All that long flight back to her bedroom, she’d corrected her fumbled speech. Think nothing of it. Nothing. Oh, how could she leave out that word? Her mother was right. Liza had opened her mouth and nonsense had spewed out.
When next she saw Lord Thomas, he’d acted perfectly normal. There was no hint he remembered their kiss. Liza found herself blushing around him for a week before she concluded he didn’t recall the encounter. He’d been, after all, very intoxicated. That was three years ago, yet still, she struggled to put the memory of her first kiss, her only kiss, behind her.
Chapter Three
A week after Liza launched her fourth season at what should have been a quiet tea, she paced the library. The tea had gone horribly wrong. There’d been only one person there she knew, a school friend. Liza, in an attempt to appear sociable, asked after the girl’s favorite pet pug. How was she to know the chubby little angel had been trampled by the girl’s horse the day before?
Really, though, upset as she was, the young woman needn’t have pointed at Liza and wailed. Everyone had assumed Liza had done something horrid. Whispers quickly spread that she was friends with Prudence, and so she must be a cruel prankster like Prudence. No one believed that her question had been asked out of innocence. Needless to say, she hadn’t made any new acquaintances, let alone met a gentleman.
The carriage ride home had included a lecture. Liza hadn’t bothered to defend herself. She’d long since learned that the length and vehemence of her mother’s lectures were determined by the distance they must travel, not by Liza’s level of culpability.
Which was why the trip back from last night’s ball had been particularly arduous, but not as terrible as the ride home from the theatre the day before. The theatre was closer, but the press of vehicles made traffic stand still for an interminable age. With the season a week old, her mother already nurtured an arsenal against Liza’s social ineptitude. Should they sail to Canada, Liza was mournfully certain her mother remembered enough incidents to detail Liza’s faults for the entire voyage.
Unable to sleep last night, Liza had settled on a dreadful, desperate plan. She did have one friend, one person she could speak to with ease, who didn’t seem to mind her chatter: Lord Thomas. Since he was her only friend, he would have to help her.
She stopped pacing and pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead. Could she really enlist his aid to find a husband? She squeezed her eyes closed in despair.
It took several slow breaths before she could pry open her lids once more. She resumed her pacing, slippers scuffing the thick carpet. As much as it would hurt to ask Lord Thomas for help in this matter, she had no other choice. There was simply no one else to whom she could turn.
A long sigh escaped her. If only Lord Thomas were in the market for a wife. He was kind, and tall, and never made her feel foolish. Involuntarily, she touched her lips, but then dropped her hand. Yes, she was desperate, but not desperate enough to take a man who was in love with his dead wife.
Even if his kiss was the most wonderful thing to ever happen to her.
“Good evening, Miss Milton.”
Liza shrieked and whirled. She stumbled, arms flung wide. Lord Thomas seized her arm and steadied her. She grabbed his coat sleeves and clung to them.
“Careful,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought you must have heard me enter.”
She usually did. She would have, if she weren’t so agitated. “My mind was elsewhere,” she mumbled. She felt the strength of his arms through his coat. She snatched her hands away and clasped them behind her back.
“Was it?” he asked.
“Was what?” She stared up at him. He stood so near, just as he had on that night.
“Your mind. Was it elsewhere?” He looked at her in that intent way he had, but this time she was sure he saw her. She stood directly in front of him, after all. “What was so distracting?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Obviously, she couldn’t tell the truth. She wasn’t good at lying, though. She blathered even worse when she tried to lie. No, she couldn’t lie, or tell him she’d been thinking about the kiss, but she could say, “Marriage.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Marriage?”
“Yes.” She turned away, needing distance from him to clear her thoughts. She resumed her pacing. “I’m supposed to marry, you know. We all are. It’s what we do. As a society, I mean, as women. We must. There are houses and babies and place settings and—” She broke off. Close your mouth, Liza.
“I see,” he said, tone expressionless. “Does this mean you have found someone to marry?”
