Beyond A Wicked Kiss

by Jo Goodman

Margaret graced Tenley with an indulgent smile but otherwise ignored him. She engaged Ria and West in conversation, inquiring about their journey, London, the academy, their health, and finally, the weather. By the time they were seated for supper, she had made them easy for silence—except Tenley, who had said little and was, in fact, praying for it.

  Supper was lightly seasoned potato soup, warm, thick-crust bread, and baked trout. The fare satisfied at this late hour and Lady Tenley was delighted to accept West's compliments for the cook. Conversation resumed in fits and starts. Politics. Theatre. Books. Art. By unspoken mutual agreement, they avoided the subject of anything that could be construed as personal, most particularly the interrupted kiss. That topic was held in abeyance until the sexes divided after the meal: West and Tenley remained at the table for a glass of port; Ria and Margaret excused themselves and advanced on the salon.

  Ria could freely admit that she was dreading being alone with Margaret. Their usual pattern following supper was to leave the dining room together and immediately find separate diversions. When they had no choice but to retire to the same room, they engaged in solitary interests, and such conversation as passed between them was scrupulously polite and invariably cool.

  Lady Tenley was a fierce warrior, a fact that was often lost on people of short acquaintance. Her dainty, doll-like figure, porcelain complexion, small chin, and wide, aquamarine eyes served to influence assumptions that she was somehow lacking in spirit, perhaps even spine, and that she was best wrapped in cotton wool. It was naught but an illusion. She was, in fact, definite in her ideas, protective of her family, impatient with incompetence, and did not suffer fools. Those delicate features could become severe, even arrogant, when she was feeling threatened, and she had a way of drawing herself up that made her diminutive stature irrelevant.

  "You will explain yourself, I hope," Margaret said once she and Ria were alone. "Do you imagine you have developed a tendre for him, or he for you? I would not have supposed you could be so lacking in good sense."

  Ria sighed. "Can I not indulge a whim?"

  "A whim? You will be fortunate if Tenley does not march you to the altar."

  "How is that fortunate?"

  "Surely you know he has a reputation of a certain kind."

  "What I know is that you do not call him by name. He is Westphal, Margaret, and whatever his reputation, it will be reevaluated in light of that."

  "He is your guardian. He must not take advantage."

  "And he has not," Ria said firmly. She came within a moment of admitting her confusion to Margaret. The tenor of this interview was not what she had expected. Where was Margaret's relief that her affections were engaged elsewhere? Had she seen through West's charade, or was she merely testing the waters, wanting to be convinced? "I like him very much, Margaret, but you must not worry that I will allow myself to be compromised. I would not bring that shame upon the family."

  "Westphal might not share your scruples."

  "You are too harsh." There was no reason Margaret must know about the weapon he carried, or his trespass into her private apartments, or his insufferable high-handedness. "He has been everything kind and decent."

  Margaret's eyes sharpened as she considered this. "He is not Tenley," she said at last.

  Ria frowned. "I don't understand. What do you mean by that?"

  "He is not his brother," Margaret said. Her pause was uncharacteristically long as she measured her words. "I do not wish to be disagreeable by broaching this subject, but I must point out that you cannot satisfy your tendre for Tenley by substituting his brother."

  What could she say that would be believed? Ria wondered. Denying that she had any tender feelings for Tenley, beyond that of a sister toward her brother, seemed unlikely to convince Margaret. If Ria had ever required evidence of the depth of Margaret's feelings for her husband, she had it now. Margaret could not conceive that a woman would choose another man over Tenley.

  It also seemed vastly inappropriate to discuss Tenley's feelings. While Ria understood that Margaret was aware of her husband's interests, she also knew Margaret had too much pride to admit it aloud.

