The Risqué Resolution (3 page)

Without warning his determination
wavered.

Like a ship whose rudder had been
knocked askew James was thrown off course and left reeling in waves of
self doubt
and indecision. What woman in her right mind
would want to kiss him? What woman would want to be held by a man who was less
than whole?
None
,
came the immediate answer,
and certainly
not this one. She’s too good for you, James. You’re a crippled ex-solider who
is most likely more than a little half mad. Leave before you’re the one left,
you bloody fool.

Lily’s eyes opened. “Captain Rigby?
What is the matter?”

“I… I…” But words failed him and,
without knowing what else to do, he shoved roughly past and fled the room as
though the very demons of hell were nipping at his heels.

CHAPTER FIVE

Well that had certainly not gone as
planned.

As she watched the door to the study
swing back and forth, propelled into motion by James’ hasty exit, Lily made a
soft humming sound of distress and sank into the nearest chair. All she wanted
was a bit of conversation, and – if she were being honest – a kiss.
The notion of James’ mouth covering her own had been a thrilling one, and it
had taken all of her self control not to launch herself at him while she waited
impatiently for him to go about the business of putting his lips on hers.

Never one to shy away from passion,
Lily had indulged in her fair share of kisses since coming of age, although
she’d minded her manners and never gone any further than allowing the
occasional hand to cup her breast in the dark shadows of a garden. She was
willing to do more, but it would have to be with the right man.

Was Captain James Rigby that man? It
was too soon to tell. 

The initial spark of attraction she so
desperately craved and so rarely received was there, which was most definitely
a promising sign. Lily could count on one hand the number of men who had
managed to turn her head since her debut and there was no denying she’d felt
drawn to James the moment she spied him across the room.

It was rather unfortunate he possessed
such a churlish temperament, but she supposed if she had suffered through the
horrors of war and lost an arm in the process she would be rather churlish as
well. It was what lurked
beneath
the
rough exterior that truly interested her.

He was someone who had experienced the
world. Who had lived outside the four corners of London and seen the gritty,
raw side of life never witnessed by lords of the manor living safely within the
confines of their estates sipping port and discussing the weather.

The door creaked open, washing light
into the dark study. Lily looked up expectantly, her heart beginning to pound
as she anticipated James’ return, but the tiny jolt of excitement subsided with
a faint flutter of disappointment when she saw it was her dear friend Sarah,
not the enigmatic captain, who had come looking for her.

“Lily? Is that you?” Squinting into the
study, Sarah pushed the door open wider and took two hesitant steps inside.
Dressed in a stunning plum colored gown with her golden hair twisted into a
demure coiffure, she managed to look equal parts bookish and beautiful. Always
the shyer and more demure of the two, Sarah had finally found her inner confidence
after marrying Devlin, and Lily had never known her friend to be happier.

“Yes,” she answered with a sigh, “you
have found me.”

“What in heavens name are you doing
sitting by yourself in the dark?” Her skirts swishing against her ankles, Sarah
moved briskly across the room and lit two beeswax candles before sinking into a
chaise lounge opposite of Lily’s chair with a little
oof
of breath. “I am quite
tired,” she admitted. “Devlin has insisted on dancing nearly every waltz, even
though I told him having one’s husband fill up their card is not at all
de
rigueur
.”

“And you would not have it any other
way,” Lily said with a grin.

Sarah’s cheeks brightened ever so
slightly. “No, I suppose not. But enough about me.” She waved her hand in the
air, causing the firelight to reflect off her gold wedding band. “Has something
happened? Why are you in hiding?” A line appeared between her pale eyebrows as
she frowned. “Was someone untoward? If they were, tell me their name and I will
have Devlin—”

“No, no, nothing has happened. Even if
it had, do you really think I would be sulking in a room by myself?”
Even though that is exactly what I am doing
,
she thought silently.
Sulking because,
for once in my life, a man did not go out of his way to please me
.

