The Love of a Libertine

by Jess Michaels

  She drew in a few breaths and found some tiny center in the storm of her emotions. “It is obvious there is something between us.”

  He nodded. “Of course. All those stolen kisses don’t lie.”

  She almost sagged in relief. When she’d pictured addressing this with him over the past few days, she had feared he would behave as though what had happened between them meant nothing. That she was imagining things.

  “Yes, and those stolen kisses have been…wonderful.” Her breath caught and she fought again for calm. “And unexpected. I don’t—I don’t regret them, Morgan. But I do fear their consequences. At the very least, what we’ve done could cause you to lose your employment.”

  His mouth tightened a fraction, but that was his only reaction to the statement. “Yes, you are correct. If your brother found out about all the kissing, I’m sure he would sack me within moments. And call me out if I wasn’t lucky.”

  She nodded. “There would be consequences for me, as well.” She dipped her head as she tried not to picture Hugh’s disappointment in her. How he would feel when he realized she hadn’t learned her lesson the first time she made such a dreadful mistake. It would change their relationship irrevocably. How could it not?

  “I see,” he said, noncommittal.

  She shifted in her seat. It was best just to say this. Just to have it out and be done with it. But heavens, it was difficult. Especially when he was so close and so handsome.

  “Morgan, I think it would be best if we distance ourselves,” she burst out in one smashed-together sentence.

  His stare remained even for a breath and then he nodded slowly. “I’m glad you said so, my lady. While what we shared was very pleasant, it was dangerously imprudent. And I think you are correct that ending it now is better than allowing our attraction to confuse matters, or endanger either of our futures.”

  She blinked. That was it? He was just going to accept what she said? Even look…relieved that she’d said it? It was ridiculous, because she should have been happy they were on the same page in this matter. That he didn’t get upset or angry or argue against her words.

  But she wasn’t. Looking at him and seeing how little any of this had meant, it…it hurt her feelings. She pushed to her feet and paced away, smoothing her hands along her skirt as she tried to regain some purchase on these hateful emotions that flooded up in her.

  “Very good,” she forced herself to say as she turned back to him with a small smile. He had risen to his feet when she did, and he stood, hands clasped behind his back, feet spread wide. He looked completely unaffected.

  “Yes,” he agreed. Then he stepped forward and held out a hand to her. “Lady Elizabeth.”

  She hesitated a moment. She wasn’t wearing gloves. This would likely be the last time she ever touched her bare skin to his. Should she allow it? Refuse it? Savor it?

  Trembling more than she’d like, she extended her hand. He clasped it in his and shook it gently. Electric heat flowed between them as he stared down into her face, those dark brown eyes holding her captive. His thumb moved, stroking over the knuckle of her index finger. She shivered, but then he released her and she wasn’t certain he had even done that on purpose.

  “M-Mr. Banfield,” she choked out.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, I should rejoin your brother. I will see you tonight at the ball, I’m certain.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Tonight.”

  He gave her a rather formal half-bow, then he pivoted and exited the room without so much as a backward glance for her. She gasped out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and crossed back to the chairs before her fire where she collapsed with a sigh.

  That had gone as well as she could have ever hoped for, and yet she felt a desperate, aching sense of disappointment. For whatever pleasure Morgan—no, Mr. Banfield—had gleaned from their attraction, it had taken him no effort to walk away from it.

  “Perhaps I can take a lesson from that,” she muttered to herself as she smoothed her skirts once more. “Perhaps I should learn to be more detached, as he is.”

  She straightened her shoulders and drew in a few breaths. It didn’t help. She still felt wretched about the entire ordeal. She pushed to her feet and paced the room a few times, shaking out her hands and trying to think of anything else in the world. But there was nothing else, only this.

  “That is that, then,” she muttered to herself. “It is better this way. Now you must focus on matters at hand.”

  “Lizzie?”

