One side of his mouth curved in a mocking smile as he strolled into the parlor, his stride as languid and silent as a lion’s. Lynette held her breath as he drew ever closer, but before reaching her he turned abruptly to the side and settled himself into one of two matching chairs upholstered in green brocade. Crossing his legs at the knee, he gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite his own. After a moment’s indecision she obeyed his request – for there was no mistaking it as anything else – and sat on the very edge of the chair with her arms crossed and her weight in the balls of her feet, prepared to flee at a moment’s notice. She wanted to leave at once, but until she found her cloak and shoes she was at Nathaniel’s mercy, something he very well knew if the gleam in his eyes was any indication.
“How did you sleep?” he asked, as though she were a proper guest in his home instead of someone who had been forced to spend the night against their will.
“Well, thank you,” she said stiffly.
“Good.” He nodded. “You look much better this morning. How does your head feel?”
What game was Nathaniel playing now? Why was he pretending to show concern for her well-being when they both knew he couldn’t have cared less how she had slept or how the bump on her head was faring? The only person Nathaniel Blackbourne cared about was Nathaniel Blackbourne and she wasn’t about to let herself fall for his charm again.
Fool me once, Lynette thought with grim determination, shame on you. But fool me twice…
“Fine,” she said shortly. “Lord Townsend, I should very much like to return home and see no reason for my continued detainment.”
“Detainment?” he repeated as one brow arched. “You make it sound as though you are my prisoner. You are free to leave at any time, Miss Swan.”
“Without shoes or a cloak or even so much as a hat?” She barely restrained a very unladylike snort. “Do you not think I have endured enough gossip and ridicule at your expense? Is it not enough for you that I have been shunned by polite society and my reputation ruined? Well?” she demanded when he remained silent. “Is it?” Lynette was not a woman who often lost her temper, but when she did there was no reining it back in. Infuriated that Nathaniel could not even be bothered to give her a response, let alone acknowledge the part he’d played in her social downfall, she sprang to her feet with such force her hair came tumbling down around her shoulders in a cloud of tangled brown silk.
“I do not know why you brought me here,” she cried, pointing her finger at him. “Nor do I know why you insist on continuing to pretend to be a gentleman, but I have had enough of it, do you hear me? Enough. I am not the young, naïve girl I was, Lord Townsend, and I will not be deceived again.”
“I am not trying to deceive you,” Nathaniel said quietly. Though he remained sitting, every muscle in his body tensed as though he were ready to spring at any moment. His gaze flicked to the floor before it lifted. Calm, tranquil green clashed with tumultuous amber as their eyes met. “Please sit down, Miss Swan. There is much we need to discuss.”
Filled with conflicting emotions, Lynette remained standing. Inside her chest her heart was beating hard and fast and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. Not when all the things she’d wanted to say to Nathaniel these past three years were spinning around inside her head like a whirlwind, fighting to get free. But she was afraid if she released even one hateful remark she’d be helpless not to release the others and the last thing she wanted was to dissolve into a puddle of female hysteria. Thus the only way to maintain her composure was to do exactly what she had been doing: keep everything she felt and everything she wanted to say bottled up deep inside where no one – least of all Nathaniel – could see what she was truly thinking and feeling.
I hate you! She wanted to shout. You ruined everything. You made me feel as though I were someone special. Someone worth loving. And then you took my heart and smiled as you tore it in half.
It was hard not to be angry. Even harder not to hate. After all, were it not for him she could have very well been married by now. Mayhap not to a member of the peerage, but at least to a gentleman of means. Instead she was alone, and would no doubt continue to be alone for quite some time to come. Men did not want spoiled goods, and as far as the ton was concerned she was rotten through and through. If Nathaniel had proven good on his vow to marry her – if he’d even committed to the bare minimum of defending her – she might have been able to salvage her good name, but he’d done nothing. He’d said nothing. And in his silence had damned her to a life of uncertainty and desperation.
