The Risqué Resolution (5 page)

“Go on,” she said with a flippant wave
of her hand. “Mr.
Betram
and I will be fine.”

“Do not go outside,” he said sternly.

Lily twisted in her chair to face him,
digging her fingers into the dusty upholstery. “Outside?” she echoed. She
forced a smile. “I fear only bacon-brained
fatwits
would dare go outside in this weather.”

The walls of the cottage reverberated
as James slammed the door behind him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

James struck out blindly into the snow,
squinting into the wall of white and doing his best to forge a straight line.
He kept an old decaying oak tree on his left. A
short,
fanned out mulberry on his right. Sucking in the cold, clear air by the
mouthful he doubled over a short distance from the cottage, bracing his forearm
across his knees and drawing a ragged breath.

There was no wood to gather. A box
built into the wall next to the hearth housed more firewood than could be
burned all winter. It had been an excuse.
An excuse to get
him out of the cottage.
To get him away from
her
before he did something for which there was no excuse.

He couldn’t breathe in her presence.
Couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. She incapacitated him, sinking into his blood
like the most deadliest of poisons, leaving him bewildered and off kilter, not
knowing what way was up, what way was down.

The woman had made him
laugh
.

No one could do that, not even Natalie.

Running a hand through his hair –
he had forgotten his hat inside – James pulled the curled ends taut with
just enough pressure to cause pain. The pain cleared his head and helped him
focus. He straightened, his resolve returning as he doubled back to check on
Biscuit. The horse was tucked away in a
three sided
structure behind the cottage. He whickered contentedly as his master approached
and James wrapped his arm around the gelding’s neck, breathing in the familiar,
calming scent of horse and hay.

“Are you going to be all right out here
old chap?”

Biscuit, attentive as always, bobbed
his head and swiveled his head to stare at James, his dark brown eyes both
inquisitive and somehow amused, as though he knew his master’s dilemma and
thought it quite hilarious.

“Remember that gray mare you took a
fancy to a few years ago?” James asked, speaking to Biscuit as though the horse
could understand him, which James often thought he could. “Bellowed like a
banshee every time she trotted past. You didn’t have any shame, did you?”

Biscuit snorted.

“I did not understand you then, but I
fear I do now.” He imagined how Lily would be as a horse.
Beautiful,
of course.
An elegant thoroughbred with long legs, a
lean body, and a refined head.
High spirited, with a
flash of temper.
Stubborn, with a keen sense of
intelligence.
Difficult to ride, no doubt.
Impossible to train.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, rubbing a
hand down his face.

He never should have stopped when he
saw her on the road. Never should have dismounted. Never should have agreed to
help find her damn dog. Now he would be forced to endure her presence not for a
minute or an hour or even a day, but for an entire bloody
night
. A night in a cottage with walls so thin as to be
nonexistent, listening to every toss and turn of her slender body as she slept.
A night spent wondering what her creamy skin felt like… dreaming what her lips
tasted like… imagining what—

With a curse James spun away from
Biscuit and clipped the thought short. He needed to get himself under control,
starting with exerting the same strict discipline over his emotions that he’d
once used on the battlefield. Taking a deep, measuring breath he slapped a hand
against his horse’s broad shoulder in a gesture of farewell and started back
towards the cottage, drawn by the soft glow of firelight emanating from the
windows.

The cold rush of air woke her. It swept
across her skin like ice, rousing her from a contented slumber filled with
blurred images of church bells and white lace and a tall, rugged man with dark
hair and piercing eyes.

Lily sat up with a start, wondering at
the sudden pain in her neck until she realized she’d fallen asleep in the wing
chair with her head tucked into the crook of her elbow. The fire had died low,
the embers smoldering a deep red, indicating at least an hour of time had
elapsed since she first closed her eyes. She heard the click of a door being
closed, the quiet trod of footsteps, and then…

“I did not mean to wake you.”

James’
voice, low pitched and gravelly.
The
sound of it did the oddest things to her belly, making her feel as though she’d
swallowed a dozen butterflies and the poor trapped creatures were flitting to
and fro inside of her, frantically beating their wings in an effort to escape.

She remained in the chair but peered
around the side of it, the better to see him. He stood silhouetted in the
doorway, still as a statue. A fine layer of snow was spread out across his
broad shoulders. Flecks of white fell to the floor as he shrugged out of his
heavy coat and set it aside on the window ledge. More snow glistened in his
hair, melting to water as they studied each other, both unmoving.

“You do not have any wood,” Lily noted.

