Then she looked up, and the knot inside him loosened.
“Kiss me again.” The shade of her eyes had gone a limpid silver-blue, and her voice turned husky and low.
After sliding a finger across the downy softness of her cheek, he tucked it under her chin and aligned her lips with his. “I’m afraid two kisses won’t do either.”
She lifted a hand between them, slipping it inside his coat, flattening her palm against his chest. His heart was thudding hard enough to echo in his ears. He wanted her to feel it, to know how she affected him.
“How many will you require?”
Body aching, heart beating wildly, he forced himself to draw back, to assess her and truly consider her question. The answer that came stunned him. Every instinct urged him to avoid the M word, but whether he considered marriage or not, the truth was that he already envisioned a future that included Felicity Beckett. Beyond this two week house party, in the midst of whatever he faced back at his family’s estate, in his mind—however fevered and illogical it might be at the moment—he imagined her there with him.
“An abundance. Perhaps—” his breath caught in his throat. Where his hand cupped her cheek, he’d begun to tremble. She nuzzled her face against his palm as if to soothe him. “Perhaps a lifetime’s worth, Felicity.” After whispering the words against her mouth, he captured her bottom lip with his teeth. He soothed the bite with a brush of his tongue, savoring the taste of her before offering her a kiss that sent a surge of need rippling through his body. She gripped his shoulder, carded fingers through his hair. When he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened to him, tentatively stroked his tongue with her own. Her passion ignited him, and he was elated to find it matched his own.
Reaching around, he stroked her back, gripped her waist and pulled her closer. Despite the layers of clothes between them, he could feel the warmth of her body, relished shaping his hands around her lush curves. One day he would explore, and kiss, and taste every one of them.
“Alexander!”
He should have locked the library door.
The voice came as if from a distance. He heard it, even recognized it as his aunt’s screech of outrage, but he refused to release Felicity. Fear shadowed her eyes and her kiss-stung mouth went tight, her expression grim. He didn’t regret kissing her, but he loathed causing her distress.
His aunt closed the library door behind her before facing them again. “What could you be thinking? Both of you.”
“Address your questions to me, Aunt Georgianna.” Alex moved to stand in front of Felicity, but she side stepped around him.
“Forgive me, Lady Forsythe. I cannot ask you to excuse my behavior, but I hope you won’t allow any of this to reflect poorly on my cousin.”
Alex hated seeing Felicity grovel. How many times had he implored his father in that same beseeching tone? But he understood the need to preserve his aunt’s goodwill toward Miss Huntingdon.
“Let none of this reflect on Miss Beckett or her cousin. I am to blame.” He tried to catch Felicity’s gaze, but she kept her focus ahead, waiting for his aunt’s reaction. “I intend to make this right, Aunt Georgianna.”
“Do you indeed?” His aunt glared at him a moment and then turned her attention back to Felicity. “Would you excuse us, Miss Beckett? Surely you’ve shirked your chaperone duties long enough. Give me your assurance that you won’t forget them for the remainder of the house party, and I shall allow you and your cousin to remain.”
“Aunt Geor—”
“Of course.” Felicity’s voice cut across his. She sounded so certain, so confident and unaffected, when his own body hummed with restless energy. “You have my promise, Lady Forsythe. Thank you.” With that, she lowered into one of her impeccable curtsies before striding from the room, not even sparing him a glance.
The tirade he expected from his aunt didn’t come. At least not immediately. She settled into a seat by the fire as if they were about to share afternoon tea. After pointing at a chair nearby, she waited until he joined her.
“Do I strike you as a fool, nephew?”
Alex shook his head. She wasn’t. The woman was as sharp-eyed and quick witted as any he’d ever known.
“Then stop treating me as if I am. I’ve already spoken to you about the impossibility of your interest in that young lady.” She closed her eyes, drew in a breath, and when she spoke again her tone had softened. “I am not so old I have forgotten the excitement of undeniable attraction. When I first saw your uncle across Lady Harpool’s ballroom, I knew I’d marry him before we exchanged a single word.”
