The Lady Most Willing Read online

  Envy was an uncomfortable emotion. It felt like a dark, raging burn in his veins.

  Before he chose Opal to wed, he had danced with every maiden on the marriage market who fell into his purview—which left Scottish girls such as Marilla and Fiona to the side—and then he had made what he thought was a reasoned, intelligent decision.

  His thought process had been a bit embarrassing, in retrospect. He had decided that Opal would make a good mother. He hadn’t known his own mother well, since she had run away with his uncle—his father’s younger brother—when he was just a child. They had gone to the Americas, and for all he knew, they were there still.

  Still, it didn’t help to know that he had a reason to feel unsure of himself around women. His father’s freezing tirades, which invariably emphasized female lust, had clearly affected him.

  He would have sworn that Opal was chaste; among other signs, he had never detected the faintest shadow of desire when she looked at him. Now he thought back to the docility with which she accepted his compliments, her downturned eyes, and the way she turned her head to the side . . . He had been a fool.

  It wasn’t that he wanted to make a fast woman his countess. An unblemished reputation was of supreme importance. But . . . he would like to have his wife love him. Enough so that she wouldn’t leap to another man’s bed.

  What’s more, if Bret could make a woman love him, Byron damn well could as well. His competitive edge rose to the surface. He could make a woman look at him with wild delight. He could bind her to him so persuasively that she would never look at another.

  Marilla Chisholm was an obvious candidate. She was pretty, devastatingly so. Her curls were soft as butter, and her eyes a delightful blue.

  And the fact that her youthful spirits led her to behavior that would be classified as outrageous by the strict matrons who ruled the ton . . . well, that was all to the better. After all, she was trying to kiss him, rather than a dancing master. She was probably just innocent of the ways of the world.

  To be fair, his fiancée had not shown any reluctance to accept his kisses, to the best of his recollection. It was he who had thought to protect her maidenly virtue, never venturing more than to give her a chaste buss. If he had kissed Opal more passionately, would she have turned to him, rather than the dancing master?

  He rather suspected that might be the case.

  One could almost think that she had deliberately planned that he should discover her in a compromising position. When he’d entered the room, she had seemed neither shocked nor dismayed. He had stood there, consumed in an incandescent rage, and Opal watched him as she pushed away her dancing master, smiled prettily, and said, “Well, I suppose our betrothal is at an end.”

  The more he thought about it . . . the more he was convinced the whole scene was calculated. She probably paid that dancing master for the kiss. That was how much she wanted to get rid of him. Of him, the Earl of Oakley.

  Yet his figure was agreeable, if not better than that. His nose was Roman, as Marilla had pointed out, but not overly so. He was wealthy and titled.

  But he hadn’t bothered to woo Opal. In fact, he’d been something of a pompous ass about it, bestowing his hand upon her with the expectation that she would consider it life’s greatest blessing.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t recognize the prototype. His father had judged people solely on their claims to bloodlines and estate. No maid in the late earl’s presence raised her eyes above shoulder level unless spoken to. No child, including his own, spoke unless invited to do so. No woman, including his own wife, expressed disagreement with one of Lord Oakley’s opinions, at least to the best of Byron’s memory.

  He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He might have inadvertently fallen into some of his father’s habits of mind and conduct. But that needn’t mean he had to retain them; he was, after all, possessed of a free will. The late earl had been a cold-blooded man whose only deep concern was for his reputation. He had sent Robin to Rugby after the comte died because of what people would say if he didn’t; but he wouldn’t let Robin come home on holidays because of the French “taint” in his nephew’s blood.

  He, Byron, didn’t have to take after his father. He could be spontaneous and warm. Amusing, even. Charming. All those things that Robin was and he wasn’t . . . but only because he hadn’t ever really tried.

  He couldn’t imagine himself in love—but he could damn well make a woman fall in love with him. For a moment he considered Fiona Chisholm, but there was something in her gaze that suggested she was unlikely to succumb to tender feelings. Some sort of reserve that echoed his own.

