The Lady Most Willing . . . (17 page)

“Hawk?” he suggested.

“Elephant?”

The right side of his mouth hitched up in an enchantingly hesitant smile.

“At any rate,” she said hastily, reminding herself that this flirtation had no future, “I rather think your friends might believe you’d lost your mind if they could spy on you.”

“I would like to know what it was like to grow up with a sibling,” he said, ignoring her comment. “Did she steal your toys? I believe that is common behavior.”

“Surely Rocheforte stole your things when you were boys?”

“My father did not consider Robin suitable company for his heir,” the earl said. “A matter of his French blood, you understand. We met only as adults, so I did not share my nursery with anyone.”

Her hunch had been right, then: his had indeed been a lonely childhood. “Marilla did borrow my things occasionally,” Fiona admitted. She took a sip of the cider and broke into a fit of coughing.

He leaned over, slipped a hand behind her, and gave her a gentle clap on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Excepting the fact that she could feel the touch of his fingers all the way through ancient velvet, two chemises, and a corset, she was fine. Just fine. “Your uncle’s cider is a trifle stronger than I’m used to.”

Byron poured himself a new cup, and took a healthy swallow. “Brandy with a touch of cider, rather than the reverse,” he said with obvious pleasure. “It isn’t as though we have to do anything requiring coordination.”

Fiona took another sip. The drink burned on the way down to her stomach, reminding her that one crumpet, plus two bites of another, wasn’t much of a meal.

“Let’s return to the subject of your childhood,” Byron said, settling into his corner of the sofa.

“Let’s not,” Fiona said. “We ought to join the others in the drawing room. It must be nearly time for supper.”

There was something wild and boyish about the earl’s face, as if he’d thrown his entire personality—at least, what she’d seen of it in London—out the window. “Not after I went to all that trouble to sneak in here,” he said. “Besides, I’m enjoying this. Very much.”

Fiona felt a blush creep up her neck.

“Lord Oakley,” she said cautiously, “did you take anything to drink before that cider?”

“No,” he said, tipping his head against the back of the sofa. “I did not. But I might drink that whole pitcher; I may never return to the drawing room.” He turned his head and looked into her eyes. “I don’t want to be kissed by your sister again. And that’s even though I gave some thought to marrying her.”

Fiona cleared her throat. “I can understand that.”

He leaned toward her. “But I wouldn’t mind if you kissed me. If you address me as Oakley once again, I shall kiss
you
. There: I’ve given you fair warning.”

“I shall not kiss you,” Fiona exclaimed, drawing back. “I don’t kiss anyone.”

“And your reason for such abstinence?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He settled back into his corner, nodding. “You would probably share such information only with your intimates. Friends.”

Fiona glanced at him, feeling shy, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Dugald. Not yet. “Marilla and I didn’t fight over toys,” she said, looking back to the fire. “I didn’t mind sharing. But when we were growing up, my sister always wanted a portrait frame that I owned.”

He stretched out an arm along the back of the sofa; it was amazing how a person could not touch you . . . and still touch you. “Did she take it from you?”

She nodded. “I always got it back, though.”

“And that frame held a portrait of your dead mother.” She felt him pick up a lock of her hair.

“How on earth did you guess that?” She turned to face him again, and her hair slid from his fingers. Her toes were a little chilly; she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“Power of deduction,” he answered, shrugging. “I suspect that you have always given Marilla what she wants, because I doubt there are many material objects you hold dear. I could think of only one thing that you wouldn’t give up. She would want it all the more because it was important to you.”

She stole another look at him, and realized that there was one other thing that she would never willingly give to Marilla . . . but
he
wasn’t hers to keep. It was a horrifying thought. It was hard enough to recover from the emotional morass caused by Dugald’s death. She didn’t need to fall in love with an improbably beautiful and thorny lord as well.

“It was a
very, very
pretty frame,” she said, realizing she had adopted Marilla’s favorite phrase only as she said it. “Silver worked with pearl, and of course my sister was quite young when she first saw it.”

Byron stood and moved to the fire, onto which he carefully placed two more logs. As she watched him, it occurred to Fiona that he probably did everything carefully. He returned to the sofa, but somehow ended up seated not at one end, but in the middle.

