Winning the Wallflower

by Eloisa James

  This startled him; she saw it in the second before his expression returned to one of impassive courtesy. “Privacy is difficult to find at a ball, Miss Towerton.”

  But Lucy turned to their hostess, who happened to be standing near the door.

  “Dear Lady Summers,” she said, in a lowered voice that was, nevertheless, clearly audible to their rapt audience, “Mr. Ravensthorpe and I have a matter of some gravity to discuss, and I must ask if you could direct us to a quiet corner. I assure you that my mother has no qualms about allowing me a private moment with my fiancé.”

  Lady Summers snapped her jaw shut. “Of course your mother hasn’t,” she stated. “Come with me, come with me!” Practically trembling with importance, she led them from the room, past the library, to the next door. “My own sitting room,” she said, nodding to the footman standing before it. “James! Return to the front entry, if you please.”

  “Thank you,” Lucy said in dulcet tones. “I know my mother will be very grateful for your solicitude.”

  “Your mother and I are the oldest of friends.” Her ladyship cast a minatory look at Ravensthorpe, who smiled back placidly. “I can see there is nothing to worry about here, which is to your credit, Mr. Ravensthorpe. There are gentlemen who would not be so sanguine about allowing a fortune to slip through their fingers.”

  At this gratuitous remark, Lucy thought that her fiancé’s smile grew a bit stiff. “Luckily, I have no need of another’s fortune,” he pointed out.

  “I did hear that you’ve bought the Pole estate,” Lady Summers said. “You’re going to be quite a catch yourself. We must see whom we can find for you now that Miss Towerton has thrown you over.”

  “But, of course, Lady Summers, I have not yet thrown anyone over,” Lucy said.

  Lady Summers gave a little laugh. “You children are so reasonable, so calm! I was much more of a ditherer about these matters in my day, but then, as they say, everything changes.” And with that she took herself out of the room and (mercifully) closed the door behind her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lucy’s heart was beating so fast that she felt it must be visible. But she kept her head high and walked to a small settee, deliberately moving past a cluster of chairs. She wanted Ravensthorpe to sit beside her, rather than in a chair facing her. She couldn’t see herself lunging across an open space to kiss him. If she gathered enough courage to follow through with her plan.

  But after she sat down, she discovered that he was still standing, watching her with a small frown. “Mr. Ravensthorpe,” she said, gesturing toward the cushion next to her. “Won’t you join me?”

  The impassivity on his face was gone, replaced by a hint of dark fury. Her heart sped up again. Perhaps he did care.

  “I’m sure this won’t take long,” he stated.

  She could see exactly why women’s eyes always lingered on him. It wasn’t just his outrageous handsomeness, but the challenge he offered. The cool distance, the masculine grace . . . women had likely thrown themselves at his feet since he was sixteen.

  “Please,” Lucy said, as persuasively as she could. She was desperately trying to decide what to say next. What to do next.

  He crossed the space between them and joined her. “I gather that you are to be felicitated on your recent good fortune.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am quite certain that you wish to—”

  “I want to know why you never speak to me,” she blurted out.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Miss Towerton.”

  “If we had ever spoken privately, I would have asked you to address me as Lucy.”

  “You are a young lady,” he said, furrowing his brows. “I would not seek to cast a blemish on your reputation by engaging in unsuitable intimacies.”

  “We are betrothed.”

  “That hardly seems a valid reason to break with both courtesy and convention.” He must have realized just how stiff he sounded. “I trust you know that my reticence simply reflects my sense of propriety, Miss Towerton.”

  “Lucy!”

  “Lucy.” There was a distinctly startled tone to his voice now.

  “And . . .” she prompted.

  He didn’t seem to follow her.

  “May I use your given name?”

  “Of course. It is Cyrus. Miss Tow—that is, Lucy, I fail to see why we are having this conversation. You are now an heiress, and I have been given to understand that you have received a directive from your parents as to our betrothal.”

