The Risqué Resolution (6 page)

She’d bathed her face and chest in cold
water, exchanged one set of clothes for another, and set off at once for the
Winswood
estate which
was only a
brisk walk down the lane in the opposite direction of where she’d gone the day
before.

If Sarah thought it was odd of her
friend to show up before breakfast without a carriage or even a horse, she made
no mention. Then again, Lily’s eccentricities were well known, especially to
Sarah. Adjusting the skirt of her rose colored morning dress, the blond played
a few more notes before she turned the sheet music over with a huff and stood
up. “Devlin is in London on business. He left directly after the ball, and
should be home by the end of the week. Do you want tea and scones? I believe
Cook just made fresh ones.”

“That would be lovely.” 

Sarah waited for the refreshments to be
brought out on a silver platter before she sat down across from Lily. She
raised her eyebrows. “Well?” she said expectantly. “What is it you have to tell
me?”

Selecting a scone, Lily bit into warm
dough, not realizing she was half starved until she wolfed down the first scone
and started on the second. “Why do you assume I have something to tell?” 

“Your mother came looking for you
yesterday afternoon. I told her you were upstairs changing, and that we were
going into town for a bit of shopping.”

Relief washed over Lily like a wave,
only to be followed by something distinctly less comfortable. If her mother
believed she had spent the day and night with Sarah, then her reputation would
not be
ruined as she feared…
except her virginity
truly had been lost. The irony of it caused her to laugh, and Sarah’s
expression grew tight with concern.

“Lily, what is it? I can tell something
is bothering you. I did not want to say anything at the ball, but you have been
acting very odd as of late. Is this because of your father?”

Yes, it
was
because of her father, but not in the way Sarah meant. Lily
took a deep breath. She needed to tell Sarah everything, if only so someone
else could share her burden. It was a selfish thing to do, but then hadn’t she
already proven that she was, in fact, quite selfish? Taking a sip of tea to
settle her stomach, she told her friend everything in a rush, beginning with
Mr.
Guthridge’s
visit and ending with that very
morning when she and James parted ways without a word spoken between them.

Sarah’s eyes grew wider and wider with
every revelation, but she did not interrupt and Lily was grateful for her
silence. When she was finished, when there was no detail left unsaid, she slumped
back in her chair, threw an arm up over her face, and groaned loudly. “And so
you see I am now quite ruined. James will not have me, Christmas is right
around the corner, and we will soon lose everything to Cousin Eustace.” She
opened one eye and peeked under her wrist. “Have I left anything out?”

“Heavens,” Sarah said dazedly, “I hope
not.”

Lily’s smile was both wry and self
deprecating. “I do not know what to do,” she admitted. “I thought sleeping with
James would solve all of my problems, but now I fear I have only made them
worse. What if he tells someone what we did? No man would have me after that.”

“I do not know Captain Rigby overly
well, but from what I have heard of him he seems like a man of high moral
character.” Sarah’s smile was encouraging. “So you should not worry about him
spreading idle gossip.”

“Yes, no one need know I’ve lost my
virginity until my future husband discovers my lack of innocence on our wedding
night and tosses me out on my ear.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about that either.
Seeing as your cousin will soon have all of your money and you will not be in
possession of a dowry, no man of consequence is likely to look twice at you.”

Lily dropped her arm to stare
incredulously at her friend. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, I suppose not.” Sarah took a
thoughtful bite of her scone. “But I am confident we will come up with a
solution. After all, what happened to you is not so different than what
happened to me, and look how well everything turned out with Devlin and I!”

“I fear James is not the sort of man to
profess his love over a sleigh ride through the park. He did not say a word,
Sarah. Not a
word
when we parted
ways.” The anxiety of it all settled in her chest like a stone, weighing her
down and leaving her rooted in the chair where she once would have paced
circles around the room. What was she going to
do
? For once, Lily did not have an answer.

“Well, did
you
say anything when you parted ways this morning?” Sarah asked.

“I… No,” she said after she thought
about it. “I didn’t.”

“There you have it, then!” Sarah said
excitedly.
A bit
too
excitedly,
Lily thought with a scowl, given the dower circumstances.
“
You
did not say anything so
he
did not say anything. Perhaps he is
sitting in a drawing room somewhere at this very moment, having the same exact
conversation we are!”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Oh, posh.” Sarah waved her hand in the
air. “What do you know? Look at what a muck of things you’ve made so far. I
must say
,
this is not at all your best scheming. Which
makes it all the more interesting, does it not?”

