Winter’s Whispers

by Scott, Scarlett

  “You are terribly forward, sir,” she murmured, as if it were an insult.

  It was not.

  She wanted him to be more forward.

  To kiss her.

  No, Felicity. You must not. Remember why you have come here, Esme and Cassandra. You need a husband. This beautiful scoundrel is not what you need.

  “I pride myself on it,” the devil said with a smirk.

  A smirk that told her he knew the effect he had upon her.

  She blinked, forcing herself from whatever spell had settled over her. She could not afford to make a mistake. To be ruined. Felicity clutched the books to her chest as if they were a shield.

  “I have no doubt you do,” she managed, dipping into a passable curtsy.

  If Auntie Agatha had witnessed it, she would have scolded her. The form was all wrong. Then again, if Auntie Agatha had witnessed any of Felicity’s behavior just now, she would have likely packed them into the first carriage headed back for London.

  Reminding herself of her duty, Felicity skirted Mr. Winter and continued on her way to the library, feeling his too-blue gaze on her with every step she took.

  Chapter Three

  “I did tell you not to bring that cat, did I not, my dear girl?” Auntie Agatha asked, pinning Felicity with an imperious frown.

  Sigh.

  Felicity hugged Miss Wilhelmina to her and faced her august aunt. Auntie Agatha had insisted upon inspecting her morning toilette before she headed to the breakfast table. She was father’s older sister, widowed, white-haired, and given to prodigious churlishness. Mayhap the cause of that was the arthritis that often kept her bound to her chair, if not relying heavily upon her cane.

  “But she is my companion,” Felicity argued.

  “She has escaped thrice,” her aunt countered, disapproval dripping from her voice. “And how shall you snare yourself a husband when you are covered in cat fur?”

  Felicity glanced down at her bodice, which did indeed have a few strands of gray fur stuck to it. “I shall change before breakfast.”

  “It is best you should.” Auntie Agatha cast a dismissive glance over her. “This gown makes your bosom look far too large and your hips too wide.”

  But her bosom was large, and her hips were wide.

  Felicity bit her tongue, quelling the urge to offer a retort. Miss Wilhelmina offered a purr of commiseration.

  “At least you do not have your mother’s face. Rounder than a saucer of tea is not an attractive shape. Esme and Cassandra, however…they shall need more help, I fear. The finest dresses to distract from the rest of them.” Auntie Agatha raised a brow, making an expansive gesture that was somehow elegant and rude all at once. “Why do you not wear more ivory, my dear? Daffodil makes everyone look sallow, yourself included.”

  “Yellow is a cheerful color,” Felicity dared to argue, for it put her in mind of happier days and summer sun, flowers blooming in spring.

  The promise of renewal.

  Hope, which was becoming increasingly fleeting for Felicity with each day that passed.

  “A color cannot be cheerful, dearest,” Auntie Agatha dismissed. “Besides, cheer is a dreadful state, best reserved for the simple-minded and babes. The rest of us know what we are in for. Wear the jaconet muslin trimmed with Vandyke lace, if you please. It is most becoming.”

  A rare compliment from Auntie Agatha.

  “And a lady who is desperate must be as fetching as possible,” her aunt added.

  As usual, the compliment was wrapped in an insult. Felicity ought to have known.

  “Am I not fetching enough?” she asked. “I had no end of suitors in London.”

  “Two seasons, and you turned them all away. Even a diamond of the first water must choose from her beaux, lest they start defecting. Do you think the farmer wishes to chase about the cow for two years before he can milk it?” Auntie Agatha asked, her tone queenly.

  “Forgive me for thinking myself the better of a milk cow,” she said.

  “Never mind the analogy, dearest.” Auntie Agatha thumped her cane on the floor. “Reward. That is the promise you have to dangle before all gentlemen. Marriage to you is a great reward, and you must show them it is such. If you wait too long, you shall end up a spinster, and goodness knows what shall become of your sisters. It is your duty to them, to your father, to yourself, to make a good match.”

  A good match.

