His startled face was evident, even in the weak light that came from under the door. Lydia waited for a gasp, or at least a flinch, but Andrew disappointed her as always.
‘Oh, Lord.’ He rolled his eyes, neglecting even to bow. ‘You.’
‘Me?’ Lydia drew herself up to her full height, annoyed that her full height was less than queenly. ‘Such an elegant mode of address.’
Andrew’s sharp sigh filled the linen cupboard. ‘Excuse me, Miss Hereford.’ He bowed, his hair almost grazing the front of Lydia’s gown. ‘You’ll forgive the lack of a full bow, given the size of our current room.’ His tone was acidly polite. ‘Perhaps the lack of space could be adjusted if one of us were to leave.’
‘Absolutely not!’ Lydia knew she was being mulish, but the alternative was insupportable. How was it that whenever she and the Earl of Conbarr spoke, they were always on the verge of fighting? ‘Get out!’
‘No. It is not your linen cupboard, and I intend to win this game.’
‘It’s a damned sight more my linen cupboard than yours, and I always win this game!’
Lydia practically heard Andrew’s frown of disapproval. ‘That is a word I’ve never heard said by a lady.’
‘What a desperately dull life you must lead.’ Lydia folded her arms, noting Andrew’s scandalised expression in the dim light. ‘But then, the women who frequent the salons of flower-painters are hardly going to be belles of the demi-monde.’
‘Of course such a comment would come from you. Four seconds in a confined space together, and you are speaking of the demi-monde.’ Andrew’s weary tone toyed with Lydia’s frayed nerves. ‘Perhaps you are correct. This is more your linen cupboard than mine.’
‘I am certainly correct.’ Lydia nodded, obscurely annoyed that the encounter had ended so quickly. ‘Leave.’
With a sigh that seemed to encapsulate every thought he had ever had about her, with none of the thoughts being positive, Andrew turned to the door. Lydia watched, glowering fiercely, as he pushed… and stopped.
He turned to her, his voice flat. ‘The door appears to be stuck.’
‘What?’ Lydia pushed past Andrew, smacking her hands to the door-frame with a flash of real panic. ‘How on earth is that possible?’
‘It’s probably the heat. It can make a door-frame stick.’ Andrew gently moved himself back to his original position; Lydia practically snarled, loathing his grace. It really was desperately unfair that a man should be more graceful than her; that he moved through the world like a dancer, while she clomped along behind like a carthorse. ‘If we wait for a few moments, then try again with a little more force, it should open.’
‘Well.’ Lydia whispered the word with less venom than originally predicted. She wished she could stop looking at Andrew’s mouth; full, flushed, a slight curve at its left-hand corner, visible even in near-darkness. ‘Of course you would have an explanation.’
Andrew didn’t respond. Lydia couldn’t quite tell, but was almost certain that he was staring at her. Such typical rudeness for a man so utterly obsessed with his own class—a man who now seemed permanently sewn to the edges of her new family, waiting for her and her sisters to make some horrible misstep…
… Lord, he smelled wonderful. She couldn’t help leaning closer, caught in a sudden, aromatic fug of what smelled like a meadow at night. Moonlit fields, saddle-leather, smoke; how had she never caught his scent before? It seemed to invite… yearning.
All of a sudden she felt hot, delirious; dancing on the edge of panic. Not a panic that made her want to run away—the opposite. If anything, the overwhelming flood of feeling in her chest made Lydia want to get much, much closer to the Earl of Conbarr than she ever had before.
It was not, under any circumstances, a good idea. But Lydia had been dreaming of a day when she could throw caution to the wind; a day when she could gleefully cast off the shackles of convention and simply do as she wished.
True, she hadn’t wished for this precise outcome. Had ardently wished for its opposite, in fact, often in the company of others. But with no prying eyes nearby, or wagging tongues whispering hypocrisy… well.
It would be over in a moment. Less than a moment, if the earl pushed her away. Lydia, a slightly malicious smile hovering on her lips, noted that the man’s annoyance could very well be more satisfying than his agreement.
It was meant to be a quick, mischievous kiss. More of an insult than an overture; a definite way of saying, I know I irritate you more than anyone else you know… but as Lydia impudently pressed her lips to Andrew’s own, the dark of the linen cupboard adding an edge of real wickedness to her act, every word in her head became you.