  “Cyrus,” she said, ignoring him. “I like it.”

  That brought a flash from his green eyes, as if he thought she was mocking him.

  But she was feeling recklessly brave now. After all, she had nothing to lose. “I have a question, Cyrus. Did you simply pick me because I was the girl of the highest rank whose parents would accept you?”

  “No,” he stated. “As I’m sure you are quite aware, there are two dukes’ daughters who—from that point of view—are more eligible than yourself.”

  “True. But Lady Mary has such a problem with spots,” Lucy said.

  “She is not as beautiful as you are.”

  Her eyes flew to meet his. “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

  “Yes.” His tone was uncompromising, not to say grim. “If this is some sort of game, I must tell you that I am not enjoying it.”

  Lucy sat straighter, which had the effect of making her bosom a bit more obvious. She’d always thought her breasts were one of her best features. Vexingly, Cyrus’s eyes did not stray from her face. “Why are you so blasted polite?” she exclaimed.

  That was definitely a spark of anger in his eye now. She thrilled to it: any sort of emotion was better than boredom and disinterest.

  “I gather you expect coarse behavior from a person of my birth?”

  “What has your birth go to do with it?” she demanded, throwing decorum to the wind and rapping his knee with her fan. “As I understand it, your father is a brilliant solicitor. I read the account of his latest triumph in the London Gazette. And your mother is a daughter of the former Duke of Pole. Birth comes into this discussion only because you chose me as bride solely on that basis, as that is apparently the only thing of value I have to offer.”

  Cyrus had a strange feeling of drowning as he stared into Miss Towerton’s—no, Lucy’s—eyes. They were a most curious color, a silvery blue, like the sky just after a rain shower. “I did not say that,” he managed.

  “I said it for you,” she responded. Lucy Towerton had always struck him as a composed young woman, one who rarely ventured an opinion, and frankly, faded into the background. If anything, she was a little absentminded and looked as if she was thinking of other things while in his company. He had approved.

  But the woman facing him now wasn’t likely to fade into the background. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled, and she looked like trouble.

  A voice in the back of his head informed him, quite distinctly, that it was time to leave the room. He should bow, make his apologies, and venture forth to find another bride. A suitable, placid bride. Not one who asked uncomfortable questions and looked at him with burning eyes.

  “And now that I’ve started, I might as well say the rest of it for you as well,” Lucy continued. “You picked me because I don’t have spots, like the unfortunate Lady Mary; because I’m an earl’s daughter; and because the small size of my dowry suggested that my parents would respond positively to a generous settlement offer.”

  Cyrus had never had a conversation remotely like this one. “All that is true,” he said finally. He could not lie to her, not when those clear eyes demanded the truth.

  “What’s more, because I’m uncommonly tall, I was stuck on the market for the past three years. I’m a wallflower, to call a spade a spade, which means that you wouldn’t face a refusal from my parents on the grounds of your father’s profession.”

  “You are casting a remarkably harsh light on my though
t processes.” He paused. “Your height, in fact, was one of your many attractions. I cannot abide short women.”

  “My many attractions?”

  “Your eyes,” he said, fumbling with a kind of language he’d never bothered to learn. “They’re an extraordinary color. And your skin”—as he had realized that very moment—“is the exact color of milk. And your figure is very . . . pleasing.” He glanced below her chin and realized with something of a shock that it was more than pleasing. In fact, it was surprisingly provocative, even given the modest neckline required of an unmarried lady.

  Lucy kept speaking as if he hadn’t said a word. “Since there was no need to woo me—I being an object sold in the open marketplace at a reduced weight—you saw no reason to bother with pleasantries or compliments such as those you just expressed.”

  “That is a most unfortunate construction of my actions,” Cyprus said, frowning at her. “You seem determined to see the worst of me. Why would you assume—or desire—that I should break the rules that govern a gentleman’s conduct? May I remind you that your parents will not be pleased if your next fiancé compliments your bosom while following the steps of a dance?”

