“Wilfred, you’re as full of information as any old woman,” Perry said, watching the silent flirtation being acted out for all of them. He noticed that both the Cunningham boys were looking mildly dejected.
Wilfred grinned and dished out some more information. “I think my mother only invited him to make the others look good.” His grin grew. “Won’t she be disappointed? And those two,” Wilfred said, jerking his head in the direction of Cecily and the Italian. “Old Henry’ll have an apoplexy.”
Perry had been trying hard to ignore the pair Wilfred spoke of so gleefully, even though he had joined the tour with the idea of keeping an eye on them. Now, as they stood in a semicircle around the massive, ornate, curtained bed in the Queen Elizabeth room, he could not drag his eyes away from Cecily. As he watched her, Franco leaned toward her and whispered something that brought a faint blush to her cheeks. To prevent himself from leaping across the bed at Franco and making a complete cake of himself, Perry tried to concentrate on what Amelia was saying.
“And even though she never slept here, it’s called the Queen Elizabeth room because it was made for her and nobody else has been allowed to sleep here.”
“Oh but that’s not true, Am,” Wilfred piped up. “Don’t you recall that Weldons always spend their wedding nights in this bed? Uncle Oliver was here with his third wife just last winter. They didn’t come out for three days.”
Amelia cast a mortified look at Mr. Chadwick, who had gone nearly crimson himself, and pressed her lips together. “I’m not surprised you found it necessary to mention such a subject, Wilfred. I’ve always said you’re still quite a child. Now then, let’s go look at the gallery. Everybody who knows about such things says it’s an excellent example of sixteenth-century architecture.”
Perry gave Wilfred a sympathetic pat on the back and said, “Everybody who knows about such things declares sisters to be a sore trial.”
At the door he stepped back to let Wilfred pass through first, then positioned himself to slip between Cecily and Franco. Cecily smiled at him as she stepped across the threshold. Franco was only a few steps behind her but he had lingered a moment too long admiring the carved paneling on the ceiling. Perry moved quickly and was at Cecily’s side in three long strides. He felt a slight tingle between his lime-and-lemon-clad shoulder blades and glanced over his shoulder to see Franco staring after him. Just a draft, he assured himself.
“I much prefer old houses to new,” Perry said to Cecily as they walked along. “New houses are so bland.”
Cecily eyed his jacket and said, “I’m not surprised you don’t like things bland. Here’s the gallery. I think you’ll like it. It hasn’t been changed since it was built, except at the other end, where the new wing was added.”
They passed through a low doorway into a long, narrow, timbered room with whitewashed walls and ceiling. Perry was no expert on architecture, but he’d been in enough old country houses to know he was standing in a fine example of the architecture of the period.
“This is the perfect time of day to see this room,” Cecily told him.
The descending sun was at precisely the right position to fill about half the room with sunlight. In about another half hour the whole room would be a great sunny vault. Dust motes shimmered in the air, which felt warm and lazy.
Cecily wandered off a bit from the rest of the group, who were all listening to Amelia’s litany of interesting events that had taken place in the gallery, complete with unwilling brides-to-be being beaten into submission and proposals made to more fortunate ancestors. Perry moved quickly to follow Cecily when he saw that Franco meant to intercept her. What he really wanted was to put his arms around her waist, pull her close and nuzzle the hollow where her neck met her shoulder, which looked warm and golden in the sunlight. Somehow he managed to maintain a gentlemanly distance.
“What?” Cecily asked him, turning from the window with an inquisitive look.
“Beg your pardon?”
“You sighed. I thought perhaps you wanted to say something.”
“Oh.” Perry hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Well, if I was going to say something, it’s gone straight out of my head. Too many thoughts whirling about, you know. Hard to keep them all straight.”
“Hmm.” Cecily turned back to look out the window.
Perry would not have paid a ha’penny to know what she was thinking. He thought it best not to know.
They stood in silence until Amelia ended her dissertation on the gallery and led the group toward the door opposite the one they came in.
“Come, Miss Bettencourt,” Perry said. “Let us discover what other wonders your cousin has in store for us.”
Cecily sat down on the window seat she had been standing next to and smiled up at him. “I think I’ll just stay here a while longer. I know the house inside and out and to tell you the truth,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I think Amelia’s making up half of it anyway.”
Perry hesitated. Did she mean for him to stay too, or did she want to be left alone?
“Miss Bettencourt, do you wish to be left behind in this barren room?” Franco asked, walking up behind Perry.
“I believe Miss Bettencourt rather favors this barren room and intends to stay here in peace once we’ve moved on. But tell me, Comestibili,” Perry said, moving to follow the rest of the group and forcing Franco to do the same. “Have you anything as fine and simple as this in Italy? Or is everything all-over baroque curls and cherubs?”
Chapter Eight
Cecily exerted all her willpower and refrained from watching the departure of her two suitors, for that was what she decided to consider them, whether they were or not. It would not do to appear more than moderately interested in them. It would most certainly not do to be seen smiling after them if they should look back over their shoulders at her and she hoped that at least one of them would look back. She assumed what she believed to be a world-weary expression for the benefit of whichever one did look.
