The Lady Most Willing Read online

  “Thank you,” Fiona said. “We will.”

  He straightened, caught sight of Byron, and scowled. “Does the laird know that you’re in here?”

  “No, and you’ll not tell him.” The words were delivered with a hard tone that seemed to make an impression on the man.

  “Wooing!” he said, and turned and spat into the fire. “Time was a man dinna have to do this kind of wooing. Groveling for money, more like.” His gaze moved to Fiona. “Begging from women who has the money. It’s unnatural.” He collected her cold teapot and headed for the door.

  Byron strode after him. “You didn’t see me here,” he stated.

  The old Scotsman snorted and stomped off.

  Oddly enough, that snort made Byron smile. Fiona decided that she didn’t understand him. He was unnerved by Marilla’s advances, but amused by a retainer’s flat rudeness. As she watched, he not only closed the door but turned the key.

  “Is that truly necessary?” Fiona inquired.

  “If you’re asking whether I’d prefer to avoid the experience of having another strange breast fall into my hand like an overripe plum, the answer is yes.”

  Perhaps she should say something to defend her sister. But an overripe plum didn’t sound very nice.

  “What if it weren’t a strange breast?” she asked, unable to resist.

  “I am not familiar with any woman’s breasts,” Byron replied, walking back to the sofa. “At the moment the world is full of strange breasts. Though I must say, this is a very improper subject.”

  “You do need to marry,” Fiona pointed out, struck by his observation. “You should be out there groveling at someone’s feet—Lady Cecily’s for example—in the hopes of gaining an intimate acquaintance with body parts other than her feet.”

  “There are better things a man could do with his time than grovel at a woman’s feet,” Byron remarked.

  With a start, Fiona realized that he was looking at her as he sat back down. With a lazy smile.

  A dangerous smile.

  For a moment her heart hiccupped, but she got hold of herself. “Right,” she said briskly. “You may have one of my crumpets, and then I would ask to be left in peace. I don’t have much left to read in this novel, and I’m keen to finish it.”

  “If you force me to leave now, I shall starve,” he complained, picking up a linen napkin from the tray.

  “Only because you’re afraid to go into the drawing room for tea.”

  He reached a powerful hand toward the crumpets. Devil take the man, his limbs were probably as beautifully knit as his fingers. “More cautious than afraid,” he said. “Have you noticed how much worse the storm has grown today?”

  She didn’t even glance at the windows. She’d lived in the Highlands all her life, and she knew the howl of the wind. “It will worsen through tomorrow evening, I should guess. You are now in the Highlands proper, Lord Oakley.”

  “My name is Byron,” he said, for the third or fourth time, as he handed her the napkin and a crumpet.

  The incongruity of this man being named Byron flashed across her mind. Byron was a poet, a man who wrote of love, midnight, and a woman’s smile. The earl, though, was of a different character altogether.

  He obviously read her expression. “I have no connection whatsoever to that paltry rhymester Lord Byron. The name has been in my family for generations.”

  “You’re not a poet, then?” She smiled at him, acknowledging that the mere notion was ridiculous. In fact, his christening had to be some sort of jest on destiny’s part. This Byron was the least poetic man she’d ever met.

  On the other hand, his person could easily be the subject of poetry. From the top of his ice-blond head to the toes of his perfectly shined boots, he was flawless. Even in the width of his shoulders and the clear blue of his eyes.

  He had finished his crumpet, so he picked up the pitcher and poured hot cider into her empty teacup.

  “Brandied cider,” she said happily. “What a perfect drink for an afternoon such as this.”

  “It’s not afternoon; it must be going on six in the evening,” Byron said, pouring himself a mug. “At any rate, I could write poetry if I wished.” Stubbornness echoed in every word.

  She eyed him. “Are you this competitive in every aspect of your life?”

  “It is not competitive to understand that poetry presents very little challenge. A rhyme here or there is hardly problematical.” He tossed back his cider.

