The Lady Most Willing . . . (12 page)

It made no sense that a pang of faint anxiety should overrule her dislike of arrogant
men, but there it was. She didn’t even want to meet his eyes again, for fear she would
see that utterly disarming note of uncertainty.

“My question is in reference to your sister.”

At that, Fiona lifted her head and gave him a judicious smile. “You couldn’t do better
than to choose Marilla as your countess,” she cooed. It was manifestly false, but
family loyalty is surely a greater good than truthfulness.

“I was wondering whether her affections were otherwise engaged. A woman so beautiful
must have many local admirers.”

“Not at all! That is,” she added, “of course Marilla is much adored. But she has not
yet settled on the man to whom she would like to bestow her hand.”

He appeared to be brooding over something, so Fiona said mendaciously, “And I’m sure
I need not tell you how admired she is. She has a very lively personality.”

“Too much so, some might say.”

Fiona stiffened. Marilla was objectionable, but nevertheless was still her sister.
“What precisely do you mean by that?” she inquired, her voice as chilly as she could
make it.

“Merely foolishness,” the earl said. He stood, and gave her a slight bow. “I will
give your best to everyone in the drawing room.”

She felt a pang of guilt. Something like disappointment clouded his eyes. Though that
was ridiculous. It was as if she caught a flash of a lonely boy, but looking at the
magnificently dressed, handsome aristocrat before her, she was obviously mistaken.

“I would greatly prefer that you did not,” she told him. “They may feel the need to
gather me into the game-playing fracas on the other side of the wall.”

When the oh-so-severe earl smiled, which he did now, his face was transformed. His
eyes could make a woman into a drunk who lived for those moments alone. She hastily
returned her gaze to her book.

He paused for a moment, and then she saw his boots receding and heard the door to
the library quietly closing.

Fiona sat still, biting her lip, not reading. She was reconciled to her lot in life,
truly she was. But there were times when she felt a stab of anger at Dugald, anger
so potent that it burned the back of her throat. What right had he to take away her
chance to marry a man like the earl?

The absurdity of that thought jerked her out of her self-pity. She had attended Marilla
in two of her last three seasons in London. Though she stayed, appropriately, at the
fringes with the chaperones, she had nonetheless spied Oakley from afar. Dugald or
no Dugald, she would never have had the slightest contact with a man such as the earl
under any other circumstances.

She opened
Persuasion
again and pushed away the pulse of sadness. What was she thinking? That implacable
look in his eyes would make him a terrible—

What
was
she thinking? Even if she wasn’t known the length and breadth of Scotland as a hussy
of the worst order, she was a mere Scottish miss.

Noblemen such as Oakley did not deign to look at lowly beings such as she.

Her fingers curled more tightly around the volume as a sudden image of Marilla as
Countess of Oakley flashed through her mind. Byron as her brother-in-law. Seated across
from her at the supper table before retiring upstairs with Marilla.

She’d move to Spain.

No, that wasn’t far enough.

Chapter 12

Two hours later

F
iona was firmly under the spell of the cheerful but slightly battered heroine of
Persuasion
—not to mention Sir Walter and his daughter—when she heard the door to the library
open and then quickly shut again.

She was curled up under a toasty red blanket with a comforting doggy smell, and felt
vastly disinclined to move.

“Hello?” she asked reluctantly, sitting up.

The earl was standing against the door, finger on his lips. She nodded and lay back
onto the sofa.

She had decided to keep her distance from the earl. She could not allow herself to
be enticed by that air of confidence and power that he wore like an invisible cloak.
It had probably been bestowed in the cradle along with his insignia or crest or however
it was that earls distinguished themselves from mere mortals.

She read the next paragraph three times, trying to fix her attention on the words,
even though every fiber of her being was dying to know what Byron was doing. Against
her better judgment, she had started to think of him as Byron, an inappropriate intimacy,
if ever there was one.

When she’d read the paragraph for the fourth time, and still had no idea what it said,
she conceded defeat. She sat up again to confront Byron just as the door was slammed
open and Marilla appeared, flushed and radiant. If Marilla was exquisite at the best
of times, when she was rosy and excited, she was terrifying. “Oh, Byron! I’m very,
very sure you’re here!” she caroled.

The moment she noticed Fiona, her eyes narrowed, and her voice lost all claim to charm.
“I’m looking for the earl. Has he entered?”

Marilla’s quarry had flattened himself against the wall behind the door. His lips
were moving, perhaps in prayer or entreaty; either way, he had the look of a hunted
animal. Marilla had obviously overplayed her hand again, but Fiona couldn’t bring
herself to care very much.

She quickly looked back to her sister so as not to betray his presence. “No, but I
think I heard someone running up the stairs.”

The sparks in Marilla’s eyes faded as she contemplated the significance of this. “Of
course! He’s hidden in his bedchamber or mine, so that we may enjoy a moment or two
of privacy once I find him.”