When the last voices faded away, Cecily let her face relax into a more thoughtful expression. What next? It was too early to start getting dressed for dinner, even for a lady bent on impressing all the gentlemen, or just two of them. Or three. She smiled at the memory of the way Wilfred’s jaw had dropped when he first saw her last night. If she had known what a giddy feeling of satisfaction resulted in rendering Wilfred speechless, she would have made a hobby of it years ago.
The gallery was silent. In the small hours of the morning, even the servants were all asleep. It felt strange, being the only person awake in an enormous house full of people. It felt like a spell had been put on the house and she was the only one not affected by it.
But Cecily knew one other person in the house was awake—the person who had slipped the note under her door, asking to meet her here in the gallery. She worked her way down the room, pausing a moment at each window. Moonlight shone down on the garden below, but the gallery was all in shadow. Even the Weldon ancestors in their portraits appeared to be slumbering. Every time she paused at a window she listened, waiting to hear a quiet footstep or the creak of a floorboard.
Finally, when she reached the last window, she felt the air stir behind her and heard a door close softly. A moment later she knew he was standing behind her, but she didn’t turn around.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” His voice was already husky with desire. Had he also spent the hours of waiting imagining what was to come?
“You’ll do as I say?” he asked.
“The note said, ‘Don’t come if you aren’t prepared to obey me.’ And I’m here, aren’t I?”
He stepped up behind her but he didn’t touch her. He just stood there, so close that if she had leaned back, she knew she would have felt his body against hers. But she didn’t lean back. She waited. She had read about games like this in one of her great-aunt’s books. She had never played before but she knew the rules. She would wait until he made the first move—or until he told
her what to do.
Finally, he stepped forward and closed the space between them. Cecily felt his hands run lightly down her hair. They brushed over her shoulders and then down her front, touching her breasts lightly—too lightly. She bit her lips, holding back the words, stopping herself from asking for a firmer touch.
“You’re ripe, aren’t you?” he whispered against the top of her head. “Ready for plucking.”
“I’ve been ready for hours,” she admitted.
He chuckled. “Let’s not make you wait then. Go over to that table with the vase of roses.”
Cecily turned without considering why he wanted her to go to the table. She was ready to do whatever he told her, if only he would touch her again.
He sidestepped to stay behind her when she turned and followed her to the table in the middle of the room. Cecily knew he wasn’t going to let her see him. Keeping his identity a secret was part of the game and she was happy to oblige. She knew that tomorrow she would be studying all the male house guests, hunting for some clue as to which of them knew her secret. That might even be the best part of the game.
“Let’s see what you’re wearing under that dressing gown.”
Cecily’s hands trembled as she untied the sash and shrugged the dressing gown off her shoulders. She was aroused almost beyond bearing and yet he’d barely touched her.
She let the gown fall to the floor and waited to feel him behind her.
“Move the flowers to the end of the table.”
The heavy vase slid easily across the highly polished wood.
“Now lift up your shift and let me look at you.”
Cecily started gathering the lightweight fabric into her hands, pulling it up past her knees, up to her thighs and after the slightest hesitation all the way up to her waist.
“That’s far enough,” he said, and finally he was standing close enough to touch her.
She felt his fingers brush against the backs of her legs and across her buttocks. He spread his hands over her hips and leaned into her, pressing his hard cock against her.
“Do you want that?” he asked.
Cecily nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“What was that?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded just as shaky as she’d feared it would.
“Well, then. Who am I to deny a lady? Bend down over the table and we’ll see what I can do for you.”
Cecily lowered her upper body across the table.
“Very good,” he said, taking a step back. “Now spread your legs.”
Cecily didn’t hesitate. She’d seen pictures of this and she had wondered what it would feel like to be exposed this way, to be spread open and vulnerable.
“I’ve been watching you thinking,” Franco said as he sauntered toward her. “I shudder to think what plots you’re scheming.”
Cecily was grateful that her face was turned toward the window, away from Franco. Can he tell what I’ve been thinking about? she wondered. She took a moment before turning and answering to force a stern expression onto her face. She could only hope she didn’t look as flushed as she felt.
“You should not have been watching me, sir. It’s not the sort of thing a gentleman does.”
“Correction, Miss Bettencourt. It is not the sort of thing a gentleman admits to. May I sit?” he asked.
Cecily nodded. After an awkward silence, during which she wished Franco wasn’t sitting quite so close, or maybe that he was sitting just the slightest bit closer, she said, “So, you abandoned the house tour.”
Franco sighed. “I have seen so many English country houses, Miss Bettencourt. I find that I am more interested in the people who inhabit them.”
“Oh.”
“Tell me more about the Weldon’s French cook.”
“Their cook? Well, he’s been with the family for as long as I can remember.”
“An old man, then?”
“No, not at all. I suppose he must have been quite young when he started. He travels with the family to London each year.”
“Indeed,” Franco said thoughtfully, as though she had told him something terribly interesting.
