Lillian was still sputtering under her breath, uncertain whether to laugh, cry or simply beg off and go hide in her chamber as they entered the dining room. He showed her to her seat and then made his way to his own, just across from her. His cousin, the Honorable Mr. Elsworth Somers, was seated next to him. She could feel the weight of both their gazes, one admiring and curious, one speculative and disapproving. She couldn’t afford for Elsworth Somers to speculate about her. Not yet. Not until she found a way to claim her bequest.
“Tell me, Miss Burkhart,” Elsworth began, “about this school of yours that my grandmother speaks so highly of. The Darrow School, I believe?”
“Yes, that is correct, Mr. Somers,” Lillian answered. At least that was a safe topic, Lillian thought. “The Darrow School is for girls only. It’s operated by Miss Euphemia Darrow. She takes girls in that have difficult situations or a lack of close family and she trains them to be governesses and companions, offering instruction in all areas that young ladies and gentlemen who will enter society would require. Upon completion of one’s education, she assists with finding gainful employment. She’s very good at what she does.”
“And how long does one stay at the Darrow School?” he asked. “I assume this course work would be more extensive for some than others, depending on aptitude and what manner of deportment and etiquette they began with.”
Lilly kept smiling, but she was beginning to see that Mr. Somers’ line of questions was very specific. “Some girls are there for only a few years. Others, such as my half-sister and me, are there for significantly longer. It depends on the needs of the child, as you surmised, in terms of their education, but also their living situation and their age when they come to Miss Darrow’s attention.”
“That’s a very practiced answer… their living situation,” Elsworth said. “And where does she find these children precisely?”
“Some are brought to her, others she becomes aware of through her charitable works or through family members of the child,” Lilly answered.
“And you and your half-sister… how were you discovered, Miss Burkhart?” he asked, his gaze calculating and cold.
“She found my half-sister and me at another school in the north. It was… not a good place,” Lillian answered, being intentionally vague.
“This half-sister of yours that you speak so freely about, where is she now?” Elsworth continued. “I assume she’s serving with some other family?”
“Is this dinner conversation, Cousin, or is it an interrogation?” the viscount demanded.
“I’m only trying to ascertain the true character of a woman who spends so much time with our dear grandmother, Valentine,” Elsworth said with a sneer. “Surely it behooves us to have a better understanding of her nature?”
“It behooves you to cease this immediately,” the viscount snapped. “You’re being impossibly rude.”
Elsworth turned back to her then, ignoring his cousin altogether. “Your half-sister, Miss Burkhart, where is she?”
“With her husband, sir,” Lillian answered, her tone crisp. “She is no longer in service at all, but has married and is in the country with her husband.”
“A farmer, then? How quaint,” he said with an obvious sneer.
“Not exactly,” Lillian said and there was a note of triumph that she could not quite mask in her voice. “She married Lord Deveril. I think he can be called many things, Mr. Somers… but farmer is not one of them.”
The dowager duchess smiled at that. “Indeed. I read all about them in the papers… I didn’t ask you to read those sections to me, Miss Burkhart, as I thought that might be somewhat awkward for you. Your half-sister… what was her name again?”
“Wilhelmina Marks, your grace,” Lillian replied.
“I see you have different fathers,” Elsworth said.
He had managed to pique her temper to the point that Lillian no longer cared if the dowager duchess fired her. If he wanted to know what scandals lay in her past, well, she’d let him. “No, Mr. Somers. In point of fact, we did have the same father, William Satterly. No doubt you know him and have socialized with him on many occasions. Sadly, he failed to prove himself in possession of any honor at all and never married either of our mothers. Do you have any further questions about my parentage or is that information sufficient?”
“Don’t be impertinent, Miss Burkhart,” the dowager duchess warned. “My grandson’s lack of manners is no reason to forget yours.”
