by Anna Bradley
“It’s a crush,” Ellie said as they waited in the carriage queue.
Charlotte glanced out the window and smiled with satisfaction. “Yes. Just as I imagined it would be. You see, Lily?”
Lily stared out the window. Coaches were lined up three- and four-deep on both sides of the street, and the ton crowded the stairs and doorway of the Chatsworths’ town house, a school of resplendent, silk-clad fish attempting to swim upstream against the current.
Her throat closed. “However will we find Archie in such a mad crush?”
Robyn shifted closer to her to see out the window. “What, you mean to say you didn’t make an arrangement beforehand?”
Lily tried to move away from his thigh, but she was pressed against the side of the carriage as it was. Robyn’s mouth twitched at her movement, and he leaned so far over her, Lily feared he’d crawl right into her lap. “You’ll have the devil of a time finding him, if he gets inside at all.”
He shook his head with regret, but his tone put Lily in mind of a child who’d stolen a sweet from his nurse’s apron pocket. If she hadn’t been certain even he couldn’t pull off such a grand prank, she’d believe Robyn had arranged the entire scenario, right down to the squirming mass on the town house steps, all of whom were in a perfect position to gawk at her as she alighted from the carriage.
Lily’s jaw set. The evening was bound to be a disaster anyway, so what did it matter if Archie was lost in the crowd, or if the misery she’d endured at Almack’s paled to nothing in comparison to this? It didn’t matter that Robyn’s dizzying scent clung to her skin, or that his warm thigh felt like part of her body now, as if she’d grown a new appendage. She’d never admit she needed him.
Admit it? She’d never need him. Period.
She must not have looked as confident as she felt, however, for Lady Catherine leaned forward and touched her hand. “It’s all right, dear. I’ll alight first with Charlotte, and you and Eleanor will follow directly behind us. We’ll clear a path through the crowd for you, and Robyn will come after us.”
The carriage jerked forward, then stopped abruptly. Miraculously, a place had opened just at the foot of the town house stairs, and their coachman had slid neatly into it. Lily sagged against her seat. Even the heavens had conspired against her.
The driver leapt from his perch, set the stairs, and opened the door to hand out Lady Catherine. Charlotte followed, then Ellie. Lily slid across the seat toward the door, but froze when she saw her friends were being jostled forward by the crowd. Eleanor turned around as if to go back to the carriage, but the ocean of bodies swept her up in their undertow. Lily saw a look of despair cross Ellie’s face as the crowd swallowed her.
Nausea roiled in Lily’s stomach as she stared out the carriage window at the glittering, chattering crowd. Oh, dear God. She’d have to walk through alone, unless—
Robyn’s voice was soft. “Take my arm, Lily.”
She felt his dark gaze on her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the open door of the carriage. She couldn’t look at him; couldn’t bear to see the triumph on his face.
Robyn’s hand, warm even through his glove, settled on her neck. “Oh, no,” he murmured. “You will look at me.”
He slid his hand up her neck to her cheek to turn her head gently toward his, until she had no choice but to look at him. Lily’s eyes slowly rose to meet his.
What she saw there, in those dark depths, stunned her.
There was no triumph—none of the gloating satisfaction she’d expected to see. His eyes burned with that same fierce heat she’d glimpsed in the morning. His gaze drifted over her face, lingered on her mouth, the perusal so intense it felt as though he’d run his fingers across her skin.
He lifted her gloved hand from where it rested on the seat and placed it on his arm, and then the street was beneath her feet.
It seemed as if the crowd on the stairs all turned as one to watch their approach. The faces blurred together, a tunnel of flashing jewels; open, leering mouths; and pointed teeth. So many teeth.
A woman laughed, high-pitched and brittle, and a shiver darted down Lily’s spine as the dark maze yawned open before her. With every breath, she disappeared deeper into its depths, yet no matter how many steps she took, she got no closer to the center. Soon the hedges would grow so high, she’d not be able to see over them, and then the pointed teeth would devour her.
“Relax, Lily,” Robyn murmured.
He’d said the very same thing during their waltz, and she’d heeded him, as if she had no choice—as if she were fated to follow every one of Robyn’s whispered commands. She’d done as he’d bade her, and with each turn of the dance she’d felt her worries whirl away from her. She’d got precious little else from that dance, but she’d had that one moment of perfect freedom.
What would it be like, to feel that free every day?
She looked up at Robyn, so tall and confident beside her. Several gentlemen called out greetings to him. He nodded casually back at them. His arm was relaxed beneath her fingertips, reassuringly solid, his gait loose and fluid, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. As if the two of them weren’t at this very moment being swallowed whole by a dark maze from which they might never emerge.
It dawned on her then, in a moment of extreme clarity, that Robyn hadn’t a care in the world. The ton could believe every word of Mrs. Tittleton’s slander. They could think him the worst kind of lecherous rake, and Robyn would never care enough to bat even one of his sinfully long eyelashes over it.
The realization came on an unexpected burst of admiration.
