Woo'd in Haste (6 page)

“Bianca, I think you have been spending too much time with Mr. Dore.”

“With Mr. Dore and Thomas, you mean?”

Bianca had said the words carefully, trying to ignore the way her pulse raced with panic, as if she’d been caught at something naughty. Even though she’d done nothing at all. Nothing but become aware of the tutor as a man, the way Alice was.

No, not the way Alice was.

She was aware of Luc because they had shared a moment.

Many moments.

Sometimes she even
thought
of him as Luc now.

“Yes. But Thomas is no proper chaperone.”

Bianca had laughed. Yes, Lottie had instilled in Bianca all the niceties necessary for a Season in London, but here in Watersham there was little reason to practice such unnatural behavior. So what if she took long walks alone across the fields, or spent a morning with her brother and his tutor?

“You’ve been there most times,” Bianca protested. “And Mr. Dore is hardly someone to worry about. Surely by now you’ve amended your suspicions. He is the most amiable, gentle man I’ve ever met.”

“And how many men have you met?” Lottie said.

Which had been a good point, but still.

And perhaps a point she should have considered more. Because as she took a bite of her jam-covered biscuit, she noticed Mr. Dore staring at her.

“What is it? Why do you stare?” Bianca touched her lips lightly, searching for crumbs or some smear of jam she had missed.

He flushed. He looked around and she followed his gaze to where Thomas was crouched down several yards away staring at some crawling thing in the grass.

“It is just . . .” He sounded choked. “Your eyes.”

She blinked. “My eyes?”

“I do apologize. I shouldn’t . . .”

Heat filled her own cheeks and a tingling of awareness scattered over her skin. He was not suggesting there was anything amiss with her at all.

No. This was
admiration
. The way Mr. Darcy had complimented Elizabeth Bennet’s fine eyes.

This was admiration for Bianca’s eyes.

Shock warred with embarrassment. She swallowed it all down. Forced a small smile. “What about my eyes, Mr. Dore? Do you find them entrancing? They are blue.”

Perhaps she had not yet officially been out in society, but that did not mean she had not carefully observed human behavior in Watersham for the past nineteen years.

It was strangely fun to tease him. He had been so effusive a conversationalist only minutes ago when he had commented on her appearance, bordering dangerously on flirtation. But Luc was no cliché of the dancing teacher, sweeping in with his dashing ways to ruin the daughters of the house. Instead, he seemed at this moment painfully shy.

And yet, he was supposed to be quite worldly. Had traveled the Continent as companion to some rich nobleman. Had perfected his French, Greek, Italian, and German. Had seen all the great art, had experiences Bianca didn’t even know enough of to imagine.

And yet . . . shy?

She reached for the bread in the basket to have something to do with her hands. Found his hand an inch away. And then . . . the tips of his fingers touched hers. Her gaze flew to his.

“They are not just blue,” he said, his voice low and fluid, no trace of the nervous beau at all. And his fingers rested over hers, warming her from the outside in, even as his voice did. “They are the blue of the sky on a clear, sunny day. The blue of a morning of possibility, of joy. Not just
blue
.”

His gaze was so intent that she had to look away. Now she was the one with a blush surely staining her cheeks. They felt hot enough. And his fingers were not just resting over hers. They were
caressing
.

Seducing
.

All of a sudden he was dangerous. She shouldn’t be alone with him, not that they were alone with Thomas nearby, but nonetheless it was entirely improper.

He shouldn’t be touching her.

She pulled her hand away, the bread forgotten.

“Tell me, Mr. Dore—”

“Luc.”

“Pardon me?” Was he in earnest or was this the flirtatious version of him?

“Call me Luc.”

“I can’t.” But his name was already running through her mind like water in the stream.
Luc. Luc. Luc
.

“Why not? It is my name.”

“Your Christian name, and . . . it would hardly be proper.”

“As if that matters to you.” Flirtatious now. Dangerous even.

“What would you know of it?” she demanded, surprised.

