A Lady’s Christmas Rake
Page 26
“Perhaps not any man,” he corrected gently, unable to keep himself from widening his legs so that his thigh pressed against hers through the layers of cloth and blankets separating them. She did not withdraw, and he wished he had a free hand to clasp hers or the privacy to kiss her once again, to taste her in all the places he longed to run his tongue. But they were not the only revelers about the Abingdon Hall park, and it would not do to court scandal.
“You see?” she chimed in, her tone exasperated. “Even you admit it.”
“You are the sort of woman I would be proud to take to wife,” he elaborated. “And I am heartily grateful no other has yet claimed you for his own, as that means you are mine.”
She went silent. He risked another sidelong look in her direction. Freckles stared back at him, her brow furrowed. “You recently suffered a blow to the head. That is the only explanation. Are you with fever? Delirium is setting in? The cold weather has given you a lung infection.”
He chuckled at her determination. “No, Freckles.”
“You are serious.” The last was a statement rather than a question.
“About making you my duchess?” He paused. “Utterly.”
Another silence descended between them, and he swore he could hear the wheels of her agile mind turning.
“Why are you here at this house party?” she asked at length.
Of course, she would be curious, being the wily creature she was. Wise of her to note it was not the sort of thing he would have ordinarily done. “Why do you think?”
“You truly are searching for a wife, then?”
“No.” A small smile flitted with the corners of his mouth. “I have already found her.”
“Obsequiousness may not be one of your sins, but arrogance certainly is.” She made a tsking sound. “I was right about you, Warwick. You are a rogue.”
He did not miss the smile in her voice, and it filled his chest with something buoyant and unfamiliar and…warm.
By God, he rather liked it.
Chapter Five
“Today will be a very fine one, Lydia,” her mother chirped with the enthusiasm of a bird in spring.
But it was not spring. The snow on the ground and the chill in the air gave proof. Rather, it was the twenty-fifth of December.
Christmas.
And Lydia had been hiding from the festivities of the house party that afternoon, settled into a chair so she could read a book, when her mother had bustled into the small salon she had found, disrupting her solitude and quiet both. At least the house party was nearing its completion, and she could return to the familiar order of her ordinary life.
“Today seems no different than any other,” she observed, frowning. “Aside from it being Christmas day.”
“How wrong you are,” Mother said. “It is a grand day for a celebration! The sun has appeared to melt the snow. I could turn into a watering pot, so great is my relief. But I shall not. No, indeed. I shall not.”
Lydia glanced up from a volume of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Her mother’s white lace cap bobbed in her agitated excitement. Lydia blinked, slowly forcing herself to concentrate.
“Mother, are you quite well?” she asked, concern coloring her voice.
Her mother looked well enough, though she was perhaps more flushed than usual, twin flags of scarlet on her round cheeks. Her blue-gray eyes were unnaturally bright. With fever, perhaps? Lydia frowned, worry unfurling in her breast.
“I have never been so well, of that I can assure you. Oh, my darling girl, I despaired that you would forever remain unwed and on the shelf like your Aunt Clarinda.” Mother clapped her hands in rather unladylike fashion, surprising when she was ordinarily such a stickler—no one in the world could muster even a pinch of Mother’s deportment, aside from the dowager Duchess of Revelstoke. “But you have proven me wrong, and I could not be more proud. Such a feather in your cap! The Duke of Warwick. Imagine, you shall be a duchess. And all in time for Cecily to have her debut next Season.”
Lydia blinked, allowing her mother’s rapid staccato of exclamations to seep into her mind. Planetary motion was so much more intriguing than the marriage mart and house party games. She sifted through what her mother had said, attempting to resurrect the salient points. Aunt Clarinda. Something about a feather. The Duke of Warwick.
Ah, yes. You shall be a duchess.
Good heavens. Surely, she had heard her incorrectly. Mother had not just implied that she was to wed the Duke of Warwick…had she?
