The Lady Most Willing

Chapter 22

Desire exploded at the instant of contact, shooting like lightning through Robin. He stepped closer, keeping his hands knotted in fists at his sides, wanting more but certain that if he reached for her, she would bolt.

More kisses. That was all he sought. It was hardly anything, nothing at all, really, just . . . everything.

She made some lovely, half-surprised, half-ravished sound, a sigh and gasp all at once, and reached up, steadying herself with a hand flattened against his chest.

He edged closer still, his legs entangling in her heavy skirts, but trying not to startle her. In an effort to restrain himself, he braced his forearm on the wall above her head, angling his own to better access the perfect ripeness of her lips, to flick his tongue along the sweet seam until—mercy!—her mouth opened and her tongue found his own.

He groaned, surrendering to the pleasure of her untutored exploration. For long, glorious moments he kissed her until he felt her hand creep up his chest and she linked her arms around his neck, her fingers sifting through his hair. In reply, his body turned rock-hard. Only a few inches separated her from becoming manifestly aware of his state of arousal. He wanted to kiss her, not shock her. His jaw tightening with frustration, he stepped back, releasing her mouth.

She blinked, startled by his sudden desertion. He looked away, taking a deep, steadying breath. His emotions were chaotic and unfamiliar, an uncomfortable mix of desire and the desire to protect. She shouldn’t be here with him. This was a mistake. A foolish, masochistic indulgence.

“Good heavens, you are adroit at this seduction thing, aren’t you?” she whispered breathlessly.

“You didn’t know? Of course I am. My dear, I am the Prince of Rakes.” He glanced back at her sardonically, the once amusing sobriquet coming like a curse to his lips.

Her arms slipped from around his shoulders. He looked down at her, prepared to offer an arrogant curl of the lip, but the sight of her ruined the attempt. She looked puzzled and somber, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and unnervingly candid.

“Of course you are,” she said. “I mean, I had heard that. You do have a far-ranging reputation. But one hears so much about so many people, and then when one meets the individual, one realizes that rumors have simply exaggerated what is, in fact, not all that extraordinary.”

He laughed, startled out of his dark mood. She confounded him, robbed him of his intent, his sangfroid, his reputation. She stripped away all his preconceptions about young ladies, leaving him without a clue to guide him. She fascinated and mystified him. What was she doing? What was she about?

“I see,” he said. “Rather a letdown, am I?”

“Oh no! Not at all. You quite exceed expectations,” she hastened to reassure him with such artlessness, such solicitous concern for his rakish reputation, that he could not help but laugh again. “I have never been kissed so . . . so convincingly.”

“Now ’tis you who are kind, Lady Cecily,” he said, though something about her use of the word “convincingly” nettled him. She thought he’d been playing a role. In truth, he had never before been so lost in a simple kiss and it annoyed him that she did not realize it.

“But then, perhaps you should ask Miss Marilla’s opinion,” she said. “She may have a different judgment.”

He started and stared, stunned she had alluded to the kiss she’d witnessed. A little ember glowed in the depths of her amber-colored eyes. Jealousy?

Then she smiled at him with such dazzling unaffectedness that his breath caught in his throat and he lifted his hand to touch her, but she’d already turned away and started down the gallery. He hastened to her side, once more offering his arm. She took it with a nonchalance that startled him, coming so close on the heels of their heated kiss. At least, he thought in growing consternation, he’d considered it heated . . .

“Truth be told,” she continued as if there had been no break in the conversation, “I don’t know many rakes.”

“I should hope not,” he said, once again caught off-balance by the turn of the conversation. She should be blushing or berating him for taking advantage of her, or perhaps enticing him to try his luck again, responses he was used to and expected. She should not be acting as if the preceding moments hadn’t happened, as if their kiss were insignificant. It was significant to him!

He’d never been in such a situation before. She had him at sixes and sevens, his assumptions challenged, his body taut with desire, his aplomb all but vanished, and his heart thundering with something that could only be described as a mad craving . . . to touch her, to kiss her.

“In fact,” she went on, “I’ve only known two bona fide rakes: you and a far-removed cousin whose exploits we only speak of sotto voce.”

“Do not tell me there is a rival for my crown?” he said, struggling to match her insouciance. “Surely his reputation does not equal mine?”

“Oh, it is far worse than yours,” she said comfortably. “I have it on good authority—those being the miscreant’s own words—that he has seduced upwards of eighty of the ton’s most well-respected ladies.”

“He told you this?” Robin asked, surprised she had been allowed to converse with a known rake, let alone that the conversation had been on such a subject.

“Yes,” she said. “Though not when anyone else was about to hear. Certainly not within earshot of my parents. Oh no,” she said, surprising him by chuckling, “they would not have been happy to hear about that conversation. Not at all.”

Nor was Robin. Acid-bright jealousy curled in his belly. Had this unknown libertine kissed her? And, afterward, had she been this cavalier?

