The Risqué Resolution (2 page)

“I will ask to have the carriage
brought round and meet you in the foyer,” she said, cutting him off
mid-sentence before she spun in a swirl of white silk and hurried back down the
hall.

Watching her go, James wanted to pound
his fist against the wall, his need to strike something tangible so great it
was like a living thing clawing at him.
I
cannot fight your demons when you won’t tell me what they are, Natty
, he
thought helplessly.
Not when I have my
own to contend with
.  

CHAPTER THREE

32 days until
Christmas

The
Winswood
Estate

Home of
Sarah & Devlin
Heathcliff

The very last thing Lily wanted to do
was attend a ball, and had
it not been hosted by her dearest
friend in the entire world
she would have skipped it without remorse.
Unfortunately,
the ball in question
was
being hosted by her dearest friend in the entire world
,
and thus she found herself dancing at midnight in the arms of a man who
possessed both a wandering eye and a heavy instep.

Unable to
contain her wince when he trod on her foot for the third – or was it the
fourth?
–
time
,
Lily bowed out gracefully as the musical strains of the waltz drew to a close.
“Thank you for the dance,” she said politely even as her attention wandered
across the room to where Lady Sarah
Heathcliff
– best friend and former wallflower extraordinaire – stood beside
her tall, dark haired husband, her face tilted up towards his and her doe brown
eyes glowing with adoration.

The Viscount of
Winswood
seemed just as infatuated with his wife as she was with him if the hand resting
daringly low on her hip was any indication, and Lily couldn’t contain her quiet
snort of laughter when his hand slipped lower and was promptly slapped
away. 

Sarah had married Devlin
Heathcliff
the winter before after a scandalously short
engagement. She’d loved the handsome viscount from afar for years, but had only
gotten up the courage to finally make herself known to him after no small
amount of urging from Lily. Now, nearly a year into marriage, the two were more
in love than ever before and Lily took her fair share of credit for their
blissful happily-ever-after.

If only finding a husband of her own
could be so easy.

As she retreated to the refreshment
table and helped herself to a handful of grapes, Lily could not help but scowl.
Nearly every eligible bachelor in existence was in attendance tonight, but nary
a one had managed to catch her eye.

They were either too young or too old.
Too arrogant or too meek.
Too talkative or
too quiet.
Too… well, too
everything
.
She wasn’t looking for perfection. Truly she
wasn’t. But surely there had to something better out there than the current
crop of fop minded gentleman who wouldn’t know an intelligent conversation if
it smacked them upside their hideous wigs.

The very idea that she would most likely
have to pick someone from this very room to marry was so depressing she set her
plate of grapes aside without eating a single one.

“Are they too sour?”

In hindsight it was a very good thing
Lily
had
put down the grapes, for if
she was still holding them they would have certainly flown every which way. “My
goodness,” she said with a laugh as she spun around.

The girl who had snuck up behind her
was young, no more than sixteen or seventeen if Lily had to hazard a guess,
with chestnut colored hair that framed a delicate, heart shaped face, sweeping
eyebrows and pale, serious eyes. “You certainly startled me,” she continued
with a bright, cheerful smile intended to put the visibly nervous girl at ease.
“No, the grapes are not sour. Well, perhaps they are, but I wouldn’t know. I
did not eat any. It seems I do not have much of an appetite this evening.”

The girl glanced down at her shoes
peeping out from beneath the hem of her ivory gown. “Neither do I,” she
whispered.

“Then why are you by the refreshment
table?”

“Hiding,” the girl said succinctly,
peeking up through her lashes.

She certainly was a pretty thing, Lily
mused.
Much too pretty to be skulking around in the corner of
the room.
Her shy, quiet demeanor reminded Lily of her own sister Elsa,
a mouse like girl who was as different from Lily as the sun was from the moon.

Lily had urged Elsa to attend tonight
but she had remained at home with their mother, leaving Lily no choice but to
come with Aunt Fontaine as her chaperone, a dear woman in her mid-sixties who
was half deaf and very fond of naps.