You, you, you.
She gasped, caught off-guard. No mischievous, mocking kiss was meant to feel like that; as someone had reached stealthily into her chest and stolen all the air from her lungs, leaving her dizzy. She stared suspiciously at Andrew, one hand placed unsteadily on her rapidly beating heart, wondering what on earth the man had done.
From Andrew’s expression, just visible in the gloom, he wasn’t responsible for the feeling. If anything, he seemed even more affected by it than she was. Lydia leaned closer, trying to understand exactly what had occurred… realising, in a vague, half-distracted way, that she had placed her hands on Andrew’s chest.
He had a good chest. Broad, warm to the touch. Lydia took a deep, unsteady breath, wishing she could find the strength to remove her hands. Wishing she could stop gripping the linen of his shirt, clinging to it, as if she and Andrew Balfour were the only two people left in the world—
Andrew’s lips met hers. Lydia, with a shocked gasp, felt the world shift beneath her feet.
This was no mocking kiss. This wasn’t even the gentle, introductory kiss that courting couples supposedly traded. This was a fierce kiss; a kiss filled to the brim with deep-rooted frustration, lusts concealed for so long that they burst forth as something akin to anger—a kiss of pure, white-hot fire. And Lydia, without even thinking about it, had lit the flame.
It was glorious. Lydia, throwing her arms around Andrew with enough force to upset his balance, let passion overcome reason. Hot, hasty, desperate; it was a war of seeking mouths, of sighs, of hands gripping one another’s clothes as if they were the most useless rags to ever clothe a body—
Andrew Balfour’s body. Lydia stopped, mid-kiss, eyes wide. The body of the man you have been cheerfully hating for more than a year.
It had to be his scent. It had to be the dark, close confines of the linen cupboard. It had to be a spring enchantment, a foolish curse, a bout of madness—it could be any one of those things, or all of them, and it ultimately didn’t matter. It had happened, and would keep happening unless one of them put a stop to it… and Lydia, her arms still wrapped tight around Andrew’s neck, wasn’t entirely sure that she could.
Andrew evidently had other ideas. He staggered backward; Lydia freed herself, stumbling, clutching at empty air as Andrew fell heavily against the door. So heavily, in fact, that the door sprung open with the force of a pistol being fired.
With a look of near-comical surprise on his face, Andrew sprawled onto the elaborately patterned Turkish rug. Lydia, her hand over her mouth, hurriedly ran to kneel over him as the door to the cupboard creaked in the breeze left by her skirts.
‘Miss Hereford? Balfour?’ The unmistakeable tones of Susan Colborne froze Lydia. ‘Are you quite well?’
‘Y—yes.’ Andrew was already on his knees, brushing himself off; Lydia stood, hoping against hope that her cheeks weren’t as scarlet as her dress. ‘A foolish mishap. Miss Hereford was—was—’
Was he really leaving it up to her to explain away such a compromising position? The nerve of him! Lydia glared at him, wishing she could forget the feel of his mouth on hers, before turning to Susan with a look of abject apology.
‘We were…’ She stared at Susan Colborne, who was currently looking at the two of them with the absent, harried expression that she normally wore. A yea
r in close company, with so many new faces and changes to her much-cherished routine, had proved challenging for the duke’s sister; traces of anxiety still clung to her, including the way she avoided looking directly into anyone’s eyes. ‘… We were looking for flower seeds?’
It was a ridiculous explanation. On anyone else, it never would have worked. But Susan, who had always worked a little differently to everyone else around her, visibly relaxed.
‘I see.’ She nodded. ‘What kind?’
If only Lydia had thought that far ahead. She looked at Andrew, biting her lip; an idea came to her, seemingly without passing through her conscious mind. ‘Love-in-a-mist?’
‘Oh.’ Susan blinked; Lydia turned away from Andrew, who had gone a most astonishing shade of red. ‘We keep the smaller seeds to dry out in the cupboards below stairs, Miss Hereford. I had assumed you knew this by now—you help Anne with drying seeds, after all.’ She shook her head. ‘You look for obvious things in the wrong places, and miss obvious things in the right ones.’
‘Yes.’ Lydia nodded, wondering how on earth to reply. ‘A somewhat common tendency.’