James shook his head. “No,” he said
quietly.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Suddenly
self conscious
, she ran her fingers through
her hair, knowing it must look a mess.

She’d tried a simple braid while James
was outside, but her hair was still damp, the strands impossible to coerce into
any semblance of order, and so she left them undone, letting the tangled curls
dry by firelight. She dropped her chin, glancing down at her blue muslin gown.
It was frightfully wrinkled, the fabric pulled taut in some placed and bunched in
others. She bit the inside of her cheek and fought the urge to roll her eyes at
herself.
Well done Lily
, she chided
silently.
Certainly the best way to
seduce a man is to have your hair a mess and your dress twisted up around your
ankles
. Heavens. She wasn’t very good at this, was she? Not that there was
a book written on such things. Or, if there was,
she
had never read it.

“Stop it,” she said as she lifted her
head and realized James was still looking at her with the same forceful
intensity, his eyes shimmering pools of dark in the soft glow of the room.

“Stop what?”

She gripped the armrest, frustrated
that nothing was
going
as it should. “Stop
staring
at me as though… well, as
though…”

“As though you are the most beautiful
creature I have ever seen? I cannot,” he said softly. “Not when your cheeks are
flushed and your eyes are heavy with sleep and your lips are still wet from
where you touched them with your tongue.”

The butterflies went crazy. Lily went
pale.
For a man who so rarely speaks
,
she thought dazedly,
he certainly knows
how to put the right words together
. And for once, for the first time she
could ever remember,
she
was the one
who couldn’t think of a single thing to say. “I… I…”

Sliding out of his boots, James stepped
forward. “I have tried to deny it, but you have felt it too, haven’t you? In
the ballroom, and then in the study.” His expression bemused, as though he
himself couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, he shook his head. “You are
without doubt the most antagonizing woman I have ever met… and the most
desirable.”

He was coming closer, Lily noted. Close
enough for her to see his face without shadow. Close enough for her to touch.
Close enough for him to reach out and gently, so gently as to barely be felt at
all, cup her jaw and tilt her head up. His fingers threaded through the curls
that framed her face and she leaned into his hand, helpless not to rub her
cheek against the calloused skin of his palm. “T-thank you?” she managed to
squeak, not certain if he was paying a compliment, not certain if she
remembered what he’d said at all.

James growled low in his throat. It
wasn’t an angry sound.
More of a frustrated surrender,
although what he was surrendering she hadn’t the faintest idea.
“You
should stop me,” he said huskily. His mouth hovered a hair’s breadth above her
own, so close she could see the dark line of stubble on his chin. Their eyes
met, their gazes held. For an instant Lily forgot to breathe, and when she
finally released the air trapped in her lungs it came out in a rush.

“What if I do not want to?” she
whispered.

Something flashed in James’ eyes.
Something dark. Something dangerous. Something so thrilling Lily felt her toes
curl. “Then heaven help you,” he murmured before he lowered his mouth to hers.

CHAPTER NINE

Lily was burning up and it
wasn’t
just because she was rolling
around on the floor in front of the hearth, although that certainly had
something to do with it. James was igniting flames inside of her… and he was
setting her on fire.

Shadow and light reflected off his skin
in equal measure as he settled himself beside her, resting, Lily could not help
but notice, on the left side of his body. She laid flat on her back, one arm
crooked behind her head, the other wound around James’ waist as though it were
the most natural thing in the world to mold her body against his.

He was kissing her slowly, his mouth
moving with lingering softness over her lips, occasionally drifting lower to
suckle the curve of her jaw or higher to tickle the sensitive bud of her
earlobe.

In the past, Lily’s kisses had always
been stolen in the dark; a quick, almost painful mating of lip and tongue that
left her mouth bruised and her heart feeling oddly hollow. Never in a hundred
years had she imagined kissing could be like
this
.

James took his time with her, as though
she were a fine wine
meant to be sipped and
cherished,
not a rough shot of brandy to be quickly swallowed. His fingers were tracing an
ever lengthening
path down her body, starting from the
flat plane of her stomach and moving down along the curve of her hip before
reversing direction and gliding back up towards her breasts. Never truly
touching where she ached for him most, and before long she was arching into his
hand, silently begging for something she could not name but desperately wanted.

The kissing continued
,
filling her with an ache so keen she would have done anything to satisfy it. As
though he could sense her growing frustration James murmured low in his throat,
a soft, soothing sound that did little to alleviate her growing passion. She
opened her eyes.