A gasp tore from her throat. “Mother, do you not think your celebration premature? He danced with me once and took me on a sleigh ride, aside from being about for all the festivities Lady Emilia planned.”
Her mother’s brow hiked to her hairline, nearly disappearing beneath her cap. “Of course he has proclaimed his interest, my dear. He has scarcely strayed from your side this last fortnight.”
True. Warmth suffused her cheekbones as she recalled the recent whirlwind of activity that had unfolded in the wake of the enchanted day when he had taken her on a sleigh ride and insisted he would marry her. Empty flattery, she was sure of it. Warwick was a handsome devil, a rake of the first order. Not to be trusted. Certainly not the sort of man who would truly want her.
“He is friends with Rand,” Lydia objected on principle. “I have known him nearly all of my life. We are guests at the same house party. Of course, he has been at my side.”
“He has been courting you, my dear,” Mother insisted, a pleased smile tempering the sometimes austere lines of her countenance. “No gentleman would dance attendance upon a lady or look upon a lady as he has you without intending to make an offer. He has not even looked twice at any of the Winter chits, thank the Lord.”
Also true, Warwick always sought her out, danced with her, flirted with her. But he was Warwick. His nonsensical claims that he was courting her aside, the notion of him truly wishing to marry her was laughable. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mother, but he does not care for me in such a manner.”
Mother gawked at her, pressing a hand over her heart. “My darling girl, of course he does. Why do you think he is at this very moment speaking with your brother in the absence of Revelstoke?”
The air left Lydia’s lungs. Warwick was meeting with Rand, and she had not known. Conducting an interview with him. It could only mean one thing. The very thing that her ridiculously thrilled mother had already ascertained.
Belatedly, she realized that her fingers were gripping the Principia as though her life depended upon it. She inhaled slowly, attempting to calm herself, to stay the onslaught of worry beating to life within her. “Warwick is speaking with Rand?”
Her mother’s head bobbed with more vigor than such a moment required. Her cap nearly went askew. “Of course, he is. Have you not been listening to a word I said, daughter? Oh, for shame. You and those cursed books. Do hide it somewhere, at the very least, Lydia, lest Warwick comes here and sees you with it in your lap. Revelstoke did you no favors in encouraging your unladylike pursuits during the course of your youth, I must confess.”
Her mother’s disgust for the leather-bound volume in Lydia’s lap could not have been more pronounced had it been a dead fish instead of a book filled with valuable knowledge. Grandfather had been decidedly cut from different cloth than her mother, and Lydia would be grateful for that contrast every day of her life. Grandfather had encouraged her to pursue subjects and studies ordinarily de trop for a lady, much to her mother’s shame.
“You wish me to hide my book?” she repeated the question to her mother, lest she had misheard or misunderstood.
Another bob of the bright-white cap. Lace fluttered. “Yes, and make haste. I expect he shall conclude his interview with Aylesford at any moment now.”
Lydia absorbed the information her mother had just unceremoniously imparted. If she was to be believed, Warwick was currently meeting with Rand to formally ask permission to wed her. That meant he had been truthful th
at day in the sleigh. Truthful that night beneath the stars in the darkness of the Havenhurst garden. Honest when he had plied her with kisses in the parlor while Jane snored away.
That meant the Duke of Warwick wished to marry her. The beautiful, ridiculously rakish, always improper Duke of Warwick wanted her, plump wallflower he had once fished from a pond.
Impossible. Improbable.
It was the sort of thing she wasn’t even sure she would want.
What she most certainly did not want? To hide her reading proclivities from a man who would become her partner through life. She would sooner wrangle an elderly dowager’s ill-behaved corgis than pretend to be someone she was not.
“Mother, the duke will either accept me as I am, if he truly wishes to wed me, or he will not.” She shrugged. Also unladylike, but it could not be helped. “I will not hide my book from him.”
