One Scandalous Kiss

by Christy Carlyle

  After lighting a candle, she cupped her hand around the flame and made her way into the hall. She longed to stretch her legs and walk, though she wasn’t certain enough of the estate to feel comfortable venturing out of doors. Still, the house was so grand, she imagined she could wander for an hour and still not manage to explore all its corners and corridors.

  The stairwell to the ground floor beckoned, lit by gaslights that had been turned low but not extinguished. She made her way toward the main hall. By the time she reached the library door, she realized it had been her destination all along. How could she resist a room full of books?

  She turned the latch, pleased to find it unlocked, and inhaled deeply the moment her foot crossed the threshold. The heady scent of books—leather, aged paper, ink—took her straight back to her father’s bookshop. Jess bit her lip at the memory of Wright and Sons Booksellers, emotions jumbling in her heart, none of them clear and all of them bittersweet. But then she lifted her candle and took in the view before her. There was no business to run here, no sales to worry over, no ledger books to balance, no debt to weigh her down, just a beautifully appointed room dedicated to one single purpose—the housing of hundreds of expertly bound and tooled books.

  The bookcases were so tall, reaching up to the high ceiling, that a carved and polished wooden staircase had been installed. It ran along a track in the wall, and she set her candle on a table and gave in to the impulse to climb the steps and explore the titles far up on the wall. She climbed up several steps and then, with one foot on one step and her other foot higher up, she reached for a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Kitty claimed Lord Grimsby opposed suffrage for women, but, then again, she’d also said he was an odious man and kissing him would be unpleasant. For a woman willing to pay an enormous sum to humiliate him, she seemed to know very little about the viscount. If a man kept a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft in his library, surely he’d at least give due consideration to the rights of women. Unless it had been a freethinking Dunthorpe ancestress who’d purchased the volume.

  Just as she reached out to replace the book, stretching up and to the right to settle it on the shelf, the rolling staircase moved in the opposite direction, sliding easily on its track and knocking the book from her hand. As she shot her hands out to grasp the staircase railing and steady herself, the clatter of the book smacking the hardwood floor below made her jump.

  She looked down to ensure the volume was still intact and the staircase began to slide again. Though the bookcases at her father’s shop hadn’t been nearly as tall, she’d never been afraid of heights or maneuvering on a ladder to place books on the highest shelves. But Hartwell’s rolling staircase seemed to have a mind of its own. She attempted one step down, then another, before the contraption began to move again. She reached for a shelf to stop herself, fingertips grazing the gilded spines of several volumes, nearly pulling them over too.

  “Bloody bother and blast!”

  She felt better for saying it, and with no one to hear her but the library walls, Jess was relieved none would ever know she’d given in to an unladylike swearing fit. Nor how ungracefully she was attempting to descend the rolling staircase. She was close enough now that she could jump the rest of the way, though it had been many years since her tree-climbing, jumping-into-ponds days of childhood summers spent with her mum’s family in Dorset. Could she manage a moderately short jump in a long skirt and tight corset without breaking anything essential?

  LUCIUS LOUNGED IN his study in a chair before the fireplace, legs stretched out so that his boot heels rested on the hearth. He crossed his hands over his stomach, leaning his head back, and lowered his eyes to continue staring at the remnants of a fire in the grate. He’d be content to sleep like this, in his chair before the fire. If he could sleep at all.

  The flames had died down an hour before, but in the black pile of ash, an ember glowed orange now and then, still giving off enough heat to make his nearness worthwhile. He’d given up on finding any rest in his own bed and returned to his study once the house quieted and all the guests were settled in for the night.

  One guest in particular eclipsed all other thoughts. With her new frock and elaborately dressed hair, Jessamin Wright had looked so different from the determined, plainly dressed woman he’d met at the gallery in London. And from the tired and disappointed bookshop owner he’d encountered and nearly kissed in her shop. Tonight she’d been as elegant and lovely as any fine young lady he’d ever been introduced to at a country ball or London soiree. Lucius liked being privy to all the forms of her beauty—far too much.

