A Breath of Scandal: The Reckless Brides (8 page)

And then he tugged her to him, closing the very small distance between their bodies, and kissed her hand.

Just a small touch—a fleeting one even—of the smooth flesh of his lips against her skin. But oh, she felt that simple, chaste kiss everywhere. As if the surface of her being had sent out an alarm, a warning to all her other senses. Her newly sensitized skin suddenly felt the heat from his body, and the slight rasp of the whiskers lying just below the smooth surface of his tanned cheek. Of a sudden, she could smell the exotic scent of citrus rising and mingling with the pleasant comfort of the starch of his shirt, and the wool of his superfine coat jacket. She was a hundred points of open, crystalline sensation. She was—

“Antigone?” The query rattled up from behind the door. “An-tig-oh-knee.”

As if saying it in that antagonistically patronizing way would have made her pay greater heed to his call. As if
anything
Lord Aldridge could possibly do would induce her to willingly reveal herself to him. The chair she had jammed beneath the latch slipped a little, the two tilted legs sliding out another dangerous fraction of an inch from Aldridge’s pressure.

Antigone wiped the clammy dampness chilling her palms on the back of her skirts. She hated this instinctive, belly-twisting dread. Hated how her body had begun a low, jittery trembling. Hated that Will Jellicoe had seen and felt her faltering nerves, because he pressed his hands against her arms to still the involuntary movement. She turned her face away, ashamed of her weakness and angry at herself for giving Aldridge such power over her. “I have to answer the door.”

Jellicoe nodded, squeezed her arm gently, and said it again. “Courage.” And let her go.

Antigone satisfied her urge to touch him—to touch something, anything, to quell the dratted tremors—by running her hand down the folds of the curtains, quickly straightening and arranging them to her satisfaction, before she retreated halfway across the room and ordered her voice into a reasonable facsimile of defiant confidence. “Who is it?”

“Aldridge.” His lordship sounded both subdued—as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear him—and cross at being made to wait. “What goes on in there?”

“Nothing.” She put the same crossness at being disturbed into her own voice. “What do you want?”

“To speak with you,” he said with deliberate carefulness.

“What about?” More confidence that time, with only a little peevish disdain.

“What do you think?” His voice took on the edge of impatience. “What are you doing in there?”

Having a great deal more fun than she would ever have out there. She cast her gaze about the room, over the chairs, and the glasses of cognac, until it came to light upon the book. “Reading. That’s what one does in a library.”

The doorknob rattled again but the barrier of lock and chair held. “Miss Antigone. Are you going to let me in?”

“No.” The decision took no thought. “I think not.”

“Antigone.” The voice behind the door lowered to a frosty growl. “You’re acting like a child.”

“That’s what young people do, sir, when they get their feelings hurt. When no one stands up for them. They act accordingly.”

“Stands up? Good Lord, you unruly child, Mr. Stubbs-Haye can barely
stand up.
The footmen had to carry him off.”

Antigone stifled her laugh, and shot a glance over at her friend behind the curtains. Hadn’t she joked that— Oh, but it was Cassandra with whom she had made that outrageous prediction about the footmen, and not Jellicoe. Funny how it had felt for a moment as if it had been him. Funny.

“What did you say?” The door creaked as if Lord Aldridge had pressed his ear up against it. He must have heard her laughter.

“I didn’t say anything, sir.” It was a good thing he could not see her roll her eyes as she answered.

“Are you quite sure? Antigone? Who is in there with you?”

Well. Lord Aldridge, for all his officious frost, had the instincts of a hunter, and he was no fool. She would do well to remember that. She pushed all traces of sarcasm from her tone. “No one, sir. I am quite alone. As I would prefer to remain.”

“You cannot mean to let the ball go on without you. You cannot mean to remain the whole evening through when everything has been planned and prepared for months.”

More statements that should have been questions, but weren’t.

A second realization blazed its way across her brain. If she did not appear at his side, Lord Aldridge could not give any weight to his private announcements of their arrangement. And without her, he certainly could make no public one, either. Without her, the tittle-tattle was more likely to remain nothing but idle rumor.