“You are talking in riddles,” Lily said
irritably, “and not being at all helpful.”

“I am being incredibly helpful,” Sarah
corrected with a beaming smile. “And I have come up with a perfect solution.”

Hope flickered inside Lily’s heart,
hesitant as a newly born flame.
Was
there
a way to fix everything? Sarah certainly seemed to think so. She bit the inside
of her cheek, telling herself not to get too excited even as the anticipation
nearly drove her up and out of her chair. She wrapped her arms around her chest
to contain the pounding of her heart and leaned forward. “Which is?” 

“It is quite simple, really. All you
have to do is ask Captain Rigby to marry you.”

James had not moved from his chair for
the past hour. He sat in silence, staring down at his desk and the blank piece
of blank parchment resting on top of it. The words that needed to be written on
the parchment – a simple letter to a solicitor – echoed in his
mind, but try as he might he could not summon the concentration necessary to
commit them to paper. His mind was preoccupied, his thoughts very much
elsewhere. 

As the second hour began to pass his
muscles grew stiff but still he remained in the chair. Not moving, just
staring, as though the empty page before him would reveal all the answers he
sought if he but studied it long enough.

“I knocked, but you did not answer.
What are you doing?”

James jumped at the sound of his
sister’s voice. He’d been
so
deep in thought he hadn’t
heard her at the door nor, it seemed, noticed when she entered the room.
Dressed in a drab gray dress with a white shawl wrapped around her shoulders
she looked old beyond her years… and far more serious than any
sixteen year old
girl should ever appear. “I was thinking
about something,” he said honestly. “What are you doing awake and dressed?” He
glanced out the window, thinking perhaps more time had passed than he initially
believed, but the sun was still rising in the sky, indicating the hour to be
quite early.

Natalie shrugged her shoulders beneath
the shawl. “I could not sleep.” Tucking her legs up, she settled into a chair,
but kept her gaze on him, her blue eyes inquisitive. “You did not come home
last night.”

“No.” He did not offer an explanation,
for what could he say?
I did not come
home because I was in the process of ruining a young woman’s life. What woman?
Oh, the very same one you met at the
Heathcliff’s
ball.
He hoped Natalie would be satisfied with the fact that he was home
now
and leave the matter alone, but he
should have known better. His sister had always been curious and, when it came
down to it, often quite nosy. As a girl she’d been caught eavesdropping behind
doors on more than one occasion, a habit
which
seemed
unbroken even after all this time.

“Did you go into town?” she asked,
resting her chin on her knees and looking very much like the baby sister he had
left instead of the waif like, sad eyed woman he’d returned home to. “Or to the
pub? Or perhaps you went—”

“Leave it alone Natty,” he said, a hard
edge to his voice. Her face paled, and he could have kicked himself. “What I
meant to say, is my absence is nothing you should concern yourself with…
sweetheart.” The endearment sounded odd even to his own ears, but he was
determined to be softer with his sister, and what better way than to begin
using terms of affection? Unfortunately, it did not have the effect on Natalie
he would have hoped.

“Do
not
call me that,” she said fiercely.

James’ forehead creased in
bewilderment. “Sweetheart, I did not mean—”

“STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!” she
shrieked, and in the aftermath of her sudden outburst they were both silent.
Natalie was breathing heavily, her small chest pushing in and out
quick
as a bird’s.

James noted her fingers were pressed
into the arms of the leather chair so hard her knuckles shone white in the
drowsy light of morning. She was terrified, he realized dumbly. Absolutely
terrified.
But of what?
Of him?
Somehow, he did not think he was the cause. The
shell shocked
expression on her face was the same he’d seen worn by men on the battlefield
after they’d witnessed an unspeakable horror. “Natty,” he began, careful to
keep his voice calm so as not to upset her further, “is
there
something you are not telling me?”

She shook her head quickly. Too
quickly, James thought.

“Did… did something happen to you while
I was away?” he persisted, not willing to let the matter drop until he had
answers. They could not go on like this.
He
could not go on like this: walking on eggshells around his own sister, afraid
of what to say, never knowing what to do. It was time she faced her demons and
started healing. It was time they
both
faced
their demons and started healing. For some reason, at that very moment, Lily’s
face rose unbidden in his mind. He saw her quick smile. Her violet eyes, filled
with laughter. Her long, silky legs, wrapped around his hips…

“I do not wish to speak of it,” his
sister whispered, efficiently drawing him back to the present.

