Diary of an Accidental Wallflower

by Jennifer McQuiston

  And then his lips met hers, warm and reassuring and—astonishingly—lacking any immediate demand. It was a far different kind of kiss than the others they had shared, and she nearly sagged in relief at how right it felt.

  How long they stood that way, she couldn’t have said. Ten seconds . . . ten minutes. Gently giving, sweetly taking.

  But all too soon something shifted in her womb, unfurling like a flag on the wind. She was consumed by a restless stirring, a want she could not define. She squeezed her eyes shut and told herself she probably would have flung herself at poor Mr. Meeks if he’d appeared out of nowhere and smiled at her in such an understanding fashion. But it wasn’t the uninspiring Mr. Meeks with his arms around her, in a darkened library, out of sight of anyone who might object.

  It was Daniel.

  And her initial desire for comfort was rapidly shifting to something far more potent.

  With the alteration in her awareness came an alteration in the kiss itself. As if by mutual decree, it became more demanding. She felt as though she couldn’t catch her breath, as if his lips had somehow stolen the air from her very lungs. Something unyielding pressed between them. Dimly, she became aware she was still clutching the book.

  She flung it and her reticule to the floor, then fisted her freed hands in his coat, pulling him closer still, and then finally she was assured of the hard, delicious press of his body against hers. She parted her lips at the feel of him, and his tongue dove in, dancing against hers in a sensual sweep. There was a rhythm to his movements, a wicked promise, and she felt herself tipping greedily toward a place where things like ducal mansions and titles and gossip didn’t matter.

  She bit his lip, hard, and he pulled away with a guttural oath that stirred her nearly as much as his kiss. The knowledge that she could strip his composure formed its own sort of pleasure. Emboldened, she ran an incautious hand down the front of his waistcoat, past the hard, flat abdomen that no gentlemen of the ton should possess, and cupped her hand around him.

  His indrawn hiss of breath told her she had surprised him, but perhaps no more than she was surprising herself. Two weeks ago, in this very library, she had cringed at the idea of her mother seeking comfort in the arms of someone she should not.

  Tonight she was well proving herself her mother’s daughter.

  His hands shot downward to grip her wrists. “For Christ’s sake.” His voice was hoarse, broken. He pulled her fingers away, bruising the vulnerable skin of her wrists. “I am beginning to question whether you are thinking clearly enough tonight to be trusted with me.”

  She stilled. “But . . . don’t you want me?”

  “I want you more than the air I breathe.” His fingers loosened, but the loss of his touch somehow felt more painful than his grip. “But as you pointed out just yesterday, wanting and having are not the same thing.”

  Clare’s eyes were adjusting now to the meager light. She could see his jaw was an objectionable, hard line. She reached a hand up to trace the edge of it, and the feel of his skin through the delicate fabric of her glove seemed as unyielding as his words. She was surrounded by the scent of him, soap and starch and that undefinable scent she could not name but that was so firmly associated with him. There was a roaring in her ears, and she could focus on nothing beyond the immediacy of these feelings.

  She had no idea who she truly was in this moment, what mysteries of birth floated in her veins. No idea if tomorrow she would wake to regret this, or if she was doomed to wake again in lonely, tangled sheets, wanting more of this man. She felt as though she was groping her way along a darkened, unfamiliar corridor with nothing but a guttering match to guide her.

  “What did you follow me for, if not this?” she asked. She knew he wanted her as well. She’d held the proof in her hand, had felt the wild leap of his pulse in that most intimate part of his body as her fingers had circled him so boldly.

  “I followed you to make sure you were going to be all right.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Lowered. No matter the room’s shadows, it was not so dark she could not see the impressive tent of his trousers. She knew an uncharacteristic—and unladylike—flash of relief that he could not deny it. “Your body suggests otherwise.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Your heart needs comfort tonight, Clare, not ruin. I am enough of a gentleman to offer you one without the other.”