  Lady Cecily was pretty as a picture, but his friend Burbett had mentioned that he was as good as betrothed to her, so there was no point looking in her direction.

  That left Marilla. She was lively, beautiful, and—for the most part—well mannered. Her joie de vivre would keep him young. He could play blindman’s buff with his children someday.

  Byron took himself downstairs that afternoon resolved to win Marilla’s heart. He would begin by reiterating the request he had made to her to address him by his Christian name.

  If he married someone like Marilla, it would prove to Taran that he wasn’t stuffy, like his father. The more he thought on it, Marilla was practically perfect. The other young ladies seemed to regard her as something of a leader: witness the way that they followed her suggestion of blindman’s buff.

  Leadership was a good attribute for a countess.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs, hesitated, and then turned into the library rather than the drawing room. Even given his new determination to consider Marilla as a countess, it was something of a relief to find that she wasn’t in the room.

  In fact, the library’s only occupant was Marilla’s sister, Fiona. She lay on a sofa before the fire, reading a book, dark red curls tumbling down one shoulder. Her spectacles were surprisingly winsome, he thought. Really, it was enough to make one think that they might become fashionable.

  As he walked over to the fireplace, she looked up from her book, and her brow creased for a moment. He could tell perfectly well that she had momentarily forgotten who he was. This was a woman truly unimpressed by his consequence.

  “Lord Oakley,” he prompted, adding, “but please call me Byron; we are all on terms of the greatest familiarity at Finovair.” It wasn’t at all hard to ask her that. In fact, he would rather like to hear his name on her lips.

  She swung down her legs, rose, and dropped a curtsy. “Lord Oakley,” she said, her eyes shadowed by curling eyelashes.

  Byron bowed to the young lady and then walked over to stand in front of the sofa. He nearly sat down without being invited to do so, because that was the way people on easy terms behaved. Or at least, so he thought. But his breeding got the better of him and he remained on his feet. “We all agreed to address each other by our Christian names,” he informed her, hating the hectoring tone of his voice even as he spoke. “Mine is Byron.”

  She regarded him silently for a moment. Her eyes were just as green as they had appeared last night, and her spectacles perched on a delightfully pert nose.

  “In fact, you and my sister made that agreement between you, though I must presume that the Duke of Bretton and Catriona have agreed to the same informality. Does all this lack of ceremony distress you?” she asked, avoiding use of his name, he noticed. And not offering to allow him to use her own.

  “I am not accustomed to it,” he admitted. “Do I remember that your name is Fiona?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed, again not granting him permission to address her as such.

  Despite himself, he felt a little stung. “I apologize for interrupting your reading,” he said, making up his mind not to leave the room directly, because it was good for him, one might say instructive, to remain with people who took no account of his importance. Fiona certainly fell into that category. “May I ask what volume has caught your interest?”

  The earl was dan
gerously beautiful, Fiona thought. But so controlled. Did he even perspire when he made love? Did his face turn red, did he make inelegant noises, did he . . .

  “I am reading a novel called Persuasion,” she said, jerking her mind from that disgraceful (though interesting) subject. As it happened, she had not personally acquired information about intimate encounters of that nature, but she had heard all about them. Nothing she had heard about grunting, sweaty encounters sounded terribly appealing.

  “You have found your way into the wrong room, Lord Oakley,” she said, tucking herself back into a corner of the sofa. Her finger marked her place in her novel. When he first entered the room, the pompous Sir Walter of the novel and the pompous earl in front of her were confused in her mind; she had blinked at Byron as if he had somehow materialized out of the book’s pages.

  In reality, her comparison wasn’t fair in the least. Oakley was young and remarkably good-looking, with white-blond hair clipped very short, and winged black eyebrows. He reminded her of a medieval saint carved from ivory: all dignity, virtue, and pale skin.