She dared a glance, but his face was unreadable. She threw up her hands. “No, that’s the trouble. I haven’t. I can’t seem to. All my friends are married and I don’t know anyone, and I need your help.” She pushed the words out before cowardice could stop them. She came around to face him, this time a safe distance from his lips.
His look of surprise turned into a frown. “You need me? To help you?” he said the words slowly, as if choosing them with care.
“Yes,” she cried. “You’re a man. You must know other men. At least some of them must be in want of a wife.”
His frown deepened. “I don’t know many people.”
“More than I do. Especially more gentlemen than I do.” She had to convince him. As much as it hurt to ask him, it would hurt more to be utterly alone. She clasped her hands. “Please, Lord Thomas. I’m on my fourth season.”
“You are?” He still frowned, but now seemed perplexed. “So soon?”
“It isn’t soon. Trust me, I have lived it. It’s more like forever.”
He pushed a hand through his hair. He must drive his valet to distraction. Such handsomeness, and a physique built to display finely tailored clothes, yet his hair was in constant disarray. Her hands ached with the desire to run through that hair. She clasped them behind her once more.
“You want me to help you find someone to wed?” he said.
Her heart hammered. Dizziness made his words seem to come from the far end of a long passageway. “Please.” She held her breath. If he said no, her last option would be lost. If he said yes, it would kill her.
“I could try, I suppose.”
She let out her breath and managed a shaky smile. She hoped it obscured the pain of her heart rending in two. So, he held no love for her—otherwise, why agree to help her?
“Thank you. You have my eternal gratitude, Lord Thomas.”
“Yes, well, that’s all I want.”
Her smile fell at the sarcasm buried in his polite words. Was he mocking her? He never mocked her. Tears pricked. His disdain was too much. She dug her fingers into her palms and dropped her gaze, unable to meet his.
“Perhaps you should tell me what you require in a husband,” he said, his voice kind again. “That will make it more likely I can find someone suitable.”
She peeked to find his face as sympathetic as his tone. Encouraged, she returned her hands to her sides, but found they trembled. She snatched them back behind her.
“What I want in a husband?” You! The word resounded inside her head, but she suppressed the admission.
He nodded. “It seems a reasonable question.”
“Yes.” She bit her lip. Aware that he watched, she tried to organize her thoughts. To think of anything to say other than his name.
“Don’t you know?” He sounded almost wistful.
Liza shrugged, for if she couldn’t have him, she truly didn’t know what—who—she wanted. “No one’s ever asked me. Mama insists I need a husband, and she’s bade me dance with quite a few gentlemen, but she’s never asked what I want.”
“Well, I’m asking now,” he said, soundly oddly offended. He gestured to the couch, the one he’d slept on that night. “Shall we sit and you can tell me what’s in your heart?”
She stared. In her heart? Was he toying with her?
“Miss Milton?”
She started at the sound of his voice.
“Shall we sit?” he repeated in that earlier, gentle tone. He indicated the couch.
She nodded and followed him to the couch. She folded her feet under her as she sat, then smoothed her skirt so that it draped her legs. What did she want in a husband? She’d never given it much thought. Every man she’d met, every smile, every dance had been measured against him. How could she describe her perfect man without revealing that she spoke of him?
He regarded her with quiet attentiveness. Finally, she managed, “I should like someone kind, who doesn’t mind if I babble sometimes.”
“I would hardly find you anyone unkind.”
She gave him a startled look, then laughed, suddenly more at ease. He was correct, of course. He would never introduce her to an unkind man. She could hardly believe him acquainted with anyone cruel. “I should like as well if he’s...” As handsome as you. Her face heated. “Well, you know, has a fine countenance.”
“I see.”
Was he laughing at her? Liza narrowed her eyes, but couldn’t read his expression. “Most importantly, though, he must have a library.”
His frown returned. “A library? Not a title, or wealth, but a library?”