  Felicity sighed aloud this time rather than only in her mind. She was reluctant to ask what Auntie Agatha’s notion of a good match would be. For some reason, Blade Winter rose in her mind. Auntie Agatha would be properly horrified to discover she had consorted with such a man. As it was, she had been scarcely able to conceal her disgust over the common stock, as she had phrased it, of some of the guests in attendance.

  You will not know them, she had added for good measure. Speak only to the gentlemen in attendance.

  By which she had meant the lords, of course.

  But that was the trouble. Felicity wanted to know the common stock. Or rather, one of them in particular.

  “Lord Foy is in attendance,” Auntie Agatha went on. “And there is Lord Denton as well. Excellent prospects, the both of them, despite the latter having been jilted by the Duke of Linross’s daughter. Flighty chits, the both of them.”

  Felicity scratched Miss Wilhelmina’s soft head, her aunt’s recommendations droning on.

  His half sister, Lady Aylesford, held the infant toward him as if conveying to him the world’s greatest prize. If there was one creature Blade disliked more than cats, it was babies.

  He stared at the chubby cheeks, the soft skin, the white cap and swaddling. “No.”

  “Go on,” she said. “Lady Gwendolyn shan’t bite. You are her uncle, you know.”

  Christ, he supposed he was. As he stared at the miniature person still being offered, something unexpected slid through him.

  Emotion?

  Tenderness?

  “Uncle,” he said stupidly.

  The child looked delicate. He was a rough man. His hands were only accustomed to gentleness when skimming the lush curves of a woman’s body. Did not Lady Aylesford realize he could drop the thing?

  “Yes, Uncle Blade,” said his spoony half sister, smiling at him. “Hold her, if you please. Though you must tell me your real Christian name. No one is called Blade.”

  “I am.” He made no move to accept the child, but he had to admit Lady Gwendolyn was rather…sweet-looking. She cooed and made a sound of contentment, then stuffed her fist into her little mouth and sucked on it.

  “I refuse to believe it,” Lady Aylesford continued if he had not spoken. “Do hold out your arms, you silly man. Settle yourself on the settee like so. Excellent.”

  Blade found himself seated on the furniture in question, arms positioned to welcome the babe. Suddenly, his niece—half niece—was a soft, warm weight in his arms.

  It was…astonishing.

  Her blue eyes blinked up at him, and she grinned.

  “Uncle Blade shall do fine.”

  “Oh, she is in love with you already,” Lady Aylesford said, smiling. “You need not have fretted so about holding her. William?”

  He realized she was attempting to guess his Christian name. “Blade.”

  “Peter?”

  “Blade.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “John?”

  He sighed. Little Lady Gwendolyn grabbed his coat in her fist and tugged. “Blade, Lady Aylesford.”

  “Oh, do cease being formal with me,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “You must call me Grace.”

  The woman was stubborn; he admired that. When Genevieve arrived, he had no doubt the two of them would get on quite well.

  “Grace,” he allowed. Damn him if these Winter half siblings were not nearly as bad as he had supposed them to be.

  He liked them, in fact.

  Strange, that.

  The babe in his arms added a loud sound as if she were agreeing with him. He s
miled at her, thinking children were better than cats.

  “Would you mind holding her?” Grace asked. “I will return in but a moment.”

  “Here now,” he grumbled. “I am not the child’s nurse.”

  “Of course you are not. But uncles must hold their nieces.”

  They must? Since when?

  She was already on her way out the door of the private family salon, leaving Blade alone with Lady Gwendolyn.

  “This is a hell of a thing,” he told the infant. “I don’t like babes.”

  She cooed.

  “I reckon you aren’t bad,” he allowed.

  Lady Gwendolyn made a new noise, one that sounded rather ecstatic.

  He made a sound back at her, and she babbled. For a time, he sat there, the babe in his arms, exchanging noises with her, feeling quite proud of himself whenever Lady Gwendolyn appeared especially enthused. At length, the door to the salon swung open, and he glanced up, expecting to find Grace returning for the child.