Oh, how glorious it must be, to care nothing for society’s censure.
But then, on its heels came another, grimmer thought.
How terrible it must be, to care for nothing at all.
* * *
She’d ruined the sleeve of his coat.
Robyn glanced down at the crumpled folds of black superfine clutched in Lily’s white fingers. Her face remained composed, her head high, but her eyes darted in every direction and her grip tightened with each step.
She did need him. He hadn’t any idea why it mattered so much, but it did.
He braced his arm under her fingers, and for the first time since their argument that morning, the hollow feeling in his chest began to ease.
When they reached the entrance to the town house, however, she dropped his arm and began to turn away from him.
He grasped her wrist before she could take another step.
Did she think to just walk away from him now? He’d said he’d take care of her tonight, and this time he damn well meant to keep his promise.
She turned back to face him. “Let go of me, Robyn.”
“No. I don’t think I will. I promised I’d stay by your side all night. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t keep my promise?”
A shrill laugh prevented her from answering. A group of young ladies stood just at the entrance to the ballroom, watching them with wide eyes and ears perked like a pack of hounds tensed for the signal to begin the chase.
Lily glanced over at their spectators and bit her lip, as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. Robyn watched her white teeth worry at her plump lower lip, and his good intentions vanished in an explosion of lust.
He should have spent more time on that lip in Lord Barrow’s study. He should have run his tongue over it, then taken it into his mouth and sucked on it. He could spend hours tasting her lower lip, and hours more exploring the sweet bow of her upper lip. That bow maddened him. Try as he might, he couldn’t forget how the sweet little dip had felt against his tongue.
“Stop this, Robyn.” Lily’s low, fierce voice jerked him back to the present.
He raised his eyes from her lips. “Stop what?”
She had trouble catching her breath. “Whatever game you’re playing with me, stop it. Don’t . . . look a
t me like that.”
This last came out in a husky whisper.
Desire shot through his veins, hot and insistent. He’d gone as hard as steel for her the minute she appeared at the top of the stairs in her bronze silk gown, and for the entire carriage ride he could think of nothing but her hip pressed against his thigh.
Don’t look at her? By the time they’d arrived at the Chatsworths’ town house, he’d been ready to drag her across his lap until the insides of both her thighs pressed against him and he drowned in a deep pool of bronze silk.
One of the young ladies by the door laughed again.
Lily’s shoulders tensed. “Charlotte’s looking for us.”
Robyn glanced behind her into the ballroom. It was a crush, but he spotted his sister’s rose-colored gown at once. Charlotte craned her neck to see over the heads surrounding her, trying to find Lily.
“They can wait,” he said.
“I will not keep Archie waiting. Not after he’s been kind enough to help me.”
Archie. Again.
Robyn dug his fingernails into his palms. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind enough to help you, as well. Why won’t you let me, Lily? It is really so difficult?”
“Yes.” One word. No hesitation.
He forgot about the tittering chits at the doorway and stepped toward Lily. “Why?”
“You frighten me, Robyn.”
Frightened her? An odd sense of dread clawed at his throat. “No.”
“Yes,” she whispered, so low he had to lean toward her to hear it. “Because you break your promises, and then you flash that irresistible grin and it’s impossible not to forgive you. And once you’re forgiven, you break your promises again.”
Robyn searched her eyes for some hint she didn’t mean it, but it was like looking into opaque blue glass.
“Perhaps you do wish to help me,” Lily said. “Tonight. But what about tomorrow? You will have found something else to amuse you by then, and where will that leave me?”
Where, indeed?
It was all true, of course, and it wasn’t the first time he’d heard it, but for some reason this time the words did more than scratch the surface. This time they pierced through layers of muscle and bone.
There wasn’t much he could say, really. “I see.”
Lily hesitated for a second, as if she wished to say something more, but she thought better of it and remained silent.
That was it, then. There was no reason to linger. He jerked his chin in the direction of the ballroom. “Archie awaits.”
He turned away before she could say anything else. He wasn’t sure why he’d come here in the first place. Lily made it more than clear that morning she didn’t want him, and he wished to be free of her in any case. Well, now he was free, and just as well, as there were far more titillating diversions to be had tonight than the Chatsworths’ ball.
Robyn rubbed a hand across his chest. Ridiculous that the hollow feeling should return now, when Lily had handed him just what he wanted.
He’d go off and find Pelkey. Surely some barmaid in London needed a cravat wrapped around her thigh.
Afterward, he couldn’t have said what made him turn toward her again. Perhaps he hoped she’d call him back, or maybe he wanted one last glimpse of her in her bronze gown as she walked away from him.
Maybe he heard her gasp.
But turn he did. Lily stood at the entrance to the ballroom, frozen. Her back was to him, but he knew at once something was horribly wrong. She lifted one hand to her face, and he saw it was shaking.
He’d taken a hasty step back toward her before he noticed the other woman, also frozen, standing at the entrance to the ballroom, her gaze locked on Lily’s face.