  Fiona thought precisely the opposite, but she kept prudently silent. It had just occurred to her that he might have had a rather sad childhood. Still, thinking that an earl—a man immersed in privilege and luxury—could have been neglected was absurd. She was mistaking innate arrogance for something else.

  “Did your governess teach you the fine art of writing lyrics?” he asked, reaching past her toward the plate of crumpets. “Or were you sent to school?” His lips had taken on a buttery shine. If she had the nerve—and life were completely different—she would kiss him just there, on the bow of his lower lip.

  Snow was dashing itself against the windows, and the library felt like a very warm, very snug nest. “We were largely raised by a nanny and a governess,” she told him. “We had different mothers, but unfortunately, neither survived past our early years. My governess was not poetical, to the best of my memory.”

  “Mine felt that nursery rhymes were poor substitutes for biblical verses,” the earl said.

  “That sounds . . . tedious,” Fiona said honestly.

  He nodded. “I think it would have been better had I a sibling. I would have guessed that Marilla was spoiled. ‘Too pretty for her own good,’ my nanny would have said.”

  “Did your nanny say that of you?”

  “I’m not pretty,” he said, reaching for the last crumpet.

  “Please save at least one crumpet for me,” she asked pointedly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. To her surprise, there was a wicked amusement in his eyes. “I’m sure Marilla would say I should eat them all, the better to protect your waistline.”

  “Beast,” she said, but without heat. His gaze made it perfectly clear that he thought her waistline was fine as it was. In fact, that was probably the kind of carnal look that her father thought she’d given Dugald. She hadn’t. Ever.

  “I wouldn’t want us to quarrel over crumpets,” Bryon said, a glimmer of a smile at one corner of his mouth. Then he did something that she would never in a million years have expected: he held the crumpet up to her lips.

  She looked at him.

  “Open your mouth and take a bite,” he ordered.

  He watched her lips so intently that she felt a curl of heat in her stomach. He couldn’t truly be attracted to her.

  Not that it mattered. At the moment he knew next to nothing about her past, yet all too soon he would. But then . . . his eyes met hers as she took the bite, and the curl of heat grew a little more intense.

  It was as though they were having two completely distinct, yet simultaneous conversations. It was most disconcerting.

  “Marilla was a beautiful infant,” she told him, unable to think what else to say. He took a bite of her crumpet, still watching her intently. “The adoration her curls inspired wasn’t terribly good for her.”

  “I suppose it led her to believe that she was the most endearing child in the Highlands, as opposed to the most willful.” He held out the crumpet again.

  “Lord Oakley,” she asked with some curiosity, “do you feel that you might have a fever?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “You seem to be acting out of character. Do you think your friends would recognize you if they could see you now?”

  “Of course they would.”

  She hesitated. “You do know that Marilla and I attended the London season the last two years?”

  A slight frown creased his brow. “Will you eat this crumpet, or shall I finish it?”

  She accepted what little remained of the crump
et and finished it in two bites. Butter dripped onto the back of her hand, and without thinking she licked it off. Their eyes met again, and the warmth in her stomach spread to her legs.

  “I glimpsed you at two balls in the last season,” she said, straightening her back. “You were pointed out to me as one of the most eligible men in London—that was before you asked for Lady Opal’s hand in marriage, of course.”

  “But we were not introduced.” He frowned in a rather irresistible way. “I would have remembered you.”

  “Of course we were not introduced,” she said, almost laughing at him. “Marilla and I are as far beneath your notice as butterflies are to a . . . a . . .”

  “Hawk?” he suggested.

  “Elephant?”

  The right side of his mouth hitched up in an enchantingly hesitant smile.

  “At any rate,” she said hastily, reminding herself that this flirtation had no future, “I rather think your friends might believe you’d lost your mind if they could spy on you.”

  “I would like to know what it was like to grow up with a sibling,” he said, ignoring her comment. “Did she steal your toys? I believe that is common behavior.”

