of the wall.”

When the oh-so-severe earl smiled, which he did now, his face was transformed. His eyes could make a woman into a drunk who lived for those moments alone. She hastily returned her gaze to her book.

He paused for a moment, and then she saw his boots receding and heard the door to the library quietly closing.

Fiona sat still, biting her lip, not reading. She was reconciled to her lot in life, truly she was. But there were times when she felt a stab of anger at Dugald, anger so potent that it burned the back of her throat. What right had he to take away her chance to marry a man like the earl?

The absurdity of that thought jerked her out of her self-pity. She had attended Marilla in two of her last three seasons in London. Though she stayed, appropriately, at the fringes with the chaperones, she had nonetheless spied Oakley from afar. Dugald or no Dugald, she would never have had the slightest contact with a man such as the earl under any other circumstances.

She opened Persuasion again and pushed away the pulse of sadness. What was she thinking? That implacable look in his eyes would make him a terrible—

What was she thinking? Even if she wasn’t known the length and breadth of Scotland as a hussy of the worst order, she was a mere Scottish miss.

Noblemen such as Oakley did not deign to look at lowly beings such as she.

Her fingers curled more tightly around the volume as a sudden image of Marilla as Countess of Oakley flashed through her mind. Byron as her brother-in-law. Seated across from her at the supper table before retiring upstairs with Marilla.

She’d move to Spain.

No, that wasn’t far enough.

Chapter 12

Two hours later

Fiona was firmly under the spell of the cheerful but slightly battered heroine of Persuasion —not to mention Sir Walter and his daughter—when she heard the door to the library open and then quickly shut again.

She was curled up under a toasty red blanket with a comforting doggy smell, and felt vastly disinclined to move.

“Hello?” she asked reluctantly, sitting up.

The earl was standing against the door, finger on his lips. She nodded and lay back onto the sofa.

She had decided to keep her distance from the earl. She could not allow herself to be enticed by that air of confidence and power that he wore like an invisible cloak. It had probably been bestowed in the cradle along with his insignia or crest or however it was that earls distinguished themselves from mere mortals.

She read the next paragraph three times, trying to fix her attention on the words, even though every fiber of her being was dying to know what Byron was doing. Against her better judgment, she had started to think of him as Byron, an inappropriate intimacy, if ever there was one.

When she’d read the paragraph for the fourth time, and still had no idea what it said, she conceded defeat. She sat up again to confront Byron just as the door was slammed open and Marilla appeared, flushed and radiant. If Marilla was exquisite at the best of times, when she was rosy and excited, she was terrifying. “Oh, Byron! I’m very, very sure you’re here!” she caroled.

The moment she noticed Fiona, her eyes narrowed, and her voice lost all claim to charm. “I’m looking for the earl. Has he entered?”

Marilla’s quarry had flattened himself against the wall behind the door. His lips were moving, perhaps in prayer or entreaty; either way, he had the look of a hunted animal. Marilla had obviously overplayed her hand again, but Fiona couldn’t bring herself to care very much.

She quickly looked back to her sister so as not to betray his presence. “No, but I think I heard someone running up the stairs.”

The sparks in Marilla’s eyes faded as she contemplated the significance of this. “Of course! He’s hidden in his bedchamber or mine, so that we may enjoy a moment or two of privacy once I find him.”

Fiona frowned, and Marilla added irritably, “High-society games are little more than opportunities for dalliance, which is something you could never understand. The forfeit is a kiss. We’ve been playing hide-and-seek all afternoon, but the duke and Catriona insist on finding no one but each other, which is tiresome for the rest of us.”

“In that case,” Fiona said, “perhaps you’d better find the earl before Lady Cecily steals a kiss.”

Marilla smirked. “She’s proved to be a regular sobersides. We’re all playing, even Taran, and—”

“ Taran ran off and hid?”

“I found him in the back of the kitchens! He’s surprisingly fit for a man on the edge of the grave. He actually insisted on the forfeit.”

“Taran is hardly on the edge of the grave,” Fiona pointed out.

Reputation—as distinguished from virtue—seemed to have been declared irrelevant for the duration of the storm-imposed confinement. Fiona was fairly certain that the Duke of Bretton and Miss Burns were not worrying about reputation . . . well, now she thought about it, Catriona’s virtue as well as her reputation might be at risk. But that was hardly Fiona’s problem, and besides, they were betrothed.

“Don’t you dare return upstairs or come to the drawing room,” Marilla ordered. “Our bedchamber may be occupied for some time.” Her smile was more predatory than sweet.

“I’m getting hungry,” Fiona protested. “It’s teatime.”

“You’re plump enough. You could go a whole day without eating, and it would be the better for your waist.”

Fiona’s eyes must have narrowed, because Marilla suddenly looked a bit cautious. “I suppose if you must eat, you could ring for something. I am certainly not the person to wait on you hand and foot.”

“The library has no bell,” Fiona pointed out. “In fact, I doubt the castle has a system to summon the help.”

Marilla sighed. “I’ll have one of those disgusting old fools send you some seedcakes, I suppose.”

“I would like a hot drink as well.”