Lily had never put much stock in
physical appearance, but she was an intelligent woman, and she knew her beauty
was held in high regard. As a result men had been courting her favor since she
was a girl of fourteen, which explained all the kisses. It did
not
explain why James had left her in
the lurch, choosing to brave the crowded ballroom – something he clearly
despised – rather than kiss her. Her nose wrinkling as she recalled his
expression of disgust, she shifted her right shoulder back and gave a discreet
sniff. Well, she didn’t smell. At least she had that in her favor, if not much
else where the ex-solider was concerned.

“Lily, dear…”

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

Lily let her shoulder drop and crossed
her slender legs at the ankle beneath the voluminous folds of her gown. “Seeing
if I stink.”

Sarah released a startled laugh. “Why
would you stink?”

“I do not know.” Lily shrugged. “I just
thought that I might and so I was checking to see if I did, but I don’t. At
least I don’t think I do. Then again, perhaps one cannot smell oneself. You
should do it.”

But Sarah, her expression wary, was
already shaking her head. “Do what?
Smell
you? Lily, are you certain nothing is amiss? You are acting very
strangely.” Her countenance abruptly softening, she reached between their chairs
to squeeze Lily’s hand. “I know you must still be mourning your father. I
rather thought attending a ball this early might be too much, but you always
seem to do best when you are the busiest. Do you want me to have a carriage
brought round to take you home?”

“A carriage is the last thing I need,”
Lily said cryptically.

“Well, if you don’t want a carriage,
what is it you
do
want?”

“A husband,” Lily said after a long
pause. Gently extricating her hand from Sarah’s grasp she sat back, crossed her
arms over her chest, and looked directly at her friend. “I want a husband.”

Natalie watched her brother storm back
into ballroom from the safety of the refreshment table. Wedged between plates
of desserts and an oversized potted fern she was able to remain silently in the
background, a true wallflower if ever there was one.

It wasn’t that she did not
want
attention. In truth, she was
starving for it. Unfortunately, it was when she received attention, especially
of the male variety, that the problems began. Problems that had turned into
symptoms of an illness she feared
was
ruining her
life. An illness she knew the cause of, but not the cure.

Shortness
of breath.

Perspiration
on her palms.

An
embarrassing stutter.

A deep,
cloying fear that suffocated from the inside out.

She hated that James triggered the
illness. Hated that she was afraid of her own brother. Hated the wounded look
that flashed across his face whenever she flinched away. He had returned from
the battlefield needing help, and all she had to give was hurt.

But how could she ever explain the
source of her fear? At the mere thought Natalie’s eyes pinched shut and her
heart rate sped up. An icy chill raced down her spine, extending all the way to
the balls of her feet and out to the tips of her fingers. If she told he would
know, and if he knew… With a soft cry she curled her hand into a fist and
pressed it hard against her mouth to contain the sickness that threatened to
spill up and out. If he knew, it would begin all over again.

Needing to distract
herself
from thoughts best left buried, Natalie opened her eyes and scanned the crowded
room for James. Amidst the laughing faces his stern, unsmiling countenance was
easy to spot. He was already looking at her, and when their gazes met his head
tilted to the side, his eyes flicking towards the couples
who
were dancing in silent question.

“
No
,”
Natalie mouthed, suppressing a tremble. It was all she could do to stand in the
same room with so many men and not scream bloody murder. To actually dance with
one… To allow his hands to touch her body… Again the wave of sickness swelled
within her breast, and again she managed to fight it back. No. No, she would
not be dancing tonight,
nor
any other night, not if
she could help it.

She hoped if she attended the ball
tonight things would be different. That
she
would be different, but now she knew there was to be no easy fix for her
illness. 

James returned to his corner. Natalie
remained in hers.

What a pair they made, their current
situation made all the worse by the fact that they hadn’t always been so
miserable. Once they’d been happy, blissfully so, living in a world beyond war
and nightmares and hot, breathy voices asking if you wanted a tickle before
bedtime. Now their world was fractured, their happiness only a memory.

What Natalie wouldn’t give to have
things go back to the way they
were.
If not for her, then for James.
He’d sacrificed so much. The
life he knew. The family he loved.
The future that would have
been his if he hadn’t given it all up to go fight for queen and country.

