Текст книги "The Lady Most Willing"

Автор книги: Connie Brockway

Соавторы: Julia Quinn,Eloisa James
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 20

Very early the next morning

The sky was still a deep cobalt paling to orchid on the horizons when Robin began prowling Finovair’s long-abandoned portrait gallery. The storm had passed, and Finovair stood cloaked in heavy white robes, her turrets and tumbled curtain wall shimmering with ice. It was as pretty now as ever it would be or, in all likelihood, ever had been. But Robin barely noted its beauty. His imagination was fixed on quite a different kind of beauty.

Who would have guessed that Lady Cecily Tarleton would prove to be the most dangerous woman in Great Britain? Oh, not to the world at large, but to a very small population of one, she most decidedly was that.

“Were it not so amusing, it would be pathetic,” he murmured, his breath turning to a cloud in the unheated corridor’s frigid air, glad to find his humor restored.

It had gone mostly missing since he’d first seen her, standing before Bretton’s carriage in a pool of torchlight. Snow caught in her lashes, spangled her rich, dark hair like the diadems in fairy queen’s veil, and melted on her rosy cheeks. Subtle bemusement had flickered over the cameo smoothness of her face, a sense of wonder growing in her amber-colored eyes as she looked around for all the world as if abduction were a regular occurrence, and she needed merely to enjoy the interim between theft and rescue.

Having been thrown at birth on the mercy of Fate and Fortune—and having discovered therefore that amused acceptance was the best ally against despair—Robin appreciated the same attitude in another. Especially such a lovely “other.”

When Byron had taken her hand, Robin had realized hehad wanted to be the one taking her hand, and since Robin rarely denied himself anything he wanted, especially as he alwaysmade certain his wants were well within his means, he had fairly shoved Oakley aside and presented himself. As expected of a rake, he’d made some slightly outré comment and grinned wickedly, anticipating her gasp—de rigueur in such situations—or, possibly, if she was a rompish miss, a snicker.

She hadn’t done either.

She’d looked up at him. A strange, heart-stealing expression of recognition had arisen in her honeyed eyes, and her ripe, luscious lips had parted but not a word escaped them, and he had been stunned by the force of a yearning so unexpected it had nearly brought him to his knees. And it was at that precise instance he’d realized how very, very dangerous Lady Cecily was. Because against all reason, when he should have been proof against such nonsense, he had done the unthinkable and fallen in love.

And love at first sight, at that.

Robin had never been in love before, which is precisely how he recognized the sensation with such absolute certainty. Shortly thereafter, he had fled—and no, he would not appease his vanity by calling it anything else—from the more habitable portions of Finovair to those parts falling to ruin, which, he thought ruefully, looking around, was most of it. Because while Robin might be in love, he was not insane, and it would be insanity indeed to pursue that which he had no possibility of attaining.

He had learned that lesson early in life when he’d arrived in London as a young man. Society’s mamas wasted no time in cautioning their daughters against the son of an impecunious French count. And their papas had been just as quick to take Robin aside—accompanied by their more brawny retainers—to make verysure he understood the warning.

Thereafter, Robin had kept his liaisons strictly to the ranks of ladies who did not require marriage as a prerequisite to bed sport. And while his conquests were not nearly so legion as Byron assumed—and Robin let him assume—they were plentiful enough to keep a fellow from deploring his lot in life.

And why should he deplore his lot? he asked himself, stopping to stare sightlessly at the snowy courtyard below. He had health, good friends, a few acres of vines he still managed to keep a working concern, and—he cast a jaundiced eye down a hall of fallen plaster rubble and pockmarked walls—someday would inherit a Scottish castle. What more could he want?

Her.

He scowled at the betraying thought.

Irritably, he pivoted to leave, and as he did so, he heard the unmistakable if faint sound of a female cursing. Relieved by the distraction, he smiled, wondering if along with all the rest of the unwelcome bequests with which Taran—damn his unfruitful loins—intended to saddle him, he would also inherit a ghost. Though he thought even ghosts had more sense than to haunt so inhospitable a place.

He looked down the hall toward where the sound had come just as a pile of russet-colored rags topped by a head emerged from a doorway.

A particularly dark and lovely head.

Lady Cecily.

It appeared he was to be haunted, after all.

Chapter 21

For a second, Robin considered pretending he hadn’t seen her—again—and bolt down the adjacent corridor. By avoiding her thus far, he had avoided sampling what he could never wholly have.

True, manners had demanded that he make an appearance at dinner the first night, but he’d seated himself at the opposite end of the table from her and escaped as soon as Marilla had commenced her campaign to win Bretton’s . . . Well, if she won anything of Bretton’s, it certainly wasn’t ever going to be his heart. But, then, any fool watching her manhandle the duke would soon realize that Bretton’s heart was never her objective.

But now Robin found he could not resist the opportunity to spend some time alone with Lady Cecily before her rescuers came thundering through the passes. When they arrived, he would be gone. He had no intention of standing by while Marilla Chisholm convinced her father that events had occurred that could only be satisfied with a wedding. Particularly if it was his own.