“Well, certainly he can’t be too far in debt, or we won’t be able to afford books for the library, but, no, he doesn’t need great wealth or a title.” She leaned against the back of the couch and studied the cherub- and cloud-filled mural above. She worried that if she looked at Lord Thomas, he would know she was picturing him.
“A library is very important to you, then?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. It’s my favorite room. The best room. You should know. You spend all of your time here in Father’s library, and so do I.”
“I don’t have a library,” he said.
She snapped her head down. What did he mean by that?
“That’s why I’m always here,” he added, somewhat hastily. “I don’t have a library. Only an office. There are a few shelves, but nothing like this.”
“You should build one,” she said. “Then you won’t have to carry all your books back and forth between our houses.” She snapped her mouth closed. Whatever had possessed her to say that? She didn’t ever want Lord Thomas to stop visiting their house.
Then again, once she married, this would no longer be her house. There would be no view of his home. No watching him cross the street with powerful strides, his face so very serious. She resisted the urge to press a hand to her heart, to try to dull the pain.
“This is London,” he said. “I have neighbors. There’s no room to make my home larger.”
“Take some of the space from the ballroom.” She shrugged, and prayed the gesture hid her agitation. “You never use it.” She’d never once known him to throw a party of any sort, let alone a dance. If only he had, she would have gone, and danced with him.
“You don’t think that would be wrong, to give up some of the grandeur of the ballroom?”
“Wrong?” What an odd thing for an earl to worry about, especially one who never threw parties. “It’s your home. You should arrange it to suit you.”
“But ladies enjoy dancing,” he said. “If it were you, Liza, would you want a home with a large ballroom or a library?”
She blinked, startled by his use of her Christian name, his talk of what a woman might want in his home. He watched her intently. Her heart beat faster. He didn’t realize he’d called her Liza. The only other time she’d heard her name from his lips was the night he’d kissed her.
Her heart pounded so hard it constricted her throat, but she managed to whisper, “I…I would prefer a library, my lord.”
“I see,” he said.
Now, she thought. This is his chance. If he cares for me, even a little, this is the moment he will tell me.
A heavy tread sounded in the hall and drew nearer. Lord Thomas turned toward the door. He stood. Her father was coming and Lord Thomas hadn’t given her an answer. Not as to whether or not he knew any gentlemen, or to the question she held secret in her heart.
She leaned forward with the intent to seize his arm, then stopped. “Will you help me find a husband?” she asked. Her heart pounded. How could he not guess her true desire?
He looked back, face unreadable. “If that is what you wish.”
Mute, for it was not truly what she wished, she nodded.
“I’ll think on it and make a list of possible candidates.”
A wave of despair washed through her. She whispered, “Will it be ready tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
Tomorrow, to put an end to her misery. To make her give up her silly dreams of Lord Thomas. “It’s only, I can’t bear another party where I stand off to the side alone for hours while Mama glares at me.”
“Fine. Tomorrow.”
She forced a thin smile. “Thank you.”
He gave her a sharp nod, then strode toward the table. The library door swung open and her father entered. His eyes went to the tabletop.
“Liza, the papers are a mess,” he lamented. “And you aren’t even reading. Don’t tell me you kept Thomas from our work with your chatter.”
“I was, Papa,” she said, for there was no reason to lie.
Her father bumbled toward the table where Lord Thomas sat. “Nice of you to indulge the girl, Thomas. I know she can be full of ideas and questions.”
“I enjoy our conversations,” Lord Thomas murmured, and started to organize their papers.
“Liza, dear, why don’t you pick a book to read?” her father called. He pulled out a chair and lowered himself onto the seat. “Thomas and I have work to do now.”
“I am sorry, Papa. I don’t know what I want to read.”
Lord Thomas shot her an inscrutable look. “Why don’t you try Romeo and Juliet?” he asked, then returned his attention to the pages.