“Natty…”

“You should marry,” she said suddenly.

James blinked, as caught off the guard
by the sudden change in conversation as he was by the topic. “I should… I
should what?”

“Marry,” she repeated. “I think it
would be good for you to have someone.”

“I have you,” he said automatically,
but Natalie only shook her head, her smile impossibly sad.

“You need someone else,” she insisted.
“Someone to help care for you and this house. Someone to make you laugh.”

Lily makes me laugh
.

“You deserve to be happy again.”
Natalie’s blue eyes were wide and beseeching. James looked away, unable to meet
her gaze and the truth he saw reflected within. Pain recognized pain, he
thought. Which was why his sister could so clearly see what he kept hidden
inside.

“I have not thought of marriage.” A
lie. It was
all
he’d been thinking
about since he woke up that morning tangled in the arms of a beautiful,
mischievous sprite. He knew what he had to do. What he was honor bound to do.
He had taken Lily’s virginity, something that should have exclusively belonged
to her future husband, and while she had been a willing party, he would not let
her face the consequences of their actions alone.

And yet James could not help but think
it would not be such a consequence. He knew nothing about Lily Kincaid except
the husky sound of her laughter, the stubborn glint that gleamed in her eye
when she’d set her mind to something, and her willingness to risk her life for
an old hound anyone else would have abandoned to the wilderness. More lies. He
also knew the taste of her skin.
The tempo of her heart.
The sound of her moan… He shook his head to clear it, and dared a quick glance
at Natalie. His sister was studying him intently, the oddest of smiles on her
pale face.

“Do you know what I would like for
Christmas above all else?” she asked.

James did not have the faintest of
ideas. “A new dress?” he ventured.

Natalie shook her head. “A sister. I
should very,
very
much like a
sister.” Leaving him gaping after her, she gathered her skirts and skipped from
the room.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

25 days
until Christmas

Time was running out.

Lily knew it. Her mother knew it. Elsa
knew it. Even Mr.
Betram
knew it, if his constant
nightly howling was any indication.

From James she’d heard not a word,
which only made everything all the worse for she thought of him constantly. He
invaded her dreams every night without fail, sliding into her subconscious as
stealthily as a shadow and filling her mind with the sound of his husky voice,
the serious slant of his mouth, the touch of his skin…

During the day it was not much better.
Even though only three days had passed since their time together in the cottage
she must have imagined him a hundred, nay, a
thousand
times. If she did not keep herself busy she thought of
him. If she slept she thought of him. It seemed with every breath she drew she
thought of him, until she was so consumed it was nearly impossible to think of
anything else. Which was why, on a bright, sundrenched afternoon, she found
herself with Sarah at the very last place she desired to be: a holiday fair in
the middle of town.

Shop owners hawked their wares from
every street corner. A man with a white beard pushed a wooden cart filled to
the brim with wreaths. Children ran through the crowd selling bright red
ribbons. A group of women, wearing matching green cloaks and fur muffs, sang
cheerful carols at the top of their lungs.

Sarah, boasting a bright smile, held
fast to Lily’s arm and steered them both towards a vendor selling steaming hot
cups of chocolate. There was a rather long line – no surprise given the
frigid temperature – and Sarah turned to Lily after they’d shuffled their
way into it. “Isn’t this positively delightful?” she asked, raising her voice
to be heard above the din.

Lily did a quick, sweeping glance of
the organized chaos and struggled not to grimace. “Yes,” she lied.
“Delightful.”

Sarah’s face fell. “You are not having
a good time at all, are you?”

The line moved forward a few feet, and
they moved with it. Lily sighed. “I am trying. Truly I am. But all of the
festivities—”

“—
are
only reminding you that Christmas is right around the corner,” Sarah finished.
“I should have taken that under consideration. We can leave, if you would
like.”

“No.” Lily shook her head from side to
side, causing the hood of her cloak to fall back. She’d pinned her hair up in a
circular braid that wound around the crown of her head and woven red ribbon
through the thick, glossy strands in an attempt to be festive. Unfortunately,
it seemed not even pretty ribbon could boost her spirits, but she was not about
to let her problems effect Sarah’s happiness. “We will get hot chocolate and
walk all around. I saw a booth selling glass snowflakes when we first came in.
I should like to buy one for Elsa, and find something for Mother as well.”