  She turned to find Hugh in her doorway, staring at her as if she had sprouted a second head. And why not? He had caught her wandering her study, talking to herself.

  “Oh, Hugh,” she said, forcing a smile. “You caught me woolgathering.”

  “It seems so. Did Amelia mention the ball to you?”

  She frowned. His concern was right there, written across his face. She really was the family difficulty, it seemed. And she didn’t want to be, not anymore.

  “She did,” she said, brightening her tone. “And, in fact, I was just about to go up to my chamber and speak to Nora about what I shall wear and how I will have my hair done.”

  Hugh nodded, but his brow was still furrowed. “Very good.”

  She moved toward the door and patted his arm as she exited the room. They walked up the hallway together in what she felt was an uncomfortable silence. But as they reached the stairway, she glanced at him. “Mr. Banfield was looking for you, Hugh.”

  He jerked his gaze to her. “Was he?”

  “Yes. He stopped to briefly discuss the garden and then said he would join you. I assume he’s in your study.”

  Hugh examined her closely and then nodded. “Well, I will join him then.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I hope you will save a dance for me tonight.”

  “You know I only ever dance with you,” Lizzie said with a laugh. “But I will save as many as you’d like.”

  “Very good,” he said. “I’ll see you later today.”

  Then he was gone, heading up the long hallway to find Morgan. And leaving Lizzie to grip the banister until her knuckles went white. She had spent the past few years in such a fog and now she was seeing the consequences of that.

  But it was time to change it all. Time to reenter the world with a bit more confidence, if only to keep her family from worrying. If only to keep the unwanted feelings toward men like Morgan Banfield from forcing her to make another mistake.

  Chapter 12

  “You look lovely, Lady Elizabeth,” Nora said as she slid the last jewel-encrusted pin into Lizzie’s hair and stepped back.

  Lizzie looked at herself in the mirror and stifled a sigh. She looked ready for a ball, that was for certain. Felt was another story, but the appearance mattered.

  She wore her favorite gown, a gray-blue silk elaborately threaded through with silver. Her hair was done elaborately, curled and lifted and pinned through with sapphire and diamond hairpins she had inherited from her late mother. She never wore them, but tonight she wanted to. They completed the costume, after all.

  The costume of a woman who had not a care in the world. Perhaps if she pretended hard enough, that would be true.

  “You did a lovely job,” Lizzie said with a smile for Nora.

  Nora blushed and curtseyed. “Thank you, my lady. Do you need anything else?”

  Lizzie almost laughed. There was a question she couldn’t answer appropriately. Not tonight. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  “I hope you have a good time.”

  Lizzie took a deep breath as her servant departed, then followed her into the hallway. She had made it a few steps when she saw Katherine, the Duchess of Roseford, coming down the hallway from the opposite direction. Her heart leapt a little. Of course she adored her friend, but Katherine was Robert’s wife. Morgan’s sister-in-law. Seeing her was like a slap-in-the-face reminder of what had happened this afternoon.

  “It’s good practice,” she muttered to herself, and forced a
nother smile for Katherine. “You look beautiful, as always,” she said as they met at the top of the stairs. It was a true statement. Katherine was one of the most beautiful women Lizzie had ever known. Tall, with dark hair and eyes, she always exuded a natural confidence that made people turn toward her whenever she entered a room. Lizzie rather envied her that.

  “As do you,” Katherine said, and leaned back to look her up and down. “That color brings out your eyes, my dear.”

  Lizzie’s cheeks heated and she ducked her head. “Thank you.”

  Katherine linked arms with her and they started down the wide staircase together. “Robert went down early to have a drink with the other men.”

  “Ah,” Lizzie murmured, but couldn’t help but wonder if that included Morgan. The two had fought a few nights before, but since then she’d noticed a shift in them. Some kind of truce, it felt like. And she was happy for Morgan. She knew the benefits of a close relationship to a sibling and she wished him nothing but the same. “Well, I’m sure he’ll enjoy seeing you sweep into the ball in all your lovely glory.”