Liza gaped. She snapped her mouth closed with an audible click. Her father’s voice filled the library as he pawed through the pages Lord Thomas was attempting to arrange. Liza stared, unable to look away from Lord Thomas’s familiar profile. Could he mean...did he remember she’d held Romeo and Juliet the night... Heaven above, he hadn’t been too drunk to remember their kiss after all.
Chapter Four
Liza strode to the library with a frantic pace that threatened to wear a path in the carpet’s thick pile. She hadn’t slept the night before and could find no ease today. Lord Thomas did remember their kiss. Yet, he’d said he would bring her a list of marriageable gentlemen.
If he remembered and yet agreed to aid her hunt for a husband, that was proof of how little affection he held for her. She’d spent the past three years remembering the anguish in his voice when he spoke of his wife. Still, a small part of her hoped there was some feeling between them. That hope was now dead, and the loss of it made her ill.
A light tread sounded in the hall. Halting, Liza wrapped her arms about her middle in the vain hope the action would hold in her pain. When he arrived, she must not weep. He must never know how she longed for him.
The footfalls in the hall didn’t slow. Lord Thomas burst through the library door. For once, he wasn’t in any way disarrayed. He was perfection.
He strode to her. His strong hands settled on her shoulders. A spark of madness lurked in his eyes. Liza looked up at him in confusion. This was not the Lord Thomas she knew.
“I will not compose your damn list, Liza.”
“I-I don’t understand,” she stammered.
“There’s only one name I would put on it. Mine.”
His words ricocheted through her. “Yours?”
“For three years I’ve thought on it, thought of our kiss.” His intensity stole her breath. “I will not pass you into the arms of another man.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“You don’t want me to?” he repeated.
She shook her head.
“You asked me to…” His confusion made the words a question.
“Because I didn’t think
there was a chance that…That is, I hoped maybe you…” What had she hoped? For exactly what was happening. She smiled, filled with a joy equal to her earlier pain. “I hoped you might care for me.”
The hands on her shoulders slid across her back and he lowered his mouth to hers. His fierce, possessive kiss fulfilled the promise of that earlier one, and yet offered more. When his hands at last returned to her shoulders and set her away from him, this time Liza was sure she was the one who swayed. He stroked her cheek with gentle fingers.
“Tell your father I will return.” He strode from the room as rapidly as he’d entered.
Liza all but toppled to the couch. Her whole body trembled. She pressed both hands to her lips, enveloped in a haze of joy. It took long moments for her mind to recover the ability for thought.
She dropped her hands and hugged herself, alight with happiness. Of their own volition, her lips curved into a broad smile. Why wouldn’t they? They’d just been kissed by Lord Thomas. A giggle escaped her. Maybe Lord Thomas was a bit like a pirate after all, stealing her kisses.
Her joy carried her through the evening. She existed in a fog of delight, barely aware of her father’s confused complaints over Lord Thomas’s absence. In her delirium, she floated through the following day. Her happiness didn’t dim until the next evening, when she returned to the front parlor to watch for Lord Thomas.
He didn’t appear. He didn’t step from his front door, or jog down his steps, nor stride across the street toward her. Most of all he didn’t, for once, look up, see her at the window, and smile, as she’d dreamed all through the previous night and all day that he would.
Her resolve wavered more the day after that, and the next, his absence chipping away first at her joy, then her sanity. She began to sit in the front parlor nearly all day. She no longer hid behind the curtain, but pulled up a chair and sat there, waiting to catch even a glimpse of him. On the far side of the house, her father grumbled alone in his library.
Liza stared holes in the door of Lord Thomas’s London home. She watched for hours, for days that stretched into weeks, but never caught sight of him. Occasionally, men in rough garb would appear. Lord Thomas’s butler directed them around the back. Liza grew desperate. Had the window a latch, she would have thrown it wide and called across the street to the liveried servant, demanding the whereabouts of his master.
A Lord's Dream (A Lord's Kiss Book 3) Page 2