by Anna Bradley
Out alone with a gentleman at midnight? How shocking. If she hadn’t a care for her reputation, he saw no reason why he should.
Robyn had the most absurd urge to creep up to the window and peek into the foyer to see what Lily and her mysterious gentleman were doing. He could easily scale the low iron railing around the garden, and it was mere steps to the window from there . . .
He’d taken a few steps forward before he realized what he was doing and a wave of disgust engulfed him. Christ. Was he actually contemplating creeping through the shrubbery and peeking through a window?
Damn it. Not even a twitch of interest for Miss Bannister, in breeches, no less. Not a twinge at the Eel, but now here he was about to leap over a railing and skulk through the bushes so he could spy on Lily?
He was going through the front door, just as he would if he hadn’t lost his mind. He forced himself to walk calmly up the path and through the door.
Lily stood in the foyer saying good night to her tall, handsome, solicitous gentleman.
Alec. Of course. Who else would it be? Lord Atherton? Even Lily wasn’t that efficient.
Both of them stared at him. Alec had a sort of detached amusement on his face, but Lily looked horrified. She covered her mouth with her hand. “Robyn! Oh, what did you do?”
He scowled at her. What the devil did she mean by that? He hadn’t done it, whatever it was.
Alec gestured to Robyn’s eye. “Did one of your indiscretions finally catch up with you?”
Robyn reached up to touch his face and winced. Oh. Right. He’d forgotten the black eye. “Pelkey,” he said with a shrug.
Alec nodded. “Ah. Finally landed a punch, did he? His hands are the size of two roast beefs. Like getting kicked in the eye by a horse, I imagine.”
“Something like that.” Robyn’s gaze narrowed on his brother’s face. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, brother, but you look as bad as I do.”
Alec grinned. “Not that bad, I hope.” He turned to Lily and kissed her check. “Thank you for staying tonight.”
Lily squeezed his hand. “Of course. Good night, Alec.”
“Best put something on that eye,” Alec said to Robyn before he disappeared out the door.
Robyn and Lily were left standing alone together in the foyer. She looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else, and it occurred to him they hadn’t been alone together since their passionate interlude in Lord Barrow’s study.
If he took just one step closer to her, he’d be able to catch her scent. Unable to help himself, he moved forward and drew in a deep breath. Oh, God—there it was. Hot sun on meadow grasses. Daisies.
And there it was—another twitch. Not just a twitch, actually. More like a surge.
“Does it hurt?” Lily asked.
Does it hurt? Was she joking? “Er, not yet, but it will if I don’t do something about it. Soon.”
“What can you do for it? Put ice on it? It might take the swelling down.”
Robyn blanched. Ice? That didn’t sound like a good idea. Downright painful, actually—
Oh. Right. She meant his eye.
Lily regarded him warily for a moment. “I suppose I could help you with it, if you like.”
Robyn closed his eyes to better imagine what it would feel like to have Lily help him with his pressing problem. His nether regions, so stubbornly resistant earlier, were quite enthusiastic about that idea. His problem was growing larger by the second.
You’re behaving like a child. Still, he couldn’t help but indulge in the innuendo, made even more salacious because Lily remained oblivious to it. “Did you say you’ll help me? I’d be delighted to have an extra hand to help soothe the, ah, pain.”
“Yes. It will be difficult for you to do it yourself. You can’t see it very well.”
On the contrary, it was making itself quite visible. He felt a grin spread over his face. “I have done it myself before, on occasion.” On countless occasions, if the truth were told.
Lily looked puzzled. “How many black eyes have you had?”
Robyn’s brain registered the reference to his eye, but his cock, which had gone from a twitch, to a surge, to leaping in anticipation, remained unconvinced. He’d completely forgotten about the throbbing in his eye.
She turned toward the kitchens. “I think cook has some salve in the stillroom.”
At that point, nothing could have stopped him from following her. He did take off his coat to hold it in front of him, a nod, at least, to propriety. Surely she wouldn’t notice the state he was in? She was an innocent. How much could she possibly know about the male anatomy?
