Thomas wasn’t supposed to be handsome. He was Thomas. Only he was handsome. She had to admit it. Very well. He was a man, full grown, and she was a woman, full grown. But they were still friends, and that was what they would remain. However, if he wanted to help her feel less nervous by giving her a kiss, she would take him up on the offer. It didn’t hurt that he happened to be handsome, did it?
The memory of their kiss during the scene at the rehearsal briefly flitted through her mind. She’d managed to force it from her thoughts for the most part, due to sheer stubborn will. But the truth was, that kiss had made her feel funny inside. It had sent butterflies winging through her belly. She’d told herself a hundred times that the act of kissing itself must be responsible for such a reaction. She’d find out tonight if he kissed her again, wouldn’t she? If she had that same reaction, she’d know. Kissing was simply a highly enjoyable pastime.
“What took you so long?” he asked, jolting her from her shameful thoughts.
She smoothed her hand down her middle and cleared her throat. Why was she shaky? She was never shaky around Thomas. “Ladies must wait an extra five minutes before arriving at their assignations.”
“I see. I believe you failed to tell me that part.”
“You hardly gave me a chance to explain.”
“Very well.” He folded his hands behind his back and paced a few steps. “Would you like to begin with the flirtatious exchange?”
“With you?” She laughed.
He stopped to look at her. “Yes, I’m told that’s part of this. And we want to do it correctly, don’t we?”
“You’re being ridiculous, you know.” She said it accusingly, but she could have sworn at least one butterfly was flitting around her middle.
“I’m not going to count that as part of the flirtatious exchange,” he replied.
“Thomas, I—”
He took two long strides and pulled her into his arms. Her heart beat so loudly where her breast pressed to his coat she was certain he could hear it.
“I believe I should begin by telling you that you look beautiful tonight,” he said in a husky-soft voice. His face had changed, and his expression looked downright … serious. He was a good actor. He was going to be a wonderful Demetrius.
“Thank you, Your Grace.” She’d never called him Your Grace unless she was making a jest.
Those kind, solemn eyes—the eyes of a handsome stranger, suddenly—searched her features. “You smell like … lilies.”
Her perfume was made from lilies. Thomas wasn’t acting. He had actually sniffed her perfume. Disconcerting, to be certain. She swallowed hard.
He leaned down, and his lips brushed the side of her face, her ear, her temple. Goose bumps rushed along her skin. What was happening to her? This is Thomas. This is Thomas. This is Thomas. She couldn’t remind herself enough because the feelings in her chest and … lower, were anything but friendly. Or perhaps they were too friendly.
His lips touched hers, lightly, lightly, and the breath caught in her throat. That wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as—
Then his mouth slanted across hers, and his tongue slid between her lips. White-hot sparks of something that felt nothing at all like friendship shot through her body.
She clung to him, fingers clutching his finely made coat and then inching up slowly to wrap around his neck.
His mouth on hers was like fire, lapping at her. It licked her everywhere and made her feel both hot and cold all over. Deliciously melting in places she barely knew existed.
She held as still as a fawn, soaking in every new jolt of sensation as his tongue explored the recesses of her mouth. His lips owned her, shaped hers, and when she tentatively touched her tongue to his, a strange sound rumbled in his chest, and he kissed her harder, deeper. He pulled her against his rock-hard body, and she moaned in the back of her throat, leaning into him, wanting more of him somehow, more, more, more.
And then, just like that, it was over. When Thomas drew away from her, she was breathing heavily—panting, in fact. And completely dumbfounded. Mon Dieu. What had happened? Kissing, it turned out, was magnificent. It was her favorite. Better than riding a horse too fast. Better than ices at Gunter’s.
Thomas’s hands lingered, warm and gentle, at her waist, and he pressed his forehead to hers as though he couldn’t help himself, drawing breaths more ragged than her own. His eyes were closed, his lashes resting dark against his cheeks, and she was glad. For in that moment, she could freely stare at him as if he were some sort of magical beast. Like a Centaur who had emerged from the hedgerows to passionately kiss her.
At last she took a step back, studying him with wide eyes. “Oh my goodness. Have you done that before?” Wonder slid into suspicion.
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Wh … why not?” She could barely speak. The man had stolen her breath.
“Because I’m saving myself,” he replied, his expression grave, more sincere than she’d ever seen it. And maybe a bit vulnerable.
She finally caught air enough in her lungs to ask, “F … for who?”
“For the lady I’m madly in love with.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
An entire week had passed since her rendezvous in the gardens with Thomas, but Delilah still could not focus on her lines. She kept forgetting every one of them. Her head was a mass of confusion. And she had quite a lot to be confused about. First, Thomas had kissed her, and second, Thomas was madly in love with someone? Who? He’d refused to say. He’d acted as if he hadn’t meant anyone in particular, but the very notion had gnawed at Delilah’s mind ever since he’d said the words, and the possibilities had plagued her for days.