  But he was still Sir Walter, under that lovely exterior. A man who could not conceivably feel other than disgust for her.

  “Everyone is doubtless having a wonderful time in the drawing room. They will be missing you,” she said encouragingly.

  “I am too old to play games,” he countered, as if she’d shown the faintest interest in his age.

  “Does that mean you actually played games as a child?” she asked, with a queer mix of genuine curiosity and a strong wish to puncture his rigid control. He looked as if he had been born in an immaculately pressed—and elegantly tied—silk neck cloth.

  “Certainly, I did.”

  Frankly, while the man might be an exceptional physical specimen, he was not a very captivating conversationalist. All the same, it would be rude to simply resume reading in front of him. “Is there something I might help you find in the library?” she asked, her tone once more implying that he should take himself elsewhere.

  Instead, he sat down beside her.

  Fiona took a deep breath, and then wished she hadn’t. He even smelled good, like starched linen and manly soap. She didn’t like English earls. In fact, she didn’t like Englishmen in general. This one was distracting her from her book. He made her . . . he made her think about things she had given up.

  Men, for example.

  She had agreed to marry once, and that was enough. Though, of course, her betrothed had been nothing like Oakley. Dugald had been an oaf—and a violent, drunken one at that. The earl didn’t look as though he ever relaxed enough to drink spirits.

  “Lord Oakley,” she said, rather less than patiently, “would it bother you greatly if I continued to read my book?”

  “May I ask you a blunt question before you recommence, Miss Chisholm?”

  “If you must,” she replied. “But only if you give me the same courtesy. What on earth are you doing here? You should be in the drawing room being wooed by adoring young ladies.”

  “Adoring young ladies?” He seemed genuinely confused.

  “I hope you are not wounded by Catriona’s defection to the duke. Either my sister or Lady Cecily would be a splendid countess, and I’m certain they are waiting with bated breath for your return to the drawing room.” A less severe man might have been thought to smile, she noticed. Perhaps he did smile, with his eyes, though not with his lips.

  “I gather that you deem Miss Burns and yourself as birds of a feather.”

  “You wouldn’t want me to adore you,” Fiona assured him. “I have a ruined reputation. That being the case, I think we could simply skip the part where I try to entice you into an unwise marriage based on our unexpected propinquity, don’t you?”

  “That was a very long sentence.” Yes, he was smiling. Amazing.

  “I can translate it, if you’d like,” she offered.

  “I cannot decide how I am to take your wit. I seem to be the target of it, so presumably, I should not laugh. But if I am not to laugh, then who is the recipient?”

  Fiona took a swift breath. “You have put me in my place. And,” she admitted reluctantly, “I deserved it. I should not have made fun at your expense, particularly since my jests were weak. But, in truth, Lord Oakley, I’m certain everyone is awaiting your return to the drawing room. I mustn’t keep you with this foolish babble.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I suppose I am looking for someone to adore me. Though it sounds remarkably arrogant, put so.”

  Fiona winced. “I have offended you again. I am truly sorry. I have no right to judge your demeanor, and I would never consider you in such a light.” She didn’t know where to look, so she glanced back at her book.

  “I’ll leave you to your reading. If I might ask a question first?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, and then, unable to stop herself: “Though I’m positively dying to finish this novel, so I would be grateful if you would ask your question immediately.” It wasn’t the book, not really. There was something very dangerous about the earl, doubly so because he was so domineering and arrogant—and yet at this moment there was also something slightly uncertain about him.

  It made no sense that a pang of faint anxiety should overrule her dislike of arrogant men, but there it was. She didn’t even want to meet his eyes again, for fear she would see that utterly disarming note of uncertainty.

  “My question is in reference to your sister.”

  At that, Fiona lifted her head and gave him a judicious smile. “You couldn’t do better than to choose Marilla as your countess,” she cooed. It was manifestly false, but family loyalty is surely a greater good than truthfulness.