“Would you just hurry up with it?” she
snapped before she quite knew what she was saying. Silence followed and she
could feel her cheeks growing warmer. Now was
not
the time for talking, let alone barking orders. Oh, why
couldn’t she just be quiet and let what was going to happen bloody well happen?
Because you are an impatient hussy
,
she scolded herself,
and you are going to
ruin everything if you don’t keep your trap shut. He is kissing you, is he not?
Remain calm!
Easier to think than do, especially when it
felt as though her entire body was being consumed by flames of desire.
In hindsight she supposed it was a very good thing they had not kissed in the
study, for instead of Sarah walking in on her sitting by herself in a dark
room, she feared her friend would have interrupted something much more
scandalous.

Why James was going through with it now
when he had run before she did not have the faintest of ideas, nor was she
about it
question
his reasons. All she knew was it
felt heavenly, and despite the wrongness of it all it felt so
right
, and she really did want him to
hurry.  

As though he could sense the direction
of her thoughts James paused in his kissing and nuzzled the curve of her neck.
“I want to rip all the clothes off your body,” he whispered against her warm
skin, “and thrust inside of you so hard you scream my name.”

“
Oh
,”
Lily breathed.

His smile was quick to reveal itself
and even quicker to retreat
;
a mere flashing of white
teeth that never quite reached his eyes. “But that would be screwing, not
lovemaking, and a woman like you is deserving of the latter.”

Leaning towards him, she sat up on her
elbow. The bodice of her dress brushed against his shirt and without thinking
she reached out to toy with the starched edge of his collar. “A woman like me?
And what sort of woman do you suppose I am?”

James did not hesitate in his response.
“A woman who knows exactly what she wants.”

If only he knew the half of it, Lily
thought with the tiniest of grimaces. Again she succumbed to a deep,
uncomfortable sense of guilt, but she pushed the feeling aside. She was doing
what was best. After all, it wasn’t as though she had twisted James’ arm to get
him down on the floor with her. He’d made that choice all on his own, and soon
enough they both would pay the consequences.

“I do,” she said. “I do know exactly
what I want.”

“And that is?”

She sat up straighter, reached behind
her, and began to pluck at the stays on her dress. Her gaze steady on James,
she allowed the tiniest, most cat like of smiles to curve her lips before she
whispered, “You. I want you.”

Her gown slithered down to her waist.
James’ eyes darkened with lust. He swallowed hard, his
adams
apple jerking in his throat. She felt an
answering pull somewhere deep inside. A pull of need and desire she’d never
felt before. Wordlessly he held out his arm. Lily fell into his embrace, and
they both were lost.
          

Lily was a virgin.

No, James corrected
himself
roughly, Lily
had
been a virgin.

Now, courtesy of him, she was
not. 

The evidence was there on one plump
ivory thigh, a stain of crimson where there should have been only pale,
flawless cream. The evidence had also been there during their lovemaking. A
tightening of her mouth when he first pushed into her. A flicker of pain he had
mistaken for pleasure. A cry he took for a moan. So many signs… and yet he’d
still taken her on the floor like some rutting beast, deflowering her with all
the finesse of a wild animal.

Disgusted with himself, James rolled
away and sat up to face the fire as he fumbled with his clothes. The flames had
all but sputtered out, casting the room in shadow and allowing a chill to creep
into the air. He felt Lily stir behind him.

They dressed in silence. He found one
of her stockings by the edge of the hearth and pushed it silently towards her.
She pulled his shirt from beneath the winged chair and held it out, not meeting
his gaze when he took it from her. It wasn’t until James was attempting to
button his shirt that he made a sound. It began as a low growl of frustration
as he clumsily attempted to secure the buttons with one hand and ended with a
snarl that was more befitting a wolf than a man.

“Let me,” Lily said softly.

He turned from the fire to face her,
rising up on his knees, still attempting to shove the buttons into place. “I do
not need your help.”

“Yes,” she said, and this time she
lifted her eyes to meet his, “you do.”

Staring into those shimmering pools of
amethyst James felt a deep sense of shame descend upon him. Shame that he could
not do a thing so simple as button his own shirt. Shame that he had taken
Lily’s innocence. Shame that he was no longer the man he had once been. It
filled him with anger, all that shame, and he reacted the only way he knew how:
with deliberate cruelty.

“This is your entire bloody fault, you
know.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed
ever-so-slightly
,
but her voice remained calm. “It is my fault you cannot button your shirt?”

Another growl, this one more ferocious
than the last. “If it were not for you and that damn dog I wouldn’t even
be
here! And I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t…” But he could not form
the words. He surged to his feet. Lily followed suit, albeit with an elegant
grace he could not help but admire despite his anger. She’d donned her
undergarments, but her dress must have been too difficult to put on by herself
for it was still draped over the back of a chair. Her hair was loose and
tangled,
the dark curls spilling over her shoulders like a
stream of black ink.