She could satisfy both herself and Mama. “Yes, sir. I think it best to remain here for the rest of the evening. Quite safe from creating any further shocking spectacle for your guests.”

He must have heard the arch smile, the unmistakable delight in her voice. His own was full of barely patient frustration. “Antigone, child. I’m trying to understand you, but you make it so very difficult. You…”

Whatever else Lord Aldridge had come to say faded into nothingness. But Antigone was not fooled. He hadn’t left. She could hear the frustrated seething of his breathing on the other side of the panel. Persistent man. But if he thought her stupidly curious enough to open the door to check, he did not understand her as well as he claimed.

He did not know her at all.

But at the moment, she hardly knew herself.

Brawling on the dance floor as if she were a prizefighter in an inn yard spectacle. Closeting herself alone with a man she didn’t know, and drinking cognac like some sort of sophisticated reprobate. Having reckless fun.

She glanced again at the curtains, but there was nothing—no movement, no sign that a man as handsome and charming and funny as Will Jellicoe was hiding behind them. No reassuring sign that she hadn’t dreamed the man up just to appease the low thrum of longing that echoed beneath the surface of her skin. That filled her days and hollowed out the lonesome darkness of the night.

That made her feel as if the whole rest of the world was running mad around her.

And under that madness was the strange rage, the restless anger that filled her up to the brim, until she was drowning in it. Until she felt herself struggling and kicking to try and get to the surface to breathe. Until she didn’t care who else, or what else, she damaged in her struggles. Until she wanted to wreak havoc with their plans and schemes for the future the same way they had wreaked havoc with hers.

“I am done with the ball, sir. You may tell my mother where she may find me when it is over. I bid you good night.”

Antigone stood on her side of the door listening just as intently as she was sure Lord Aldridge was listening on his, thinking of all the things that might happen, of all the ways that he might force her to open the door. Lady Barrington certainly had a key, or her butler did. Or Mama might send someone to tell her Cassandra was in distress.

Oh, that was a pang—a lance into her soft, vulnerable underbelly, the chink in her armor—to realize that she had left her sister, whom she had promised to help and support, to fend for herself. To be buffeted and made anxious by the demands of the evening, as well as by the repercussions of Antigone’s damaging behavior.

But Lord Aldridge did away with her guilt. “Have it your way,” he growled, sounding much like the resentful child he accused her of being. “You can stay there for all hours, for all I care.” And his angry footfalls finally faded down the corridor.

“Well.” Will Jellicoe emerged from the hidden depths of the curtains with his lopsided smile still firmly in place. “That was instructive.”

“Was it—instructive? I can’t imagine how.”

He cocked his head toward the door. “Who was that?”

“No one.”

He said nothing, but asked again by cocking his head to the other side. His perceptive blue eyes came back to hers. How had she not remarked on how blue they were before? The sort of lovely clear blue, like the sky on a summer’s day. “It was only Lord Aldridge.”

“And who is Lord Aldridge?”

Antigone’s shoulder instinctively came up in a shrug of easy dismissal. Who was he, indeed. “A lord. A crabby old aristocrat,” she answered flippantly.

But Jellicoe, for all his charm and humor, was smarter and far more insightful than she would ever have thought. “I’m familiar with the breed. But that’s not what I meant. Who is he to you?”

Antigone took a breath, pulling the air deep within her body. She raised her head to look Will Jellicoe in the eye. “Nobody. He’s nobody to me.”

The enormity of the statement—the enormity of both the truth and the lie—took the air from her lungs and left her feeling breathless and light-headed. She so, so wanted her words to be true. She so wanted to be rid of Lord Aldridge and his spurious claim upon her.

And here was the perfect way. This handsome, careless man before her with his laughing, warm blue eyes. All she had to do was walk out of the library with him, or on his arm, looking at him the way he was looking at her now—with warmth and intimacy—and new rumors would start up. She did not even have to walk out of the room. Better yet was if she simply unlocked the door, and resumed their lovely chat, and let someone come upon them, and relate the cozy, intimate setting, and her association with Lord Aldridge would be at an end.