  Clare felt knocked off-balance by the absurdity of it. He was nothing close to a proper gentleman, and they both knew it. And yet . . . she was quite sure none of the polished dandies locked outside the door would have turned down what she offered.

  She stepped forward, intending to kiss him again, test his mettle, change his mind.

  But his hands snaked out to grasp her arms, just above where her elbow-length gloves ended. His grip tightened, a cautious warning. “Remember the man you tempt, Clare. The son of a Roma horse trader. A man who will never enjoy a seat in the House of Lords.”

  She felt her anger stir at his unholy restraint. Couldn’t he just hold her tonight?

  Kiss her again?

  “Just yesterday you tried to convince me it didn’t matter that I was the daughter of a viscount,” she said, her voice shaking. “Is this a game to you now? A punishment for my refusal of you then?”

  “A game would be far more pleasurable, don’t you think?” He released her, then tugged a hand through his hair, as if he could somehow extract the truth from his roots. “The damned thing is, you were right. You lay your head on a Mayfair feather bed every night, while I spend my evenings alone, hunched over my desk in a goddamned hovel on Aldersgate Street. You live in a gilded cage. I live in a part of Smithfield I wouldn’t wish you to visit in your nightmares.”

  Clare realized then, with a clarity that could only come from the most profound sort of embarrassment, that he was rejecting her. Refusing her. It was a scalding realization. Her cheeks burned as she considered how she had just touched him.

  “I see,” she said bitterly.

  Daniel muttered an incoherent oath. “No, damn your eyes, I can see you don’t see.” He pulled her once again into the makeshift shelter of his arms. “I’ll not have you thinking your touch or your regard means so little to me. I care for you, Clare.” She could feel his chin resting against the top of her head and the shudder of breath releasing from his lungs. “Probably too much.”

  “Then . . . why?” she asked miserably into his coat.

  Or rather, why not?

  “Because I don’t only want a moment.” He pulled back and glared down at her, looking for all the world as though he could not decide whether to ravish her or shake her. “As tempted as I am, I refuse to do something I would be forced to disavow come morning. I cannot in good conscience take what you have offered and then turn you over to your bloody future duke. If a night—a moment—is all you have to give, there is too much at stake here, for both of us.”

  In the dim light his explanation felt almost too intimate to bear. She felt numb—but not so numb that his words couldn’t kindle some irritation. After all, he had no capital in this fight. She was the one teetering on the edge of ruin, so desperate for the comfort to be found in his arms she’d been blind to the fact that if nothing else she at least still had a choice.

  Pride, though, was a sticky thing. “I can well see how my own reputation would be in tatters if you were not the gentleman you’ve proven yourself to be,” she said, shaking now with the knowledge of just how close she had come to that very disaster. Because while Daniel’s was the face she saw in her dreams, she could still not quite envision it as the face she saw in her future. “But you are a man. Impervious to ruin, by design. What is at stake for you?”

  He scoffed, a rueful sound she felt beneath her very skin. “Do you think an instructor’s salary at a charity hospital pays so well? My experiments—be they successes or failures—are paid out of my own pockets, and I depend on my reputation as a physician to find outside clients in order to secure more funding. But if an
y hint of impropriety leaks out, I promise you, no one will trust me with their families.” He swallowed. “With their daughters.”

  His words stirred her muted conscience. Until this moment she had been pursuing only her own admittedly selfish needs, and she suddenly felt ashamed by the oversight.

  But he was not yet through tormenting her. “A decision like this could not be undone. Think of your dowry,” he said, his tone softening now. “The almost certain loss of it if you marry a man outside your family’s approval. Think of your future. Your children’s futures.”

  She did. And took a step away.

  “YOU ARE SAYING it is impossible. That no one would be that brave.”

  “Not impossible.” Daniel hesitated. When she’d first touched him so boldly, he’d experienced an understandable surge of lustful anger. He’d wondered whether she, too, saw him as nothing more than a handsome face, someone who might fulfill her needs without the attachment of emotions or strings. But that initial anger was fading. She was hurting. Confused. He needed to be honest with her, and push his own misgivings to one side.