His hip touched her slippers, in fact. Once again, he slung his arm along the sofa and picked up a lock of her hair. Unsure how to react to this, Fiona pretended not to notice.

“What happened to the frame?” he asked.

“She began stealing the portrait and hiding it, after which I would tear apart her bedchamber looking for it. Eventually, my father heard of our battles, and he sent off to London to have a precise duplicate made, but with a portrait of Marilla’s mother rather than mine. She was, you understand, very beautiful.”

“Your mother must have been extraordinarily lovely as well. What was your father’s secret?” His eyes held an expression she recognized, though it wasn’t often directed at her. She’d seen it too often in the eyes of men looking at her sister to mistake it. He must be drunk to feel lust for her. Quite drunk.

“In fact, my mother was an ordinary woman,” she said, hugging her knees.

“I doubt that.” He paused, then: “How did she die?”

“She caught pneumonia one particularly cold winter. I was quite young, so I haven’t many memories of her, but she was motherly, if you know what I mean.”

“Dark red hair like yours?”

She nodded.

“Your hair has all the colors of the fire in it, like banked logs that might burst into flame any moment. And it curls around my finger like a molten wire.” Without stopping, he asked: “What happened when the portrait arrived?”

“Nothing,” Fiona said, rather sadly. Her sister had tossed the portrait—painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence from an earlier likeness—to the side as if it had cost mere pennies. She could still picture her father’s crushed expression. “Pearls are old fashioned, Papa,” Marilla had snapped. “Don’t you know
anything
? I swear I don’t belong in this mud hole. I belong in London.”

The earl tugged the lock of her hair that he held, rather as she had tugged Marilla’s that morning. “Lord Oak—”

He tugged harder.

“Byron,” she said, reluctantly. “This conversation isn’t at all proper. Not at all. I don’t wish to call you by your given name.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this is some strange fairy-tale moment, and tomorrow, or possibly the next day, the snow will stop and then the pass will open, and you will return to your life. And I will return to mine.”

“Will you come to London for the season this March?”

“No,” she said swiftly, knowing instantly that she would rather die than sit on the edge of a ballroom and watch the Earl of Oakley waltz with another woman as everyone attempted to decipher his haughty expression. “I didn’t like you very much when I saw you there.”

He nodded, seeming to understand. “You wouldn’t like me this time, either. But couldn’t we pretend that I’m someone different? Likable? After all, we’re buried.” He gestured toward the windows. They were encrusted with snow and ice.

“I’m not very imaginative,” she said apologetically. “All I can see is an earl who is well-known as a most punctilious man, but has apparently lost his head. It would be one thing if I were Marilla. But you’re not struck mad by my nonexistent beauty, so the only way I can explain your flirtation is to believe that you do so in order to avoid my sister. And that doesn’t make me feel very flattered.”

“Why couldn’t I be enthralled by your face? Because, as it happens, I am.” He reached over and poured more cider into both of their cups.

She frowned at him. “How strong is that cider?”

“You are very beautiful, in a quiet way. You’re like a flower that one sees only after wandering away from the coach into a field. And then, behind a rock, one finds a tiny blue flower, like a drop of the ocean in the midst of a brown field.”

“Goodness,” she said, startled by this flight of lyricism. “Perhaps you do have something in common with Lord Byron.”

“Absolutely not,” he said, his lip curling. “The man leads a licentious life and deserves every drop of notoriety he’s earned.”

“Reputation is tremendously important to you by all accounts.”

“An excellent character is a person’s greatest blessing,” he replied. It sounded as if he was repeating a sentence he’d heard many times.

“It’s far more complicated than that. The public nature of one’s character can differ from the nature of one’s intrinsic self,” she answered, feeling her heart ache. Surely she wasn’t falling in love with a man she hardly knew. Clearly, she was feeling
too much
. More than she’d allowed herself to feel in years, since the wrenching horrible days when she realized that her father didn’t, and never would, believe her about Dugald.

Byron stretched his feet out toward the fire. A log cracked in half and sent a shower of sparks like live bits of gold up the chimney.