  Ria decided there was only one direction she might take, and it was West. Neither the wordplay nor the reality of it amused her. "You will account me as shameless," she said slowly, as if the words were being taken from her against her will. "I have not known His Grace but a few days, and you are fully aware that his existence was rarely mentioned in this house, but from the outset it has been as if I have never not known him. Mayhap you are right, and it is the passing resemblance and manner he shares with Tenley that makes it seem so, but I do not believe it is only that. What I feel for him in my heart surpasses anything I have known. I cannot say if it is love, only that I think it might be, because my heart trips over itself when he is in the room, and my thoughts scatter like wild seed in the wind. He is irritating and arrogant and must always be right, yet I forgive him all of it, not because I want to, but because I cannot seem to help myself."

  "Oh my," Margaret said softly. She lowered herself onto the sofa, perching on the edge like a wren. "You do not forgive Tenley those things."

  Ria pretended to think about this. "No, I do not. I never have. What do you make of that?"

  "When Tenley was courting me, I forgave him those things also."

  "Then the urge passes," said Ria. "That, at least, is good."

  Margaret's features were softened by a slim smile. Her gaze went past Ria to the mantelpiece where she saw the Egyptian cat was missing one of its emerald eyes. "I still make allowances for him."

  Ria nodded. "You love him."

  "Yes."

  "Is it love, then, that I feel for Westphal?"

  "I think it might be."

  Ria sighed heavily and sat herself. "You must give me advice, Margaret, for I haven't any notion of how one goes on from here."

  * * *

  West was a light sleeper. It served him well during the Spanish campaign when he had to take his rest wherever he could find it. He had once wedged himself in a rock crevice and woke at the approach of a French patrol some one hundred yards distant. He'd slept curled on the damp floor of a wine cellar and come awake at the sound of a cork easing itself out of a bottle. He'd spent one memorable night lying on his back in a whore's bed bolting upright when she unsheathed a dagger from beneath her corset.

  He never worried that he would not wake up. He always did.

  That is why he was surprised when he snapped to attention and Ria said, "You sleep like the dead."

  Unable to capture his bearings immediately, he simply blinked at her. She stood at his bedside holding a candlestick, and the wavering flame illuminated her cheek and the underside of her chin. Her eyes fell in shadow, making them impossibly dark, almost as if she were wearing a mask across the upper half of her face. Her brushed flannel robe was cinched tight around her waist, but the opening at her throat revealed the white scooped neckline of her nightdress and the hollow of her throat. The candle flame flickered madly again, and West realized it was caused by Ria shifting her weight from one foot to the other. She was fairly dancing in place, and it made him curious enough to lean over the side of the bed and have a look.

  "Where are your slippers?" he asked.

  "That is what you have to say to me? I have arrived in your room in the middle of the night, and you only inquire after my slippers?" She stood perfectly still for a moment. "You will allow it is most curious."

  Groaning softly, West closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the bedhead. He ran one hand through his hair before he risked opening a single eye. When he confirmed that she was still standing there, that under no account was this the result of sharing too much port with Tenley, he took stock of the situation and found it so wanting of common sense and seemliness that for a moment he could not think what he might say to impress this upon her.

  "Bloody, bloody hell."

  Ria gave her head a toss and the pale, braided rope of hair that
lay over her shoulder fell down her back. "I do not usually hold with cursing," she whispered. "But you have captured the essence of my own thoughts."

  "Oh, good" he said dryly. "It is a relief to know. I was sore afraid I would never comprehend the workings of a woman's mind. To discover differently—at this hour, no less—well, you can see that I am buoyed by the news."

  Ria's mouth flattened disapprovingly. "I see you mean to be unbearable."

  "You collect there is some other manner I should adopt?" he asked coldly. "I should like to know what it is. It is gone midnight. You are here without invitation. Tenley and his wife sleep within a stone's throw of my bedchamber. We are both in our nightshirts. And—this may be the most salient factor—there is no bloody fire! Can you not conceive there might be a better approach, mayhap one that does not have a march to the altar as its consequence?"

  Ria turned slightly and sat, hitching her hip on the edge of the bed. "I wish I had been as clearheaded when you appeared in my room at the school. The situation was not so different, though I think we might have avoided marriage. The most likely consequence of you being discovered there would have been my dismissal. I understand that you would not regard this as the same tragic ending as marriage, but it would be of like importance to me."