But then they would be right back where they had started, in their cold house, without any money, and without any prospects for the future. Cassie would suffer. And it would be wicked to use such a lovely young man as Jellicoe. It would be wrong. She should be apologizing for even thinking of dragging him into her sorry spectacle. “I’m sorry you had to hide. I’m sorry I asked you to. It’s hardly dignified for a man of your stature.”

“I’m a naval officer, Preston. I have a very different notion of dignity than most of society. And you didn’t make me do anything I wasn’t willing to do. I’ve no greater desire to be caught out drinking with a young lady than I reckon you have of being caught out with an unemployed, younger son.”

“Yes,” she answered though he could have no idea of what she desired. She hardly knew herself, her thoughts were such a contradictory jumble.

“I suppose I’d best go. Before someone else—your mother? Or that dreadful battering ram, Lady Barrington?—comes back and I’m forced into a display of
defenestration.
” He said the word as if it were as tasty as a piece of cake.

“Out the window? It’s too far up.”

He gave her a dazzling, roguish smile. “Not for me.”

“You must be joking, Jellicoe. Listen to me, I’ve gone out plenty of windows—I’ve got an ancient yew tree outside my chamber—but it’s
pouring
rain, and very slippery on that stonework. You could break your neck. Or your leg at the very least.”

“I will not break my leg, or my neck, Preston, because I’m going through the door, as behooves my dignified, elevated stature. But even if I did go out the window into the
pouring
rain, I’d be perfectly all right, I assure you. One of the advantages of having been in the navy is that I’ve long gotten over any fear of heights. Or rain. And besides, once I dangle all six feet four inches of me from my fingertips, it couldn’t be more than a few feet to the ground.”

“Truly?” She hadn’t thought of the maths. If her father were still alive, he would be laughing at her, and making her write out the equation as a proof.

He held his hands up high over his head—a lovely, big puppet of a man—for her amusement. “You see. It’s easy.”

Oh, yes. When he said it like that, it did sound easy. If only every escape were that clean and simple. If only jumping out a window would solve all her problems. If only. “Yes. Just so.”

They stood there together for a long moment, just a foot or so apart, smiling at each other, until he put out his hand for her to shake. “It was a very great pleasure to meet you this evening, Preston.”

“It was a very great pleasure to meet you as well, Jellicoe.” She felt his long fingers close around hers gently. He didn’t grab or paw like Mr. Stubbs-Haye. He just touched. And his touch felt nothing like the papery softness of Lord Aldridge. Jellicoe’s large hand felt warm and strong and immensely capable. And safe.

She trusted him.

How strange. He was so overwhelmingly near—nearer really than Lord Aldridge had ever been to her. So close she could smell the heady aroma of cognac and starch, and hear the creaking of his high leather top boots. How pleasant and how strange. How strange she should trust him, how strange that the touch of his hand made her feel unaccountably safe. It was completely nonsensical that she should feel safer with this handsome stranger than she did with a man chosen by her own family. Yet she did.

“Well, good night.” Antigone hated to see him go, but knew he must. “And thank you. For a lovely evening. I’ve never had this much fun being banned from a ball before.”

His smile was all the reward she wanted for amusing him. His face creased up so handsomely when he smiled—that smile that gallivanted back and forth across his lips, as if it were having far too much fun to settle down in one place. Much like its owner. “Nor have I.”

What an excellent sort of friend he was. For the first time in what felt like months, Antigone felt happiness press her smile so deep into her cheeks, they began to ache with all the pleasure. And she couldn’t seem to stop holding on to his hand. “Thank you so very much.”

“Until we meet again.” He smiled again, and then raised the back of her hand to his lips. And as he bent his head to press the warmth of his mouth to her skin, he looked up at her with his deep, warm, blue, blue eyes.

And she was struck. Just as if her horse had kicked her in the chest. But entirely different. As if she had been struck through with pleasure, and not with pain. Something began melting deep inside her, swirling around and around like the milk and cocoa dissolving in her morning chocolate. Melting all her hard, apprehensive edges. Thawing the cold center within.

She was staring at him, stupidly, as if she hadn’t a thought in her head. “Will we meet again, do you think?” Her voice sounded breathless and soft, even to her own ears.