  Katherine tilted her head back and laughed. “You do know Robert’s flare for the dramatic. Shall we enter in our glory together?”

  Lizzie hesitated and looked up the hall toward the ball. The doors were open and she could see the room was already busy. Music filtered out into the house along with the buzz of lively conversation. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure I have much glory, especially next to all of you duchesses.”

  Katherine turned to face her and her expression softened. “My dear, you are lovely, both inside and out. I recognize confidence is difficult. Especially when one has been through something…painful. It was very difficult for me to return to Society after my first husband’s death and all the talk about it.”

  Lizzie’s lips parted. The duchesses on the whole were such a powerful, elegant and confident group that she sometimes forgot many of them had difficult pasts. It was easy to when they didn’t seem to be troubled by them as she was by her own.

  “I had all but forgotten,” she whispered.

  Katherine smiled. “Well, you are the only one, I assure you. My point being that I understand your hesitation. But as a fellow survivor, may I give you some advice?”

  Lizzie’s cheeks felt hot, but she nodded regardless. “I would be very happy to hear it.”

  Katherine took her hands and glanced down at her. “Don’t let the bastards win.”

  Lizzie couldn’t contain her shocked laughter at that statement. “I thought you were going to tell me to make the best of it and smile.”

  Katherine waved a hand of dismissal. “Bugger that. I suppose, yes, smiling and making the best of it is part of not letting them win. But what I mean is that you have this beautiful, powerful light inside of you, Lizzie. Anyone who gets to know you can see it, is warmed by it. And it was muted by what happened to you. But it wasn’t extinguished. I’d hate to see you put it out yourself from some fear or worry or anything else that keeps you up at night. You deserve so much better.”

  Lizzie glanced toward the ballroom again. She’d hidden from such places for a long time, even when she was in them. But in that moment she felt a stir of stubborn rebellion. One she hadn’t allowed herself more than a handful of times in her life.

  “I will try,” she said.

  Katherine smiled and then caught her arm again, and they moved toward the ballroom together. “Very good. Now let’s dazzle them, shall we?”

  Morgan couldn’t help but watch Elizabeth as she glided across the ballroom floor in the arms of her brother. She looked glorious, in the blue gown that made her eyes pop like sapphires. A gown fit for a queen, and she wore it well as it skimmed across her curves, accentuating everything graceful in the way she moved and talked and existed in the world. She smiled at something Brighthollow said and the candles that lit the dozens of chandeliers in the big room were dim in comparison.

  She was impossible not to stare at, and he knew he wasn’t the only man in that room doing so. A fact that both pleased him and tweaked him even though he hadn’t earned his jealousy. She wasn’t his. They’d made that fact perfectly clear hours before in her study when she’d stepped away from him.

  Her words had been ringing in his ears ever since and distracting him from his duties. How many times had he read the same line in those ledgers today? It felt like a hundred, and he still couldn’t have told someone the total amount Brighthollow took in from his tenants’ wheat crops versus years when barley was planted.

  But could he say how many sparkling diamonds and sapphires were scattered throughout Elizabeth’s golden hair? Probably down to a one. It was not a good thing, but there it was.

  The music ended, and Elizabeth smiled as she took her brother’s hand and they left the dance floor. Brighthollow spoke to her, then moved off. The moment he did, her eyes darted across the crowd and settled on Morgan.

  This was the problem about tonight. She kept watching him, despite her words that they should end their flirtation. She watched him, and he saw on her face that she still wanted all the same things he did. Circumstance and position separated them from that, but it remained, no matter what she said or did to the contrary.

  It made him long for so much more. To kiss her again. Or at least to touch her. And that siren’s song in her gaze was too much to resist. He found himself moving toward her around the perimeter of the ballroom floor. The next dance had begun, a waltz, and it would be too late to join it. But after they could certainly take a turn in a quadrille. Not too intimate. A dance that could be taken up as friends, couldn’t it?