  He surprised himself by how much he disliked referring to Lucy’s next fiancé. In fact, a searing wave of possessiveness swept straight up his body. He took a deep breath. As a child, he had never liked to share his toys, but one could hardly equate a human being with a tin soldier.

  “What I am curious about is the wedding night,” Lucy retorted. “Let’s put compliments about my figure to the side—because, frankly, I don’t think you ever noticed I have any curves until a moment ago. When did you intend to ask me what my name was? Or say anything to me beyond a commonplace about the weather? Or even kiss me for the first time? When we were actually in bed together?”

  “Miss Towerton!”

  “Lucy!” she snapped back.

  “Lucy. I didn’t think about it,” Cyrus said, opting for honesty once again. “I suppose I assumed such intimacies would come in due course.”

  Lucy leapt to her feet and took two angry steps away from the settee. Cyrus stood up and stared after her. He felt as if he were seeing his fiancée for the first time. She was slender, but somehow managed to seem both delicate and ripe, her waist slim, her hips deliciously curved. Why hadn’t he noticed the fact that her height hadn’t turned her into a lean beanpole? Given the delicate muslin of her gown, it was obvious that her legs were exquisite, long and slender as a gazelle’s.

  He swallowed, just as Lucy swung around to confront him. Her fists were clenched at her sides, and her cheeks had taken on a rosy hue. She would look like that when she was making love, he suddenly realized, with an answering rush of molten heat between his legs. Her body would arch under his hands and her cheeks would flush with desire.

  “What!” she snapped.

  Cyrus raised a defensive eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything.” A stupid response, but a man caught in a sudden storm of desire isn’t always the clearest thinker.

  “You’re looking at me.” The tinge of color on her cheeks took on the shade of a poppy. Then she shook her head. “I’m being absurd. Here’s the point I’m making, Cyrus. You chose me because I wasn’t pretty enough to attract a suitor of a higher rank.”

  She enunciated it as if he could not disagree. Her chin was high and her eyes fierce as a hawk’s.

  “I didn’t think of it that way,” he said, marshaling, with some difficulty, the calm that he used as a shield against the world. “One doesn’t choose a wife on the basis of superficialities such as appearance.”

  Instantly, he knew that he had made a huge mistake. The light in her eyes died. “Yes, well,” she said. “I am calling off this betrothal, Cyrus, not because of the fortune I inherited, or because my parents dictated it, but because you don’t even know me. Or desire me, obviously.” She met his gaze, a wry smile on her lips. “If you wouldn’t mind some advice, I suggest that you introduce yourself to your future wife the next time around. And you might even ask for her hand in person; most young ladies expect it.”

  Cyrus felt frozen to the spot. Of course she was right. He hadn’t thought of her as a person at all. Miss Towerton was merely one of the objects on his list, the plan that had been forged years ago at Eton.

  He cleared his throat. “If I have offended you in any way, I deeply regret it, and ask you to forgive me. I do find you quite attractive.” The sentence sounded stilted and lame. A germ of panic stole up his chest. He hated the feeling of not being in control of a conversation.

  Her smile deepened and a little dimple suddenly appeared in her right cheek. A kissing dimple, they called it. “Oh, it’s all right. I always knew you were too handsome for me.”

  “What?” His mouth fell open.

  “You know,” she said, waving her hand in his direction. “You cast all the other gentlemen in the shade. It was absurd to think that someone like you would even look at me. Or if you did,” she added thoughtfully, “you’d take a beautiful mistress once we were married, which would just make me miserable.”

  “I would not!” Cyrus barked.

  The corner of her mouth curled up. “Take a mistress, or take a beautiful one? I hardly think that a wife can dictate her husband’s choices in that regard, and I should greatly dislike being cast in the shade by a bonne amie with all the charms I lack.”

  “I have no mistress and no intention of taking one.”