“We are here together. Your Miss Smith nowhere about to guard your virtue.”

“Is my virtue threatened?”

“Not by me,” he said quickly, one hand lifted to his heart in what was likely supposed to be a reassuring matter. But this very conversation was rather rakish, and more fitting of a Sir Clement Wetherby than a Lord Orville. A Mr. Elliot rather than a Captain Wentworth. “But that you don’t think of it. That you go fishing and hike your dress up as if you were still a girl. And as if I were not a man.”

“As if you were not a man?”

“As if I were immune to the sight of well-formed ankles and the glimpse of smooth skin above stockings.”

She blanched. Went hot and then cold. Gaped at him and then frowned. She had not once thought of her lower limbs. Thought herself so on display.

“I mean it not as an insult but as a compliment. And no disrespect to Miss Smith’s teaching. In the drawing room at night, you do great credit to her. But here, outdoors, it is as if there is a different Bianca. One who is freer. A woodland nymph.”

“A dryad?” she offered, still reeling from his comment about her limbs.

“Just so.”

He leaned forward, and though the distance he was crossed was ever so slight, her stomach fluttered as if he had taken up all the space between them. She hovered there on the edge of being that freer Bianca, the one who wished to lift her skirt ever so slightly more.

S
he looked so pretty with that pink flush staining her cheeks, lashes sweeping over her cheeks. He wasn’t entirely certain what had come over him. But it was as if her teasing, her light flirtation, had awakened something in him, some instinctual male need to let her know of his interest. To make her
see
him.

He had asked her to call him Luc because every time he heard her call him Mr. Dore, he was reminded of the deception he played upon her. And because he thought of her as Bianca.

“Look at him,” she said, and it took him a moment to realize she was referring to Thomas. A safe topic. Hardly full of the charged intensity of the last few minutes. He wanted to touch her chin, draw her gaze back to his. Tell her it wasn’t just her eyes he admired, or her limbs, but her rosy lips, too. “He’s doing so well. Three months ago we thought he might die.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, her expression pained. Perhaps not such a safe topic after all.

“Was he as ill as that?”

“Yes. Henrietta
almost
returned home.” Derision was thick in her voice and he understood. How could a mother leave her son when he was near death’s door? His own mother would have hovered until he improved just to make her go away. “But the doctor thinks his asthma was merely a phase.”

“I thought it an intermittent but chronic illness, gradually sapping away at a person’s strength?”

“Sometimes a child grows out of it,” Bianca explained. “We are hoping it is so for him.”

“I shall hope so as well. Illness aside,” Luc said, “remaining at home an extra year or two is a good thing. Many boys don’t even go until their thirteenth year. The youngest boys always receive the brunt of the pranks and tricks upperclassmen like to play. Much better to attend when one is strong enough to fight back.”

“You make Eton sound like torture.” She sniffed, wiped at her eyes, and then smiled. A watery sort of smile, as if she weren’t entirely past the emotional turmoil of thinking about her brother’s recent illness.

“Well, I wouldn’t know, but my first year at Harrow, at the age of ten, was only alleviated by my friendship with Reggie, whose humor and knack for schemes had made him much in demand, and my great height.”

“Your great height,” she repeated with a laugh. “Surely that alone would have been enough to daunt the fiercest antagonist.”

“Or attract his attention. There was this one boy, he thought if he trounced me, it would prove he was the strongest in the school.”

“And what happened?”

“He would have won, because I hadn’t yet learned to make a proper fist. I assure you, it is a skill I have now attained.” In fact he had dedicated himself to learning the art of fisticuffs after that day. “Reggie came to my rescue. Lessened the tension in the entire situation. Made everyone laugh.”

“He
is
charming. When he’s not pushing us to insanity!” She shifted, so that her legs were no longer tucked under but stretched out before her. A flutter of white petticoat revealed equally white stockings over shapely calves. Her knees shot back up to her chest and she yanked the hem of her dress down to her heels. A blush stained her cheeks again.