She wished she could be the one to
bring him back from the brink of darkness, but she feared her own despair was
so great she would only serve to tip them both over the edge. He needed someone
stronger than she to show him the light.
To show him how to
live and laugh and love again.

He had
friends
who wanted to help, but the ones who went to war with him had not returned and
those who remained did not understand.

No, he needed someone else.
Someone who had not known him before.
Someone who would not
mind having
their
feelings hurt. Someone strong enough
to ease his pain, but gentle enough to soothe his fear.
Someone
loud enough to drown out his past.
Someone bright enough to help draw
him into a future free from worry and regret.

Someone
, Natalie thought as
a sudden idea took root,
exactly like
Lily Kincaid
.

Closing her eyes, she drew on what
little faith she had left and wished for a miracle.

CHAPTER SIX

29 days
until Christmas

 “We are ruined. Absolutely,
positively ruined.” Clasping a hand to her forehead, Regina Kincaid staggered
dramatically across the room and flung herself onto a chaise lounge. Reclining
until she was flat on her back, she closed her eyes and moaned loudly. “Please
have one of the maids fetch me a cooling cloth, Elsa. I fear a terrible
headache coming on.”

Lily’s sigh was long and suffering.
“Elsa, remain where you are,” she said, directing her sister a narrow eyed
glare that had the younger girl hastily returning to her chair. “Mother, you
are not ill. It is your imagination.”

“It is not,” Regina insisted even as
she sat up on her elbow and opened her eyes. “I really do not feel well. A
fever,” she said decisively. “I am most definitely coming down with a
fever.”   

“And furthermore, we are
not
ruined,” Lily continued as if her
mother had not spoken a word. “I will take care of everything. I promise.”

The weight of that promise weighed
heavily on her shoulders, but she kept her back straight and her chin up. She
even managed a smile, although it was more for Elsa’s benefit than her own for
the poor dear looked absolutely terrified. Crouching in front of her sister,
she took both of Elsa’s hands in hers and squeezed tight. “Look at me,” she
said firmly. Elsa lifted her head, her blue eyes clearly troubled. “Nothing
will happen to us, do you understand?”

“But Cousin Eustace said—”

“Cousin Eustace is a pig.”
And that is a compliment compared to what I
truly think of him
, Lily added silently.

Yesterday evening Eustace and his wife
Venetia, a stick like woman with dark squinty eyes and a penchant for cruel
gossip, had joined them for dinner. Eustace made quick work of revealing the
will to Regina, who had – as expected – taken the news quite
poorly. It took all the
self control
Lily possessed
not to kick out the cousins on the spot, and she’d spent the rest of dinner
plotting the most creative ways to throttle Eustace and his smirking wife.

All through the night in the bedroom
across from hers she had heard her mother tossing and turning. This morning
Regina wasted no time in calling a family meeting in the library – the
only room below stairs boasting a fireplace – and it was clear the
contents of the will were weighing heavily on her mind.

Lily hated seeing Regina and Elsa so
worried. They were both sweet, gentle souls who looked to others to care for
them, and now they were looking to her.
Self doubt
nagged at her like a sore tooth, the source of the discomfort vague and
relentless. What if she
couldn’t
find
someone to marry before Christmas? What if everything they owned really
did
go to Cousin Eustace and the
terrible Venetia? What if this was one problem she could not solve?

“Lily?” Elsa’s timid voice cut through
Lily’s dark thoughts like a beacon of light.

“Yes darling, what is it?”

“I am frightened,” her sister confessed.

“Frightened?” Giving Elsa’s hands one
last squeeze, Lily bounded to her feet and feigned her brightest smile yet.
“Frightened of what, dearest?”

“Of what will happen to us.”

“Nothing will happen,” Lily said
firmly. “Isn’t that right, Mother?”

Regina may have been a woman of small
courage, but she’d always stood strong where her daughters were concerned. “You
know your sister always has an answer for everything, just like her father. We
will be fine and you are not to worry.” Sitting up, Regina shook her finger at
her youngest daughter. “You know when you worry you frown, and frowning is how
wrinkles grow.”