  Instead, it was none other than the brunette beauty who had been haunting his thoughts ever since he had spotted her wriggling arse in his chamber.

  “Lady Felicity,” he greeted her, surprised. “I would stand, but I am…”

  Hell, he was afraid to move. Lady Gwendolyn was a precious, trusting bundle.

  “I see.” She hesitated at the threshold. “Forgive me for the interruption, sir. I was searching for my aunt.”

  He had seen her aunt last night at dinner—a typical society matron who had cast him a look of frigid disapproval. Although Blade had been seated far from Lady Felicity and her chaperone, his eyes had strayed more than once in their direction. In Lady Felicity’s direction specifically.

  “Do I look as if I harbor aunts to you?” he asked drily, raising a brow.

  Her pink tongue flitted over her full lips. “No, but nor do you look as if you harbor infants.”

  She was not wrong. This was dashed unusual. But for now, he could not stop thinking about her lips. About kissing her. He had been tempted when they had collided the day before. So bloody tempted.

  And he was tempted now.

  Lady Gwendolyn made another happy sound, reminding him he was not in any condition to kiss anyone. Which was just as well, because he had been sent to Oxfordshire to avoid trouble, damn it. Not create more.

  “I don’t,” he agreed. “This is my…niece.”

  The word felt strange. A lady was his niece, fancy nib title and all. He had a nephew already, thanks to Dom and Lady Adele. But Colin was a mister, not a lord. Blade had yet to reconcile himself to the fact he was bound by blood to this other half of the Winter family.

  Grace chose that moment to appear at Lady Felicity’s side on the threshold.

  She beamed. “Lady Felicity, I am so happy to find you here. It’s quite fortuitous. We need all the players we can find to assemble in the drawing room for a game of hoodman blind in one quarter hour.” She turned her enthusiasm upon Blade then. “You as well, brother.”

  Hoodman blind? A game?

  “I do not play games,” he informed her, suppressing a shudder.

  “Of course you do,” Grace insisted, crossing the salon and holding out her arms for her daughter. “I must return my little darling to her nurse, and then I shall join you.”

  “No games,” he repeated, the mere thought of engaging in something so frivolous making him want to hide.

  “Nonsense.” Grace scooped up her daughter. “Were you a good little lady for Uncle Blade?”

  His cravat felt too tight. What the devil was going on here? Lusting after a virgin, rescuing a kitten, holding a babe, and now being cozened into playing a game? And he rather missed the cherub, now she’d been taken from his arms.

  Hell.

  “She hardly made a sound,” he gritted, not certain if the question had truly been meant for him. Presumably—the babe could not speak.

  But Grace was already moving from the room. He stood belatedly, in deference, remembering himself.

  “Come with me, Lady Felicity,” Grace said smoothly. “It would not do for your reputation were you to spend so much as a moment in my brother’s presence. After that duel…”

  Damnation.

  Lady Felicity’s hazel gaze met his for a brief moment before she turned her attention back to Grace. She followed his half sister out the door. And for the first time in his life, he experienced the stinging rush of shame for what he had done.

  Quickly, he banished it.

  There was no way in hell he was going to play some silly drawing room game.

  Mr. Blade Winter was not in the drawing room by the time the guests assembled for the game of hoodman blind. Felicity told herself she ought not to be disappointed by his absence. He had informed Lady Aylesford in his cutting way that he did not play games. Why should she have expected him?

  It was not as if she wanted to see him or to spend more time with him. No, indeed. It was not as if she had been hoping for the excuse to touch him once more, albeit beneath the perfectly respectable guise of the drawing room entertainment.

  Yes it was.

  Felicity tamped all such unwanted emotions down, forcing herself to look instead at the eligible gentlemen in attendance. There was Lord Boddington. He had a head of dark hair, kind, brown eyes, and he was the heir to Marquess Worthly.