As bitterness, foul as it was familiar, began to sink its figurative claws into her flesh, Lynette flinched and pushed it away. For as much as she despised Nathaniel for what he had done to her, she could not allow herself to hate him for hate blackened the heart, and even after all she’d been through her heart was still pure and true. Tarnished a little around the edges, perhaps. One could not endure what she had endured without suffering a few cracks. But she refused to become the sort of person who forsook the future in order to dwell on the past.
What was done was done, and there wasn’t any use in blaming anyone for her misfortune. If she pointed her finger at Nathaniel, she had three more pointing back at herself and she knew she was hardly blameless. If she’d just stayed inside the ballroom instead of following him out to the gardens none of this would have ever happened. She wouldn’t have been standing before him now with her hands curled into fists and her teeth pinching her tongue to the point of pain. She wouldn’t be filled with regret...and the tiniest inkling of desire.
Looking at Nathaniel, she struggled to find the ne’er-do-well who had kissed her in the moonlight and proclaimed his undying love only to cast her aside like a pair of old trousers when she had needed him most. Three years may have done little to alter his appearance, but something about him had changed. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
When last they spoke Nathaniel had blinded her to his ulterior motives with persuasive charm and romantic compliments plucked straight from the pages of one of the books Delilah so loved to read. He’d done everything in his power to woo her, and she’d fallen under his spell like a proverbial lamb being brought to slaughter.
Having succumbed to him once, she should have known better than to do it again, but the Nathaniel who sat before her now was nothing like the one who had showered her with compliments so sweet and sugary her teeth ached whenever she thought of them.
Confused by the push and pull of her thoughts, Lynette brushed a lock of hair out of her face before saying, “I cannot imagine a single thing we would need to discuss, save where you have put my belongings.”
“I believe your opinion might change when you hear what I have to say. Please, have a seat. I think this may be easier to hear if you are sitting down.”
She did not want to hear anything he had to say, but given that she was standing in his parlor in her stockings with no idea where she was and no money to pay for a hackney, she supposed she did not have much of a choice. “Oh all right,” she conceded grudgingly, “but only if you promise to arrange for a carriage to take me straight home.”
The corners of Nathaniel’s mouth twitched as she returned to her chair and once against sat on the very edge, albeit this time with her hands resting on her lap instead of folded tightly across her chest.
“Do people always do what you tell them?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said unequivocally. It was the truth. Even as a child Lynette had been the voice of reason in her family. Taking after their mother, Temperance had always been too rash and impulsive whereas Delilah, a miniature replica of their father, had always been a daydreamer, more prone to living in a fantasy world than one forged from reality.
Because of her family’s inherent traits, Lynette had learned at an early age how to direct them, more out of necessity than want for she wasn’t a naturally commanding person by nature, just one who desired order over chaos and direction over deviation.
“Well?” she said when Nathaniel remained silent and merely stared at her in the same unnerving way he had last night, as though he could see through the façade of composure she was trying desperately to keep in place. She didn’t know how much longer she could be in his presence without revealing the tiny cracks that were hiding just beneath the surface. Cracks she didn’t want anyone to see, least of all the man sitting across from her.
Leaning back in his chair, he rubbed his chin in a considering manner before he said, “I have a brother.”
Lynette blinked.
Of all the things she’d been imagining Nathaniel might say, it certainly hadn’t been that. She’d expected an apology, or at least an excuse. Why the devil should she care if he had a brother or not? “How very nice for you. Now if you will excuse me-”
“Sit down,” he growled when she started to rise, only to soften his tone and add a very astonishing ‘please’ when she froze with her hands braced on the armrests.
Eyebrows drawing together over the bridge of her nose, she frowned at him as she slowly lowered herself back onto the plump seat cushion. “I do not know what you are about, Lord Townsend, but I suggest you make your intentions clear.” And do stop looking at me like that, for it is doing the strangest things to my pulse, she added silently.