“My father believed that nothing mattered except for one’s reputation,” he said, staring into his mug.

“He would have approved, then, of your broken betrothal?”

“Without question. Though I should say that, in point of fact,
she
broke the engagement after . . . after the incident.”

“Did you love her?” Speaking the words sent a little pulse of savage longing down her neck. Why would his fiancée kiss a dancing master when she could have kissed this complex, beautiful man? It was inconceivable.

“No,” he said morosely. “And obviously, she didn’t love me, either. But I didn’t ask for love.” His expression made it clear that was an important distinction. “I never asked for that.”

“You should have,” Fiona exclaimed, before she could catch herself.

He pushed to his feet and squatted before the fire, using the poker to move a half-burnt log closer to its heart. He moved with a powerful grace that belied his large physique. “I begin to share your opinion.”

She raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t look back at her. “Neither love nor affection is a prerequisite for marriage amongst the nobility,” he continued. “But faithfulness is. That’s what a woman’s reputation means: that she won’t sleep with another man, and leave a cuckoo to inherit one’s estate.”

“I think kindness is important,” Fiona said, thinking of Dugald and his lack thereof.

“Of course. Sanity is also a good attribute in a spouse.” Humor laced his words again, albeit humor with a dark edge.

“You’ve omitted physical attractiveness,” Fiona offered. “From what I’ve seen during the season, gentlemen find beauty tremendously important.”

He was placing another log on the fire, but he half turned in order to see her face. “Why do you single out my sex? Don’t ladies feel the same about their future husband’s appearance?”

She thought about it. Dugald hadn’t been handsome, not in the least. Of course she would have preferred a good-looking man, but when her father had presented her with the marriage, it never occurred to her to say no for that reason. “We generally don’t have the freedom to choose on that basis.”

He looked back at the fire. “The dancing master was going bald. That’s what I remember most: the way his head shone in the back.”

Without conscious volition, Fiona rose and walked a step to his side. But once there, she was at a loss. Obviously, he had cared about his faithless fiancée, no matter how much he protested to the contrary. She put a hand tentatively on his shoulder. Her velvet sleeve was a little too long; its folds fell over the arm of his coat. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He got to his feet. “I didn’t care about her overmuch.” Perhaps he was telling the truth, but she knew instinctively that he would never admit it if Lady Opal had broken his heart.

Byron was a stubborn, stubborn man. That square chin conveyed a level of obstinate, masculine strength that a woman could lean against—and battle—for the whole of her life.

Fiona found herself smiling at him as if he were a true friend, as if genuine affection flowed between them. Somehow, beyond all reason, she felt as if she had just become friends with a pompous, irascible turnip of an English lord.

From the look in his eyes, he had come to the same realization at the same moment.

Then his eyes fell to her lips. She licked them nervously. “Of course,” she said, her voice coming out in a breathy tone that reminded her uncomfortably of Marilla, “of course you didn’t love her!” Somehow she managed to give the sentence a perky tone that was utterly inappropriate.

His eyebrow shot up. He was mocking her, and yet . . . yet there was sensual promise there as well.

“No,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer, at least not directly. Instead, he reached over and pulled one of her hairpins and, before she could stop him, another. Without pins to hold it up, her heavy hair tumbled down over her shoulders.

Byron made a sound in the back of his throat that sounded like a hum.

“What are you doing?” Fiona said, stepping back and frowning. Her spectacles had slid down her nose; she pushed them back up. “I have already informed you that I am not an appropriate person with whom to conduct a flirtation, Lord Oakley.”

“And I have already warned
you
about using my title,” he said, his voice throaty, and just as she remembered his threat of a kiss, his arms came around her and his mouth descended on hers.

It was not her first kiss. In the heady days before her father matched her with Dugald, she had kissed two boys. For years afterward, she had remembered one of those kisses in particular. She could even remember the sharp smell of the pine needles that crackled under their feet as she and Carrick Farquharson stood in the shade of a garden wall. There had been no second kiss. Carrick had left to fight in His Majesty’s army, and never returned; his body lay in a grave somewhere in France.