“Why the devil shouldn’t she be?” Seaburn interjected. “Elsworth certainly had no trouble being impertinent, impudent, and utterly rude. I apologize on behalf of my relatives, Miss Burkhart. Your command of etiquette and, I daresay, basic human kindness exceeds us all.”
“Oh, do stop, Valentine,” the dowager duchess said. “And now that we’ve exhausted the topic of Miss Burkhart’s lineage, we need to address the pressing matter of your finding a bride!”
Lilly felt his gaze on her for a long moment, then she saw his lips quirk slightly. It wasn’t a smile, but a smirk. There was a challenge in his gaze, a question, as well. No, she thought. No! He would not.
“I’ve already found one,” he said. “Miss Burkhart, would you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
He did.
Chapter Five
Chaos was the only word that could be used to describe the scene. Complete and utter chaos. Mr. Elsworth Somers and the dowager duchess were all speaking at once. The footmen stationed about the room were whispering to one another frantically while the butler made every attempt to shush them. One of them had apparently run down to the kitchen the moment the news was relayed because a great clattering, as if an entire shelf of pans and crockery had been overturned, rose to clang throughout the house. And in all of it, Lord Valentine Somers, Viscount Seaburn, remained perfectly still, almost like he was carved from marble. No, she thought, not marble. It was too cold. He’d been fashioned from bronze, from heat and sweat and labor.
“You cannot possibly do this!”
“I forbid it! How on earth will I find another suitable companion?”
“It’s preposterous! You’re only doing it get a rise out of me… marrying someone of her standing. Really, Cousin!”
“Elsworth isn’t wrong. We’ll be the gossip of the town! The ton will turn its back on all of us because of your impetuous behavior! How could you be so cruel, Valentine?”
“Surely, Miss Burkhart,” Elsworth said to her. “You will call a halt to this foolishness, certainly?”
Lillian eyed him with his cajoling tone and suddenly conspiratorial expression. As if they were on the same side, as if he hadn’t been hounding her about her background only moments before and they were now allies against his cousin’s impetuous nature. “Really, Mr. Somers, I feel under the circumstances that the only person to whom I owe any answers at this moment is Viscount Seaburn.”
“Well, answer him then!” the dowager duchess snapped.
Lillian glanced at her employer. Well, her employer for the moment. No doubt, after the debacle of dinner, she’d find herself unemployed soon enough. Still, there was something in the old woman’s expression that didn’t quite ring true. It was almost as if she were enjoying the entire drama as it played out.
Finally, Lillian said, “I will do so… but in private. Perhaps, my lord, we could retreat briefly to the drawing room?”
“Oh, heavens no,” he offered drolly. “Not if you want privacy. Every servant in the house will be camped outside the door! The garden? No, not with your ankle. I suppose the terrace might be the best option. It’s not too cold, I think.”
He spoke as if they were planning a typical outing or considering a turn about the room. The man was insufferable.
“Very well,” Lillian agreed and rose to her feet. The walking stick he’d provided earlier was on the floor beside her and a footman rushed forward to pick it up for her. No doubt, he was hedging his bets on the off chance that an upstart like her would actually marry
into the family. Still wearing her shawl and leaning heavily on the cane like some sort of aged aunt, she limped toward the terrace doors, Viscount Seaburn in her wake.
Once outside, she turned to him immediately. “Why did you do it?” She couldn’t even effectively categorize her response to all of it. Anger, puzzlement, even mild amusement all warred within her.
He shrugged. “They aren’t wrong. I need a wife. I need one who isn’t overly concerned about what society might think of her.”
“And because of my low upbringing, social aspiration is beyond me?” she demanded, offended by him perhaps for the first time.
His eyebrows arched upward in obvious surprise. “Not at all. You have no social aspirations, Miss Burkhart, because you see through all the artifice of it to the ridiculousness, the pettiness and ugliness that lurk beneath its surface. Your lack of social aspiration is a mark in your favor as a human being and not a black mark against your upbringing.”