  At the moment Ria sat, West had been of a mind to plant his foot hard against her bottom. He thought better of it now and eased it back.

  Ria caught the movement under the comforter and said, in faintly accusing accents, "You were going to shove me onto the floor."

  "I was going to push you off the bed. Whether or not you went as far as the floor would be up to you."

  She could hardly credit that he did not lie about his intent. "That is something, at least."

  West's brow furrowed. "Pardon?"

  Ria did not realize she had spoken aloud. "It is nothing. I was musing."

  West decided it was better to let that pass. He sighed. "Will you not come to the point? Why are you here?"

  "How can you not know?" she asked. "You are certainly responsible. It is that cork-brained scheme you enacted in the library that must be put to rights."

  "Put to rights? What is wrong? I thought it went very well. Tenley is sullen, and Margaret is relieved. My brother will recover his heart soon enough, and Margaret will be less prickly. She was everything cordial during dinner. I judge that kiss to be a success."

  "Margaret was pleasant at dinner because she would not have you think ill of her. You failed to comprehend that while she was hopeful that I might have formed an attachment to you, she was still reserving judgment. Once we were alone in the salon, she challenged me. At first I could make no sense of it, then I realized she wanted to be convinced."

  "Convinced?"

  Ria's short sigh communicated her impatience with him. "Convinced that I no longer had a tendre for her husband. Convinced that I was not agreeable to your advances simply because you are Tenley's brother. Convinced that I would not be compromised. Convinced that my feelings were deeply engaged. In short, convinced that what she saw was not a sham."

  "I see," West drawled. Then he went straight to the part of her exposition that he found the most striking. "Am I to understand that Margaret considers me an inferior substitute for my brother? That really is the outside of enough."

  Ria glared at him. "Can you not be serious?"

  "Yes, but not about this. You are making too much of her doubts."

  "My point, Your Grace, is that she no longer has any doubts. I convinced her."

  "Good. Then it is an agreeable ending to a long day. Will you take yourself off now?"

  "I convinced Margaret because I told her I love you." Ria felt an acute sense of satisfaction when that intelligence garnered all of West's attention. It was difficult to discern in the candlelight, but she liked to think his normally healthy color had gone ashen. "That's right," she said. "I told her I love you."

  "There is nothing wrong with my hearing. Once was quite enough."

  "Just so. Now that you know all of it, I shall leave." She started to rise and found her wrist seized in a sure grip. The tug was wholly unnecessary because she was already sitting down. "Yes?"

  "Gloating does not set at all well on your face."

  Ria did not make a very good effort to remove her smile. "Will you not release my arm, Your Grace?"

  West glanced at the spot where his fingers circled the fragile bones of her wrist and then back at her. "And will you not call me West? I am heartily sick of the other." His eyes lifted, and he saw hesitation clearly marked on her face. "This one thing," he said, "and I will not press you for any other favor." He released her wrist to prove that answering her request was not predicated on her responding agreeably to his.

  "Very well," she said, sobering. "If it pleases you. West."

  "Good." He reached out and took the candlestick from her hand and placed it at the bedside. "Now, as to the other, this matter of you loving me, that is a Banbury tale, is it not?"

  "Your panic is not flattering."

  "You misjudge my feelings. It is not panic, but terror." At another time the sound of Ria's laughter would have pleased him. Now it seemed inordinately loud and certain to attract notice. He shot forward quickly and placed his palm across her mouth. "Have a care," he whispered in her ear. "Else you will bring Tenley running to this room."

  Over the top of his palm, Ria's eyes were wide. She nodded jerkily a few times to show her assent. When the pressure on her mouth eased, she added an apology in the same husky whisper as he. "I'm sorry. You understand, don't you, that it is not Tenley we have to fear. He is not likely, as Margaret suggested, to insist on a march up the aisle. It is Margaret who would want to see us leg-shackled."