  But would the truth tempt her or terrify her?

  “I’ve seen the example, in my own parents,” he admitted. “You know my father was a horse trader.”

  “Yes,” came her confused whisper. “But I do not see—”

  “My mother’s family was landed gentry, and her father objected to her choice. So they went to Gretna.” Despite Clare’s indrawn breath, he plowed on, committed to this course. “Her family refused to see her anymore, refused, even, to acknowledge me as their grandson. She was denied her dowry of five hundred pounds, cut off, isolated. But she never regretted marrying my father. She was happy, while she lived.”

  “She . . . died?”

  “When I was ten. In childbirth, the babe along with her.”

  Her eyes flew wide in the dim light. “That doesn’t sound very happy.”

  “I suppose it depends on your perspective.” Daniel reached out, his hands relieved to finally have permission to touch her again, if only to lift her reluctant chin. “What I remember most about her was her smile. She was always laughing, always smiling. She loved my father enough to be that brave. I’ve seen a handful of other souls who share this feeling as well, couples standing hand-in-hand in the casualty ward, refusing to leave the other’s side, risking illness and contagion even when an infection might take them both, in the end.”

  Clare shuddered. “That sounds dreadful.”

  “Yes. I suppose it does.” His hand fell away and he smiled grimly. “And yet that’s what I feel when I look at you. I could love you, Clare. So easily.”

  If he had imagined she would instantly echo a similar depth of emotion, her frozen silence told him he may have yet misjudged the moment. Whatever she had thought might happen here—and whatever she had imagined he might say—he could tell that this rending of his soul went beyond her comprehension. Worse, he’d taken this moment and turned it squarely back around on her. He wanted her. Desired her. Would be willing to marry her.

  Which meant this was her refusal. Her impossibility.

  “My dowry is not five hundred pounds, Daniel.” She exhaled slowly, then shook her head. “’Tis five thousand. And what you’re asking for . . . what you are suggesting . . . I can’t,” she whispered.

  Daniel unclenched his fists. “I know,” he said, hoping it came out more kindly than it felt. He had seen it in the wild flare of her eyes, the unconscious step back she’d taken when he’d spoken of her dowry and her future. He should be grateful for that clap of awareness. He was a bounder and a fool, and if nothing else, she was proving intelligent enough to recognize the danger he posed.

  He never should have followed her in here. The thought of what had almost happened—the taste of her kiss, the feel of her slim hand as it had wrapped around his body—made him feel ashamed. Not of her. No matter that first flash of anger, he knew she was too innocent to know the path she’d been tripping blithely down. She’d been curious, perhaps, but far too injured tonight to know her own mind. He, on the other hand, had been too greedy, too blinded by hope and lust, to see where she intended to go. He should have seen the disaster unfolding and flung them both out of its barreling, unrepentant path.

  Instead, he’d been caught off guard, bracing for impact several seconds too late.

  At least tonight he had redeemed the spot in heaven he’d endangered by kissing her to begin with. Probably an ivory pedestal with a seat of nails, reserved for martyrs, fools, and virgins. Not that he believed in a celestial version of heaven at the moment.

  Or put much stock in virginity.

  In fact, that was the real problem here. If she had been a lonely widow, perhaps they could have somehow found an accord. Found a way to help—and love—each other. But Clare was a well-bred innocent, and her future was a diamond-paved path stretching before her.

  He was not well-bred, and his intentions were the furthest thing from innocent. He could offer her nothing but a bleak promise of happiness.

  Ergo . . .

  He stepped toward the library door. Turned the key. Pulled it open and looked from right to left. The hallway was empty, and he knew a moment’s relief that fate would finally be kind. Beyond the open door he could still hear the god-awful soprano, warbling to the crowd.

  There was time yet. Time to slip back unnoticed.

  Untouched.