“And will my upbringing—daughter of a whore and a so-called gentleman who deserves the term bastard far more than any of his illegitimate children—what will that do to your social standing?” she demanded of him. Her coarse language had been a strategy. She wanted to shock him, to make him see how ridiculous such a match would be between them and precisely what it might cost him in the long term.
He shrugged, as if it mattered not at all. “My social standing, as you put it, is teetering like a house of cards already. My own actions, and there are reasons for them, Miss Burkhart, are partially to blame. But I don’t play deep at the tables because I like it, because I crave it, or because I cannot stop myself. It is part of my job. Information flows freely there and there are certain areas of the government and the military who benefit greatly from what I glean in such places.”
Lillian looked at him then, noting the tightness of his jaw, the muscles clenched so tightly that it was a wonder they did not snap. This was no dissipated drunkard trying to shock his family or rebel against their expectations. There was a hint of steel in him there that she had not seen to that point. “And what have you gleaned that will see your family so utterly destroyed?”
“It may not come to pass,” he said. “If I marry… and if I prevent Elsworth from being written into my grandmother’s will with the expectation of considerable fortune, then perhaps I can stop all of this before it begins.”
“I require more explanation than that. You said the government wanted information that you gleaned at the tables and—good heavens. You’re ferreting out treasonous plots, aren’t you?”
“There isn’t much ferreting. Just observation,” he replied.
“He’s a traitor,” she surmised. It was the only thing that made sense. What else could fell such a powerful and respected family? Murder and treason were the only crimes that a man of Elsworth Somers’ standing need ever fear consequences for.
“Not yet, he isn’t. At the moment, he’s made questionable choices but done nothing he cannot be pulled back from. But if he goes deeper into business with the individuals in question… on credit with his expectations as collateral, it will be too late for all of us. In order to stop it, his expectations must be dashed and in a very public manner. So, in point of fact, Miss Burkhart, it’s your duty as a citizen of the Crown to marry me.”
Lillian laughed at that. “The Crown? What has it ever done for me except perpetuate a class system where I will always be seen as less because of the sins of my parents? No, my lord, if you truly wish to wed me, you will be forced to argue the case on your own merits.”
“I have a fine house,” he said.
“In which I already reside,” she fired back with triumph.
“True,” he agreed. “But not in luxury. You live in a tiny room fit only for servants. And you, Miss Burkhart, were never meant to be a servant.”
She considered his response for a moment. “I’d argue that you do not understand luxury because you’ve never had to share a chamber with others. But I will concede the point as there are certainly chambers more fashionably appointed in the house than my own.”
“How very just of you, Miss Burkhart,” he said, smiling in a way that indicated he found her answers to be greatly amusing and was attempting to hide his response. “The second point in my favor is that you’d no longer have to do everything my grandmother says.”
“Yes, I most certainly would. Heaven knows you do,” she shot back. “That woman barks and the entire family scrambles like she’s a rabid dog. And I’ll thank you never to tell her I said so.”
He grinned in the darkness, a flash of white teeth that sent a shiver racing through her. “True again, and you have my promise of discretion in relation to your analogy. So allow me to put a finer point on my argument. You might still have to do as she says, but you would get to choose your own clothes.”
Lillian looked down at the drab green silk that not even moonlight could render flattering. “Go on. You have my attention now.”
He stepped closer to her, as close as he had been that morning when he carried her through the park. She could feel the heat that emanated from the broad expanse of his chest, and even over the cloying scent of the hundreds of roses that bloomed nearby, she could smell the sandalwood of his shaving soap. It was a heady combination—moonlight and a wicked, dangerous man.
“There are other benefits to being married to me, Miss Burkhart, but I can’t really tell you what those are. With your permission, I would demonstrate at least one.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she said, hating that her voice sounded breathless and even giddy. Sophisticated women did not get giddy at the prospect of a kiss. But then, she wasn’t a sophisticated woman, was she? She was a cynical virgin with a rather unflattering impression of the male sex. It was hardly the same thing at all.