No doubt she was off dozing in a corner
at this very moment, for Lily hadn’t seen her in nearly an hour which was
plenty of time for Aunt Fontaine to find a comfortable chair, arrange her fan
so it
appeared
she was watching all
of the dancing, and fall promptly asleep.

“In hiding?” Lily echoed. “You really
shouldn’t be, you know. Not when you look so stunning. Why, I remember my first
few balls. I was an absolute mess! Hair every which way and you don’t even want
to
know
what my dresses looked like.”

“I highly doubt that,” the girl said
dubiously.

Lily grinned and perched a hand on her
hip. “Trust me. It took quite a while until I hit my stride. At least your come
out is during the Little Season. You will have plenty of time to practice
before London.” 

Taking place in the country as opposed
to the city, the
ton’s
Little Season
ran during the holidays while parliament was on respite and the upper class
needed something to occupy their time. It was a more subdued affair than its
counterpart, but there were still balls and luncheons aplenty. Sarah and
Devlin’s little soiree was but the first of a half dozen or so balls leading up
to Christmas… and Lily’s deadline.

Suddenly her smile became more forced,
and it fell from her face all together when the girl asked, “Are you married,
then?”

“No… I am not.” The words tasted bitter
on her tongue and she forced them out with difficulty. How easy that question
used to be for her to answer! No, I am not married. No, I do not plan on
marrying in the near future. Why not? Well, quite simply because I want to
marry for love.

Marry for love… A luxury she could no
longer afford.

Again Lily wondered why her father
would do such a thing to her, and again she could not fathom a reason. He had
loved her. She knew he had. But just as importantly he had
understood
her. He knew she was not one of those women who dreamed
day in and day out of finding the perfect husband, having the perfect wedding,
and raising the perfect children. She wanted more for her life. She wanted more
for
herself
. She wanted to travel to
all the places she’d read about in her father’s atlases and experience new
cultures and
learn
new languages. She wanted to live
to the fullest with no regrets, and die an old woman content in her bed knowing
she had done everything she set out to do. She did
not
want to marry a man she barely knew and spend the rest of her
days chasing children and making certain the good silver was set out for their
dinner guests.

And yet what choice did she have? She
could not allow everything
her mother owned to be passed on
to Cousin Eustace
. Even if he wasn’t an insufferable old goat with a
nasty streak, Lily could not countenance the idea of her sweet mother being
forced to ask for every shilling and pence as though she were some lowly beggar
instead of the lovely, gracious lady she was. Not to mention how it would
affect Elsa’s debut in the spring, or their entire future.

Lily had seen first hand what happened
when a family’s inheritance was passed on to a distant relative. The very
same
had happened to one of her friends from finishing
school. The girl’s father died, leaving the fate of his wife and three
daughters (not to mention his fortune) in the hands of his brother. For a while
all was well, but within the year the brother married, had a child of his own,
and gradually began to take more and more of the inheritance that should have
been saved for his sister-in-law and nieces.

Since the law so heavily favored men
over women there was nothing that could be done. The last Lily heard of her
friend she was living with her mother and sisters in a small
two
bedroom
townhouse and was looking for employment as a governess.

I shall not let the same thing happen to Elsa
, Lily vowed silently.
Come
hell or high water, I will find a husband.

She needed someone handsome, but not in
the pretty way she detested.
Someone kind, but not overly
sweet.
Someone intelligent, but not boring.
Someone… Well, someone exactly
like
him
.

As her gaze scoured the crowded room,
Lily found her attention inexplicably drawn as though by some invisible force
to the far opposite corner where a tall, dark haired man stood slouched against
a large potted fern. Staring at him, she felt the queerest of flutters in her
belly and a flush the likes of which she rarely experienced bloomed across her
exposed collarbone.

She did not know what drew her eye to
the man. Except for his height, there was nothing of note about him. He was not
dressed in the best of clothes, nor the worst. His hair, pulled back in a sleek
tail, was neither the shortest nor the longest. His face, with its sharply
drawn cheekbones and prominent nose, was a few rugged lines away from handsome.
His mouth, slanted at one side in an unmistakable show of disdain, hovered two
notches above cruel.  

No, he was no one of note. But in one
long, lingering glance Lily found herself utterly and irrevocably captivated.