“Oh for heavens sake,” Lily muttered.
“Mother, Elsa does not have wrinkles. She is sixteen years of age!”

“She doesn’t have wrinkles
yet
,” Regina said with a sniff, “but she
will if she keeps frowning! Why, Lady Hatfield’s daughter is only fourteen and
the poor dear already has crow marks! It is because she laughs too much.
Giggling all the time, that one. Never a sober thought in her head.”

Elsa’s fingers drifted to her face. “Do
I
have crow marks?” she asked
worriedly.

“Let me get my magnifying glass and
see.”

Regina sprang out of the chaise lounge
with surprising zest given she had been on death’s door but a few moments ago,
and Lily stepped neatly to the side, never one to get in her mother’s way when
she was on a mission. She wanted to shake them both for being so ridiculous,
but she knew it was better for Regina and Elsa to worry about make believe
lines and wrinkles than the real problem at hand.

“I am taking Mr.
Betram
for a walk,” she announced when Regina returned from the parlor with an
oversized magnifying glass and promptly held it up to Elsa’s face.

“A walk?” Regina said without looking
up. “Lily dear, it is snowing out. You know Mr.
Betram
doesn’t like the snow.”

Lily glanced out the window and saw
that it was, indeed, snowing. White flakes spiraled lazily down from an
overcast sky, slowly covering the frost tipped grass in a shifting blanket of
white. “I will not take him very far. Just to the end of the lane and back.
It’s good for him to stretch his legs.”

Mr.
Betram
,
so named because he bore a striking resemblance to their dressmaker’s husband,
was the Kincaid’s family dog. A short, squat beagle with sorrowful brown eyes
and a permanently puzzled expression, he lived in the barn behind the house and
took his job of guarding the old, dilapidated structure quite seriously even
though he was half blind and more than likely fully deaf. Time and again Lily
and her father had tried to coax him to stay inside the house, but within an
hour or so he always began to howl and scratch at the door, two sounds Regina
could not abide.

“You should not go by yourself. Take
Aunt Fontaine with you. It will be good for her to move about as well. Oh,
Elsa, I believe I have found a wrinkle!”

Over her sister’s distressed squeals
Lily said, “Aunt Fontaine is still fast asleep and likely to remain so until
afternoon tea. I will not be gone for more than an hour.” She paused in the
doorway, waiting for her mother to object, but Regina’s mind was on other
matters and she waved her eldest daughter on with an absent flick of her wrist.

Bundling herself up in a fur lined
cloak, dark red scarf, and matching mittens Lily tuck her curls to one side,
drew the hood up over her head, and hurried outside before her mother came to
her senses and realized she was leaving the house without a proper chaperone.

She walked briskly between the
snowflakes, following a narrow footpath that led around the side of the house
and meandered down to the barn. The metal latch was frozen shut, but after a
few strategic kicks of her boot the door slid sideways with a groan. She found
Mr.
Betram
curled up in a pile of straw, his deep,
even breaths indicating he was fast asleep. A stray cat, its white fur sticking
out in tufts, watched her with lofty regard from atop a bucket.

“Good morning,” Lily said politely.

The cat meowed, stretched, and leapt
down to twist around her legs, butting her with its tiny head. 

“Are you Mr.
Betram’s
new friend, then? We shall have to come up with a name for you, and some food
as well. I imagine the mice are fairly scarce this time of year. I sincerely
hope you do not have fleas,” she said, her nose wrinkling. The cat tilted its
head to the side and meowed again, louder this time. Lily bit back a smile.
“You are right. That was quite rude of me. Well, if you don’t mind, I need to
borrow Mr.
Betram
. I shall return him safe and sound,
I promise.”

The cat returned to its bucket and Lily
gently woke up the beagle. He rolled to his feet with a snort and a snuffle,
blinking the sleep from his big brown eyes, and when he saw who had come to
visit his tail began to wag with such enthusiasm he knocked the cat’s bucket
aside and sent the smaller animal dashing into the shadows.