“Sit here,” she said when they reached the stillroom. Robyn sat obediently on a stool while she fiddled with some jars in a cupboard. “Ah, here it is. Betsy gave me this when I cut my leg on some thorns in the rose garden.”
Robyn adjusted his coat to cover more of his lap. Do not think about Lily rubbing salve on her bare leg . . .
Her fingers, slippery with the salve, gently touched his eye. She moved closer to get a better look until she was standing almost between his legs, her breasts displayed temptingly under his chin.
He kept his gaze straight ahead. Perhaps this hadn’t been such a wise idea, after all.
She wasn’t trying to tease him. She hadn’t any idea his body grew more desperate with every stroke of her fingers against his face. She was so close, yet he couldn’t touch her. She touched him, but so lightly, with just her fingertips, and only on his face. His hands were mere inches from her waist. The slightest tilt would bring his head against her neck.
He’d engaged in every kind of debauchery, but he’d never experienced anything more erotic.
Ah, God. It was torture of the most exquisite kind to sit here, surrounded by her scent while her soft fingers stroked him. He opened his knees a bit wider before he lost control and snapped them closed so she was caught between them.
Almack’s wasn’t his punishment. This was.
“Why did Lord Pelkey hit you?” She dipped back into the salve and he felt her fingertips against the swollen skin under his eye.
Robyn sat as still as he could and tried not to pant. “He didn’t—he was—”
String a sentence together, you fool.
“We were boxing. At Gentleman Jackson’s.”
Lily’s brow furrowed with distaste. “Boxing? I can’t understand why boxing appeals to gentlemen. It’s so uncivilized.”
Uncivilized? She had no idea. He was on the verge of downright savagery. “Men are uncivilized. Even gentlemen. That’s the very reason it appeals.”
Her delicious pale pink lips settled into a tight, disapproving line, but instead of cooling his ardor as they should have, those severe lips made him want to kiss her. Kiss her until they softened, and opened, and he could slip inside.
“Speaking of savagery,” he said, though they hadn’t been, “what did Alec say when you told him about Mrs. Tittleton? I’m surprised he didn’t black my other eye.”
Her blue eyes met his for an instant before she went back to her ministrations. “I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know anything about it.”
Ah. So she thought to appeal to his honorable side, did she? Her mistake. He didn’t have one. “I’m shocked at you, Lily. However will you make sure I behave myself and do the proper thing now?”
He tried not to notice the way her fingers brushed close to his ear as she tended to the outer edges of the bruise. Bloody Pelkey. He did have fists the size of roast beefs. It felt as if Lily were touching him everywhere.
She cocked her head to one side, considering this. “Why don’t you just do the proper thing anyway, and leave Alec out of it?”
Robyn snorted. “What fun would that be?”
She’d begun to work on the inside corner of his eye, but her hand stilled at his mocking tone. “I
don’t see why you’d draw the line at disappointing Alec, in any case. You don’t hesitate to disappoint your sisters. What’s the difference?”
Well, then. She knew him better than he thought.
In truth, there was no difference. He broke promises. He disappointed his sisters. He disappointed Alec. He disappointed his mother. God knew he’d done nothing but disappoint his father.
He shrugged. “Alec holds my purse strings. I wish I could claim some more honorable reason, but there it is.”
“Yes, well, as you said, men are uncivilized.”
He couldn’t take any more of her stroking without leaping on her. He grasped her wrist and jerked her hand away from his face. Her pulse leapt against his thumb, and he couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips against the soft skin there, just for a moment, before he released her. “Ladies, too, on occasion. After all, it was you who struck me last night, if you remember.”
Color surged into her face. “I remember you deserved it.”
Ah, he did love to tease her. He didn’t know any other woman who blushed so delightfully. Or blushed at all, come to think of it. “I remember it was worth it.”
She placed the stopper in the jar of salve, pushed it down tightly, and set it back in the cupboard, each movement calm and deliberate, then gave him a reproving look. “Perhaps it would be best if we both forgot it entirely.”