‘Come along, Miss Hereford.’ Susan gruffly tilted her head in the direction of the stairs. ‘I will show you. I believe there is some sort of game being played, but I find most games stop if one ignores them for long enough. Lord Balfour, you have done something to your waistcoat.’
Andrew and Lydia looked down at the same time, taking in the ripped edge of his waistcoat. Lydia bit her lip, overcome with a fresh wave of embarrassment.
‘Yes.’ Andrew looked as if he would rather be anywhere else. ‘Horticulture is terrible for one’s clothes.’
‘Quite. I often arrive at luncheon covered in brambles.’ Susan nodded gravely. ‘Come, Miss Hereford. The seeds.’
Lydia followed Susan as she made her way down the corridor, determined to keep her poise. Determined, under any circumstances, to not look back at Andrew Balfour.
Dash it all. She risked glancing backward, hating herself for doing so. Hating herself even more when she saw that Andrew had already turned his back.
Oh, no. Lydia’s mouth twisted grimly. You will not escape so easily.
‘This is very serious.’ Andrew Balfour, Earl of Conbarr, murmured fitfully to himself as he combed his hair in the weak morning light. ‘Very serious indeed.’
He had barely managed to close his eyes, let alone sleep with any level of calm. It wasn’t the first time that Lydia Hereford had ruined his sleep; Andrew remembered a night during the Christmas festivities where he hadn’t slept until four, so annoyed he had been by Lydia’s conclusive victory in Blind-Man’s-Bluff. But after that moment in the linen closet—the moment when, to his surprise, he had lost any semblance of control—he couldn’t imagine Lydia doing anything other than throwing her arms around him.
Well. He could imagine her doing other things; things that he would blush to request from even the most experienced Covent Garden hoyden. He had lost a night to his imaginings; his cravings, newly discovered, and all the stronger for being so securely locked away. By the time morning had come, Andrew had spent so long in a hardened state that he feared for his other extremities.
Lydia Hereford? Really? What on earth had possessed him; what strange undercurrent of lust had dragged him out to sea? He had spent over a year being plagued by the woman, haunted by her proud, impetuous wildness—was this outpouring really the logical conclusion to so many months of such intense annoyance?
Yes. His reflection mocked him smugly as he stood above the wash-basin. And if you choose to call yourself ‘annoyed’ by Lydia over the past year, instead of something else, you are exactly as foolish as you look.
He could not, under any circumstances, see Lydia at the breakfast table. If he only managed to avoid her for enough time—an hour, maybe even two—he would manage to calm himself. He was sure of it. Luckily, after a hurriedly eaten bun left at his bedroom door by an erstwhile maid, Andrew remembered that Henry Colborne would be answering correspondence in the richly furnished Longwater library.
But Henry Colborne, to Andrew’s immense distress, did not treat the matter with the seriousness that it deserved. As he sat in his usual high-backed leather chair in the library, frustratedly running his finger around the rim of his cup of coffee, Andrew realised that his oldest and best friend was going to be irritating in the extreme.
‘Hah!’ Henry’s outstretched finger practically brushed the tip of his nose. ‘I knew it!’
‘Henry, be serious. I have no idea why… why the event occurred, and I have absolutely no wish to—’
‘Hah!’
Andrew leant back in his chair with a slight huff, watching Henry roar with laughter. Better to let him indulge himself, and wait for it all to blow over—perhaps then they would be able to talk seriously.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Henry would keep laughing forever. After several minutes of shaking shoulders and knee-slaps, Andrew wondered if his friend was going to finish the morning under a doctor’s care.
‘I told you! I knew it from the very first!’ Henry sighed, the sound full of a smug contentment that made Andrew’s hackles rise. ‘Good Lord, Andrew, you have not stopped speaking about Lydia Hereford since I first met Anne.’
‘Because she is irritating, Henry. Deeply irritating.’ Andrew, to his immense annoyance, realised that he was probably going to start blushing. ‘Loud, and impetuous, and talkative, and—and did I mention loud?’
‘Oh, yes. You have mentioned that ever-so-many times.’ Henry’s smile was positively evil. ‘How you’ve stared at her, too. What a martyr you’ve been, looking at something that horrifies you with such intense concentration.’