Sarah’s expression was doubtful. “Are
you certain?”

“Yes, I—I…” She trailed off in
sudden alarm.

“Lily? What is it? What’s wrong?”

But Lily wasn’t listening. She was,
instead, doing her best to hide behind Sarah, but the blond kept spinning in a
circle, making it quite difficult. “Stop moving!” she hissed, peeping up and
over her friend’s shoulder at the man she’d spotted across the square. Even
from this distance there was no mistaking James’ tall, rugged frame for anyone
else’s.

“What on earth…” Sarah breathed, before
she followed Lily’s gaze and picked James out from the crowd as well. It wasn’t
very difficult to do. Even if he wasn’t dressed in all black he still would
have stood out from the rest of the merry goers, as different from them as the
moon was from the sun. He stood by himself off to the side, his expression
shuttered. “Is that
him
? Is that Captain Rigby?”

Lily nodded.

Sarah squealed.

“Oh, this is perfect! You must go over
and speak with him. And for heavens sake, get out from behind me.” Sarah’s
frown was disapproving. “I have never seen you act like this in all my life.
Why are you hiding?”

“I am not hiding,” Lily said
automatically.
Except she was.
Feeling rather
sheepish, she straightened up and stepped to the side of her friend, never
taking her eyes from James. He looked well, she decided. In an
I-am-angry-at-the-entire-world sort of way, which was so very typical she could
not help but smile. Her smile was quick to fade, however, as she wondered if
he’d been thinking of her as she’d been thinking of him.

Did he lay awake at night remembering
their time spent together? Or was she already forgotten, a fleeting star in an
endless sky of flickering lights? Suddenly, Lily didn’t know if she possessed
the courage to find out.

“We need to leave,” she hissed, ducking
back down behind Sarah’s shoulder.

“Too late,” Sarah said, sounding far
too cheerful given the circumstances. Then, in a louder voice she said,
“Captain Rigby, is it not? We were introduced, albeit briefly, at my home. And
this” – reaching behind her, she grabbed a hold of Lily’s arm and
forcibly dragged her forward – “is my dearest friend Lady Lily Kincaid.”

“We have met,” James said curtly. His
eyes were cold, his countenance inscrutable. Lily could feel the words she
wanted to say withering up and
dieing
inside of her
throat. For someone who always had an answer for everything, it was a foreign
– not to mention unpleasant – sensation.

“Well then,” Sarah said slowly as her
gaze traveled from Lily to James and back again. “If you have already met, no
doubt you wish to have a moment alone to be reacquainted. I will be right over
there if you need me.” And she was gone, and even though
they
were surrounded by people in the middle of a very public town square
,
Lily had never felt more alone in all her life.

Say something
, she
thought desperately.
Anything, say
anything!
“Mr.
Betram
is doing well,” she
blurted.

“I am glad to hear it.”

Lily waited for him to say something
else, but it seemed that was it.
I am
glad to hear it
. Five short words which had nothing to do with the matter
at hand. Inexplicably she was filled with an irrational surge of anger, most of
it directed at the man standing in front of her. After all,
he
had been the one to approach
her
. And all he had to say for himself,
after two days of silence, was ‘I am glad to hear it’? Her nostrils flared.
“Could I speak with you,” she gritted out, “in a more private setting?”

James inclined his head and began to
move through the crowd, his strides so long she had to pick up the hem of her
skirts and run to catch up.

By the time they’d rounded the corner
of the fabric store and stopped short in a narrow alley framed by two sizable
brick buildings Lily was out of breath and in the grips of a temper she hadn’t
felt in quite some time. “You,” she wheezed, jabbing her pointer finger at
James, “are a pompous jackass.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Are we back to
this?” He shifted his weight and leaned against one of the buildings. Flickers
of sunlight, beaming in through the front of the alley, played across his face,
illuminating the scruff of beard he’d failed to shave and a tiny white scar on
the corner of his chin she hadn’t noticed until now. “Do you always toss
insults about when you don’t know what else to say?”

Lily crossed her arms tight over her
chest and glared. “I have
plenty
to
say.”

“Well then, go on.”

