by Julia Quinn
To complicate matters, Harriet had apparently decided that her mission for the day was to shadow—and question—Sarah’s every move. Whipple Hill was large, but not large enough when one’s younger sister was curious, determined, and, perhaps most importantly, aware of every nook and cranny in the house.
Hugh had been at breakfast, like always, but it had been impossible for Sarah to speak with him without Harriet inserting herself in the conversation. When Sarah went to the little drawing room to read her novel (as she had casually mentioned she planned to do at breakfast), there was Harriet at the writing desk, the pages of her current work-in-progress spread before her.
“Sarah,” Harriet said brightly, “fancy meeting you here.”
“Fancy that,” Sarah said, with no inflection whatsoever. Her sister had never been skilled in the art of subterfuge.
“Are you going to read?” Harriet inquired.
Sarah glanced down at the novel in her hand.
“You said you were going to read,” Harriet reminded her. “At breakfast.”
Sarah looked back toward the door, considering what her other options for the morning might be.
“Frances is looking for someone with whom to play Oranges and Unicorns,” Harriet said.
That clinched it. Sarah sat right down on the sofa and opened Miss Butterworth. She flipped a few pages, looking for where she’d left off, then frowned. “Is that even a game?” she asked. “Oranges and Unicorns?”
“She says it’s a version of Oranges and Lemons,” Harriet told her.
“How does one substitute unicorns for lemons?”
Harriet shrugged. “It’s not as if one needs actual lemons to play.”
“Still, it does ruin the rhyme.” Sarah shook her head, summoning the childhood poem from her memory. “Oranges and unicorns say the bells of St. . . .” She looked to Harriet for inspiration.
“Clunicorns?”
“Somehow I don’t think so.”
“Moonicorns.”
Sarah cocked her head to the side. “Better,” she judged.
“Spoonicorns? Zoomicorns.”
And . . . that was enough. Sarah turned back to her book. “We’re done now, Harriet.”
“Parunicorns.”
Sarah couldn’t even imagine where that one had come from. But still, she found herself humming as she read.
Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clements.
Meanwhile, Harriet was muttering to herself at the desk. “Pontoonicorns xyloonicorns . . .”
You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martins.
“Oh, oh, oh, I have it! Hughnicorns!”
Sarah froze. This she could not ignore. With great deliberation, she placed her index finger in her book to mark her place and looked up. “What did you just say?”
“Hughnicorns,” Harriet replied, as if nothing could have been more ordinary. She gave Sarah a sly look. “Named for Lord Hugh, of course. He does seem to be a frequent topic of conversation.”
“Not for me,” Sarah immediately said. Lord Hugh Prentice might currently occupy her every thought, but she could not recall even once initiating a discussion about him with her sister.
“Perhaps what I meant to say,” Harriet wheedled, “is that he is a frequent subject of your conversations.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“He is a frequent participant in your conversations,” Harriet corrected without missing a beat.
“I enjoy talking with him,” Sarah said, because no good could come of denying this. Harriet knew better.
“Indeed,” Harriet said, eyes narrowed like a sleuth. “It leads one to wonder if he is also the source of your uncharacteristic good cheer.”
Sarah gave a little huff. “I am beginning to take offense, Harriet. Since when have I been known for a lack of good cheer?”
“Every single morning of your life.”
“That is quite unfair,” Sarah said, since she was fairly certain that no good could come of denying this, either.
In general, it was never good to deny something that was indisputably true. Not with Harriet.
“I think you fancy Lord Hugh,” Harriet declared.
And because Sarah was reading Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, in which barons (mad or otherwise) always appeared in doorways the moment someone uttered their name, she looked up.
Nothing.
“That’s a refreshing change,” she muttered.
Harriet glanced her way. “Did you say something?”
“I was just marveling on the fact that Lord Hugh did not appear in the doorway the moment you said his name.”
“You’re not that lucky,” Harriet said with a smirk.
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“And just to be precise, I believe I said that you fancy Lord Hugh.”
Sarah turned to the doorway. Because really, she would never be that lucky twice.
Still no Hugh.
Well. This was new and different.
She tapped her fingers against her book for a moment, then said under her breath, “Oh, how I wish I could find a gentleman who will look past my three vexing sisters and my”—why not?—“vestigial toe.”
She looked to the doorway.
And there he was.
She grinned. But all things considered, she ought to stop with the vestigial toe business. It would be just her luck if she ended up giving birth to a baby with an extra digit.
“Am I interrupting?” Hugh asked.
“Of course not,” Harriet said with great enthusiasm. “Sarah is reading, and I am writing.”
“So I am interrupting.”
“No,” Harriet blurted out. She looked to Sarah for help, but Sarah saw no reason to intercede.
“I don’t need quiet to write,” Harriet explained.
His brows rose in question. “Didn’t you ask your sisters not to chatter in the carriage?”
“Oh, that’s different.” And then, before anyone might inquire how, Harriet turned to Hugh and asked, “Won’t you sit down and join us?”