She turned on her heel, but before she could make her grand exit, he stopped her with a low chuckle. “Oh, love. It’s far too late for that.”
Chapter Seven
The lemonade at Almack’s did taste like water. Lily hadn’t tried the cake, but she knew it would crumble to dust in her mouth, even if it wasn’t as dry and stale as rumor claimed.
“You look lovely tonight, Lily,” Lady Catherine said for the third time. She patted Lily’s hand. “That color brings out your eyes.”
Lily smoothed a fold of her pale blue gown between cold fingers. “Thank you, my lady.”
She’d blushed to the roots of her hair when she’d caught sight of her reflection in the looking glass this evening, but Charlotte only laughed and insisted she wear the gown so the gentlemen could admire her “devastating bosom.”
Well, Charlotte needn’t have bothered. Devastating bosom or not, Lily had spent the entire night languishing on the side of the room with Lady Catherine while Charlotte and Eleanor danced.
Her very first ball in London, at Almack’s no less, and she was a wallflower.
Poor Lady Catherine looked rather puzzled, as if she couldn’t understand why Lily hadn’t yet been asked to dance. Evidently Lady Catherine hadn’t read the scandal sheet. She was the only person in the room who hadn’t. For all their sophistication, it seemed the ton wasn’t above a peek at Mrs. Tittleton.
Voucher or not, Lily was being soundly shunned.
Frizzle-haired Miss Thurston stood not ten paces away, but she hadn’t acknowledged Lily with so much as a word or a nod the entire evening. She whispered and giggled to her friend behind her fan. The friend darted appraising glances at Lily, whispered back to Miss Thurston, then both young ladies erupted into malicious laugher.
Lily turned away. She ran a careful finger over the fan clutched in her hand and wondered how she’d ever thought she could manage in London society.
“I can’t imagine where Robyn is,” Lady Catherine fretted. “It’s so provoking!”
“He must be delayed,” Lily said for the sixth time in less than two hours.
It had become quite the theme of the evening, trying to imagine where Robyn was. For everyone except Lily, who did her best not to imagine where he was. He wasn’t here, so what did it matter?
“I’m certain he’ll turn up any minute,” she added, though in truth she thought it far more likely they wouldn’t see Robyn for days.
She should have known he’d never appear tonight. She’d suspected as much, but to suspect a thing and truly believe it . . . well, if they were the same thing, she wouldn’t be choking on bitter disappointment with each sip of weak lemonade.
For all his carelessness, she hadn’t really believed Robyn would toss her to the ton like a lamb to ravenous wolves.
A guest voucher, or “stranger’s ticket,” had appeared for Lily at the town house late that morning. Charlotte and Eleanor amused themselves for quite some time with speculations about how Robyn had managed to secure it.
Lily had been stunned silent when the voucher arrived. Was it possible Robyn would turn up to escort her tonight, after all? Perhaps Delia was right. Perhaps they did all underestimate him.
She’d lingered over her looking glass for quite some time that evening while Betsy, Charlotte’s lady’s maid, brushed her hair until it shone. Betsy had pinned the heavy waves to the back of Lily’s head and nestled a thin silver band in the gleaming locks to hold it away from her face.
None of these efforts were on Robyn’s behalf, of course. She wasn’t such a fool as to primp and preen for a capricious man like him. She knew better than that, which was why her heart hadn’t sunk into her slippers when she finished her toilette and came downstairs to find only Rylands, the butler, standing guard in an otherwise empty foyer.
Lady Catherine, Ellie, and Charlotte came down the stairs after Lily. “Have you seen Robyn, Rylands?” Lady Catherine asked. “Is he waiting in the carriage?”
Rylands gave a stiff bow. “No, my lady. Mr. Sutherland left early this morning for his club and hasn’t yet returned.”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte moaned. “He’s gone to White’s? Why, he could be there for the rest of the night! Or anywhere in London, come to that.”
