The Improper Bride (Sisters of Scandal)

by Lily Maxton

  “I prefer Lady Emily, but I fear it’s only because she’s shy and would be undemanding of me.”

  Was it wrong that something in her rejoiced at the knowledge he wasn’t attracted to one of the women more than the others? Still, she thought she should correct his assumption so he didn’t step into an unpleasant surprise. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking a shy woman won’t demand anything of you. One of my sisters is painfully shy around people she isn’t acquainted with, but she has her husband wrapped around her finger.”

  “So, the quiet Lady Emily might be a brazen seductress?”

  It sounded like he was smiling and it made her smile in return.

  “She might.”

  Cassandra started. They were speaking to one another as companions. They hadn’t spoken like this in forever. Was it because they weren’t facing each other? Did that make it easier to speak what one was feeling?

  “What is your parents’ marriage like?” she asked softly.

  He lifted his shoulder. “They’ve come to care for each other, I suppose, but it was an arranged marriage. I don’t know that they would have chosen each other.”

  She hesitated, then forged ahead. “Why didn’t you write to your family after the fire?”

  “Because they’re not the type of family one leans on for support,” he answered. “At least not that kind.”

  “But…they’re your parents.”

  “And they were the best parents two young people who married without an ounce of affection between them knew how to be. They hadn’t wanted children…they were barely more than children themselves when I was born. But they bought me anything I asked for. They never raised a hand to me in anger. I may not have been showered with love, but I was happy enough.”

  Happy enough? Surrounded by…what? Toys and trinkets instead of warmth and love? If Lord Riverton’s childhood was any indication of what it was like to be the heir to a dukedom, Cassandra didn’t think the prestige was worth it.

  And had he been happy? How would he know what the emotion even felt like? The happiness of receiving a toy seemed a pale happiness in comparison to how she’d felt when her mother or father had lifted her into their arms simply because they wanted to give her a hug. How many times had Lord Riverton’s parents held him or touched him lovingly? A handful?

  None?

  The worst part was, he didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with that.

  She felt a sudden, irrational fury toward them. “I still think they could show a little more concern for you.”

  “You sound upset.” His voice was tinged with amusement. “I’m assuming your family is one of those sickeningly sweet ones in which everyone is always arm-in-arm, frolicking through flower-filled meadows?”

  “No,” she said, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. Or being offended. “My family has had its share of fights, but we always forgive one another. That’s what you do with the people you love.”

  “Did you and your husband fight?”

  She froze. It was a personal question, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to discuss Robert with him, at all. “Not often,” she said cautiously. “We were…we were very much alike, I suppose.”

  “Ah,” he said flatly. “Marital bliss.”

  She frowned, suddenly eager to change the subject. She talked about Robert with her own family, not strangers. Not with people who hadn’t known him, and couldn’t appreciate the kind of man he’d been.

  “It seems a shame,” she said. “All of this snow and no children to make use of it.”

  “Make use of it?”

  “Every time there was more than an inch of snow on the ground, my siblings and I would be outside for a snowball fight.”

  He turned around to face her. His expression was smooth, almost hard, but the tip of his nose was flushed from the cold. It made him look young, and a little vulnerable.

  “Sounds barbaric,” he said dryly.

  “Barbaric?” she exclaimed, surprised. “Surely, you’ve been in a snowball fight.”

  His expression was blank. And she realized, with an unwavering intensity, that he hadn’t. She’d assumed—or perhaps hoped—that even if he hadn’t received much outward affection from his parents, he might have had friends to make up for it. But it appeared he hadn’t had companions. At least, not to play with in the snow.

  Her heart lurched as she imagined how isolated he must have been.

  Had he been lonely?

  Was he still lonely?

  Despite all he possessed.

  For the first time, she wondered why he was so intent on having the best of everything—mistresses, potential brides, everything else in his life. Did he feel it was his duty to his title? Was it a replacement for all the intangible things he lacked? Maybe it was a little of both.

  But they were dangerous questions to ask. Dangerous questions to care about.

  Even if she knew the answers, they wouldn’t change a thing.

  To distract herself, she reached down with her gloved hand and curled her fingers around some snow. Without looking at him, she straightened and packed the snow into a small ball between her hands. “I was an expert snowball maker,” she said. “This is heavy snow. The best kind.”

  “Fascinating,” he drawled.

  She met his eyes, and smiled. Then, in a quick motion, she lobbed the snowball at him in a gentle underhand throw. It hit the center of his chest and exploded, dusting his gold waistcoat with white.

  “My apologies,” she said insincerely. “My hand must have slipped.”

  He stared down at the place where the snow had hit and then glanced back at her, an incredulous expression on his face.

  “Did you really just toss a snowball at me, Mrs. Davis?”

  “I did, my lord.”

  “You look as if you enjoyed it,” he said.

  She couldn’t help it. She grinned. “I did, my lord.”

  “I should sack you,” he said.

  “No doubt,” she said cheerfully.

  At his continued incredulity, she wondered, with a thrill of unease, if she had misjudged. Had it been a mistake to be playful with him, to try to turn that blank calmness into something warmer?