  “Surely Rocheforte stole your things when you were boys?”

  “My father did not consider Robin suitable company for his heir,” the earl said. “A matter of his French blood, you understand. We met only as adults, so I did not share my nursery with anyone.”

  Her hunch had been right, then: his had indeed been a lonely childhood. “Marilla did borrow my things occasionally,” Fiona admitted. She took a sip of the cider and broke into a fit of coughing.

  He leaned over, slipped a hand behind her, and gave her a gentle clap on her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  Excepting the fact that she could feel the touch of his fingers all the way through ancient velvet, two chemises, and a corset, she was fine. Just fine. “Your uncle’s cider is a trifle stronger than I’m used to.”

  Byron poured himself a new cup, and took a healthy swallow. “Brandy with a touch of cider, rather than the reverse,” he said with obvious pleasure. “It isn’t as though we have to do anything requiring coordination.”

  Fiona took another sip. The drink burned on the way down to her stomach, reminding her that one crumpet, plus two bites of another, wasn’t much of a meal.

  “Let’s return to the subject of your childhood,” Byron said, settling into his corner of the sofa.

  “Let’s not,” Fiona said. “We ought to join the others in the drawing room. It must be nearly time for supper.”

  There was something wild and boyish about the earl’s face, as if he’d thrown his entire personality—at least, what she’d seen of it in London—out the window. “Not after I went to all that trouble to sneak in here,” he said. “Besides, I’m enjoying this. Very much.”

  Fiona felt a blush creep up her neck.

  “Lord Oakley,” she said cautiously, “did you take anything to drink before that cider?”

  “No,” he said, tipping his head against the back of the sofa. “I did not. But I might drink that whole pitcher; I may never return to the drawing room.” He turned his head and looked into her eyes. “I don’t want to be kissed by your sister again. And that’s even though I gave some thought to marrying her.”

  Fiona cleared her throat. “I can understand that.”

  He leaned toward her. “But I wouldn’t mind if you kissed me. If you address me as Oakley once again, I shall kiss you. There: I’ve given you fair warning.”

  “I shall not kiss you,” Fiona exclaimed, drawing back. “I don’t kiss anyone.”

  “And your reason for such abstinence?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  He settled back into his corner, nodding. “You would probably share such information only with your intimates. Friends.”

  Fiona glanced at him, feeling shy, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about Dugald. Not yet. “Marilla and I didn’t fight over toys,” she said, looking back to the fire. “I didn’t mind sharing. But when we were growing up, my sister always wanted a portrait frame that I owned.”

  He stretched out an arm along the back of the sofa; it was amazing how a person could not touch you . . . and still touch you. “Did she take it from you?”

  She nodded. “I always got it back, though.”

  “And that frame held a portrait of your dead mother.” She felt him pick up a lock of her hair.

  “How on earth did you guess that?” She turned to face him again, and her hair slid from his fingers. Her toes were a little chilly; she pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “Power of deduction,” he answered, shrugging. “I suspect that you have always given Marilla what she wants, because I doubt there are many material objects you hold dear. I could think of only one thing that you wouldn’t give up. She would want it all the more because it was important to you.”

  She stole another look at him, and realized that there was one other thing that she would never willingly give to Marilla . . . but he wasn’t hers to keep. It was a horrifying thought. It was hard enough to recover from the emotional morass caused by Dugald’s death. She didn’t need to fall in love with an improbably beautiful and thorny lord as well.

  “It was a very, very pretty frame,” she said, realizing she had adopted Marilla’s favorite phrase only as she said it. “Silver worked with pearl, and of course my sister was quite young when she first saw it.”

  Byron stood and moved to the fire, onto which he carefully placed two more logs. As she watched him, it occurred to Fiona that he probably did everything carefully. He returned to the sofa, but somehow ended up seated not at one end, but in the middle.