He’d laughed it off as if it were a jest. She’d wanted to believe he was jesting or still acting, but something told her he hadn’t been doing either. This served to further complicate her well-laid plans. Not to mention it made her insides feel sick. Who in the world could Thomas be madly in love with? It wasn’t Lady Emmaline, was it? Oh, what if it was? Or even worse, what if it was Lady Rebecca who clearly returned his affections?
Her confusion over Thomas wasn’t the only thing plaguing Delilah either. She’d begun tonight’s rehearsal with an excessively unpleasant conversation with Lavinia, in which the lady had demanded that Delilah force Lord Berwick to pay attention to her. The Duke of Branville had barely said two words to Delilah all evening. She’d attempted to flirt with him, hoping he’d ask her to meet him in the gardens, but he’d done no such thing, and she couldn’t exactly be the one to ask. That would be outlandishly forward. To add to her misery, she was becoming half-nauseated watching Lady Rebecca flirt with Thomas. Delilah was contemplating fleeing the rehearsal to go hide in her bed. She regretted leaving it this morning.
* * *
Thomas scanned the library where the actors were practicing their lines in small groups scattered here and there. Lavinia had poor Lord Berwick cornered. Branville was nearly shouting his lines onstage, and Jane was trying to get everyone to settle down and focus. They only had a bit over a fortnight before their performance in the country.
Thomas had watched earlier as Delilah made her way over to Branville and tried to talk to him. He had to admit, it didn’t bode well for her. Branville seemed barely aware of her presence.
Thomas rubbed his chin. Last week when he had kissed Delilah in the Hillards’ gardens, he’d half expected her to know how much he loved her merely from the kiss itself. It had certainly seemed to surprise her. The look on her pretty face when he’d pulled away from her had been a combination of surprise and … dare he hope … lust?
He’d kept his distance from her for the last week. They’d seen each other at rehearsals, but other than the lines they’d recited together, he’d hardly spoken to her. He didn’t trust himself. His entire future with the woman he loved could be ruined if he made a muddle of this.
He still wanted to kick himself for telling her he had been saving himself for the
woman he was madly in love with. That was far too risky a thing to say. He hoped she’d interpreted it more as a one day sort of thing instead of a current state of affairs. But she’d narrowed her eyes in suspicion when he’d implied he’d been jesting, and he could tell she was skeptical. That was another reason he’d kept his distance from her. What if she asked again? Knowing how determined she could be, he fully expected her to interrogate him if given the chance.
What had he hoped to accomplish by telling her? If he was being honest with himself, he’d admit that he’d wanted her to see the love shining in his eyes and fall equally in love with him, which, of course, was ludicrous. He should simply come out and tell her. Why the hell was it proving so difficult? He was handling this entire thing poorly. He needed to regroup and make a better plan.
He’d gone off with a half-cocked notion that if he paid attention to Lady Rebecca, Delilah might see him as a man and a possible suitor. Hadn’t Lucy told him that was an effective way to gain a lady’s attention? The kiss had been more of the same, an attempt to get Delilah to see him differently. More than a friend. Instead, he suspected he’d only confused her. Not to mention he had no intention of leading Lady Rebecca on for the sake of making Delilah jealous. That would be ungentlemanly.
To add to his troubles, Lavinia was on the warpath of late. Lord Berwick had not asked her to dance with him at the Hillards’ ball, and she’d been in a rage over it ever since. Tonight, she was following the poor man around, doing her best to get his attention. At the moment, they were steps behind Thomas, close enough for him to overhear their conversation.
“Lord Berwick,” Lavinia said, “I thought we’d practice our lines.”
“I don’t believe we have any lines together, my lady. Snout and Hippolyta don’t speak to each other.” Berwick sounded puzzled.
“Perhaps not.” Lavinia’s voice held an edge of annoyance. “But that doesn’t mean we cannot practice our lines at the same time.”
“I suppose we could.” Berwick had to realize she was being ridiculous, but the man was obviously too much of a gentleman to continue to point it out to her.
Thomas watched them drift off into the corner together. He and his sister weren’t as different as he’d like to think, were they? Apparently they both wanted someone who wasn’t interested in them. He’d already shown Delilah he was eligible, kind, and intelligent. That ridiculous speech about the origins of the waltz had to count for something, didn’t it? He hoped she had found him kissable and handsome. Now, he needed to show her that he was funny. Or remind her, at least. They’d always laughed together. She seemed particularly unhappy today. He wanted to see her smile again.
Thomas turned to find Delilah approaching him. She nodded in the direction in which Lavinia had just left. “She threatened me, you know?”
Thomas’s brows shot up. “Who?”
“Your sister.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Of course she did. I’m sorry.”
Delilah crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a rueful smile. “She’s a woman who knows what she wants and intends to get it.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. I say she’s a spoiled termagant.”
Delilah laughed. “Or that. I’m nearly certain she threatened Miss Adeline too, but unlike me, Miss Adeline threatened her back.”