  But then the corner of his mouth lifted and he scooped up a pile of snow. A much larger scoop than the snowball she’d thrown at him.

  He wasn’t fighting fair.

  But he wouldn’t. She should have known that. She should have been annoyed.

  She wasn’t. She felt…giddy.

  She turned to run away from him, but the snowball hit her on the back of the shoulder, a solid impact. She stumbled with a squeal, catching herself on the snow with her hands. She took advantage of the moment to form another snowball. Then she straightened and started running again, turning just long enough to take aim and throw.

  The snowball exploded against his face.

  She stopped with a gasp, pressing her wet gloves to her mouth. “Oh dear,” she said, smothering an unbidden giggle. “That was an accident.”

  He calmly wiped the snow from his face and looked at her. “No quarter, Mrs. Davis.”

  He bent to grab another snowball and came after her, his long legs covering distance much more quickly than hers.

  She shrieked. And ran. Or tried to. The farther she moved from the manor house, the higher the snow became, until she was sinking into drifts that reached her knees. She glanced back.

  Lord Riverton was close behind.

  “It isn’t fair!” she cried breathlessly. “You’re taller than me.”

  “Are you blaming me because you’re short?” He barely sounded winded.

  She tried to gain speed, but it was a futile attempt. She heard his footfalls packing down the snow, sounding louder and closer with each step. There was no way she could run fast enough to put distance between them.

  Pulse racing, she decided on a different tactic. She spun toward him, ready to scoop and do battle. But she’d misjudged how far away he was. He was right on her
heels.

  They collided. Painfully.

  She gasped as she fell backward, expecting his weight to crush her, but he managed to twist them both in the air as he fell, as gracefully as an acrobat at a circus. She ended up sprawled on top of him, her arms braced against his chest, her legs spread awkwardly over his. She sucked in a breath when she realized his body was shaking.

  “Your arm?” she asked worriedly. “Is it—”

  Her words were cut short when he gasped.

  He was laughing. Laughing. Not a polite chuckle, not an ironic huff of air, but real, full, helpless laughter. His body shook with it, sending tremors through her own.

  She gaped at him. She was witnessing a miracle. He looked so young, so bright. And for a moment, she was content just to stare in wonder.

  His laughter died away slowly, died away to a faint smile as he gazed up at her. The verse from the first time they’d met chased across her mind again…

  How art thou fallen from heaven?

  With his blond hair tousled, his eyes alight with mischief, and his body surrounded by white and washed in moonlight, he looked like a fallen angel. Imperfect, and yet…somehow perfect.

  A strand of her hair had fallen forward. It brushed his lips, and he caught the end between his bare fingers. He smoothed the tendril between his thumb and forefinger, gently, reverently. A scientist who’d just discovered a new element.

  She was aware of his long body beneath her. Aware of the strength and heat of it. Aware that her legs were straddling him. And if she shifted her hips by just a few inches…

  “I must be crushing you,” she said helplessly.

  “You’re not.”

  His hand moved from her hair to brush across her cheek, and even though his fingers were like ice, they sent hot shivers pulsing through her body.

  She could lean down and press her mouth to his. She’d barely have to move. She could know what it was like to taste him. It would be that easy.

  Her chest tightened and she rolled away. Clumsily. She ended up sprawled on her back with snow on her face, blinking up at the moon. When she closed her eyes she saw it still, vivid white against the dark of her eyelids. “I’m cold,” she whispered. Not that she needed to explain her retreat. He had no right to touch her like that.

  His head turned toward her. “I have a remedy for that,” he said. “Meet me in the library.”

  Her breath hissed between her teeth. “Lord Riverton—”

  “I’m not propositioning you,” he said, sounding bored. “I have something entirely innocent in mind.”

  He wasn’t propositioning her?

  Well, that was good.

  So why did a pang of heavy disappointment course through her?

  “What if your guests are still awake? We shouldn’t be seen together,” she said.

  “We’ll go in separately, then. Honestly, Mrs. Davis, don’t you ever do anything that’s not strictly proper?”

  She almost laughed wildly. She’d just been straddling her employer and thinking, rather seriously, about kissing him right there in the snow, even as three potential brides slept under his roof at that same moment. Strictly proper? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But she certainly wasn’t going to mention any of that.

  “Very well,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll meet you in thirty minutes.”

  She sat up as he stood and brushed himself off. She was still sitting there, watching him, cold and wet seeping into her limbs, as he walked away. So many emotions swirled together inside of her as she stared after the normally pristine marquess, who now had snow caked all down his back, picking his way carefully toward the manor house, that it was difficult to untangle them.

  She realized with a start that she’d been happy during their snowball fight. Happy and light and free and giddy. She hadn’t felt that way since Robert had been alive.

  So, she pushed down the knot of emotions churning in her stomach as she gazed after Lord Riverton. She didn’t dare untangle them. She was too afraid to examine what they were.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Henry watched as steam curled from the blue and white Wedgwood teapot that sat on the sideboard. He’d lit several beeswax candles and placed them around the library, and they, along with the roaring fire, made the large room feel cozier than it ever had before.