“No,” she continued, “he waited until he had me all to himself at my parents’ country ball in Surrey last year. They were occupied with greeting their guests when Marmeduke convinced me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”

Marmeduke? She was on such intimate terms with this blackguard she called by his Christian name?

“There was no one else about and he took ruthless advantage of our unexpected privacy.” She darted a glance at him. “I suspect I should have left at once. We were absent from the ballroom for far too long. But his stories were so fascinating that I couldn’t resist staying to listen. I am sure our guests must have begun wondering what had become of us,” she finished.

He doubted this, if only for one compelling reason: had Lady Cecily disappeared onto a terrace with a known debauchee long enough to provoke questions, her reputation would never have survived. Yet, apparently, it had.

He’d made a mistake. He had misjudged her. He’d thought her awake to all suits, an uncommonly sophisticated ingénue, but she seemed as unaware of how close she had skirted disaster as a toddler hurtling by a steep flight of stairs. She was a danger to herself. Someone should have been guarding her reputation, and clearly, no one had been.

Far be it from him to interfere, but he could not allow her to go careering about society with no one to guide or protect her. When her father showed up to collect her, Robin would see to it that they had a chat wherein he outlined the gentleman’s paternal duties for him.

What was he thinking? He wouldn’t be here when her father arrived. But . . . but he could go to London.

Tongues wagged quite freely in London’s less salubrious gentlemen’s clubs during the off-season, when there was little else to do but gossip. As soon as he returned to town, he would find this . . . this Marmeduke and have a conversation with him and make sure that the bastard understood the meaning of discretion. Because while Robin’s reputation for seduction might be exaggerated, his reputation as someone not to be trifled with was not.

“What is my rival’s full name, may I ask?” Somehow, he managed to sound no more than curious.

“Marmeduke, Lord Goodhue.”

He frowned. He could have sworn he knew every roué in London. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met the gentleman.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He rarely visits London, staying solely in Surrey,” she replied.

“He lives near your family’s country estate?” he asked. Where in Surrey? He’d always meant to visit Surrey.

“Not near our house. In our house. He became our permanent houseguest after having become insolvent a few years ago and having nowhere else to go. Indeed, my parents assigned him chambers right next to mine.”

He stared at her, an odd sensation rising within him. Damnation, he believed he was shocked. He hadn’t been shocked since he was fifteen and the Latin teacher’s wife had offered him different sorts of lessons.

“Well, we couldn’t very well put him in the servants’ hall,” she said defensively. “Though I have little doubt he’d much prefer it. The chambermaids are always threatening to give notice as it is.”

It wasn’t simply a marvel the girl’s reputation was intact; it was a bloody miracle.

“Damn, you say,” he muttered under his breath, and she burst out laughing. Her whole face bloomed with merriment, her eyes dancing, the laughter bubbling from her lips, her teeth flashing in an open grin. She took his breath away.

“Of course, as he’s eighty-three years old and suffers from gout, he stands a better chance of winning the Derby than he does catching a housemaid,” she managed to say between giggles. “Or me. Not that he’d ever make an attempt. He has some standards, as do all rakes.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Or so Marmeduke assures me.”

She started laughing again and damned if he didn’t join her. She’d been leading him along all the while, paying him back for making her praise his kisses.

“Touché, ma petite,” he said, when they finally stopped laughing. He offered her his arm and she took it, and once again they commenced their much-protracted journey down the frozen hallway.

For long companionable minutes they were silent and he drank in the sensation, the warmth of her fingers resting on his arm, the elusive scent of vanilla and jasmine that tickled his nostrils every so often, the simple pleasure of her company . . .

“It may be chilly, but Finovair does have considerable charm,” she said after a while. “Yet I take it you think your bride will be happier in London than here.”

He should have demurred, let her comment pass without replying but he needed to tell her—no, he needed to remind himself of how very far above him she stood.

“Bride?” he echoed. “My dear Cecily, I have even less to offer a wife in London than here.”

Any other girl would have blushed or apologized or at the very least looked on him with distaste. After all, he’d just committed one of society’s cardinal sins: he’d acknowledged his poverty. But he was growing used to the unexpected from her, and so it was now.

“But you must want to marry and have a family,” she said earnestly.

“I must,” he agreed. “But I have been told that when one takes a wife, one also has an obligation to take her wants into account, too. Wants I have scant hope of fulfilling. I may be a rake, Lady Cecily, but I am not a scoundrel.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then her eyes flashed and she said, “I see. So, you see your future being similar to that of Marmeduke’s?”

Hell and damnation, no. But before he could rebut this noxious notion, she hurried on in the manner of one trying very hard to be encouraging about a very dismal prospect. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she said, adding under her breath, “I suppose.”

Dear God, in her imagination was he predestined to go hobbling after chambermaids in his old age, gnarled fingers extended in hopes of pinching one last fleet-footed wench? Is that how she saw him? “You horrify me.”

“I do?” she asked. “Why is that, I wonder?”