Thomas’s bark of laughter followed. “I’m not certain who I’d bet upon to win that particular fight.”
Delilah pursed her lips. “I had to tell Miss Adeline he was not allowed to pull out her hair.”
“That seems reasonable.” Thomas let his gaze wander over her softened features. “By the by, how did Lavinia threaten you?”
“She told me if I didn’t get Lord Berwick to come up to scratch, she’d spread rumors about me to Branville.”
Thomas rolled his eyes. “God. She’s awful. What was your response?”
Delilah shrugged. “I told her I was doing my best and that she must be patient, which of course is completely hypocritical coming from me because I have no patience whatsoever.”
“Did you put in a good word for her with Berwick?”
“No. Instead, I had a discussion with Lord Stanley and told him he cannot talk about drainage anymore if he hopes to capture her attention.”
Thomas laughed again. “Did you give him any suggestions for suitable conversation?”
“I told him to talk about Lavinia’s favorite subject.”
“Herself?”
“Precisely,” Delilah said with an impish grin.
They both laughed. And Thomas found some tension draining from him.
“How’s it going with Branville?” Thomas asked next, thinking the slightly unkempt curls brushing her forehead were especially fetching tonight.
“How’s it going with the woman you’re madly in love with?” Delilah countered.
The tension returned. Thomas took a deep breath. He could either keep pretending he’d been jesting or attempt to use what he’d already said to his advantage. “It’s not going particularly well.”
“Nor mine,” she murmured, her attention drifting across the room to the object of her affection. “Nor mine.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Call you me fair? That fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars, and your tongue’s sweet air. More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear. When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching. O, were favor so. Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. My ear … My ear…”
It was no use. Delilah could barely remember her first lines. All she could think about as she uttered them was how she might be playing Helena speaking to Hermia, but she might as well be herself speaking to Lady Emmaline Rochester.
Precisely three days ago, Delilah had been told by her maid, Amandine—who was friendly with the other French ladies’ maids about town—that the Duke of Branville had been paying regular calls to Lady Emmaline. That unwelcome news had thrown both Delilah and Lucy into a whirlwind of action. They’d scrambled to come up with a plan to attempt to gain Branville’s attention and favor.
As a result, over the last three days, Delilah had been shamelessly throwing herself at Branville. During rehearsal, she’d hinted that she would very much like him to pay her a call the next day. She’d waited impatiently at home all afternoon with only the regular call from her cousin Daphne. At the Mortons’ soirée, Delilah had been forced to ask him to dance, a situation that still caused her cheeks to heat every time she thought of it, especially when she recalled that during their dance, she stepped on his feet no less than three times. And last night at the Cranberrys’ ball, she’d managed to convince him to walk in the gardens with her, only to have been paying scant attention, resulting in her being whacked in the face by the branch of a particularly low-hanging tree. She’d barely had five minutes alone with him, not to mention the ridiculous incident had left her with a large scab on her forehead. The opposite of attractive. It could easily be said that not only was her courtship with Branville not progressing, it was, in fact, deteriorating daily, and Delilah was at her wits’ end. Adding to her sense of failure, she also hadn’t managed to drag a name out of Thomas as to whom he might fancy.
She tried her line again. “Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go. My ear…”
“My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye. My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody,” Danielle Cavendish said softly as she came to stand next to Delilah in the corner of Lucy’s library.
Delilah gave her a tentative smile. “Yes, thank you, Cousin Danielle.”
Danielle inclined her head toward her and returned the smile. “How are you, Helena?”
Delilah opened her mouth to say she was quite well, but shut it quickly. “Quite miserable, actually,” she admitted, blowing out a deep breath.
Sympathy shone in Danielle’s bright blue eyes. “Why’s that?”
Delilah leaned her back agai
nst the wall and hugged her script to her chest. “You know I’ve been trying to make an impression on the Duke of Branville.”
Danielle nodded. “I’d guessed as much.”
Delilah dabbed at the scab on her forehead with one finger. “Well, I fear I’ve made an impression, but the exact wrong one.”
Her cousin winced. “If you mean the incident with the shirt, he cannot possibly hold that against you.”
“The shirt, the abysmal French, the parrot, then this.” She pointed toward her scab. “I don’t see how he cannot hold some of it against me.” Delilah sighed and hugged the script closer.
Danielle folded her arms over her chest. “If he does, he’s a bigger ass than Nick Bottom.” She finished with a nod.
Delilah tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. She peered over the script at her slippers. They were already scuffed, of course. Poor Amandine had spent hours cleaning them. “I don’t know what to do. I’m failing miserably at the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”
“What’s that?” Danielle asked, her kind eyes filled with sympathy.
Delilah dragged one slipper along the floor. “Matchmaking.”
“It must be difficult to matchmake for yourself.”
“It should be simple. I’ve had a great deal of practice.” Delilah lifted her head and pressed it back against the wall, searching the ceiling as if that large area of plaster might give her the answers she sought.
“You’re being far too hard on yourself.” Danielle laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
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