“Do you know who that is?” she
whispered, slanting a sideways glance at her silent companion who she had, in
all honesty, forgotten about until this very moment. Not that it was her fault.
The girl – whoever she was – made about as much of an impact as the
wallpaper, and heavens knew the brown and white pattern was dreadfully dull.
 

“Who is who?” the girl asked, blinking
her large eyes and reminding Lily very much of a tiny barn owl.

“That man standing in the corner over
there by the plant.” In her usual brash style, Lily lifted one hand and pointed
straight at the stranger who had managed to capture her undivided attention.
“He is dressed all in black. Do you know his name?”

For some reason the question caused the
girl’s cheeks to fill with color and her fingers to interlace so tightly her
knuckles gleamed white in the candlelight. “I… I…”

“Well? Who is he?” Patience had never
been one of Lily’s virtues. She was of half a mind to march across the floor
and speak to the stranger
herself
, but with the
faintest of tremors in her voice the girl finally answered.

“His name is Captain James Rigby,” she
said with obvious reluctance, “and he is my brother.”    

CHAPTER FOUR

James could
feel
the woman’s eyes on him. He willed her to look away but she
persisted until he finally lifted his head and met her stare for bold,
unwavering stare across the crowded ballroom.

She was stunningly beautiful, of
course.
Flawless ivory skin.
Ebony hair coiled in an
intricate twist at the nape of her neck. A navy blue dress so dark it could
have been black if not for the shimmers of color revealed when she shifted her
weight to the side. The gown fit her like a glove, tight around her breasts and
nipped in waist before spilling out in a wave of soft fabric. Her features were
delicate, from the curve of her cupids bow mouth to the slight tilt of her
nose. And her eyes… James sucked in a breath. Even from this distance he would
see her eyes were the loveliest violet he’d ever beheld.

“Fairy,” he murmured, knowing
no one could hear him, not caring if they did
. From the very
moment he arrived he’d sequestered himself in a lonesome corner of the room,
preferring the company of plants to people. He had planned on giving Natalie
another hour at most – the poor girl wasn’t even dancing – before
he made their excuses. He didn’t belong here. Not anymore.

Oh, once he had. Once he would have
strolled across the room, taken the
violet eyed
beauty
by the hand, and swept her into a waltz. Once he would have drawn her outside
and seduced a kiss from those perfect lips under the silvery glow of the
moonlight. Once he would have left her wanting as
he
was now left wanting.

Wanting for courage.

Wanting for normalcy.

Wanting for his bloody arm back.

His teeth clenched as the all too
familiar throbbing in a body part that no longer existed began to plague him.
One more hour
be
damned. He and Natalie were leaving
now, whether she liked it or not.

Tearing his gaze away from the fairy he
searched the room with the same hard eyed meticulousness he had used to search
for bodies on the battlefield. When one circuit revealed nothing he
straightened and took a step forward, his muscles coiling and tensing beneath
the heavy wool of his jacket. By sheer happenstance he glanced at the
violet eyed
woman again… and this time saw Natalie standing
beside her, her face pale and her hands clenched tight.

James did not charge through the crowd,
but he might as well have. He walked with long legged purpose, his gaze never
leaving the frightened countenance of his sister, not acknowledging the men and
women who scrambled to clear his path with little squeaks of alarm.

“What is it?” he said roughly once he’d
reached her. Ignoring the woman at her side entirely, he lifted his hand to
touch Natalie’s shoulder, but jerked it back when she flinched and cowered.
“Natalie, I…”
Jaw clenching furiously
,
he turned to the side
. “You do not have to be afraid of me.”

“Not afraid of you?” the fairy chirped.
“After the way you came marching over here? Why, I would be positively
terrified. Mayhap you should try it again. You are in a ballroom, Captain
Rigby, not a battlefield.”

James spun around, disbelief widening
his eyes and thinning his mouth. Of all the nerve… “I do not recall asking your
opinion,” he growled.