Then she understood. Could the woman who’d just shouted his name from the rafters actually be an ally in the mad scheme that had begun to form in his mind?
“But…” Aunt Georgianna seemed to sense his eagerness, and held up a lace-cuffed hand to snuff it out. “Your uncle is the Earl of Forsythe. Falling in love with him from across a ballroom was acceptable, even encouraged. That is not the case with you and Miss Beckett.”
“So you’ve said.” When had he ever bothered with what was acceptable? Since when had any of his actions ever been encouraged? “But I have been making my own way in the world, and my own choices, for years. I intend to continue to do so, especially when it concerns one of the most important choices of my life.”
“Attraction is not enough to make a match, Alexander.”
“It seems a bloody good start.” Had his own parents ever had as much? They’d barely spoken to each other most of the time.
“I forbid you to speak to Miss Beckett again for the remainder of the fortnight.”
“Impossible.” He tried not to chuckle when his aunt’s lips puckered into her signature pout.
“Don’t try my patience, Alexander. I plan to protect you and your Miss Beckett from scandal. You will obey me in this.”
Despite her irritatingly commanding tone, he liked the sound of “your Miss Beckett” enough to forgive her.
“I shall take more care to protect Miss Beckett’s reputation, but I cannot promise not to speak to her.”
Though rarely a lady to admit defeat, his aunt deflated on a heavy sigh. “And why is that?”
He was glad she was sitting down.
“Because I am very seriously considering asking Miss Beckett to marry me.”
And there it was. The words were out. He heard them echoing in the room, felt them reverberating inside him. And it was as liberating as when he played his violin, when the strings resonated through his body until he felt that perhaps there was a bit of harmony to be had in the world.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Felicity climbed into bed, settled under the covers, and pulled a slip of paper out from between the pages of her etiquette book to mark the end of another night. For four days she’d kept her promise to Lady Forsythe, sticking by Amy’s side, doing her chaperone duties to the best of her ability, and completely avoiding Lord Lindsay. He’d obeyed his aunt’s wishes too, for the most part. He had tried to corner her in the conservatory, sat near her during a parlor game, and even sent a note requesting that she meet him secretly in the library.
She’d been tempted. Her body responded to his nearness as if the man was his own little sun, exuding heat and warming every inch of her skin. And more, he set off a frantic fluttering in her belly every time he looked her way, until she was full of fanciful thoughts. How would it be to have nothing between them? To be able to speak, and touch, and explore their attraction honestly, with no thought of titles or etiquette.
Yes, the man sparked temptation in her, especially when he was staring at her intently from across a drawing room.
But she’d resisted. Kept her distance, striving not to meet his gaze. The days had been exhausting, but her etiquette book had gotten some use. She’d been reading a chapter each night. If she managed it, only then would she allow herself a few pages of Jane Eyre.
Alex’s implication that the novel improved seemed wild exaggeration. The governess was on the
cusp of receiving a second offer of marriage, but it was from a dreadfully dull clergyman. Surely remaining alone and embracing a life of spinsterhood was preferable to being controlled by an austere, passionless man.
Two pages into the etiquette book, Felicity skimmed her eyes back up the paragraphs. She couldn’t remember a single word she’d read, and had to force her idle hand away from her mouth. For days she’d caught herself tracing a finger across her lips, recalling the shape of Alex’s mouth, the taste of him, the way his kisses made her breathless.
“Damn his lips.” Felicity bit her own, recalling a line from the etiquette book about avoiding exclamations and vulgarity.
If only she hadn’t kissed him. If only she didn’t know the tenderness of his touch. If only he wasn’t sleeping just a few doors down the hall.