“I meant your vision of my future horrifies me.”

“Oh? Why? Marmeduke’s really rather a pet,” she said. “He’s a great favorite amongst my younger sisters.”

The idea of dangling cherubic little girls on his knees while offering them well-censored bedtime stories about his youthful exploits sent nearly as great a shiver through Robin as the idea of him chasing chambermaids, and so he ignored her question, asking one of his own instead. “Do you have many siblings?”

“Four. I have two younger brothers, twins. They were sent to Eton last year and I miss them a great deal, as my younger sisters consider games that require physical dexterity beneath them. Though I think they would find such games delightful if they were any good at them,” she confided with an arch twinkle in her eye that he found adorable.

“Have you any brothers or sisters?” she countered.

“No.”

“But you had Oakley to keep tally of your sins?”

He smiled at that. “No. Not really.” His smile faded. “Oakley and I were kept apart.”

Robin hadn’t met Byron until they were adults. After Robin’s parents had died of influenza, pride, not compassion, had prompted Byron’s father to pay for Robin’s education. However, the old tartar had seen no reason that his heir should hobnob with some impecunious Frenchman’s get. So while Byron went to Eton, Robin been sent to Rugby. He had never been invited to spend holidays at Oakley House. Instead, Rugby’s headmaster had been paid to take Robin to his own home during those periods.

But there was no reason to bother her with such details.

“How many sisters?” he asked.

She regarded him thoughtfully for long seconds before answering. “Two. One is nineteen and the other, who is seventeen, was launched just this past season. Quite successfully, too,” she said, with a touch of pride.

She loved them, he realized, her affection for her family wholly uncomplicated and honest, and she felt loved in return. It made him yearn to be included in her magical circle. He frowned at the thought: he’d finished with such nonsense years ago.

“Both have received offers of matrimony from gentlemen of whom they are quite fond,” she continued. They were almost to the end of the corridor now. He could see the great stairway leading down to the inhabited part of the castle, a soft glow rising from the lower level. “They are all aflutter to marry and set up their own households,” she said. “Alas, Papa will not hear of it.”

“The young men are unacceptable?” Robin asked, feeling comradely toward these poor, unworthy swains.

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s just that my father is dreadfully old-fashioned. He refuses to let my younger sisters marry until I am off the market. In fact, that is why we are in Scotland.”

At her words, something swelled in Robin’s throat and his heart thudded dully in his chest. That explained why the Maycotts were here, hosting a house party: the earl was going to announce his daughter’s engagement. Who was the bastard? Scottish perhaps, otherwise why drag society up here in the dead of winter. But who?

They’d reached the end of the gallery and were at the top of the staircase looking down into the foyer just outside the great hall. The sound of light laughter drifted up to them. Bretton and his ladylove. Cecily belonged down there with them, in light and warmth. Not here, in the chill and ruin.

“You are unflatteringly preoccupied, Robin,” she said reproachfully. “I daresay you haven’t heard a thing I’ve said.”

Every syllable, every breath. He managed a smile. “Of course I have. You have come to Scotland to announce your engagement. “

“No,” she said, her brow wrinkling. “I’ve come to decide which marriage proposal to accept.”

“Which?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “There were so many?”

She tipped her head, watching him closely. “Five.”

“Five?” Somehow he managed to sound only faintly amused, politely interested. Perhaps he should consider a career on the stage.

Five. And doubtless each one able to offer her the things any loving parent wanted for his child: security, wealth, consequence. Otherwise Maycott would have outright refused them. Still, she wasn’t promised to another. Not yet.

“And,” he said, careful to keep his gaze straight ahead of him, “does any one fellow stand above the rest?”

“No,” she said with a small sigh. “That’s the problem. There is not one amongst them for whom I care more than the others.”

Absurd relief washed through him. He was craven. He was ridiculous. Still, it changed nothing.

The pain of that realization cut through him, sharp and deep. He mustn’t let her see. He had pride, if nothing else. It had been the one thing he refused to compromise or cede in a short life filled with concessions and compromises.

“What do you think I ought to do?” she asked intently, her voice no longer light and careless.

This was one part he could not play. Yet play it he must.

“Well,” he drawled, “if you postponed your decision for another season you could probably field another five offers. Then you’d have an entire cricket team and could just choose the best bowler.”

Color washed delicately up her throat and stained her fine, pale cheeks. Wordlessly, she pulled off his jacket and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Comte,” she said icily. “I shall take your suggestion under advisement.” She turned to start down the stairs, taking with her every dream he never realized he harbored but which she had brought to painful light . . .

But not yet.

He grabbed her arm and with not a whit of expertise or urbanity, spun her back around and into his embrace. He tipped her over his arm, and his mouth descended on hers in a ruthless, hungry kiss. All the years he would not touch her, see her, be with her poured into that kiss; loss and urgency, anger and helplessness. Then, as quickly as he’d taken possession of her, he set her back on her feet and stepped away, his hands dropping to his sides.

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.