He gave a polite nod and came into the room. Sarah watched as he made his way around a wingback chair. He was depending on his cane more heavily than usual; she could see it in his gait. She frowned, then remembered that he had rushed all the way down from his room the night before. Without his cane.
She waited until he took a seat at the other side of the sofa, then quietly asked, “Is your leg bothering you?”
“Just a little.” He set his cane down and idly rubbed the muscle. Sarah wondered if he even noticed when he did that.
Harriet suddenly shot to her feet. “I just remembered something,” she blurted out.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“It’s . . . ehrm . . . something about . . . Frances!”
“What about Frances?”
“Oh, nothing much, really, just . . .” She shuffled her papers together and grabbed the whole sheaf, folding a few sheets in the process.
“Careful there,” Hugh warned.
Harriet looked at him blankly.
“You’re crumpling,” he said, motioning to the paper.
“Oh! Right. All the more reason I should leave.” She took a sideways step to the door, and then another. “So I’ll be on my way . . .”
Sarah and Hugh both turned to watch her depart, but despite all of her protestations, she seemed to be hovering by the door.
“Did you need to find Frances?” Sarah asked.
“Yes.” Harriet rolled to her toes, came back down again, and said, “Right. Good-bye, then.” And she finally left.
Sarah and Hugh looked at each other for several seconds before chuckling.
“What was that ab—,” he started to say.
“Sorry!” Harriet called out, dashing back into the room. “I forgot one thing.” She ran over to the desk, picked up absolutely nothing that Sarah could see (although to be fair, Sarah did not have a clean line of sight), and hurried out, closing the door behind h
er.
Sarah’s mouth fell open.
“What is it?”
“That little minx. She just pretended to have forgotten something so she could shut the door.”
Hugh quirked a brow. “This bothers you?”
“No, of course not. I just never thought she could be so devious.” Sarah paused to reconsider this. “Never mind, what was I saying? Of course she’s that devious.”
“What I find interesting,” Hugh said, “is that your sister is so determined that we should be left alone together. With the door shut,” he added meaningfully.
“She did accuse me of fancying you.”
“Oh, she did, did she? What was your reply?”
“I believe I avoided making one.”
“Well played, Lady Sarah, but I am not so easily subdued.”
Sarah inched a little closer to his side of the sofa. “Is that so?”
“Oh, no,” he replied, reaching out to take her hand in his. “If I were to ask if you fancied me, I can assure you that you would not escape so easily.”
“If you were to ask if I fancied you,” Sarah said, allowing him to tug her closer, “I might not wish to escape.”
“Might?” he echoed, his voice dropping to a husky murmur.
“Well, I might need a little convincing . . .”
“Just a little?”
“A little might be all I need,” she said, letting out a little gasp when her body came into contact with his, “but I might actually want quite a lot.”
His lips brushed hers. “I can see that I have my work cut out for me.”
“Lucky for me, you never struck me as the kind of man who shies away from hard work.”
He smiled wolfishly. “I can assure you, Lady Sarah, that I will work very hard to ensure your pleasure.”
Sarah thought that sounded very nice, indeed.
Chapter Sixteen
Sarah wasn’t sure how long they kissed. It might have been five minutes, it might have been ten. All she knew was that Hugh’s mouth was very wicked, and even though he had not removed or even rearranged a single item of her clothing, his hands were cunning and bold.
He made her feel things, naughty things that started in her belly and oozed through her like molten flame. When his lips were on her neck she wanted to stretch like a cat, arching until every muscle in her body was warm and supple. She wanted to kick off her slippers and run her toes along his calves. She wanted to curve her back and press her hips against his, then allow her legs to grow soft and pliant so that he could settle between them.
He made her want to do things no lady would ever talk about, things no lady should even think about.
And she loved it. She had not acted on any of these urges, but she loved that she wanted to. She loved this sense of abandon, this insane desire to draw him closer and closer until they merged. She had never wanted to even kiss a man before, and now all she could think of was how perfect his hands had felt on her bare skin the night before.
“Oh, Hugh,” she sighed as his fingers found the curve of her thigh and squeezed through the soft muslin of her dress. He rubbed his thumb in lazy circles, each motion bringing him closer to her most private area.
Dear God, if he could make her feel like this through her dress, what would happen when he actually touched her skin?
Sarah shivered at the thought, stunned by how excited she was just from thinking about it.
“You have no idea,” Hugh murmured between kisses, “how very much I wish we were anywhere but this room.”
“Anywhere?” she asked teasingly. She ruffled one of her hands through his tawny hair, delighting in how easy it was to muss.
“Somewhere with a bed.” He kissed her cheek, then her neck, then the tender skin at the base of her throat. “And a locked door.”
Sarah’s heart leapt at his words, but at the same time, his comment awakened a sliver of common sense. The door to the little drawing room was shut, but it wasn’t locked. Sarah didn’t even think it could be locked, and more to the point, she knew that it shouldn’t be locked. Anyone who tried the door and found it barred would immediately want to know what was going on inside, which meant that unless one of them wanted to brave the twelve-foot drop out the window, there would be just as much scandal as if someone had simply walked through the unlocked door.