  "A fair point," he said, dropping his hand, "but I should like to have an answer to my other question."

  Ria had to think a moment, uncertain what he had asked her. "Oh, you are referring to what I told Margaret. Ease your mind. It was a fabrication, nothing more."

  What quite amazed West was that his mind was not entirely made easy. "That is good," he said, though he wondered why he had to force conviction into his voice. He decided it did not bear scrutiny now, if it ever would, and he resolutely suppressed the niggling sense that all was not quite as it should be. Ria, he noticed, appeared to be untroubled. "Margaret has not pressed you to set your cap for me, has she?"

  "She has advised me on all the ways I might encourage you to propose marriage. You will be relieved to know that if I follow her instructions, when the thing comes about, you will be convinced it was your idea."

  "She is diabolical, then."

  "Completely."

  "Perhaps you should not have been so convincing."

  "I did not see an alternative. You did begin this, you know. I did not tell her that you returned my feelings."

  "So she thinks I am a thorough scoundrel."

  "Of course, but that is neither here nor there. You are still the Duke of Westphal."

  He nodded slowly, as though reluctant to confirm the truth of it. "What is to be done?"

  "It is simple, really. Now that Margaret fully comprehends my feelings for you and is no longer fearful I will turn to Tenley, it is important that I not appear too eager for your advances."

  "Were you too eager? I hadn't realized." What West did realize was that he was enjoying himself enormously, not playing at that emotion, but genuinely in its thrall. It occurred to him that the eight months Ria had remaining until she was legally independent of him was not so long a time as he'd first thought. "You mean to spurn me, is that the way of it?"

  "Spurn you? No, that is too harsh. Margaret advises more subtlety than that. She says you would see through the pretense if I were suddenly to affect no interest. It would also lead to raising Tenley's hopes and give him reason to pursue me again. Neither of us acknowledged this particular point to the other, but we understood it well enough."

  "It seems as though you mean to walk a tightrope, then. I intend no
offense, Ria, but I am not certain subtlety is your strong suit. Have you considered what you will do to resist without refusing me? I can be persuasive, you know."

  She did not deny it. "Then you must endeavor to be less so."

  "How?" Under the covers, West drew up his legs tailor-fashion. "It is very much in my nature."

  Ria offered up her most disapproving countenance: slightly pursed mouth; narrow, flinty eyes; and locked jaw.

  West's brows lifted. "I take that look to mean I should stand in opposition to my inclinations."

  "Good." The muscles of her face relaxed and she smiled, not softly enough to erase her seriousness, but without the severity of one pressing a point home. "You understand perfectly."

  "I don't see how it could be otherwise. That headmistress manner you adopt would put a period to the advances of the ton's most determined rogues, and I am not accounted to be one of them. As South might say, it is an expression that will repel all boarders."

  She sighed. "It is as you have pointed out, then. I have not the talent for subtlety. I am not supposed to repel you."

  "There you have the conundrum. Perhaps what Margaret means is that you should lead me to water but not allow me to drink."

  "Yes. Yes, of course. That is it precisely."

  West grinned and made himself comfortable against the polished walnut bedhead again. Folding his arms across his chest, he made a considering study of Ria. "It is all well and good that I should be right, but it is not the same as knowing how to—" His abrupt stop was prompted by the fine tremor in the bed's frame and the cause for it. "Look at you. You are freezing." He lifted one corner of the covers and offered her shelter under it. "Your shivering is likely to eject me from my own bed. Get in."

  "It is only because I am that cold," she said. "Not that you are the least persuasive in this instance."

  "You may have it however you wish, but please climb aboard quickly." He moved a few inches toward the middle of the bed, raised the blankets a fraction higher, and looked pointedly at the space beside him. "You will find it warmer here."

  Ria slipped under the covers and waved off his help to tuck them around her. She rubbed the soles of her bare feet against the sheets. The friction added a pleasant rush of heat at the end of a violent shiver. "This is most improper."