  It hardly mattered that he was not a handsome golden-haired rogue with a dimple that drove her to distraction. Mr. Blade Winter was altogether unsuitable. Even his name was disreputable, to say nothing of the rest of him. Why, he was part of the Winter family who had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. The Winters who lived in the rookeries and ran a notorious gaming hell along with all manner of criminal enterprises.

  Lady Emilia Winter, as the hostess, began speaking, explaining the rules of the game. A blindfold would be tied around the eyes of one person. That person would be spun about in a circle, then have to go about the drawing room as the other players attempted to avoid him or her. When the person who was “it” caught someone, they had to guess their identity.

  “Who shall go first?” she asked.

  “I will,” announced the Duchess of Coventry.

  The blindfold was placed on her, the duchess was spun about, and she began searching the chamber. Fortunately for her, the first person she caught was her husband, the duke, who stood still for her comical exploration of his person, which began with his nose.

  “Coventry,” she guessed with a grin in no time.

  Her laughing husband admitted she was correct, and then it was Coventry’s turn to be blindfolded. The festivities proceeded for some time, Felicity mildly entertained as the various players took their turns. At last, Lady Aylesford caught Felicity and guessed correctly, much to Felicity’s consternation.

  She held still as the blindfold was placed over her eyes and she was spun until she was so dizzy she stumbled. Good heavens, for the second time in as many days, she was going to fall and make a complete fool of herself. And just when she had to make the best impression.

  When she was desperate.

  She attempted to regain her balance and composure, but both had swung wildly in the wrong direction. Her arms stretched before her, waving in windmill fashion. It was too much. After attempting to take a frantic step forward, her slipper caught in the hem of her gown.

  And then, she was hurtling forward.

  Until she wasn’t.

  She landed against a body. Masculine, warm, and firm. Her hands clutched at the lapels of a gentleman’s coat. With her eyes blindfolded, she felt so completely at a disadvantage. But the rest of her senses were more alive than ever.

  A scent reached her. The hands that were on her upper arms felt…familiar.

  Citrus, musk, man.

  She gasped as recognition dawned. But how could it be? He had not even been in the drawing room when the blindfold had been tied around her eyes. Had he?

  “You have been caught, Lady Felicity,” said a female voice.
r />   Laughter accompanied her call from various ends of the room.

  Still, the hands on her would not release Felicity. She had indeed been caught, and she feared she knew by whom. Her pounding heart and the fierce reaction burning through her told her exactly who it was.

  She ought to guess and simply forfeit the blindfold. Put an end to this foolish game and reckless desire to keep touching Mr. Blade Winter. He was the last sort of man she should want. There was no future for her with a man like him. He was the sort who ruined ladies. And had not Lady Aylesford told her all about the duel he had so recently fought? Over a married lady, no less.

  The reminder caused a new burst of resentment to unfurl within her. She ought to push him away. To stomp on his foot.

  Instead, a wicked idea blossomed.

  She could touch him as she pleased, and he could do nothing to stop her. He could not tease her, say a word, or display his maddening grin. He could not touch her in return, beyond steadying her as he had done.

  “I am no longer in danger of falling,” she told him crisply. “Thank you.”

  With more of a delay than was necessary or proper, he slowly released his gentle grip on her arms. There. Mayhap if he was no longer touching her, the rushing in her ears would stop and her heart would resume its normal, sedate pace instead of running on at a distracted gallop.

  Her fingertips glided over his coat, finding his broad shoulders and skimming across them. “Your shoulders are quite small,” she announced to the chamber. “Why, if you were not wearing a gentleman’s coat, I should have thought you a lady.”

  It was difficult indeed to keep the smile from her lips as she uttered the last.

  He made a snorting sound but said nothing.

  “You must be a young man,” she guessed next, running her hands down his arms.

  In truth, touching him thus was intoxicating. Her heart had only sped up its pace. It was as if no one else existed in the drawing room beyond the two of them. Her lips tingled, and she wondered if his brilliant gaze was upon them. Somehow, instinctively, she knew it was. She ran her tongue over her lower lip.

  He made another sound. Not a snort this time.