Six more days. She and Amy would depart back home in less than week, and then her encounters with Alex would be nothing but a memory. The yearning might remain, the desire to see him and speak with him and know what caused the sadness she sometimes detected in his gaze. But she’d return to being an old maid in her uncle’s household, and Alex would take up the duties of being a viscount. They’d never cross paths again. If Amy married the Earl of Baxindale—after eight days, the man’s interest in her cousin was clear—she would have no more need for a chaperone, and Felicity would never have a need to enter into aristocratic society again.
Felicity sank lower into bed and perched the etiquette book on her chest, attempting to find the last line she’d read. Something about a lady never being too loud or too quiet but adjusting her volume to the ear of her conversational companions. Wouldn’t it be different for each person? How was a lady to know?
That’s why reading the etiquette book was taking so long. She found herself questioning or disagreeing with nearly every tenet.
The other difficulty was keeping her eyes open.
When a knock sounded at her bedroom door, she woke from a too short nap, the etiquette book collapsed under her chin.
“Yes?” When no answer came, her pulse began fluttering at the edge of her neck. Alex? He wouldn’t be so bold as to come to her bedchamber. Would he?
“Who is it?” As she slipped out from under the blankets, Felicity grabbed her dressing gown and approached the door slowly. She nearly cried out when it creaked open. Lady Forsythe stepped inside.
“I hope I didn’t wake you, Miss Beckett.” Their hostess was still dressed in her evening finery and looked far more awake than Felicity felt.
“No, my lady. I was just reading.” Felicity struggled to discern the countess’s mood. They hadn’t exchanged more than polite niceties since Lady Forsythe caught Alex kissing her in the library.
“Improving one’s mind is always a worthwhile pursuit.” The countess declared the words in a feigned gruff tone, then smiled. “That’s what my husband always says. For my part, I prefer parties and diversions. Much like my nephew.”
“Reading is my favorite diversion, I confess.” Felicity forced a neutral expression. Beyond the moments she’d spent alone with him and his dance with Amy, she hadn’t seen much evidence that Alex was enjoying this particular house party at all.
“Shall we speak plainly, Miss Beckett?” The countess walked over to the cozy sitting nook in Felicity’s bedchamber and took a seat as she spoke. “I have come to thank you for adhering so scrupulously to my request to separate yourself from my nephew.”
After taking a seat next to her, Felicity nodded, uncertain what else the countess expected her to do.
“I would like to reward you. Help you, if I might.”
The only help Felicity truly needed was to forget Alex and accept her lonely future.
“I must confess,” Lady Forsythe added, “that I have a conspirator in this plan.”
“What plan is that, my lady?” Fatigue washed over Felicity. She had no desire to be part of anyone’s plan, only to sleep and mark another day off of her calendar. Another day closer to going back to her life with the Huntingdons, and away from the man who made her wish for more than she’d ever have.
“Lord Kenniston approached me on the matter of you and his cousin, Mr. Buckham, who’s accompanied him to our home.”
Thomas? What cousin? “I wasn’t aware the baron had a cousin.”
“Of course you weren’t, my dear. Apparently the gentleman is quite shy, but he has expressed an interest in being introduced to you.”
“I don’t understand, Lady Forsythe.” Felicity realized she was scrunching her face in confusion, felt the pinch of skin between her brows, but she couldn’t manage to stop. Thomas’s cousin, who she’d somehow managed to avoid being introduced to for eight days, was interested in meeting her?
A sickening dread settled in her belly. What if this was all some sort of ploy to make a fool of her? Thomas had been so angry when he’d approached her at the edge of the ballroom. Perhaps he’d seen her on the balcony with Alex.
“You’re a clever and quite pretty young woman, Miss Beckett. A gentleman like my nephew would never suit you, but someone like Mr. Buckham—”
“The baron approached you? About me?” Felicity knew it was the height of rudeness to interrupt a countess, but none of the lady’s words were making sense.