  “I was wondering whether her affections were otherwise engaged. A woman so beautiful must have many local admirers.”

  “Not at all! That is,” she added, “of course Marilla is much adored. But she has not yet settled on the man to whom she would like to bestow her hand.”

  He appeared to be brooding over something, so Fiona said mendaciously, “And I’m sure I need not tell you how admired she is. She has a very lively personality.”

  “Too much so, some might say.”

  Fiona stiffened. Marilla was objectionable, but nevertheless was still her sister. “What precisely do you mean by that?” she inquired, her voice as chilly as she could make it.

  “Merely foolishness,” the earl said. He stood, and gave her a slight bow. “I will give your best to everyone in the drawing room.”

  She felt a pang of guilt. Something like disappointment clouded his eyes. Though that was ridiculous. It was as if she caught a flash of a lonely boy, but looking at the magnificently dressed, handsome aristocrat before her, she was obviously mistaken.

  “I would greatly prefer that you did not,” she told him. “They may feel the need to gather me into the game-playing fracas on the other side of the wall.”

  When the oh-so-severe earl smiled, which he did now, his face was transformed. His eyes could make a woman into a drunk who lived for those moments alone. She hastily returned her gaze to her book.

  He paused for a moment, and then she saw his boots receding and heard the door to the library quietly closing.

  Fiona sat still, biting her lip, not reading. She was reconciled to her lot in life, truly she was. But there were times when she felt a stab of anger at Dugald, anger so potent that it burned the back of her throat. What right had he to take away her chance to marry a man like the earl?

  The absurdity of that thought jerked her out of her self-pity. She had attended Marilla in two of her last three seasons in London. Though she stayed, appropriately, at the fringes with the chaperones, she had nonetheless spied Oakley from afar. Dugald or no Dugald, she would never have had the slightest contact with a man such as the earl under any other circumstances.

  She opened Persuasion again and pushed away the pulse of sadness. What was she thinking? That implacable look in his eyes would make him a terrible—

  Wha
t was she thinking? Even if she wasn’t known the length and breadth of Scotland as a hussy of the worst order, she was a mere Scottish miss.

  Noblemen such as Oakley did not deign to look at lowly beings such as she.

  Her fingers curled more tightly around the volume as a sudden image of Marilla as Countess of Oakley flashed through her mind. Byron as her brother-in-law. Seated across from her at the supper table before retiring upstairs with Marilla.

  She’d move to Spain.

  No, that wasn’t far enough.

  Chapter 12

  Two hours later

  Fiona was firmly under the spell of the cheerful but slightly battered heroine of Persuasion—not to mention Sir Walter and his daughter—when she heard the door to the library open and then quickly shut again.

  She was curled up under a toasty red blanket with a comforting doggy smell, and felt vastly disinclined to move.

  “Hello?” she asked reluctantly, sitting up.

  The earl was standing against the door, finger on his lips. She nodded and lay back onto the sofa.

  She had decided to keep her distance from the earl. She could not allow herself to be enticed by that air of confidence and power that he wore like an invisible cloak. It had probably been bestowed in the cradle along with his insignia or crest or however it was that earls distinguished themselves from mere mortals.

  She read the next paragraph three times, trying to fix her attention on the words, even though every fiber of her being was dying to know what Byron was doing. Against her better judgment, she had started to think of him as Byron, an inappropriate intimacy, if ever there was one.

  When she’d read the paragraph for the fourth time, and still had no idea what it said, she conceded defeat. She sat up again to confront Byron just as the door was slammed open and Marilla appeared, flushed and radiant. If Marilla was exquisite at the best of times, when she was rosy and excited, she was terrifying. “Oh, Byron! I’m very, very sure you’re here!” she caroled.

  The moment she noticed Fiona, her eyes narrowed, and her voice lost all claim to charm. “I’m looking for the earl. Has he entered?”