And while Sarah had every intention of marrying Lord Hugh Prentice (once he asked, which he would, and if he didn’t, she would make him), she didn’t much fancy a marriage-inducing scandal mere days before her cousin’s wedding.
“We have to stop,” she said, without much conviction.
“I know.” But he didn’t stop kissing her. He might have slowed a bit, but he didn’t stop.
“Hugh . . .”
“I know,” he said again, but before he pulled away, the door handle turned decisively, and Daniel strode briskly in, saying something about looking for Anne.
Sarah gasped, but there was no way she could right the situation in time. Hugh was more than half on top of her, there were at least three hairpins on the floor, and—
And, well, Hugh was more than half on top of her.
“What the devil?” Daniel stared with frozen shock before his natural quick thinking set in and he kicked the door shut behind him.
Hugh got to his feet with more speed than Sarah would have thought possible under the circumstances. Freed of his weight, she sat up, instinctively covering her breasts with her arms, even though her frock had not even a single button undone.
But she felt exposed. She could still feel the heat of Hugh’s body against hers, and now Daniel was staring at her with an expression of such fury and disappointment that she could not meet his eyes.
“I trusted you, Prentice,” Daniel said in a low, menacing voice.
“Not in this,” Hugh replied, and even Sarah was surprised at the lack of gravity in his tone.
Daniel started to lunge at him.
Sarah shot to her feet. “Stop! It’s not what you think!”
It was what they always said in novels, after all.
“Very well,” she said, taking in the incredulous expressions on both men, “it is what you think. But you can’t hit him.”
Daniel growled. “Oh, can’t I?”
Sarah planted her hand on his chest. “No,” she said firmly, then turned to Hugh with a pointed finger. “And you can’t either.”
Hugh shrugged. “I wasn’t trying to.”
Sarah blinked. He did look astonishingly casual, all things considered.
She turned back to Daniel. “This is none of your affair.”
Daniel’s body went rigid with fury, and he could barely control his voice when he said, “Go to your room, Sarah.”
“You are not my father,” she shot back.
“I’m bloody well in loco parentis until he arrives,” Daniel nearly spat.
“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she scoffed. Daniel’s fiancée used to live with the Pleinsworths, after all. Sarah knew quite well that his romantic pursuit of her had not been entirely chaste.
Daniel crossed his arms. “This isn’t about me.”
“It wasn’t until you barged into the room.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Hugh said, “I was planning to ask Lord Pleinsworth for her hand just as soon as he arrives.”
Sarah snapped her head back around. “That’s my proposal?”
“Blame him,” Hugh replied, with a nod toward Daniel.
But then Daniel did something unexpected. He took a step toward Hugh, leveled a hard stare at his face, and said, “You will not ask Lord Pleinsworth for her hand. You will not say even a word to him until you tell her the truth.”
The truth? Sarah looked from Daniel to Hugh and back again. Several times. But she might not have even been there, for all they noticed her. And for once in her life, she kept her mouth shut.
“What,” Hugh bit off, his temper finally ignited, “do you mean by that?”
“You know very w
ell,” Daniel seethed. “I trust you have not forgotten the devil’s bargain you made.”
“You mean the one that saved your life?” Hugh countered.
Sarah took a step back in alarm. She did not know what was going on, but it terrified her.
“Yes,” Daniel confirmed in a silky voice. “That one. Wouldn’t you think that a woman ought to know before she accepts your offer?”
“Know what?” Sarah asked uneasily. “What are you talking about?” But neither man so much as spared her a glance.
“Marriage is a lifetime commitment,” Daniel said in an awful voice. “A lifetime.”
Hugh’s jaw went rigid. “This is not the time, Winstead.”
“Not the time?” Daniel echoed. “Not the time? When the bloody hell else would be the time?”
“Watch your language,” Hugh snapped.
“She’s my cousin.”
“She’s a lady.”
“She’s right here,” Sarah said weakly, lifting a hand.
Daniel whipped around to face her. “Have I offended you?”
“Ever?” Sarah asked, desperate to break the tension in the room.
Daniel scowled at her pathetic attempt at humor and turned back to Hugh. “Will you tell her?” he asked. “Or shall I?”
No one said a word.
Several seconds went by, then Daniel snapped toward Sarah with a suddenness that almost made her dizzy. “Do you recall,” he said in an awful tone of voice, “how furious Lord Hugh’s father was after the duel?”
Sarah nodded, even though she was not sure he expected an answer. She had not been out in society at the time of the duel, but she’d heard her mother whispering about it with her aunts. Lord Ramsgate had gone mad, they’d said. He was positively unhinged.
“Did you ever wonder,” Daniel continued, still in that terrible tone she now realized was for Hugh even as his words were directed toward her, “how Lord Hugh managed to convince his father to leave me alone?”
“No,” Sarah said slowly, and it was the truth. Or at least it had been until a few weeks ago. “I assumed . . . I don’t know. You came back, and that was all that mattered.”
She felt like an idiot. Why hadn’t she wondered what Hugh had done to retrieve Daniel? Should she have done?