Her mother’s nose twitched, a sure sign that she was about to go into high dudgeon. “Put the thing away, Lydia. I beg you.”
Lydia shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Just when I thought you had finally procured some sense,” Mother grumbled.
Her mother’s insistence that Warwick was asking for her hand in marriage meant precious little if she could not have what she wanted most. Otherwise, she may as well become accustomed to the drudgery of life as a paid companion.
“I have sense,” she felt compelled to argue. “And it is that very selfsame sense that refuses to allow me to hide a book from a man who would marry me as though it is a source of shame. I am not embarrassed by my mind, Mother, and neither should you be. I would sooner be on the shelf than sacrifice myself to a man who cannot see beyond the long end of his arrogant nose.”
“I do hope you are not speaking of me, as I have it on good authority that my nose is neither arrogant nor overly long.”
The lazy drawl emerging from the threshold of the room had Lydia’s eyes flying to him. There he stood. Tall. Debonair. Appallingly handsome. He wore confidence better than his exquisitely tailored coat.
Warwick. He was here. Finished speaking with Rand. Pinning her beneath the full effect of that shockingly blue gaze. Making her forget for a moment that Mother had certainly erred and there was no way the divine, masculine creature before her would be interested in a gangly, shapeless lady who preferred the stars to the drawing room.
Mother gasped at his sudden, unexpected appearance. Lydia flushed, wondering how she had failed to notice his presence when every part of her now hummed into awareness at the sight of him. He performed a formal bow with glorious precision. Only his rakish air and the smug grin curving his lips hinted at his true nature. His smile deepened as he refused to remove his stare from her, and oh dear heavens. The mesmerizing twin grooves in his cheeks reappeared.
She and her startled mother exchanged perfunctory, perfectly polite greetings with him, Lydia’s by force. That she could form a coherent sentence and feign a complete lack of concern at his presence were twin miracles.
“Of course, Lady Lydia was not speaking of you, Warwick.” Her mother was quick to reassure him, either not sensing the inflection of humor in his words or not willing to risk the chance that he had found insult in Lydia’s frank words.
“Very good,” he murmured, not taking his eyes from Lydia. “I would hate to think Lady Lydia should find fault with me in any way.”
No. How could anyone find fault with him when he was as dashing as any man she had ever seen? When he always knew precisely what to say? When a mere smile from his lips devastated her? She studied him as her mind whirred with the possibilities about to unfold.
Something new shone in his expression. His regard was almost intimate. Tender. It quite stole her breath even though she had no wish for it to affect her. How could she possibly gird her defenses against a man so fine-looking it nearly hurt to gaze upon him, who was everything a gentleman should be?
With dimples.
The dimples, simply, were not fair.
But when one stopped to consider the matter of the Duke of Warwick’s appearance, neither was his face. Or the rich mahogany locks that begged to be smoothed by her palm. Never mind the sensual lips that knew how to kiss with such persuasion, lips she had felt against hers, plundering, claiming, taking. The reminder of that heated embrace was a spur in her wild thoughts. The heat in her cheeks heightened rather than abated, and yet she could not tear her gaze from him.
What had come over her? Who was this simpleminded miss who could not stop staring into the eyes of the Duke of Warwick? Who was imagining, for the very first time, that he might actually be hers?
That he might actually want her.
“Lady Lydia would never find any fault in you, Your Grace,” Mother exclaimed then, winning Lydia’s attention once more. Mother blinked, her smile clearly—at least to Lydia’s well-trained eye—feigned. “Would you, my darling Lydia? Go on, tell him then.”
Lydia blinked. “Mother, it was a figure of speech. You need not concern yourself on his account. Why, His Grace is well-versed in the art of jesting. He has been a bon ami to Rand, after all. I should hardly think it necessary to explain.”
“You were speaking of me, then?” he asked with deceptive disinterest.