“Now you’ve done it,” Lily said as she
righted the bucket before tying a long piece of rope to Mr.
Betram’s
leather collar. Even half blind and deaf the beagle was prone to wandering, and
Lily’s greatest fear was that he would run off after a rabbit and never be able
to find his way home again. Kneeling, she gave him a quick hug, laughed when he
licked her face, and led him out into the snow. “Come on, then. Just a quick
walk and then you can go back to sleep.”

The beagle toddled along obediently,
pausing every now and then to sniff and scratch at the frozen ground, but a
gentle tug was enough to get him moving again.

They walked side by side down the
middle of the long, twisting lane that led to the main road. The snow that had
fallen thus far was undisturbed, smooth and white as a fresh piece of
parchment. Smoke curled cheerfully from the chimneys of the houses they passed,
but the windows were dim and nothing stirred save Lily, Mr.
Betram
,
and four black crows that clacked and cawed high up in the trees. No doubt
everyone was still tucked cozily in their beds, which is where Lily would have
been had her mother not woken the entire household at the crack of dawn with
her fretful pacing.

Her mouth twisting, Lily stepped off
the side of the lane to let Mr.
Betram
sniff at a
tree trunk while she mulled over her options.

There was no question time was running
out. Wreaths swathed in red ribbon and decorative candles beaming from nearly
every window were constant reminders that Christmas was only a few short weeks away.
She needed to find a husband, and soon.

When the will was first read Lily had
been arrogant enough to assume she would be able to find the perfect man before
her father’s deadline. That idea had quickly gone by the wayside following
Sarah and Devlin’s ball, where she quickly discovered there
were
no perfect men.
At
least none where she was concerned.
The only one who had come to close
to sparking her interest was Captain James Rigby, but the damn man had run away
rather than kiss her, and even though she’d looked high and low there had been
no sign of him for the remainder of the ball.

“Impossible,” she muttered under her
breath, kicking hard at a lump of snow. Unfortunately the lump turned out to be
a rock, and Lily cried out in pain when her toes collided with the unyielding
object. Even more unfortunately it was at that precise moment that Mr.
Betram
miraculously spotted a fox across the field, and
when he yanked against his rope in an effort to give chase Lily was so focused
on her bruised foot she forgot to hold tight.

With one deep, resounding bay he was
off, belly crawling under an old, decrepit wooden fence and bursting out the
other side with such enthusiasm he tripped over his own paws and rolled twice,
coating his wiggling body in snow before he scrambled to his feet and headed
pell-mell for the other side of the field as fast as his short little legs
would carry him.

“Mr.
Betram
,
NO!” Hobbling forward, Lily wrapped her hands around the top rail of the fence
and yelled for her beloved beagle until her voice was hoarse, but it was to no
avail. Mr.
Betram
was gone.

James was out for a peaceful morning
ride, hoping to clear his head of the demented thoughts that perverted it
during the night, when a woman’s alarmed shrieks sliced through the air,
spurring him into action.

He chased the noise to its source, not
knowing what he would find, but automatically fearing the worst. An overturned
carriage with bodies scattered in the snow, their limbs twisted at grotesque
angles. A highway robber with a dagger pressed up against a man’s throat while
his wife screamed and pleaded, her face ashen as the snow. A young child
floating face down in the icy water of a pond while his mother cried in anguish
from the shore. Scenario after gruesome scenario flashed through his mind as he
cantered down the lane, each one more horrible than the last. 

Instead, he found Lily: clutching a
fence, hopping on one foot like a deranged lunatic, screaming another man’s
name.

He shouldn’t have known it was
her
. She wore a heavy cloak, the fur lined hood pulled up
and over her hair. Her face was turned away, her brilliant amethyst eyes hidden
from view. Still he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the same woman who
had turned him inside out at the ball was standing before him now.

No, not standing.

Hopping. 

“Might I ask what you are doing?” He
dismounted in an awkward shuffle of legs and limb – following the
amputation his doctor warned he should never sit astride a horse again; James
had told the man to go to hell – and led his mount to the side of the
road.

Lily startled at the sound of his voice
and whirled around, causing the hood of her cloak to fall back and her hair to
spill out in a wave of dark silk. Her eyes narrowed, then widened with
recognition. “Good morning, Captain Rigby.”