His hands settled on her shoulders and with only the lightest of pressure, prompted her to turn to face him. He stood nearly a head taller than her, so much so that he blocked out all the light from the moon above and most that filtered out from the dining room. They existed, in that moment, in a world of velvet shadow. Then he was leaning in, his head dipping low, and his lips settled over hers.
It was not at all what she had expected. Slow, languorous, soft—this was not at all like the fumbling advances of the son of her previous employer who’d shoved her against a wall and mashed his mouth against hers while trying to shove his tongue between her lips. This was something altogether different. It promised not sweetness, that was too mild a term for it. No, that kiss promised surrender. Both hers and his. His hand came up to cup her cheek, angling her head back ever so slightly, deepening the contact between them. And when his tongue played along the seam of her lips, it was an instinct as natural as breathing to open for him, to invite him inside.
There was a rhythm to the kiss, like a waltz. It was both dizzyingly exciting and terrifyingly intimate. He laid her bare with it and, all the while, he’d done nothing more than touch his lips to hers and place his hand on her cheek. It begged the very dangerous question, what else could he do?
After a moment, he stepped back from her, breaking the kiss and dropping his hand from her face, only to reach for her hand and hold it firmly in his. It was as if he, too, were reluctant to cease contact.
“I will marry you, Viscount Seaburn,” she said, struggling to make her voice sound like she had not been at all affected by his kiss. “But I have conditions of my own. Though we’ve been out here far too long already. We will have to discuss them tomorrow.”
He smiled at her. “We will marry by special license, or would you prefer to have the banns posted?”
“By special license, I think… assuming I decide to go through with it and not cry off. It’s easier to explain why my side of the church would be empty then.”
“Another kiss to seal the bargain?”
“No,” she said. “And for the record, I’m only agreeing because I want to burn this rag I’m wearing and never again look at a piece of olive silk a
s long as I live.”
She didn’t exactly sail past him into the drawing room, given her limp and dependence on the walking stick, but she did so with as much dignity as she could muster.
*
Val watched her go, and he only just managed to keep himself from dragging her back. He’d thought kissing her, seducing her into agreement would simply save them both time. But as he stood there on the terrace, his body achingly hard and utterly seduced by the sweetest and clearly most virginal kiss in history, it was obvious to him that Miss Lillian Burkhart had once more turned the tables on him. One kiss, from an untutored girl, and he was as breathless and dizzy as if he were the damned virgin.
“Bloody, blasted, everlasting hell,” he said. “So much for simplifying matters.”
Wincing as he adjusted himself behind the fall of his breeches, he returned to the dining room in her wake and faced down his grandmother and cousin. If ever anything could wither arousal, it would be those two.
“I am happy to inform you,” Miss Burkhart said, “that I have accepted his lordship’s proposal. We will be married as soon as a license can be obtained.”
Both Elsworth and Val’s grandmother looked at her as if she had grown two heads. “And I could not be happier,” he said, falling in to stand beside her. “I know you both wish us well. Don’t you?”
Miss Burkhart had a surprisingly pointy elbow for such a curvaceous woman. He could attest to it without any question as said pointy elbow had just assaulted his ribs. Trying not to wince openly lest it result in someone questioning their status as a happily betrothed couple, he simply grinned through the pain.
“Of course, Cousin. What could possibly go wrong?” Elsworth asked. “You’re marrying the bastard daughter of a lord’s younger son and whose mother I can only assume was a woman of ill repute. Not to mention your betrothed also happens to be in the employ of our grandmother. That will create no scandal, at all. Why, the ton, known as they are for their forgiving nature and the warm welcome they provide to one and all whatever the nature of their birth, will no doubt greet her with open arms… perhaps even a parade.”
Regency for all Seasons: A Regency Romance Collection Page 52