He ran a hand through his thick hair, tousling it even more. “That is what I am trying to do.”
“Try harder,” Lynette snapped. She wouldn’t be moved by his obvious frustration. She wouldn’t. She was the wounded party here, not him. So why did she suddenly feel so very guilty? It was his eyes, she decided. There was something different about them. They were still the same color – green as the grass under a tall, shady maple – but there was an intensity in them that hadn’t been there before. It pulled at her, making it impossible to look away.
Nathaniel’s nostrils flared as he exhaled and lowered his head. He muttered under his breath; a few words she couldn’t quite make out. It almost sounded as though he’d said ‘to hell with this’, and her spine stiffened at the implication.
“If you cannot–” she began, only to close her mouth with a hard snap when his chin lifted and his eyes burned into hers, the power and ferocity in them causing her breath to catch.
“Give me a moment,” he growled before he shot to his feet and went to the window, causing her to twist in her chair in order to keep him in her line of sight. Beneath his shirt she could see the outline of his shoulders as the muscles clenched and rippled. “My brother’s name is Adam,” he said after a long, tense pause, his voice echoing off the glass as he remained standing with his back facing her. “We were born just five minutes apart.”
Lynette’s knuckles turned white as her fingers tightened on the armrest. “Do you mean…”
“Adam is my twin.”
“And you…you…” She couldn’t get the words out. There was a lump in her throat. A lump of uncertainty and disbelief and shock as she absorbed what Nathaniel was trying to tell her.
“He has done this sort of thing before.” With a heavy sigh, Nathaniel turned. “I am sorry he did it to you.”
“Are you saying that it was your brother Adam, not you, who I met at the ball?” As her mind whirled with the implausibility of it all, Lynette couldn’t help but feel the sweet whisper of relief. If Nathaniel was telling the truth and if he could be believed, then it actually made sense in an odd, convoluted sort of way. At the very least it explained why he had risked his own life to save her, why he had no memory of their time together, and why he was acting nothing at all like the man she remembered.
“I – this is a lot to take in,” she managed as she rubbed her temple. Her head had begun to pound again, although she suspected it had little to do with her accident and a lot to do with discovering that for three long years she’d been filled with hate and anger and resentment for the wrong person.
Adam was the one who had filled her head with empty promises and abandoned her when she needed him most, not Nathaniel. If that wasn’t enough to set a woman back on her heels, Lynette didn’t know what was.
Heavens, but this was all a bit confusing.
“If you are not him…and he is clearly not you…then why would he use your name?” she asked in bewilderment.
“A good question and a difficult answer,” Nathaniel said as he walked back to his chair and sat down, allowing his legs to sprawl across the floor. Long and muscular, they nearly touched the tips of Lynette’s feet and her toes curled inwards as she sucked in a breath, startled by her reaction to his nearness.
She felt…warm. Far warmer than she should have given the current temperature in the room. Biting her bottom lip, she struggled to keep her countenance impassive as she stared at him, although given everything she’d just learned it was a difficult task indeed. Get yourself in hand, she scolded. Just because you’ve learned Nathaniel is not who you thought he was does not give you license to be attracted to him.
It was sound advice for her head…but her heart, always a bit too rebellious for Lynette’s liking, wasn’t in the mood to listen. Which was exactly why she’d landed herself in this mess in the first place! It hardly mattered she’d fallen prey to Adam instead of Nathaniel. After all, what was a name in the grand scheme of things? Following everything she’d been through there wasn’t a man on this earth she would ever trust, and she wasn’t about to let herself make the same mistake again.
No matter how desirable she found Nathaniel or how noble his intentions.
“Thank you for telling me all of this. I very much appreciate your candor.” Forcing a smile, she shook out her skirts as she stood up. “I really must be going, however. My sisters are not accustomed to being left unattended.”
“Not yet.”
“Pardon?” she asked, smile stiffening.