The fairy batted her eyelashes –
her incredibly long, incredibly dark eyelashes – at him. “What a
coincidence, as I do not recall asking your permission. Lady Lily Kincaid,” she
said, extending one slender hand enclosed in a satin glove. “I only tell you
that because you seem to be at a disadvantage, as I knew your name before you
came stomping over here. Please, no need to thank me.”
Her
lips quirked in a manner that irritated even as it aroused.
“I can see
social etiquette is difficult for you and I wouldn’t want you to strain
yourself.”

James stared hard at her hand, but did
not take it and after a moment Lily shrugged and let her arm drop. “What are
you doing with my sister?”

Her lashes fluttered again, causing a
long, low pull in James’ gut that he resolutely ignored. “Isn’t it obvious? I
am making friends with your poor sister to get to you. That is what you are
thinking, is it not?” She snorted and, to his disbelief, rolled her eyes.
At
him
.
When was
the last time anyone, let alone a delicate slip of a woman who barely came up
to his chin, had the audacity to show such disrespect? His brow furrowed. In
all honesty, he couldn’t remember.

“That’s what all you tall, brooding
types think,” Lily continued, nonplussed by his dark glower. “Your sister and I
were having an absolutely fine conversation before you muddled into it, thank
you very much, and we shall continue to do so after you’ve muddled your way
back out.”

James’ mouth opened. Closed. Opened
again. “Natalie, come with me.”

“Natalie, stay right where you are.”

The woman, James decided instantly, was
no fairy. No, she was far too obnoxious for that. A sprite, he thought with
annoyance.
The kind that were fabled to cause all sorts of
mischief and mayhem.
“May I speak with you in private?” he bit out.

Lily arched one dark eyebrow.
“Certainly.”

He went to reach for her… with his left
arm. The motion was so ingrained he forgot that part of his body no longer
existed until it was too late. Thrown off balance by his own momentum he
staggered to the side, bumping hard into the refreshment table. Pastries
wobbled and grapes spilled out across the floor as he righted himself and,
without a backwards glance, stalked to the nearest door and yanked it open.

The door led to a narrow hallway, the
hallway to a dimly lit parlor.

Flames slumbered in the fireplace.
James brought them to life with a few sharp jabs of a metal poker before
throwing his body down into a leather chair and staring into the newly aroused
flickers of orange and yellow light with an intensity that made his head ache.

When the door creaked open he didn’t
turn around. He didn’t need to. There was only one person fool enough to chase
after a man who was so clearly unfit for social company, and he had no
intention of talking to her.  

“Go away,” he said flatly.

The quiet shuffle of slippers on wood,
a whisper of crinoline, and a short, annoyed exhalation of breath announced
Lily’s arrival. “You said you wanted to speak to me in private.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Well, that may be, but since I am
already here you might as well say what you wanted to say.”

James’ growl was nothing short of
animalistic in nature. He curled his hand into the armrest, digging his fingers
into the buttery soft leather, using it as an anchor to hold him to chair.
“Leave. Me. Alone.”

Lily sighed. “I know we have only just
met, but I must admit I feel—”

“I do not care,” James interrupted
through gritted teeth, “what you bloody well
feel
. All I care is that you GET THE HELL OUT!”

Absolute silence followed his outburst.

James’ throat convulsed as he attempted
to swallow the shame that accompanied losing his temper in such a vile way. To
yell at a stranger for virtually no reason was bad enough, but to yell at a
gently bred
lady
… Disgraceful.
Beneath his tightly wound cravat his chest burned red and he buried his face in
the crook of his shoulder while he waited for the inevitable tears to start and
the door to slam.

Only there
were
no tears or slamming of doors, and after what felt like a
small eternity curiosity finally forced James to turn in his chair.

“Yes, I am still here,”
Lily
remarked mildly. Standing in the middle of the shadowy
room with her hands perched high on her hips, she stared down her nose at him
and sniffed. “As you can see, I have not collapsed in a fit of hysterics nor
have I rushed from the room crying for my mother. I am afraid it will take more
than a bit of shouting to frighten me off, Captain Rigby.
At the
very least more cursing.
You are quite loud, but not terribly inventive.
Should I give you some better words to use the next time you feel like letting
off a bit of steam?” Her lips curved. “I admit I know quite a few.”

“Who
are
you?” he asked in genuine bewilderment.