  “I just didn’t want to acknowledge the difference between us,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “I suppose I’d been afraid to think about it too much. It’s not easy to be a wallflower . . . quite dispiriting, really.”

  Cyrus felt a searing flash of sympathy and regret, all rolled up in one. He struggled to think of the right thing to say, but nothing came from his throat. This was absurd: he never lacked for words.

  “At any rate,” she said, after a momentary pause, “now that I’ve actually voiced the reasons why you chose me, it’s quite freeing. After all, it’s not as if you were really looking at me. As a woman, I mean. Any wallflower would have done just as well. So I needn’t feel personally diminished.”

  She paused again, and waited for him to respond, but Cyrus was too stunned to speak. She thought he was as much an ass as that? Was it really possible that he had been?

  With no response forthcoming, she added with a hint of warning in her voice, “This is where you’re supposed to reassure me, Mr. Ravensthorpe. Tell me I’m quite good looking for a beanpole, so that we can end this embarrassing conversation and leave the room.”

  But Cyrus felt as if his mind was caught in a vise, forcing him to notice—too late—that Lucy was perfect . . . slim and curved and just the right height to kiss. Her hair had all the warmth of the sun, the smoky amber color of late afternoon.

  The very sight of her made his chest ache. And other parts of him ached as well.

  “You’re really not very talkative,” she said with a sigh. “Well, I suppose we should return to the ballroom. My mother might conclude that you were trying to compromise me.”

  He could do that. The very idea sent a raw pang of hunger through him. If he threw away everything that made him a gentleman . . . He could compromise her and then he would not lose her.

  “That was a joke,” she explained with a little shrug. “There’s a limit to the amount of humiliation one woman should have to undergo in one evening, don’t you think? Goodbye, Mr. Ravensthorpe.” She curtsied.

  If there was one thing that Cyrus was proud of, it was that after leaving school he never, ever breached the rules of civil behavior. No matter how despicable his cousin became (to take the thing that most tested his limit), he never lost control.

  And that self-control meant that he had never touched a gentlewoman in any sort of intimate fashion. For good reason: he’d been so busy making a fortune that he hadn’t bothered with activities that brought gentlewomen into his reach.

  “I don’t think you’re attract
ive,” he said, his voice grating a little.

  Her lip trembled, but she nodded and said in a toneless voice, “Well, I suppose that you—”

  He reached out and hauled her into his arms, a fragrant, yielding bundle of womanhood, and then glared down at her. “ ‘Attractive’ is a word one uses to talk about a new curricle, or a maiden aunt.”

  She said nothing, just blinked up at him.

  His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her even closer to his body. “You’re not merely attractive, you’re lovely. Like a flower, but one with thorns.”

  His voice had turned husky. That was a tone a gentleman wasn’t supposed to use around a lady. He gave up on words, bent his head, and kissed her. It wasn’t the kind of kiss one gives a maiden, either. He didn’t gently brush her lips, coax her to open them, introduce her with finesse and courtesy to the pleasure of open-mouthed kisses.

  Instead he dove inside, a hungry, take-no-prisoners kiss. A kiss that came from some deep place that had grown more and more frustrated in the last minutes, as he’d listened to her disparage herself when she was perfect . . . absolutely perfect.

  When he had chosen Lucy, he noted her height with approval, but he hadn’t thought about what it implied. It meant that she fit into his arms as if she’d been made to measure. He needn’t drop his chin to an awkward angle, or hunch his back, or lift her up against his chest. He merely pulled her against his body and there they were, like two puzzle pieces, his hardness pressing into the giving softness between her legs.

  The growl that came from his lips was an utter surprise. But he was lost now, his control snapped, gone like a straw in a windstorm.

  Lucy’s lips tasted faintly of lemonade and woman. Even in his madness, Cyrus registered that the fiancée who had just ended their betrothal was kissing him back, her lips trembling, even meeting his tongue with her own: sweet, shy . . . distinctly desirous.