  After he’d changed from his wet clothes into fresh, dry ones without the help of his sleeping valet—whom he hadn’t woken because he didn’t want the man to wonder what he’d been doing to make such a mess of his clothes—he’d clumsily gone about making some tea. He hoped it had turned out all right. He hadn’t made tea since…well, he couldn’t recall ever making his own tea. But he’d seen people do it, and the task hadn’t looked very difficult.

  Now that he was dry and the tea was ready, he stood, hip against the table, and simply waited for the woman he had lately been thinking about entirely too much.

  Cassandra.

  His hand curled. He couldn’t erase the feel of her—the way her breasts had crushed against his chest, or the way her thighs had grazed his waist, or the softness of her hair against his fingertips.

  But even more than that, he couldn’t forget how his heart had thumped almost painfully in his chest when she’d smiled down at him, her cheeks flushed from the cold and from running.

  It was madness. Madness to invite her for tea in the library, under the cover of night, as if they were friends…or even lovers.

  It was madness, and yet, it felt like the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

  He didn’t want to relinquish her company until he absolutely had to.

  He bent to retrieve a decanter of brandy from the sideboard cupboard. He’d just straightened when Cassandra stepped into the room.

  She’d pinned her hair into its usual careful chignon, but it hadn’t had time to dry completely. Some of the strands were still damp and dark from the snow.

  “Shut the door behind you,” he said, leaning over the teacups so she wouldn’t look at his face. Wouldn’t see whatever emotion had taken up residence there the moment he’d looked up and seen her in the doorway. “You might want to lock it, too, just in case we have any late night wanderers.”

  After a pause, he heard the click of the key turning, and tried not to let his body sag with the relief that coursed through it.

  “Will you take brandy in your tea?” he asked.

  “I prefer whisky,” she said, coming to stand next to him.

  He glanced up in surprise. “Why do you assume I have contraband liquor?”

  “Please,” she said with a slight smile. “Don’t expect me to believe you have moral qualms about a little whisky. I know your family has an estate in Scotland.”

  He returned her smile and felt ridiculously, extraordinarily pleased, as he rummaged for the whisky bottle that she was correct in assuming he had. He poured a finger’s worth into the empty teacup and then brandy for himself. “How did you acquire a taste for whisky?”

  “The family of one of my father’s students was from Scotland and they always somehow managed to have whisky on hand. They occasionally gave my father a bottle as a gift, which I would sometimes sample. Surreptitiously, and in small amounts, of course.”

  He grinned. “Scandalous, Mrs. Davis. How old were you when this wickedness started?”

  “Twelve.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. She kept her expression smooth but he saw the indent in her lower lip where she was biting down on it. So the girl who’d pretended she was a Greek princess had also had a taste for the forbidden. He was, against his will, charmed anew.

  “You must be a hardened drinker by now,” he said. She was usually so in control of herself, the idea that she might occasionally shake off her inhibitions intrigued him. He’d never thought picturing a woman drinking whisky would send a thrill of something dark and molten through him—but when he imagined Cassandra, head tipped back, tasting the burn of the liquid on her tongue—that was exactly what happened.
>
  She tilted her head wryly. “I can hold my own, if called for. My husband was a sailor, and I could keep up with him.”

  He poured her tea. He didn’t even realize he’d done something out of the ordinary until her silence made him look up. She was following the movements of his hands, a little notch between her eyebrows. “I could have poured,” she said.

  He set the teapot down and contemplated her. “Perhaps, for now, in this room, we could simply be Cassandra and Henry instead of servant and master?”

  She didn’t answer right away, and worry shot straight to his chest. But then she said, “I think you’re confused, Henry. I might be your servant, but you are not my master.”

  He fought a smile. Not only because of the challenge in her words, but because she’d said his name. His Christian name. The one that no one else in the world called him by. It had sounded wonderful in her steady, melodious voice. It had sounded right.

  “Is that right, Cassandra?” He said her name just because he liked the feel of it on his tongue.

  “Quite.”

  He lifted his teacup in a half-mocking toast, saluting her, even though there really wasn’t anything in him that felt mocking. He sipped the tea and was gratified that it tasted normal. When she lifted her cup to her lips, he watched the muscles in her slender throat move. She closed her eyes briefly, as though savoring the taste and warmth of the liquid.

  Sometimes he thought she was the most sensual thing he’d ever seen, but she didn’t seem to have any idea of her own desirability.

  She glanced at him, her lips tilting. “It’s very good.”

  The brandy burned in his throat and stomach, but another sort of heat rose in him as their gazes held.

  He was the first to look away. She made him unsure of himself. He was never unsure of himself, not around anyone.

  “I’ve always loved this library,” she said quietly, breaking past his unsettling thoughts.

  He turned his attention back to her. “It’s my favorite room,” he said.

  “Will you read something to me?” she asked.

  He hesitated. No one had ever asked him to read something aloud to them, and he felt a bit foolish for considering it; but at the moment, he had the wry feeling he’d do whatever she wanted of him. Do whatever was necessary to keep this soft spell weaved around them. “What would you like?”