“Yes,” Cecily continued. “Every year he receives an offer of employment from at least one other household. And every year he refuses to leave the Weldons.”
“The offers are not tantalizing enough?”
“Tantalizing is the very word for them, sir,” Cecily said, forgetting to be aloof and mysterious. “He was once offered twice what the Weldons pay him and only last year a duke offered him a position.”
“He must be a fool to turn down a duke.”
Cecily raised her chin and looked Franco in the eye. “Perhaps the unsettled nature of your life has left you unfamiliar with the concept of loyalty, Mr. Comestibili.”
Franco raised his eyebrows. He seemed unfazed by Cecily’s lofty tone. “You believe the cook stays out of loyalty. Perhaps because of some good turn one of the Weldons did him years ago?”
“That’s one possibility,” Cecily said, resisting the urge to fidget.
“How quaint. How charming,” he added, leaning ever so slightly closer.
Cecily turned toward him, then looked away to gaze out the window, trying to look like there was nothing she considered as boring as being in such close proximity to a devastatingly handsome man. She gave him a sidelong glance. Make that a devastatingly handsome, intriguing man. Franco was surrounded by the exact air of mystery that Cecily was trying to cultivate. She should study him, she decided with a little smile.
“Could I beg a favor of you?” Franco asked quietly.
Cecily kept her gaze trained on the stretch of the long, curving drive that was visible between the trees. “Of course you may.” She turned and looked expectantly at him. Was he going to kiss her? Could he hear her heart pounding?
Franco reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of folded paper. “Could you deliver this to the Weldons’ esteemed cook for me?”
Cecily breathed a silent sigh of relief at the same time she felt a tiny pang of disappointment. Then her eyes narrowed. “Is there some reason you cannot deliver it yourself?”
Franco shrugged and smiled that winning smile.
“Can you at least tell me what it is?”
This time he used an apologetic smile.
“An offer of employment, I suppose,” Cecily guessed. “From some well-placed friend who has offered you a handsome finder’s fee.”
“You are wise beyond your years, Miss Bettencourt.”
“Humph!” Cecily said, but she took the sealed letter Franco held out to her.
“I am in your debt,” Franco declared gravely. “If ever there is anything I can do for you…”
He was on his feet, bowing over her hand. She suspected he was ready to make a rapid exit now that he had gotten what he wanted. He was just turning away from her when she spoke.
“There is one thing.”
Franco turned back and waited. The expectant smile was definitely the most attractive, Cecily decided. It was probably the first one she’d seen that revealed a genuine emotion.
She let him wait several seconds, then said in a businesslike voice, “I would very much appreciate it if during your stay here you would flirt with me now and then.”
Franco’s smile changed and he took a step toward her. “Merely flirt?” he asked, looking down into her eyes.
Cecily jumped to her feet. “Yes.” She sidled away from him. Somehow he’d gotten too close again. “Merely flirting will do nicely. In public, of course. Preferably in front of my father. Or somebody you think likely to report to my father.”
“I understand,” Franco said with a knowing smile. “You are punishing him.”
Cecily tried to give him a disdainful look, which he appeared to interpret as an affirmative reply. She would have to practice disdainful. It wasn’t part of her usual repertoire. Besides, what did it matter if he knew she wanted to punish her father? Why should she care if he thought her
petty and foolish? She would probably never see him again after Amelia’s house party ended. I’ll probably never see any of the guests again, unless Amelia marries one of them.
“Your father, perhaps, sent your ardent suitor away.” Franco said, interrupting her train of thought. “He broke your heart and now you will punish him by making him think you have chosen a penniless foreigner for your new suitor.”
“That’s as good an explanation as any,” Cecily said, deciding to let him think what he wanted. “We have an agreement, then?”
“We have an agreement,” Franco said, sounding amused.
Seconds later Cecily was watching him stride away across the length of the gallery. She smiled. Her father would not like him nearly so much when he started flirting with her. She still held the message for the cook. She took a close look at it. She would have loved to know who was offering what to hire the Weldons’ cook away from them, but the paper was folded and sealed.
As soon as Franco had left the gallery, Cecily left out the opposite door and headed for the kitchen. She wanted to complete her end of the bargain as quickly as possible. But the kitchen turned out to be such a flurry of activity that she could not even pick the head cook out from all the busy kitchen workers. It was like stepping into a beehive.
She headed resolutely out of the kitchen and past a warren of workrooms, in the direction she believed would take her to the part of the house where the upper servants’ rooms were. She was sure they would be just up these stairs and around the next corner.
“Oof! I say, Miss Bettencourt. Are you all right?”
Cecily had bounced hard off Perry and would have fallen if he had not caught her by the arms. She found herself suddenly out of breath, standing very close to Perry. Her hands were flat against his chest for balance and his fingers were still wrapped around her arms. She could feel his heart beating against her palms. She knew she should step back, but she could not make her feet obey her brain’s command. She held her breath as Perry’s hand slid from her elbows up to her hands and his fingers curled around hers. The warm feeling spreading from her hands along her arms and beyond was quite extraordinary.
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