Fiona frowned, and Marilla added irritably, “High-society games are little more than
opportunities for dalliance, which is something
you
could never understand. The forfeit is a kiss. We’ve been playing hide-and-seek all
afternoon, but the duke and Catriona insist on finding no one but each other, which
is tiresome for the rest of us.”

“In that case,” Fiona said, “perhaps you’d better find the earl before Lady Cecily
steals a kiss.”

Marilla smirked. “She’s proved to be a regular sobersides. We’re
all
playing, even Taran, and—”

“
Taran
ran off and hid?”

“I found him in the back of the kitchens! He’s surprisingly fit for a man on the edge
of the grave. He actually insisted on the forfeit.”

“Taran is hardly on the edge of the grave,” Fiona pointed out.

Reputation—as distinguished from virtue—seemed to have been declared irrelevant for
the duration of the storm-imposed confinement. Fiona was fairly certain that the Duke
of Bretton and Miss Burns were not worrying about reputation . . . well, now she thought
about it, Catriona’s virtue as well as her reputation might be at risk. But that was
hardly Fiona’s problem, and besides, they were betrothed.

“Don’t you dare return upstairs or come to the drawing room,” Marilla ordered. “Our
bedchamber may be occupied for some time.” Her smile was more predatory than sweet.

“I’m getting hungry,” Fiona protested. “It’s teatime.”

“You’re plump enough. You could go a whole day without eating, and it would be the
better for your waist.”

Fiona’s eyes must have narrowed, because Marilla suddenly looked a bit cautious. “I
suppose if you must eat, you could ring for something. I am certainly not the person
to wait on you hand and foot.”

“The library has no bell,” Fiona pointed out. “In fact, I doubt the castle has a system
to summon the help.”

Marilla sighed. “I’ll have one of those disgusting old fools send you some seedcakes,
I suppose.”

“I would like a hot drink as well.”

“Very well,” Marilla said with a flounce. “Just remain in this room. As I said, I
do not want the earl to associate the two of us in any way. It’s better that you stay
tucked out of sight.”

“I shan’t leave,” Fiona promised.

Characteristically, Marilla slammed the door behind her.

The library fell silent again. Fiona could hear Marilla impatiently delivering orders
on the other side of the door, and then the patter of her slippers as she left in
hot pursuit of her prey.

“Ignominious and yet fascinating,” Fiona remarked, as soon as the sound of her sister’s
footsteps had faded completely. Against all reason, she found herself unable to suppress
her laughter. “The fabulously rich and powerful Earl of Oakley cowering behind a door,
as if the hounds of hell were in hot pursuit. I thought this kind of scene happened
only in French farces. And in
those
, the main characters are already married.”

He strolled forward, his eyes glittering with less-than-suppressed anger. “Your sister,”
he stated, “is a threat to every unmarried man in Great Britain.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

When the earl had first been pointed out to her in a ballroom two years before, she
had thought him utterly aloof, in the way of men who are so consumed by their own
consequence that they were like ice statues: rigid and cold.

But now his color was heightened. In a man less ferocious, his expression could be
deemed an insulted pout.

“Marilla has strong opinions about titles,” Fiona said. “She thinks they improve a
man immensely, rather as a vintage does a wine. What did she do to give you such a
fright?”

The way Byron glared at her suggested he was prone to murder; she parried it with
an even more lavish smile, because it would never do to let him know that all that
glowering menace was effective. “One would think that such a big, strong earl as yourself
wouldn’t be overcome by fear,” she cooed, “but there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Fear
is a natural human emotion.”

One more furious stride, and he was glowering down at her.

He didn’t look frightened: more the opposite. He looked like an enraged beast, roused
from a peaceful den by an impudent intruder. Fiona loved it. Her heart sped up, which
was utterly perverse.

“Your sister is a menace,” he spat. “Do you have any idea what she did to me? Any
idea?”

“No,” Fiona said, tipping back her head in order to see his expression. “I’ve been
right here all along. Something lacking sense, no doubt.”

He bared his teeth at her. “I am a calm man.”

“Oh, I can see
that
,” she said with some enjoyment.

“And I can see that you merely pretend to be a quiet, bookish young lady.”

“Well, I did tell you that I had a bad reputation,” she said, grinning at him the
way she smiled only at her closest friends because . . . well . . . this was just
so much fun. “But since we both seem to have a hidden dark side, may I say that yours
is more interesting? I judged you a chilly aristocrat to the bone, but now you more
resemble a barbarian.” She frowned. “Perhaps a barbarian chased by a rhinoceros. Really,
what’s the worst Marilla can do to you? There’s no chaperone here to force the two
of you to wed simply because of a rash kiss.”

“You think I’m boring and predictable. The sort who would prefer respect to love in
matters of marriage.”

Her mouth fell open.

“Don’t you?” He braced his arms on the back of the sofa and leaned over her. The flush
of anger in his face was fading, but his eyes were still hawklike. Fiona frowned at
him, not sure what she was seeing. Hawklike and
wounded
?

“Yet even the most liberal gentleman would think it reasonable to avoid a woman who,
when her bodice slips to her waist, merely giggles. And what happened thereafter—”
He broke off, obviously remembering he was speaking to Marilla’s sister.