Her mouth opened. Closed. She thought
of the nights she’d spent awake staring at the ceiling and rehearsing, word for
word, what she would tell James if given the opportunity. Now her chance was
here, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

So she said everything.

Beginning with the death of her father
and ending with the cottage she left nothing out, and when she was finished it
felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. The guilt was
gone, and even though her confession meant James would never marry her and
everything was ruined, she was content with the knowledge she had not tricked
him into a marriage they would both come to regret.

Having been unable to look him in the
eye while she was spewing out the truth in quick, hot bursts of half sentences
and jumbled words, she lifted her chin to gauge his reaction… and felt her jaw
drop when she saw he was smiling. “Do you… Do you not understand what I have
told you?”

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” he said.

“And you are not angry?” she ventured
hesitantly.

He pushed away from the wall and
stepped forward, crowding her back against the brick. It felt warm against her
exposed neck, but the warmth of the
sun drenched
wall
was nothing compared to heat rapidly pooling in her belly.

“Furious,” he whispered. Their eyes met
and held a second before he tilted his head to the side and claimed her mouth
with his.

The kiss was long and lingering and so
brutally passionate it left Lily gasping for breath even after James stepped
back. He stood in the middle of the alley, his shadow flung up over her left
shoulder. His expression was impossible to read, his body taut.

“What… what was that for?” she gasped.

“A test,” he said.

She fought the urge to grind her teeth.
Getting the man to say more than three words was the equivalent of prying a
rusty nail from a hard knot of wood. “What
kind
of test?”

“One to see if what we had before was
real or feigned.”

Oh
. “And?”

“I believe it was real.” He rubbed the
side of his face where her fingers had pressed while they kissed. “Why tell me
everything now? You could have gotten away with it, and I would never have been
the wiser.”

Lily shook her head. “I do not want you
to want me because you feel obligated or… or honor bound.”

“And if I wanted you for you?”

She regarded him sadly. Perhaps, in
another time, in another place, they could have been perfect for each other.
She liked to think what she felt for him was not born of desperation, but how
could she ever know for certain? Despite having shared their bodies they were
still strangers. They’d really only met twice, at the ball and then on the road
that ultimately led to the cottage. “How could you? I just admitted that I
wanted to trick you into marrying me.” The shame of it brought a rush of color
to her cheeks. “You deserve someone far better than I. You are a good man,
James Rigby.” She ached to touch him, and burrowed her hands deep into the
pockets of her cloak, her hands curling into fists so tight it caused her nails
to bite into her palms. “An honorable man. Even a kind one, beneath all your
gruffness.” She managed a smile. “You need a woman who is quiet and soft and
gentle. I am none of those things, nor do I fear will I ever be.

Something flickered across James’ face.
Surprise? Anger? Regret? Lily could not be certain. She began to say goodbye,
but the words remained locked inside her throat. Realizing she was perilously
close to tears she let her body say what her voice could not.

 The embrace was painfully quick.
Her arms, wrapped around his neck.
Her lips, pressed against
his cheek. Inhaling the scent of him. Memorizing the feel of him.
One last, longing stare.

And then she ran.

You deserve someone far better than I.

Lily’s voice played back in James’ mind
as he watched her hurry away. He kept his gaze trained on her dark blue cloak
for as long as he could, but when she went behind a vendor’s cart he lost her
to the crowd.

The bloody woman thought she wasn’t
good enough for him.

Clearly, she was a bit mad.

Yet still he wanted her in a way he’d
never wanted anything in his entire life. It consumed him, this want, until he
could not think of anything else. The taste of her lingered on his lips and he
stared at the place where she’d been far longer than he should have.

When the sounds of the holiday fair
finally began to wind down and the sun was heavy in the sky James returned
home. The house was empty – Natalie was staying the night at a friend’s
– and, for the first time in a very long time, he yearned for sound. He
needed light and laughter to fill the carnivorous hole inside of him, a hole
forged by death and decay and dark things no man should ever bear witness. He
needed someone loud and boisterous. Someone who wasn’t afraid to tell him when
he was being an ass or, he thought with a smile, a bacon-brained
fatwit
.

He wanted to hear the house ring with
the sounds of children laughing, James realized as he sat heavily behind his
desk. And he wanted Natalie to have a woman she could speak to. Someone strong
she could admire and trust.
Someone to help her face the
demons that haunted her.