His own were hot.

Though they were outside and space was limitless, the air between them was thick.

“Thomas,” Bianca called out, breaking the tension. “It’s time to return to the house.”

S
he avoided him the rest of the day and the next. Of course, she couldn’t entirely as there was dinner and breakfast and all sorts of moments when their paths crossed. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes, and when they occasionally did, her cheeks burned red.

Like the inside of his eyelids as he closed his eyes against the light pouring through his unshuttered window. Still unused to fending entirely for himself, he had forgotten to pull the curtain closed. But the light seemed brighter, more yellow. The quality of a late summer morning.

He reached for his watch. Damn. He should have been at breakfast a good quarter hour ago. As it was, he might very well miss Bianca and then it might be hours before he had a chance to see her again. He quickly stood and went about the process of making himself presentable.

She was nothing like he had imagined. Beautiful, yes, but he was getting used to that. No longer thrown into stunned silence every time he saw her. Now he noticed all the little details. The slight bump on the bridge of her nose, the slightly asymmetrical tilt of her face.

But what shocked him most was that she was
Bianca
. It was silly, but it was somewhat of a revelation to realize she was more than some Pygmalion’s statue come to life. That she had a willful nature and a sense of humor, often biting. That she had a strand of bitterness running beneath the calm surface. Hidden depths.

It both intrigued him and daunted him. There were moments when he thought she noticed him, as more than her brother’s tutor. Like that day when she had confronted him and then teased him when he’d blurted out some faradiddle about her eyes. How he had expired with embarrassment! And yet, the way she looked when she teased . . . she sparkled, had a beauty utterly different from that created by her still features.

But then there were moments when she treated him so cavalierly, so utterly unlike the way one would treat a lover.

Or so he imagined.

Not that he was her lover.

Yet.

He wanted to be.

He wanted to be everything to her.

He had been here for almost a fortnight. Had, after the first three days, contrived to spend as much time as possible with her. But none of that was enough. Each glimpse of who she was made him want to know more.

He hurried down the stairs. This time of year, breakfast was taken in the morning room to take advantage of the summer sun, and once he reached the ground floor, he used the newel post for momentum the way he would have as a child and headed down the hall.

He saw her form, her head of honey curls farther down the hall, past the open door of the morning room and likely on her way to the library. He was too late.

But he wanted to see her face. To carry the image of her countenance with him throughout the day. He passed the morning room, picked up pace when she turned the corner, and then followed her into the library.

He was only a few seconds behind her, but she was bent over a side table next to her favorite chair, placing a cup down.

Her favorite chair. Her favorite cup. And he spied the spine of the leather-bound tome in her arm, her favorite book.

He could have listed her preferences even without Thomas’s help. She looked so lovely, so domestic, so . . . comfortable, that he had a sudden image of their life in the future, in
his
home, side by side, their children about them.

“Bianca,” he said, but no sound actually came. He was so filled with emotion, with the beauty of that vision, that he could hardly speak. Yet in his head he was saying everything.
Come here, my sweet lady. Come here, let me kiss you. Let me love you.

“B
ea.” She whirled around. There was Luc, calling her by that intimate name. He’d watched her so carefully. Knew her habits. Now here they were, alone, quite improperly. Her breath came shallow and fast. Her heart raced in her chest. Yet what she felt was not quite fear.

She opened her mouth to say something, to say anything that would make sense of this senseless moment. She noticed little things, like his hand that clenched and unclenched as he took a step closer. A step that started to crowd out the air between them, that made her gasp.

“Bianca, you must know—”

She’d taken a step forward, too, and the realization made her pause. She needed to think, reason, remember who she was and where she was, but all that seemed to matter was the line of his jaw, the warmth of his gaze, and the shape of his mouth.

“What must I know, Luc?” The husky timbre of her voice surprised her, but then there was no more room for surprise. No more room for anything but a strong, male embrace, for being enveloped by his warmth, for the touch of his lips on hers.

Lips.