“Please leave Mr.
Betram
out of this. He did nothing wrong. Now if you would hold still, I can help you
with your—”

“I DON’T NEED YOUR DAMN HELP!” He
kicked out at a small end table, striking one of the slender legs. It cracked in
half and the table, unsteady to begin with, crashed to the floor. Lily crossed
her arms.

“Well I suppose that is one way to get
firewood.”

James spun away from her to brace his
arm across the mantle of the hearth. His chest rose and fell with the force of
his breaths, even as a flicker of confusion gave him pause. Why wasn’t Lily
running from him in horror? Any other woman he knew would have fled screaming
by now, snow storm or no. He’d taken her virginity on the cold hard floor,
blamed her for something that had been his own decision to make, and yelled at
her with all the tact of a miserable old bear. Yet still she remained,
composure in place, not a hint of hysteria in sight. “I wasn’t always like
this, you know,” he said gruffly after a long, heavy pause.

“Moody and temperamental? I find that
hard to believe.”

“No.” Frustrated, he turned and jerked
his chin to the left. “Like
this
.”

“You mean your missing arm? I assumed
you lost it in the war, but I suppose you could have been born without it. Some
people are, I hear.” Lily shrugged, as though they were discussing something as
benign as the weather instead of his crippling defect. “I am happy for you that
you had it as long as you did, to be quite honest.”

“Happy?” James said incredulously. “You
are
happy
?”

“Yes. Imagine if you only ever had one
arm. You never would have been able to experience life with two. Although
perhaps that would have been better.” The faintest of smiles lifted her mouth
on one side. “I imagine you would have figured out how to button your own
shirts by now.”

Was she…
laughing
at him?

No, not laughing, James realized.
Accepting. She was
accepting
him, one
arm and all. The concept was so foreign – not to mention unexpected
– that he quite simply could not think of anything to say.

“I fear I am quite tired,” Lily said,
interrupting the silence before it could stretch into something bordering on
the uncomfortable. “Would you mind stoking the fire while I ready for bed?”
Without waiting for a response she headed for the bedroom, only to hesitate
with her fingers curled around the knob. “You
will
sleep with me, won’t you? For body warmth,” she said quickly
before he could manage a word. “I would hate to catch a chill. Come along, Mr.
Betram
.”

With a groan and a mumble the old
beagle surged to his feet and waddled after his mistress, leaving James staring
after both of them in slack jawed astonishment.  

CHAPTER TEN

28 days
until Christmas

The
Winswood
Estate

 “Sarah, I need to speak with you
at once.” It was only half past ten in the morning when Lily marched into her
friend’s foyer and handed her cloak and hat to a servant, but she did not think
for one moment that Sarah was still abed. Thanking the maid who had taken her
outer garments, she proceeded down the front hallway and into the music room
without invitation.

As predicted (from many other early
morning visits just like this one) she found Sarah sitting behind the
pianoforte, her fingers hovering in tense anticipation above the ivory keys and
her face scrunched tight in concentration.

“I cannot play this one sequence of
notes,” she complained without looking up. “The bridge is particularly
difficult, but Devlin talked me into doing a recital before Christmas Eve
dinner and I have to do it perfectly.” 

“Where is that husband of yours?” Lily
asked before she collapsed into a chair and propped her feet up on a cushioned
footrest. The room was warm courtesy of a crackling fire, and she rolled up the
sleeves of her light yellow morning dress to mid forearm. The other fireplaces
in the sprawling manor must have been going as well, for on her way up the
long, twisting drive she’d noted smoke spiraling from all four chimneys, the
plumes of gray standing out in sharp contrast against the clear blue sky.

It was a lovely day, last night’s
raging storm only evident in the thick blanket of freshly fallen snow. If she
tried hard enough Lily could almost imagine yesterday had never happened at
all, until she moved a certain way and the soreness between her thighs said
otherwise.

She and James had woken at first light
and left the cottage as dawn was cresting on the horizon. He brought her back
to where he found her and they parted ways without a word.

No promises spoken. No betrothals made.
Just one long, lingering look that instantly heated her cheeks and caused the
breath to stutter in her lungs. When Lily returned home – sneaking
through the servant’s door around the side – everyone had still been abed
with the exception of the cook, who had taken one look at Lily’s disheveled
appearance, rolled her eyes, and slipped silently back into the kitchen.