  But tonight there’d been more than her beauty to admire. She’d been passionate in declaring her beliefs, bold in admitting that she’d kissed him, and audacious in standing up to Julia, whose glacial stare was known to make the staunchest men shudder.

  Miss Wright seemed a woman of endless facets, and he yearned to discover each one.

  He closed his eyes and allowed himself the indulgence of remembering the moment she’d leaned into him, the first moment he touched her, steadying her on her feet, before she lifted up and pressed her warm, lush mouth to his.

  He lifted a hand to pinch the skin between his brows. It didn’t ease the ache in his head, but it offered momentary distraction from the problem of Miss Jessamin Wright. And she was a problem. If one dinner with her preoccupied him to this extent, how would he endure the rest of the house party? She’d no doubt continue drinking and flirting with Wellesley.

  If the man touched her . . . Hell, if he continued leering at her every night at dinner, Lucius didn’t know if he’d be able to resist throttling his closest friend. No doubt Miss Wright would be more than willing to comfort Wellesley. A few quips and the man had turned the fretful frown she’d been wearing the whole evening into a beaming smile. A few more of those looks in Wellesley’s direction and Lucius would be as mad as the gossips said his father was by fortnight’s end.

  And in the meantime, he was to entertain and woo Miss Sedgwick, whose wealth could save Hartwell. He wondered if the repairs needed to the estate and tenant houses would even make a dent in the dowry she’d bring. If Aunt Augusta knew the lady’s intentions as she said she did, Miss Sedgwick would be content with a title, and he’d be content knowing he’d secured Hartwell for future generations. Wouldn’t he?

  He narrowed his gaze as he stared at the flickering ember among the coals. The heat at its center was waning, the color darkening as its light faded. He reached out for the poker and pushed at the ember, attempting to stoke it back to life. In his fatigued and overwrought mind, it seemed his only chance for heat and he did not wish to lose it.

  Nor did he wish to lose the opportunity to make a match with Miss Sedgwick by whiling away in his study, his thoughts fixated on another woman. That reminded him far too much of his father.

  He’d spent his youth wondering why his father could find no other pursuit as interesting as his mother, why the man couldn’t balance his love for her with this duty to the estate and the responsibilities of his title. Even Lucius’s mother had longed for that.

  The eldest daughter of a large and well-to-do Scottish clan, Isobel Buchanan had understood duty and expected it of her children. She taught them that they had an obligation to the family and to those on the estate who relied on the earl’s good stewardship. It often seemed she cared more for Hartwell and the tenants of the estate than his father ever had.

  But Father had been jealous of time Mother spent in anyone’s company but his. He’d allowed his preoccupation with her to unhinge him, letting it fester into an irrational jealousy that only served to drive her away.

  He would not tread that path. Duty, responsibility, those qualities his mother expected of him, that was where his heart and mind ought to be.

  Except for the problem of Miss Jessamin Wright. Such a damnably tempting problem.

  “Bloody bother and blast!”

  His eyes snapped open at the sound of the w
oman’s shout. He might have convinced himself it was a condemnation from the depths of his own conscience, except that he recognized the voice. And the fact that it emanated from the library.

  Surging from his chair, Lucius rushed to the door connecting the library and his study.

  Miss Wright held on to the rolling staircase with one hand, her body turned away from it, seemingly poised to leap from a disturbingly high step.

  Lucius reached out to turn up the gas, lighting up the room and revealing one shocked and disheveled former bookshop owner.

  Her mouth opened as if she meant to speak, and he waited, but she merely continued to stare at him.

  “Miss Wright, I would have thought you’d had your fill of books.”

  She frowned as if it was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

  “Never. I could never tire of books.”