He could be locked in a dark room with Lady Downes, sampling the charms he’d had to forgo the other night. Or sampling the charms of any willing female in London, come to that. Wherever he was, his plans didn’t appear to include a ball at Almack’s.
“He did get the voucher, Charlotte,” Ellie reminded her sister. “He promised he’d be here.”
Lily stood quietly, but under cover of her skirts, her hands clenched into fists. He hadn’t promised anything of the sort. He’d been very careful not to promise, in fact. He’d said he’d procure the voucher and he’d done so, and that was the last of the miracles they’d witness tonight.
Blast the man. It infuriated Lily to stand there and look at Ellie’s hopeful face and know Robyn wouldn’t come.
“Surely we can wait another few minutes?” Eleanor said. “I’m certain he’ll be along.”
They did wait, for another twenty minutes. Lily tried not to squirm in her satin slippers as they all waited for Eleanor to get tired of standing in the foyer with her eyes fixed on the door.
“Oh, bother!” Ellie exclaimed at last, throwing her hands up in the air. “Shall we send a note round to White’s and hope for the best?”
The chances that Robyn was still at White’s were slim, indeed, and all of them knew it.
Lily gathered her skirts into her hands and started toward the door. She’d had quite enough of this. “Send the note, by all means, but we needn’t wait for a reply. We’ll go without him.”
Eleanor and Charlotte exchanged glances. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait?” Eleanor asked, fixing Lily with a meaningful look. “Robyn particularly wished to escort you to your first ball at Almack’s.”
Lily shrugged with a carelessness she couldn’t quite feel. She had no wish to brave the ton without an escort after Mrs. Tittleton’s perfidy, but neither would she allow Ellie’s and Charlotte’s evening to be spoiled, and she couldn’t bear to wait here another minute.
“So he will. He’s sure to arrive at Almack’s in no time.” She met Ellie’s eyes with a look that asked: How bad can it be?
Eleanor’s return glare looked rather forbidding. Quite bad, indeed.
Lily hadn’t any opportunity to change her mind, however, for Lady Cathe
rine spoke up then. “Of course Lily’s right. He may even be there now,” she added, with the confidence only a fond mother could feel.
Eleanor gave Lady Catherine a skeptical look, as though she wondered if her mother had actually met Robyn. “Very well.”
Off to Almack’s they went, and now they were there with no possibility of escape, Lily began to see how right Ellie was. As bad as it could be was quite bad, indeed.
“I can’t understand it.” Lady Catherine flapped her fan to and fro. “I thought for certain he’d be here by the time we arrived.”
Lily’s head began to throb. She didn’t want to think about Robyn anymore, and she’d rather chew glass than spend the rest of the evening discussing him. She gestured to the dancers, hoping to distract Lady Catherine. “Look, my lady. Charlotte and Lord Atherton dance beautifully together.”
They did. They looked well together, too. Perhaps Charlotte would marry him.
Someone should.
A half hour earlier, Lord Atherton had set out across the ballroom, his eyes fixed on their corner of the room. Lily held her breath and did her best not to look too eager when it became clear he was headed in her direction.
Perhaps he hadn’t read Mrs. Tittleton? Proper gentlemen didn’t pay attention to gossip, did they? Surely Lord Atherton wouldn’t believe such vicious—
He stopped in front of them and bowed correctly. “Good evening, Miss Sutherland.”
Charlotte curtsied. “Lord Atherton. This is my dear friend, Miss Lily Somerset.”
Well, that was the introduction out of the way, at least, and now perhaps—
“Miss Somerset.” Lord Atherton bowed. His cool blue eyes swept over her and then as quickly dismissed her. He turned back to Charlotte before Lily had a chance to say a word, and held out his hand. “Miss Sutherland, will you favor me with a dance?”
And just like that, all of Lily’s hopes burned to ashes.
He hadn’t been precisely rude to her, but he’d looked right through her, as if she were one of Almack’s gilt mirrors.
It seemed proper gentlemen did read the scandal sheets, after all.