The woman was elderly, her body a victim of the ravages of time, but despite her shrunken frame and deeply lined face, she had a certain grand style still. Her plentiful white hair was piled on top of her head and her blue eyes glittered with a determined intelligence. She was frail with age, but even so she carried her wasted frame with a regal haughtiness. A female companion held her by one arm, and in the other she carried a black, silver-tipped walking stick.
Robyn froze as well, staring at the woman over Lily’s shoulder. There was something wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but it had to do with the unusual blue color of the woman’s eyes. She looked familiar, a bit like . . .
Lily. She looked like Lily.
But the older woman couldn’t be a Somerset. Lily’s mother had died last year, and there was no one else, except—
Realization slammed into him. The woman wasn’t a Somerset. She was a Chase. Lady Anne Chase, Lily’s maternal grandmother, the woman who’d washed her hands of Lily’s mother when Millicent dared to defy her family’s expectations and marry Lily’s father, Henry Somerset.
This was the woman who’d turned her back on her only child.
The woman stared at Lily, her aged face rigid and pale. She raised her walking stick slowly and pointed it at Lily. “You—”
But she got no further, for Lily turned and fled.
Chapter Fourteen
Robyn reached out for her, but she flew past him as if she didn’t see him.
But he saw her. He saw her face, and the numb despair there made the blood freeze in his veins.
The crowd on the steps stood gaping stupidly after Lily as she fled down the stairs, then closed ranks behind her. Their voices rose in an excited buzz.
“What’s happened? Was that the Somerset girl?”
“Oh ho, another scandal! Well, like mother, like daughter, they say.”
“What an entertaining season we’re having. I do hope the younger girls are as exciting as the elder—”
Robyn shoved heedlessly against the silk-clad bodies. He tried to catch a glimpse of Lily ahead of him, but her dark gown disappeared against the brighter colors worn by the rest of the crowd.
His foot landed hard on the bottom step. She couldn’t have gotten far . . .
There.
It felt as though he’d been at the Chatsworths’ ball for hours, but it must have only been minutes, because the Sutherland carriage was still where they’d left it, caught in the crush near the stairs.
“Wait, Lily!”
It was too late. The driver saw her flying toward him. He scrambled down from the box, eyes wide, and threw open the door. Lily leapt into the dark interior and the driver slammed the door shut behind her.
Robyn’s shoes rang against the cobbles as he charged after her. He could still catch her, if only—
Impossibly, the carriage began to thread its way through the tangled mass surrounding it.
Damn it. Now what? He glared after the carriage as it forced its way into the congested street. A second carriage shoved in behind it, poised to take advantage of the opening.
Archie’s carriage.
“Carlson!” Robyn bellowed to the driver as he barreled through the last of the bodies lingering on the sidewalk.
Carlson looked over his shoulder, saw Robyn, and pulled the horses to a stop. Before he could descend from the box, Robyn yanked open the door and threw himself into the carriage. “My town house, and hurry, man. It’s urgent.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, Mr. Sutherland.”
Carlson had missed his chance to escape the crush of carriages when he’d stopped to wait for Robyn, and by the time they were free of the labyrinth of wheels and hooves, the Sutherland carriage was nowhere in sight.
Robyn resisted the urge to pound his fist on the roof to hurry Carlson along. If Lily had fled to her room by the time he arrived, he’d damn well chase her right into her bedchamber.
Again.
Robyn had the carriage door open even before Carlson rolled to a stop in front of the town house. “Return to the ball and find Lord Archibald. Tell hi
m Miss Somerset has been taken ill and I’ve escorted her home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Robyn ran up the front steps, slammed through the door, and skidded to a halt in the foyer. “Lily.”
She sat slumped on a stair in a puddle of bronze silk, her head against the railing. She looked as if she’d tried to climb the stairs but had given up before she could reach the top.
She raised her head when he entered and looked at him dully. “I—I think my grandmother knows I’m in London.”
“Yes. I think she does.”
He climbed a few steps and held out his hand to her. To his relief, she took it—not because she’d forgiven him, he was sure, but because she was too exhausted to fight with anyone anymore. He tugged her gently to her feet and led her down the last few stairs and into the long hallway that led to Alec’s study.
The servants still came in here to dust, but they hadn’t laid a fire in this room since Alec and Delia moved to Grosvenor Street weeks before. Alec had offered Robyn the room for his own use, but short of debauching a woman on the wide desktop, Robyn couldn’t think of a single use for a study.
“It’s a bit chilly, but it will do.” He lit the lamp on the desk then crossed to the sideboard and studied the decanters arranged across the top. “Ah, here we are. Alec’s left his brandy, and a fine one it is, too.”
Lily stood in the middle of the room, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
Robyn poured three fingers of brandy into a glass, handed it to her, and gestured toward a plump leather sofa. He retrieved a blanket from the back of a chair and draped it across Lily’s shoulders before he joined her. “There. That’s better. Still cold? Drink your brandy.”
She took an obedient sip and stared down into her glass. For a long time neither of them said anything.