  He grinned, unable to hold it back, even if he’d tried. He’d loved books with that kind of passion once, books and learning, the notion that the world was literally at his fingertips within the pages of one volume or the other. Since leaving university and being called back from his uncle’s investment office after Julian’s death to take over management of Hartwell, some piece of him, that hopeful, curious fragment, had faded. He never dreamed a suffragette bluestocking would stir it back to life.

  “Would you steady this staircase, my lord, so that I may climb down? I’m afraid if I jump, I’ll rip this dress or scuff your floor.”

  “Of course.”

  He moved forward to assist her, but she seemed a woman afflicted with impatience and was trying to climb down herself. She hadn’t engaged the latch and the staircase moved in its well-oiled track every time she did. Lucius flipped the lever to engage the braking mechanism.

  “Just wait. I’ve got you.”

  He reached up to lay a hand against her waist, and she turned toward him, placed one hand on each of his shoulders, and took a step down the ladder. He wasn’t truly taking her weight. There was no need to lift her, but he braced his other hand on her waist, encircling her as she took another tentative step down, her skirt dragging against his body as she moved.

  Eyes locked on his, she stepped down one more level and they came face-to-face, her bodice pressed against his waistcoat. Her breath came in short, hot wisps against his face, and her mouth was far too close for him to think of anything but kissing her.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  She took the last step quickly and pulled her hands from his shoulders. He released her with a bit more reluctance.

  Then she bent in front of him and lifted a book from the floor. “I’m afraid I dropped this when I was fighting with your staircase.”

  He lifted a hand out for her to give him the volume, but she shook her head. “I can replace it, my lord.” Then she looked up, well above the height of the staircase. “Though I’m afraid it goes up there.”

  Lucius had the distinct notion she didn’t wish him to see which book she’d selected, which made him all the more determined to do so.

  “May I see it? I’m happy to replace it for you.”

  She hesitated, then nodded, as if coming to a decision, and handed him the slim folio.

  “It was my mother’s.” He stroked the aged brown leather, running his finger along the red Morocco spine. “I’m not surprised you would wish to read Mary Wollstonecraft, but I must say I’m impressed you found it among all of the other books, and on one of the highest shelves.”

  Jessamin narrowed her eyes, as if uncertain whether he meant to compliment or challenge her.

  Lucius started toward the staircase, then turned back. “Are you sure you do not wish to take it to your room? You may borrow any book you like while you’re here.”

  “Thank you, my lord, but I’ve read it. I was simply curious about that edition and dropped it before I could replace it. I hope it’s not damaged.”

  “It looks well enough to me.”

  He ascended the wooden staircase and replaced the volume in the gap where it had rested since the days when his mother lived at Hartwell. He noticed the books around it were disturbed and set about righting them, matching their depth, making certain they were perfectly vertical and in line with the books nearby. He lost track of how long he fussed over the shelf until he sensed the press of Miss Wright’s gaze on him.

  He looked down to find her gazing up at him with an expression of interest, without artifice or coquetry. Just a woman intrigued with a man, and it warmed him as if he’d just settled in before a glowing fire. Had he looked up at her with that same expression? As if she was the most fascinating creature he’d ever seen. Yes, of course he had.

  “You like everything to be just so.”

  “Are you saying I’m overly fastidious, Miss Wright?” Lucius knew he was. He didn’t think he’d always been, but the need for order, for precision, to regulate as many aspects of his existence and surroundings as he was able—that compulsion had grown worse over the years. Perhaps his desire for control had grown parallel, measure for measure, with his father’s loss of it.

  “I don’t know you well enough to say anything of the sort, my lord. But I do see that you appreciate organization. There’s nothing quite as comforting as imposing order where none previously existed, or at least that’s what my mother used to say.”

  From anyone else, he’d consider the comment suspect, a jibe or backhanded manner of calling him a persnickety fool. But Miss Wright’s mouth curved in a warm grin. And he could detect nothing of derision in her tone.

  “Did she?”