  He turned back and met Clare’s troubled gaze, illuminated by the slant of light from the hallway. His eyes lingered on the deep wrinkle between her brows, and a dark regret brewed in his gut to know he was responsible for placing it there. “And that is why you are going to leave this room now. Alone. No danger to your future. No harm done.”

  He could see her grappling with the decision, saw the exact moment she came to the correct one. He watched the change steal over her, the positioning of her bones for what was to come. She straightened her shoulders and walked toward the open door.

  He watched her go, those gold skirts twitching about her ankles. As she stepped into the light of the hallway, he could see her color had returned in spades. Whatever demons had chased her into his arms had been temporarily banished, at least. She did not look back.

  And why would she? Her future lay before her.

  And he was always meant to be left behind.

  Chapter 24

  Clare spent several unsettled minutes pacing outside the ballroom door, only finding the courage to step back into the thick, bright lights when the soprano ended her reign of terror.

  She felt shattered by Daniel’s confession.

  Rearranged by her awareness of it.

  She was returning to the musicale a changed person, and Sophie’s waiting claws seemed a kinder punishment, somehow, than the look on Daniel’s face when she had walked away.

  He’d spoken of love. Of marriage.

  She felt speared by the sheer impossibility of it, that he could envision it, much less speak of it. She might have doubts about who she was, but that did not mean she could so easily give up her hopes for her future. Had she once imagined a perfect marriage to be a casual conversation with a handsome duke, sitting across the breakfast table?

  How naive, how silly, how stupid she had been.

  Tonight Daniel had described the imposter, the thief, the poor cousin to her grand dreams. And yet, a part of her soul mourned the loss of the sort of idyll he had described.

  The crowd broke into a smattering of not-quite-enthusiastic applause and began stirring. Clare stirred as well. She needed to find her mother, though she cringed to consider the condition she would likely find her in. At least with the evening’s primary entertainment at an end, no one would question their decision to leave now.

  But her search was arrested by Sophie and Rose, who stepped in close to flank her on either side. Oddly, they seemed to come from behind. “I wonder . . .” Sophie said, purring in her delicate, feline way, “where could you have you been for so long?”

/>   “And who could you have been with?” Rose added nastily.

  Clare clenched her fists and faced the pair, remembering Sophie’s parting words. “Not with Mr. Alban, if that is what you are implying.”

  Sophie’s laughter felt hollow at its core. “Oh, I don’t think there’s any question of that.” She leaned in conversationally, and for a moment Clare could almost—almost—believe things were normal between them, that she wasn’t Sophie’s latest diversion to be toyed with and discarded once she stopped squeaking in protest. “I am not sure you should hold out hope he might consider you for his mistress now. He’s been in the front row slavering over the soprano, you see.”

  A hint of jealousy rang faintly through Sophie’s contempt, but Clare could not summon the energy for such an emotion herself. Two weeks ago the thought of Alban dancing with someone else—much less slavering over them—would have been worrisome. In this moment, she felt only a vague relief at the evidence that perhaps he was no longer interested in her. “That doesn’t seem surprising,” she managed to say, “given that it’s a musicale.”

  “A musicale you’ve missed in its entirety,” Rose pointed out.

  Clare clenched her teeth. “I was in the library. Reading.”

  “An odd excuse for someone who has always claimed to dislike reading as much as you do,” Sophie prodded. “Surely you can do better that.”

  Clare stared at the friends with whom she had once spent an entire Season but who didn’t know her at all. But could she blame their ignorance? They, like everyone else, only knew the face she had put to the ton, the smiling girl who pretended to be dimwitted and unread.

  At her silence, Sophie smiled. “There is no need to sidestep the issue. We know Dr. Merial was looking for you. In fact, we helped deliver him to your arms.” She tossed something through the air. Clare caught it reflexively, only to realize with horror it was her beaded reticule.

  The one she had left in the library.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Had they been hovering outside the entire time, waiting to pounce?