She stepped forward, moving so
gracefully it seemed as though she wasn’t moving at all, except one moment she
was across the room and the next she was leaning against the back of his chair,
her face so close to his he could see a star shaped freckle high on her left
cheek. The urge to kiss that delightful little freckle, to see if her ivory
skin felt as soft as it looked, to know what she tasted like against his mouth,
was so overwhelming James abruptly spun around and shoved himself forward,
resting on the very edge of the chair, as far from Lily as he could possibly
get without standing.

“My name is Lily Kincaid, as I have
told you
”
she said quietly. “Although I believe the
better question to ask would be who
you
are, Captain Rigby.”

He glared into the flames. “My sister
told you who I am.”

“You name, perhaps, and your rank, but
those two things do not tell me who you truly are. I would think you were still
a solider, for you hold yourself like one, but you do not wear the uniform. You
possess the arrogance of a lord, but not the patience for the mindless social
games that accompany such a title. A gentleman would describe you best,
perhaps, except I fear there is nothing gentle about you.” Lily lowered her
voice, lowered her head, and whispered into his ear, “So who are you, Captain
James Rigby?”

She smelled
, James
thought with an irrational surge of anger,
like
peaches
. How the bloody hell could she smell like peaches in the middle of
winter? The sweet, tart scent reminded him of a childhood long ago spent
visiting a now dead aunt and uncle in the small coastal town of Brest. They’d
owned a modest estate, and on the estate there was a poorly tended orchard of
peach trees. He and Natalie had spent many an afternoon playing hide-and-seek
in the secluded grove, eating fruit until their bellies ached and their chins
were stained yellow from the sweet nectar of the peaches.

How simple life had been back then… And
how very much he did not want to remember, nor be reminded, of innocence lost
and never regained.

“Who are you to ask such a question?”
Unable to remain still any longer, he lurched clumsily to his feet and turned
so he felt the heat of the fire on his back, careful to keep the leather chair
as a barrier between them. He had been too long without a woman to trust
himself
… especially around one as beautiful – and
infuriating – as Lily Kincaid.

“No one in particular.” Lily trailed
her fingertips along the top of the chair, caressing the soft leather. James
imagined what it would feel like to feel those fingers trailing along his own
skin… and felt
himself
go hard. “I am just a woman,”
she continued, oblivious to the physical effect she had on him, “who saw a man
across a ballroom and thought ‘now
that
is
someone worth knowing’.”

“I am no one,” he said gruffly.
Least of all someone fit for the likes of
you
, he added silently.

Even if he wasn’t a cripple, even if he
could make it through the day without drinking half a bottle of whisky, even if
he didn’t wake up every night soaked in his own sweat screaming out the names
of men who were long buried in the ground, he wouldn’t have been a match for a
lady like Lily. She was too delicate. Too easily broken. Too… too everything
right, where he was everything wrong. No doubt someone had put the idea in her
head that it would be a passing amusement to indulge in a bit of heavy flirting
with an officer, and pure happenstance had brought her to him.

At the thought, James’ eyes narrowed
and his mouth hardened. He was no toy to be picked up, admired, and cast aside
at the whim of some bored debutante. Perhaps it was time for Lily to learn if
you played with fire, you ran the risk of getting burned.

His mind made up to teach her a lesson
– he
had
warned her to leave,
after all – James stalked around the side of the chair and stopped short
in front of her. The firelight bathed them in its glow, casting flickering
shadows that climbed the walls in long, sinuous strokes of black edged with
orange and red. Beyond the study faint strains of music could be heard, a reminder
of a ball James had already forgotten about. His thoughts veered to Natalie and
obligations better served elsewhere, but then Lily wet her bottom lip with a
tiny flick of her tongue and he couldn’t think at all. 

She tipped her head
back,
her unusually colored eyes steady on his. The air itself seemed to
hum,
filled with an electricity so potent it set the hairs
at the nape of his neck on edge. His hand clenched, muscles tightening and
bulging beneath his overcoat.
One step closer.
Another. The lapels of his jacket brushed against the bodice of her gown. Lily
drew in a sharp breath. Her eyes closed…