Julia James - The Lady Most Willing

For a long moment, they stood facing each other, each breathing heavily, their gazes locked in some undefined contest in which there would be no victor. He waited for her to castigate him, slap him, revile him, do any of the things she had every right to do not only now but in answer to his earlier kiss, too. But again, she didn’t. She just stood there, shoulders back, head high, eyes blazing. He had no idea what she was thinking, feeling. Fury? Disgust? Pity?

Finally, he could stand it no longer. “Aren’t you going to say something?” he demanded desperately.

“Aren’t you?” she countered in the same tone.

God, yes, how much he wanted to speak, to swear fealty, explain what she’d done to him, plead for her hand. But he couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.

“No.”

Her head snapped back as if he’d struck her and his hand came up to reach for her . . .

But she was already running down the stairs.

Leaving him behind.

Chapter 23

What in the name of all that is holy was wrong with the man?! He kisses her not once but twice, then pushes her away both times—though she has made it as clear as day that she does not want to be pushed away—and then, in answer to her pathetically obvious attempt to rouse his jealousy, suggests she should try to field a cricket team . A cricket team! That was all he could say?

Cecily stomped down the stairs, her velvet skirts swishing angrily around her ankles. But her steps slowed as she touched her lips, feeling again his hunger, his fierce desire. Thank heaven the gallery wall behind her had held her up for that first kiss, for without its support she would have buckled under his sensual onslaught, and he’d supported her for the second, which was even more potent. Even now the memory made her knees weak and her breath come high and tight in her chest.

She realized now that he hadn’t even bothered to embrace her during that first kiss. When he’d stopped, all she could assume was that he’d been somehow disappointed, that her kiss had been too jeune fille for his worldly palate, and so casting about frantically for something to say that would not sound horrifically unsophisticated, said the first thing that had popped into her head, some daft comment about how good he was at kissing. And for some reason, that had seemed to anger him. Almost to embarrass him.

What was she to make of that? And why had he kissed her again and why had that second kiss seemed so angry, yet so desperate? And what had he meant, “Aren’t you going to say something?” He was the one who’d kissed her . And finally, most importantly, why the hell wasn’t he following her now—

Oh!

She reached the bottom of the stairs and tripped over the hideous old dress’s hem. Frustrated, she yanked at the skirts and in doing so dislodged the velvet bed hanging looped around her shoulders. It fell in a coil to her waist, sweeping the loose neckline off her shoulders before catching around her hips like a great velvet boa constrictor. She froze, afraid that any movement might render her completely topless.

Tears welled in her eyes. What had become of her? She looked like a musty Gypsy crone and she smelled like a wet dog. No wonder he’d let her go. She should probably be happy he hadn’t given her a boot to the backside.

“Lady Cecily?” a tentative female voice hailed her.

Oh no. The last thing she wanted was an audience to her misery. Snuffling mightily, she dabbed at her nose trying to compose herself before turning around. Catriona Burns was coming toward her, her attitude cautious, her expression carefully bland. Her dress fit. A tear escaped Cecily’s eye and dribbled down her cheek.

“Hello, Miss Burns,” Cecily said, knowing she sounded brittle and false. “You are up early this morning.“ She looked away, trying to recover her poise, but her tears only fell more quickly. She ignored them as best she could. “It looks like it has the making of a lovely day.” She sniffed. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“Lovely,” Catriona agreed, coming to her side. And, without so much as a by-your-leave, she snagged the loose end of the treacherous bed curtain and draped it back over Cecily’s shoulders.

The unexpected kindness nearly undid Cecily.

“I believe we’ve seen the last of the snow for a while,” Catriona said as easily as if returning teary gentlewomen to a state of modesty were an everyday occurrence. “What’s already fallen won’t last long. It never does. I expect within a few days most of it will have melted.” She finished wrapping the curtain and stepped back, looking over her endeavors with a critical eye. “There now. How’s that?”

Cecily looked down at her faded dress with its bilious embroidery and drooping roses, and at the ragged velvet curtain. “Awful,” she said. “Simply awful,” and then she clamped her hand over her mouth, staring at Catriona in contrition because she hadn’t meant to be ungrateful, it was just that—

“It really is, isn’t it?” Catriona agreed, her gaze on the dress. “Completely and unutterably hideous.”

Catriona lifted her head, and something in her exaggeratedly woeful countenance made Cecily smile and then grin, and then the two of them were laughing like loonies.

“Now, we shall have a nice cup of tea and one of Mrs. McVittie’s scones,” Catriona said when their laughter had died down. She linked her arm through Cecily’s, drawing her into the room where breakfast was being laid out. “And then you can tell me what all this is about.”

And so Cecily did.

An hour or so later, Cecily sailed forth from Catriona Burns’s bedchamber much restored in spirit and body. Catriona Burns, soon to become Duchess of Bretton—and a lovelier duchess one would have a hard time imagining—had found stacks of boys’ clothing in the trunk brought to her room, including an antique tiger’s uniform, and insisted Cecily try them on. Throwing propriety to the wind, she had, and was gratified to discover that she and the tiger were a similar size and shape except for a certain constriction in the jacket. And about the hips. And her backside. In anticipation of finally being able to get a breath of fresh air after being castle-bound for so long, she’d finished her toilette by donning a knit cap found in the trunk.

Bolstered by Catriona’s encouragement and her own exhilaration at doing something as scandalous as wearing boy’s clothing, Cecily struck out, determined to find her would-be lover and recommence her seduction of him. The only problem was she did not know where he might be and she could hardly ask someone where his chambers were. As daring as she’d grown these last few days, there were some lines she was not prepared to cross. That was one of them.

And she had become daring, she thought, walking along the corridor, cracking open doors and peeking inside. Who among her acquaintances would ever imagine she’d be so audacious, trading bon mots with a rake, planning to seduce that same rake, and donning boy’s clothing preparatory to doing so? None.

In fact, for the first time outside the small circle of her immediate family, she felt wholly and comfortably herself. A chill traveled through her. What if she had never come to Scotland, what if she had said yes to one of those worthy men who’d courted her? What if she’d never been kidnapped and she had never met Robert Parles, Comte de Rocheforte?

She would have spent the rest of her days living a life removed from herself, experiencing emotions at a distance, cocooned and indistinct, like bumping a well-bandaged wound. Not painful , precisely, but not alive, either, a dull layer of conventionality and unmet expectation standing between her and her heart.