  At least that was what he said to himself as he got closer and closer to her. Her eyes widened at his approach, dilated with a welcome he longed for, despite the complications of it. But before he could reach her, before he could speak to her for the first time that night, his approach was interrupted by a young lady who stepped in front of him and into Elizabeth’s space.

  “Lizzie!” the young lady gasped as she caught Lizzie’s hands in hers.

  Morgan turned away slightly, as if he were not approaching, and waited for their interaction to be finished. Perhaps this was a good thing. If Elizabeth was not interested in speaking to him, if she was stronger than he was, she could use this interloper as a means of escape. Then he would know where he truly stood, at any rate.

  “Lady Jocelyn,” Elizabeth said, and there was a tension to her tone that he didn’t know whether to attribute to him or to the young lady she was addressing. “I have not seen you in so long.”

  “An age!” Lady Jocelyn said. “Everyone talks about how you have not been out much in Society. And how you left London in the middle of the Season. I do hope there’s not anything amiss.”

  Elizabeth swallowed and her gaze swiftly turned toward him, then darted away. He saw the depth of her pain in it, though. “I have a project here that takes my time,” she said, her voice faltering. “I am surprised to see you out of Town. I know you adore the pleasures of the Season.”

  Lady Jocelyn waved a hand. “My grandmother has taken ill, so my father demanded we come to the shire to call on her. I don’t know why I couldn’t have stayed behind with my aunt as chaperone. After all, what can I do for my grandmother?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes were wide now and she cleared her throat. “Offer the comfort of your company?”

  The other woman looked confused by the suggestion. “What good will that do? At any rate, I have insisted we not stay long. The other Diamonds of the First Water will not be stopped in their search for a husband. I cannot fall behind or I shall end up like—”

  She stopped, and Morgan straightened. He saw the cruel little smirk on her face and how Elizabeth’s gaze dropped even further. And it was enough.

  “I do beg your pardon, ladies,” Morgan said as he stepped up the rest of the way.

  The two women turned toward him, and Lady Jocelyn glanced up and down his body. He saw her interest but also her dismissal. He wasn’t impo
rtant enough for her, it seemed. Elizabeth, on the other hand, looked both joyful at his interruption…and utterly humiliated.

  “Mr. Banfield,” she said softly. “Lady Jocelyn, may I present my brother’s man of affairs, Mr. Morgan Banfield.”

  “How do you do?” the other woman said with a sniff. “I am surprised to see the duke’s man at a ball. What an odd thing country manners are.”

  Elizabeth’s brow arched and some of her humiliation faded. “Mr. Banfield is the brother of the Duke of Roseford, Jocelyn,” she said, her tone tart and pointed. “We are lucky to have such an esteemed gentleman as he to take a position in my brother’s household.”

  Morgan smiled at her quick defense of him, earned or no. It made him all the more desirous of saving her from this nasty creature. “Well, I have come on the duke’s behest. Your assistance is required. Will you come with me? I do apologize, Lady Jocelyn.”

  The other woman glared at him. “It is no trouble. I do hope I’ll get a chance to see you again before my return to London, Lizzie. I’ll be sure to call and catch you up on all the gossip you miss by hiding out here in the country.”

  She said the last word as if it were a curse. Elizabeth ignored that and inclined her head before she turned to Morgan. “Please lead the way, Mr. Banfield.”

  He wanted to touch her. God help him, he wanted so desperately to take her arm and allow her to lean on him as they walked away. But he couldn’t offer her that comfort. Their positions were far too disparate and it would surely cause talk. Something he could see now already followed her, though he couldn’t guess why. Elizabeth was so quiet and genteel. Who could possibly whisper about her?

  Except everyone kept dancing around the subject of what had happened to her. Something he still didn’t understand. Something he wanted to understand as he guided her into the hallway and down into one of the empty parlors far from the music and dancing and unwanted friends.