‘Yes, yes, alright.’ Andrew paused, feeling the usual tell-tale flush beginning to rise at the base of his neck. ‘Perhaps my… awareness of Miss Hereford has not been entirely due to her most annoying characteristics.’
‘Come now. Miss Hereford?’ Henry’s smile widened. ‘You’ve damn near consecrated a linen cupboard together, Andrew. You can probably call her Lydia, at least with me.’
Well, that’s done it. Andrew felt the blood rush to his cheeks, rendering him temporarily speechless as he waited for it to pass. Henry, to his credit, waited with tender silence for the crimson in his friend’s cheeks to die down to a light rose.
‘Yes, Henry. I have.’ Andrew looked at Henry with a short, sharp sigh. ‘And what on earth am I supposed to do about it?’
Henry’s answer was prompt, and spoke to his previous years of unrepentant rakehood. ‘Find a larger linen cupboard. The one near the bathroom might be a better bet.’
‘Be serious, Henry. Please.’ Andrew set his cup of coffee down, hardly caring as some of the hot liquid splashed onto his fingers. ‘Or I am going to have to speak to someone less jocular. I believe I’ll start with your wife.’
Henry’s face fell. ‘You would have to be very stupid indeed to talk to Anne about this.’
‘I know. Please, do not force me to do so.’ Andrew shivered. ‘She’s certainly rather protective of her sisters.’
‘Oh no. Anne is not the lady one needs to worry about. She’s marvellously forgiving, really.’ Henry’s face softened; the power of newly-wed love clearly hadn’t faded. ‘Henrietta, on the other hand… I don’t think we could save you.’
‘Oh, really.’ Andrew laughed gently. ‘As if that slip of a girl could force Lydia and I into marriage.’
‘I’m not talking about marriage.’ Henry lowered his voice. ‘Did you see what happened to young Hobbley, after that horrible business with the ballerina came out?’
‘I saw the scar on his hand.’ Andrew paused, his eyes widening. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that—’
‘I couldn’t possibly say.’ Henry nodded significantly. ‘When it comes to Henrietta, I believe my silence is wiser than my speech.’
A long, somewhat frightening pause occurred. Andrew, his mind clouded with horrifying visions of his futu
re, privately decided that Henrietta would never come to know of he and Lydia’s indiscretion.
‘So. Even if we take these auxiliary problems and nudge them gently to one side, you are still left with a quandary.’ Henry mused thoughtfully, his hand on his chin. ‘What are you going to say to her?’
‘I have absolutely no idea.’ Andrew threw up his hands, the unexpected violence of the movement startling Henry. ‘What on earth can one say? And more importantly, how on earth am I to say it to her? I can hardly begin discussing it at the dinner table, and Lord knows I won’t manage to hound the poor girl into being alone with me—’
He stopped, frowning. Henry, to his immense chagrin, had begun to laugh again.
‘Andrew, where on earth have you been? You have observed Lydia Hereford for so long, at such close quarters, and yet you fail to understand her at all.’
‘I’ve hardly been examining her character in any great detail.’ Andrew paused, reflecting on his exact motives for observing Lydia Hereford, as Henry dissolved into another gale of laughter. He had always assumed pure irritation had guided his gaze—but had he been entirely honest with himself? ‘And I both fail to understand Miss Hereford, and fail to see your point.’
‘My point is this.’ Henry took a steadying breath, his laughter subsiding. ‘You needn’t try to hound Lydia Hereford into anything, Andrew. She will come to you. All you can do, you poor, weak specimen, is wait.’
‘Oh, Lord.’ Andrew glumly bit his thumbnail. ‘I suppose you are correct.’
‘Of course, you two have hardly picked the best time to begin this… whatever it is.’ Henry took a sip of coffee, his face returning to something approaching seriousness.
‘Believe me, Henry, I was not the one who started things.’
‘Yes… but you do not seem to have finished things.’ Henry set down his cup and saucer. ‘I have to wonder why that is, Andrew, given that circumstances will finish things rather more brutally than you can.’
‘You know I prefer not to discuss my personal affairs with those who have no need of the information.’ Andrew’s cheeks flushed as he remembered the precise reason he had come to speak with Henry. ‘Present company excepted.’
Private Passions Page 58