“Given our constrained circumstances, we cannot be criticized for wearing ill-fitting
garments,” Fiona said, coming to Marilla’s rescue. “Lady Cecily’s clothing is hanging
from her like drapes from a narrow window.”

“At least Lady Cecily manages to remain decently covered,” Byron retorted.

“Yet more surprising information about the male sex,” Fiona said. “
I
was always under the impression that men quite liked a risqué glimpse of an ankle
and the like.”

“You mock me.”

Fiona couldn’t help it: laughter bubbled out of her, and when he scowled, she found
herself practically rolling on the sofa, gasping with laughter until he gave a reluctant
smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said, giggling. “I really am. I’ve been indoors too long, obviously.
No fresh air.”

“I wish to ask you a question,” Byron said, interrupting. He moved around the sofa
to stand in front of the fire, the better to glower at her.

“What happened to the icy earl?” she asked, a last giggle escaping. “I feel as if
the fairies stole you and returned with a hot-tempered . . .” She eyed him.

“Hot-tempered what?”

Backlit by the fire, his muscled legs showed to remarkable advantage. Suddenly, he
didn’t look like an aristocrat, like an English aristocrat. It was as if he shifted
before her eyes, replaced by a big, muscled man emanating a sort of primal heat. And . . .

She wrenched her eyes away. Wonderful. Now she was ogling him with as much fervor
as her sister probably had done.

“Hot-tempered giant,” she said quickly, sobered by that thought. “What was it you
wanted to ask me, Lord Oakley?” Her book had slipped to the floor; she picked it up
and smoothed the pages. She had a third of it left. She should bury herself in the
plot, and stop thinking about Byron altogether. He was too male, too beautiful . . .
too volatile. And he was obviously in the grip of some fierce, barely contained emotion.

It couldn’t be that Marilla had roused all that passion.

Or perhaps she had.

He glanced down at the book in her hand. “I see you are still reading. What is the
title again?”

“Persuasion
, by Miss Jane Austen.”

“And are you enjoying it?”

She looked at him and hardened her heart. Men as beautiful as he were surely accustomed
to fighting off the advances of young ladies. “Yes,” she said shortly. “I am. But
surely, Lord Oakley, that is not the question you wished to ask me.”

“It’s not a question, precisely. I was hoping that you could inform your sister that
I am an unlikely focus for her attentions.”

“Everyone knows that you are looking for a bride,” Fiona said, feeling her way into
a further defense of Marilla. “News of your broken betrothal traveled before you.
I’m afraid that I cannot alter the tide of public opinion. Every unmarried young lady
considers you a suitable focus for her attentions.
More
than suitable.”

His brows drew together. “Perhaps you might tell her that I have determined not to
marry.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Please. Marilla will no more believe that than I would. You
still need a wife; you merely need to find a woman who isn’t interested in kissing
other men. Marilla, for one, would never kiss a footman. As I told you, she’s mad
about titles.”

“My fiancée was not kissing a footman,” he said, giving the distinct impression that
his teeth were clenched together. “It was her dancing master.” To her shock, he strode
over to the sofa, pushed her legs aside, and sat down.

Then he folded his arms and looked at her challengingly. “It’s not a matter of my
being overly punctilious, either. Do you see what I just did?
Where
I am? I pushed you aside and sat down without being asked. I’m sitting in this room
with a young lady who has identified herself as having a less-than-perfect reputation.”

Another giggle broke from Fiona’s lips before she could suppress it. Was she supposed
to congratulate him on his bravery? Or his finesse?

He gave her a narrow-eyed glance. “I may be a dunce, but I’m not a self-righteous
turnip.”

“I would never think of you in terms of a garden vegetable,” she said encouragingly.

“At any rate, a dancing master is not precisely a servant.” He paused. “Although lately
I begin to think that she set up the entire event so that I would break off the engagement.”

Fiona reached over and patted his knee. The stuffy earl was obviously having some
sort of stuffy person’s crisis, and she was thoroughly enjoying watching it, even
though such pleasure cast a dubious light on her own claims to being a kindly soul.
“Oh, don’t underestimate the allure of a dancing master.
So
much more understandable than a footman. Was he French?”

“If you are warming up to casting aspersions on my ability to dance, as has my cousin,
I would prefer that you refrain.”

Fiona had been planning to do just that, so she started over. “Marilla hasn’t the
faintest interest in kissing anyone—except, of course, her husband, once she has one.
And she would
never
kiss a commoner; she has very high standards. Therefore, she will be a perfect match
for you.”

“Your sister has already kissed me,” he stated. “I played only a passive role in the
incident. I am well aware that my uncle’s foolishness has thrown us all together without
a chaperone, but—”

“Exactly!” Fiona said, grasping thankfully on to that excuse. “Marilla is overcome
by a heady sense of freedom.”

“Then
you
should act as her chaperone.”

“Unfortunately, my sister pays me no mind,” Fiona said, more honestly than was perhaps
advisable.