  “Mmm, right before she’d accuse Father and me of creating chaos.”

  He descended the stairs and took two steps to stand before her, close enough to see the flecks of amber in her eyes. Close enough to smell traces of her violet scent. Proximity to her made him long for what he could not have and, worst of all, it cost him her grin.

  “Are you a chaos maker, Miss Wright?”

  Of course she was, if one considered the fuss she’d caused in Mayfair and the way she’d unsettled his mind from the moment he’d met her.

  She turned her eyes down, her mouth settling into an uncertain line.

  “My father and I tended to like a bit of clutter, especially if it involved books or newspapers or anything worth reading. Mother was forever tidying up after us. When we lost her, that duty fell to me. But I was never quite as fond of neatness as she was.”

  Lucius heard the wistfulness in her tone when she mentioned her mother, and he felt an echo of it in his chest, a twinge just above his first waistcoat button.

  “Excellent mothers leave us with a great deal to live up to, don’t they?”

  Her head snapped up, gaze clashing with his, and an earnest expression lit her face. But there was a hint of sadness in her eyes, and he lifted his hand, no longer able to resist the urge to touch her.

  She stepped back, one step and then another. Turning her head, she studied the book-covered library walls.

  “I am sorry, my lord. This evening I was . . . I said too much at dinner.”

  Lucius loathed the way she twisted her hands and ducked her head as if she couldn’t bear to look at him.

  “In vino veritas. We all speak freely when we’re in our cups.” That didn’t help. A crimson blush rushed up her neck and stained her cheeks. Lucius shuffled his feet, placed his hands on his hips, and tried again. “You only said what was true, Miss Wright. And I always suspected someone put you up to that business in the gallery. A prank, I take it. You said they paid quite a sum.” He dared not mention that he considered their exceptional kiss worth every penny, however much she’d been paid. “I suppose you can’t tell me who arranged it. Sworn to secrecy, I suspect.”

  He enjoyed shocking her, if only because she opened her eyes wider, allowing him to see the green shade he’d had such difficulty identifying that first night.

  “You’re truly not angry?”

  Of all the emotions she stoked in him, anger didn’t ev
en hold rank. He’d touched her, caressed her, come very close to kissing her senseless in her sitting room tonight. But the wine had already dulled her senses, and if they were to kiss again the way they had in the art gallery, it would be because both of them chose it, wanted it in equal measure. After his behavior this evening, how could she think him anything but enthralled with her?

  And he was. It was impossible to deny, though he’d try again in the morning, when he woke with thoughts of duty and responsibility, what should be done, what must be done. But here, tonight, with Jessamin gazing at him with an openness that made his body ache, he couldn’t deny it.

  “You must have heard that I’m quite the grim, ill-humored villain, Miss Wright.”

  She smiled, a flash of white in the gaslight. Good God, what had she heard about him?

  “Nothing quite as dire as that.”

  Then, as if just remembering who he was, who she was: “My lord.”

  He shouldn’t find pleasure in the fact she’d forgotten, but he did.

  “Do you have a favorite? One book you prefer above all others?”

  “My goodness, that’s an awful question.”

  Momentarily abashed, Lucius looked away. Would he never learn a measure of the social finesse Wellesley oozed so effortlessly? Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught her smiling and his blood turned to warm treacle in his veins, a sense of relief flooding him.

  “Shall I try another?”

  “No, there are moments in life when we must choose. Though I pray I’ll never have to do with just one book.” She chewed her bottom lip a moment, squinting at the carpet below their feet and then scanning the shelves around them. “All right. I’ve chosen a favorite. Is there a section devoted to fiction? Let’s see if you have it.”

  “That wall there.” Lucius pointed to the western wall of the library and watched as she started her perusal, lifting a finger to trace the spines without quite touching them.

  “You do have it.” She slid out a volume and lifted it to him.

  “Oliver Twist. It is a fine tale. I approve.”