Her mother’s eyes narrowed into a distinctive glare, mouth pursing into a knot. Lydia was sure that had Warwick not watched with such scrutiny, her mother would have mouthed her displeasure to her, or at the very least hissed a reprimand to be on her best behavior. Lydia looked back to Warwick. If she did not know better, she would venture to say he was unsure of himself.
But unsure and the Duke of Warwick were two components of the English language that could not comfortably dwell together in the same sentence. He was the most self-possessed, handsome man—and rake—she knew.
“Yes,” she said with a smile of her own, enjoying the notion that she—who most other gentlemen had overlooked—might make him squirm.
“Of course, she was not,” Mother interrupted with false gaiety. She made an exaggerated show of looking about her then, as though she had lost something quite dear and could not fathom where it had gone. “Good heavens, I seem to have misplaced my needlework. I must go off in search of it. I shall be back in a trice, and I shall leave the door ajar whilst I am away.”
Lydia nearly groaned at her mother’s blatant intention to leave her alone with Warwick. There had been no sign of needlework about. Not only did it go against the rigid strictures of propriety, but it left Lydia with a galloping pulse and a dry mouth as she watched her mother’s skirts disappear over the threshold and realized she was well and truly alone with him.
Her gaze went to him now, studying. Appraising.
If he had indeed suffered a blow to the head, the effects did not seem destined for a reversal any time soon. Her eyes inventoried his lean frame. In his buff breeches and superfine jacket, with his pristine cravat and white waistcoat, he was the first stare of fashion. Every bit the Corinthian. So magnificent to look upon that she nearly ached. Yearning, unwanted and unexpected, tore through her.
There was no one to come between them as he stalked toward her with undeniable intent. They were alone in the cheerful little salon where her mother preferred to receive family and close friends. Not even her abigail Jane dozed nearby. There was no one. No one who could save her. No one who could keep her from acting the fool and succumbing to him.
She rose from her seat, prepared for flight.
He smiled knowingly at her perusal, his dimples making her heart thump fast against her breast once more. “Freckles.”
She retreated from him as he advanced, until her back pressed against a wall and she had nowhere else to go. He flattened his palms against the cheerful wallcovering on either side of her head and pressed his sturdy frame against hers. For some reason, her eyes would not seem to move from his lips.
“Warwick,” she said, for she, who had never been at a loss for words in her life, suddenly found she had nothing coherent to say.
Her stomach bottomed out, much the way she expected it would had she been trapped inside a runaway carriage. A sharp, unexpected thrill mingled with shock and fear. It was true. The Duke of Warwick—the bold, self-assured rake pinning her in place with his large body and simmering presence—meant to marry her.
Meant to marry.
Her.
Lady Lydia Brownlow.
The words, like the realization, seemed to settle upon her haltingly. With them came the most ludicrous, pure burst of unadulterated joy. For a fleeting moment, the urge to press herself against him and turn her face up to receive his kisses soared through her.
Then, like any bird who had flown to impossible heights, she crashed to the Aubusson at her feet. No one had consulted her. Of course, Rand had not asked her if she desired such a match. Neither had Warwick. Mother had been deliriously happy at the prospect. They were all so very certain of her, and why would they not be?
It was a foregone conclusion that she, spinster and wallflower with no other suitors who had come up to scratch, would marry a handsome duke. Heavens, it was a foregone conclusion she would wed any gentleman who asked for her hand.
How lowering.
She cocked her head, studying him. He was the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes upon, whilst she was commonplace as a sparrow. Why would he wish to marry her, when surely he had his pick of every diamond of the first water on the marriage mart? Lady Felicity, for instance, who was also in attendance.
“You wish to marry me? Me, Warwick?” If her tone was incredulous, it could not be helped, for her shocked mind spun in a deluge of questions, concerns, and disbelief.
“You,” he agreed intently. His eyes bored into hers. At long last, his large hands settled upon her waist, finding it without err beneath the billowing muslin of her gown, his grasp possessive and not at all unwanted. “No one else will do.”