“I said not yet.” Lifting himself from the chair, Nathaniel took a step forward and suddenly the space between them was very small indeed. Sucking in a breath, Lynette attempted to retreat only to find herself trapped as her calves bumped up against the edge of her chair. Emitting a shaky laugh, she twisted a hand into her hair, unconsciously weaving the long locks into an even deeper tangle.
“G-given that we have ascertained it was your brother I, er, had a moment of indiscretion with and not you, Lord Townsend, this could be considered h-highly inappropriate,” she stuttered.
“Consider it all you like,” he murmured as he shifted his body closer, gaze sweeping over her with the strength of a dark, tumultuous wave crashing against the shore. “But now that you know who I am and who I am bloody well not, there is only one thing left for me to do.”
Lynette’s throat convulsed as she swallowed. She may not have been very experienced in matters of the bedroom, but even she knew what raw desire looked like and right now it was looking her straight in the eye.
“W-what is that?” she managed to gasp.
“Kiss you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“What do you think Lynette is doing at this very moment?”
Tilting her head to the side, Delilah mulled over her sister’s question as they strolled arm in arm through Hyde Park, taking great care to avoid the puddles yesterday’s rain had left. “I am not entirely sure, but if she returns home before us we are going to be in a great deal of trouble.”
Temperance’s eyes rolled beneath the long brim of her bonnet. “We are only going for a little walk. The same as we would be doing if Lynette were with us.”
“But she isn’t with us,” Delilah pointed out.
“Because she is off gallivanting with that handsome man who saved her from being turned into a pancake,” Temperance said with a vague wave of her arm. “What was his name, by the by? I cannot remember.”
“Lord Topper.”
“No, that is not it.”
Delilah’s nose wrinkled in thought. “Lord…Bowman?”
“No, no, no. Oh, I’ve got it!” She snapped her fingers. The sound, sharp and sudden, startled a pair of mou
rning doves from their roost in a thick mulberry bush. Their wings beat frantically as they swooped across the narrow dirt walkway before gaining enough height to fly over a cluster of trees and out of sight. “Lord Townsend. He introduced himself as Lord Townsend.”
“The name sounds rather familiar.”
“I know it does, you ninny. Step to your right, there’s a puddle. No, to the right,” Temperance exclaimed in exasperation when Delilah moved in the wrong direction. “Honestly, haven’t you got that sorted yet?”
Delilah’s face flushed as she corrected herself. It was a poorly kept family secret that she had always struggled with simple things no one else ever seemed to have any trouble with. Numbers were particularly confusing, as were similar looking letters such as b and d and m and n. Try as she might she was always confusing one for the other and turning words like ‘brightly’ into ‘dightly’ and ‘marvelous’ into ‘narvelous’.
“I did not hear you,” she said defensively, which of course was a lie. Nothing was wrong with her hearing. It was her mind she feared was addled. “And why should Lord Townsend’s name sound familiar?” she asked, hoping to keep the topic of their conversation from deviating onto a trail that led straight to her various shortcomings.
“Because,” Temperance said as she lifted her skirts and neatly avoided another puddle, “it’s the same name everyone whispers after we walk into a room. Haven’t you ever noticed?”
In truth, Delilah was usually too busy thinking about something else to bother with what people were saying, particularly when what they were saying was rarely complimentary. “No,” she said with an absent shrug. “Not really.”
“Of course not,” Temperance muttered under her breath. Glancing at her sister out of the corner of her eye, she bit back a sigh. She loved Delilah. She truly did. But she’d never been able to understand how her sister lived her life with her head stuck so high in the clouds.
Delilah was always so focused on everything that was good and just with the world it was as if she couldn’t see the trees for the forest. Surely she had to have had some knowledge of the dire straits they were in, but instead she acted as though everything was going to work out splendidly and if anything bad happened it could always be fixed with a smile and an encouraging word.
For the Love of Lynette Page 6