  His hip touched her slippers, in fact. Once again, he slung his arm along the sofa and picked up a lock of her hair. Unsure how to react to this, Fiona pretended not to notice.

  “What happened to the frame?” he asked.

  “She began stealing the portrait and hiding it, after which I would tear apart her bedchamber looking for it. Eventually, my father heard of our battles, and he sent off to London to have a precise duplicate made, but with a portrait of Marilla’s mother rather than mine. She was, you understand, very beautiful.”

  “Your mother must have been extraordinarily lovely as well. What was your father’s secret?” His eyes held an expression she recognized, though it wasn’t often directed at her. She’d seen it too often in the eyes of men looking at her sister to mistake it. He must be drunk to feel lust for her. Quite drunk.

  “In fact, my mother was an ordinary woman,” she said, hugging her knees.

  “I doubt that.” He paused, then: “How did she die?”

  “She caught pneumonia one particularly cold winter. I was quite young, so I haven’t many memories of her, but she was motherly, if you know what I mean.”

  “Dark red hair like yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Your hair has all the colors of the fire in it, like banked logs that might burst into flame any moment. And it curls around my finger like a molten wire.” Without stopping, he asked: “What happened when the portrait arrived?”

  “Nothing,” Fiona said, rather sadly. Her sister had tossed the portrait—painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence from an earlier likeness—to the side as if it had cost mere pennies. She could still picture her father’s crushed expression. “Pearls are old fashioned, Papa,” Marilla had snapped. “Don’t you know anything? I swear I don’t belong in this mud hole. I belong in London.”

  The earl tugged the lock of her hair that he held, rather as she had tugged Marilla’s that morning. “Lord Oak—”

  He tugged harder.

  “Byron,” she said, reluctantly. “This conversation isn’t at all proper. Not at all. I don’t wish to call you by your given name.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because this is some strange fairy-tale moment, and tomorrow, or possibly the next day, the snow will s
top and then the pass will open, and you will return to your life. And I will return to mine.”

  “Will you come to London for the season this March?”

  “No,” she said swiftly, knowing instantly that she would rather die than sit on the edge of a ballroom and watch the Earl of Oakley waltz with another woman as everyone attempted to decipher his haughty expression. “I didn’t like you very much when I saw you there.”

  He nodded, seeming to understand. “You wouldn’t like me this time, either. But couldn’t we pretend that I’m someone different? Likable? After all, we’re buried.” He gestured toward the windows. They were encrusted with snow and ice.

  “I’m not very imaginative,” she said apologetically. “All I can see is an earl who is well-known as a most punctilious man, but has apparently lost his head. It would be one thing if I were Marilla. But you’re not struck mad by my nonexistent beauty, so the only way I can explain your flirtation is to believe that you do so in order to avoid my sister. And that doesn’t make me feel very flattered.”

  “Why couldn’t I be enthralled by your face? Because, as it happens, I am.” He reached over and poured more cider into both of their cups.

  She frowned at him. “How strong is that cider?”

  “You are very beautiful, in a quiet way. You’re like a flower that one sees only after wandering away from the coach into a field. And then, behind a rock, one finds a tiny blue flower, like a drop of the ocean in the midst of a brown field.”

  “Goodness,” she said, startled by this flight of lyricism. “Perhaps you do have something in common with Lord Byron.”

  “Absolutely not,” he said, his lip curling. “The man leads a licentious life and deserves every drop of notoriety he’s earned.”

  “Reputation is tremendously important to you by all accounts.”

  “An excellent character is a person’s greatest blessing,” he replied. It sounded as if he was repeating a sentence he’d heard many times.

  “It’s far more complicated than that. The public nature of one’s character can differ from the nature of one’s intrinsic self,” she answered, feeling her heart ache. Surely she wasn’t falling in love with a man she hardly knew. Clearly, she was feeling too much. More than she’d allowed herself to feel in years, since the wrenching horrible days when she realized that her father didn’t, and never would, believe her about Dugald.