Lady Forsythe frowned at her, as if reconsidering whether Felicity was truly as clever as she thought. “The baron says he knew your father, that Mr. Beckett was the village doctor. The baron’s cousin is also studying to become a physician.” The lady clapped her hands together. “So, you see, he is quite an acceptable suitor for a lady of your station.”
“My station.” No one had ever spoken to Felicity so bluntly of her circumstances.
“Here you go.” From the folds of her skirt, Lady Forsythe produced a small rectangular card and handed it to Felicity. “Your dance card for tomorrow evening’s dance. I’ve already secured two spots on it for Mr. Buckham. I noted that you did not dance at our first musical event, so I know you must be eager for this one.”
Felicity’s hand trembled as she took the card Lady Forsythe thrust toward her. Sure enough, the man’s name had been elegantly written on two lines—the first dance and the second waltz of the evening.
“I will leave you to retire with your book, Miss Beckett.” If she noticed any of Felicity’s distress, Lady Forsythe didn’t acknowledge it. She stood and approached the bedroom door, stopping only once on the threshold. With a beaming smile she said, “Be sure to wear your best.”
It took every ounce of restraint her tired body could muster not to tear the dance card to shreds. Being managed brought out the worst, most rebellious aspects of her nature. As an only child, she’d been given a degree of freedom by her father. Though he’d expected a great deal of her after her mother’s death, he’d also trusted her to make her own choices. Sorry, Papa. She hadn’t chosen well with Thomas, and yet her father persisted in believing she’d have a second chance at love.
“Not with Thomas’s cousin.” The man might be kind and intelligent, and as suitable to “her station” as any man in England, but the notion of being a member of Thomas’s family made her stomach churn.
When another rap rattled her door, Felicity rolled her eyes, huffed out an irritated sigh, and stomped over to the threshold.
“Fel, it’s me.” Amy’s frantic whisper was much louder than she probably intended. “Let me in.”
When Felicity pulled the door open, her cousin rushed inside and plopped down on the edge of the bed.
“Tell me what the countess said to you, and then I shall tell you my news.” Amy spoke breathlessly, as if she’d run the entire length of the hallway before knocking on Felicity’s door.
“How do you know the countess visited me?” She sincerely hoped her cousin wasn’t creeping around in dark hallways, noting who was entering and exiting whose bedrooms.
“She told me she would speak to you before tomorrow’s dance.”
Retrieving the half-filled dance card, Felicity handed it to her cou
sin.
“Mr. Buckham.” Amy glanced up at her. “Are you acquainted with the gentleman?”
“Not yet, but Lady Forsythe hopes to play matchmaker, it seems. Have you met him?”
Amy nodded as she handed the card back. “This evening. He’s only just arrived. Will you dance with him, Fel?”
“I’m not sure I have a choice.” That rankled most of all.
“I rather thought you might dance with…” Amy was being coy, fussing with the ribbon on her dressing gown and looking at Felicity expectantly, waiting for her to fill in the blank.
“Who?” Felicity wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. Or matchmaking.
“Lord Lindsay, of course.”
If she held the dance card up to her cheek, the heat of her blush would set the blasted thing on fire.
“W-why would I dance with Lord Lindsay?”
“Has he not asked you?” Amy tilted her head. “I was certain he would. The man quizzes me about you incessantly.”
“Quizzes you?” Whatever cleverness she possessed, Felicity began to doubt it would be sufficient to make sense of this evening’s revelations.
Amy leaned forward and placed a hand on Felicity’s arm. “I know you had a dreadful opinion of him when we arrived, but I think the viscount might be smitten with you.”
Smitten. Was that what this was? This jumble of emotions that set her heart and mind on fire half the time, and left her confused and as dizzy as a spinning top the rest. It seemed too tame a word for such feelings.
Most shocking of all, Amy seemed completely unbothered by Alex’s interest in Felicity, as if she’d never spared the man a second thought herself.
“And if Lord Lindsay is, as you say, smitten with me, does that not concern you?”
Amy bit the edge of her nail. “You mean because of his horrible reputation?”
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