Besides, perhaps if he spent some time with Lady Cecily, he would discover that she was not what every fiber in his heart declared her to be but simply a young lady whose lovely visage and pretty manners summed up the total of what she was or aspired to become. At least, he thought as he strode toward her, he could hope.

“Lady Cecily,” Robin hailed her, his amusement growing with each step.

She’d exchanged yesterday’s antique morning weeds for an even older ball gown, dating from an era when women would have had to turn sideways to enter through a door. But without the support of the underlying panniers that would have once jutted out from her hips, the heavy skirts dragged along the ground on either side of her like two broken wings.

The once rich ruby red silk had turned a dull rusty color, and the heavy application of silver thread embroidering the sleeves and hem had become green with age. Huge silk cabbage roses, once white but now dingy and yellowed, hung disconsolately from her elbows, waist, and hips.

Even during the height of George VII’s reign, when low-cut dresses were in vogue, the décolletage would have been indecent, but on Lady Cecily’s slight frame it hung so loosely that she’d been forced to wrap some sort of velvet shawl around her neck like a muffler before stuffing the ends down the bodice to preserve her modesty. The effort had apparently caused her hair to fall from its neat knot, and it, too, lay tucked beneath the velvet wrapping.

An image of how she’d look had she not been so enterprising with that damned shawl beset his imagination; her hair rippling over her naked shoulders, loose curls playing at her cleavage. Heated desire quickened his body. Ruthlessly, he vanquished the taunting vision.

“Heavens, Comte, whatever are you doing here?” Lady Cecily asked.

Avoiding you, my love. “Taking my morning constitutional. My doctor prescribes clambering over rubble in frigid temperatures at least thrice daily,” he said, and she gratified him by laughing at his absurdity. “Might I inquire the same?”

She glanced down at her bedraggled skirts and gave an unexpectedly gamine grin. “One can only wear a gown twice before retiring it. Surely you know that, Comte? I found this in the trunk Mr. Hamish brought to the room and as for this . . .” She grimaced, plucking at the shawl.

His eyes widened. By God, it wasn’t a shawl she’d wrapped around her shoulders, but an old velvet bed curtain. He recognized it as coming from a room he’d once occupied as a child! Apparently, she’d ripped it from its moorings.

“I will, of course, make restitution,” she added.

“My dear,” he said, shaking his head mournfully, “I hardly know what to say. One doesn’t find relics like that just lying about, you know.”

“No,” she answered. “One finds them hangingabout.”

He stifled a chuckle, trying to look stern. “What is even more distressing than your pillaging my uncle’s home is that having torn the family tapestry from its rods to decorate yourself, you are now on the hunt for more things to loot.”

“Terrible, I know,” she admitted, her gaze unsettlingly direct. “I am afraid that when I find something I want, I will fight to the end for it.”

He looked at her with renewed appreciation. Those had hardly been the words of a model of propriety. And her gaze was too direct and her expression filled with delight and naughtiness. Indeed, her ripe lips trembled with ill-suppressed merriment.

Damn it.

“How rapacious of you,” he said, realizing he’d been staring. “But then, how can I find fault with that? Especially as I have been accused of similar failings.”

“Oh. Is it a failing?” she asked innocently, glancing at him out of the corner of her remarkable eyes. With each word and glance, she delighted him more.

This was far worse—and so much better—than he’d expected. The conversations he’d had with young ladies during his first season had been unremarkable exchanges: bland pleasantries, light chat about the latest play, the weather, the most recent exhibitions. There’d been no repartee, no subtext, no—God help him—flirtation.

He must leave Finovair before lunch.

“Besides,” she said, “your cousin claims that you are the very model of restraint.”

Once more, she’d caught him off-guard. He burst out laughing. “Either you are twitting me, Lady Cecily, or you have discovered a cousin who is entirely unknown to me and who, obviously, knows just as little about me in return.”

“He seemed quite confident. But then, you never know with men, do you?” she said. “They always appear to be certain of everything. It must be exhausting. Is it?”

“As I am not certain of anything, particularly this conversation, I dare not answer.”

“Oh, I believe you think yourself very certain of who and what you are, Comte.”

There was amusement in her voice and he didn’t quite know what to make of that. He smiled to cover his discomfort and said, “Please, the title is less than a courtesy. You must call me Robin, especially as Marilla has announced that we are all on first-name terms.”

Some of the light faded in her extraordinary eyes. “I should have liked to call you Robin at your own behest, not someone else’s.”

“It ismy request. I should like you to call me Robin.” He heard the slight imploring note in his voice, but could do nothing to prevent it. He wanted to hear her say his name in every mood: shouted in glee, whispered in intimacy, spoken with easy familiarity.

“Only if you will call me Cecily.”

“Your father would hardly approve.” The words slipped out unintended. When had he turned into such a pedant? But she really shouldn’t be giving the use of her Christian name to a rake.

“But he is not here, and I would never presume to know of what he would approve or disapprove,” she said with feigned haughtiness. “I find it rather audacious that you do.”

Her sophistry delighted him almost as much as her mental adroitness. Besides, what harm if they played at friendship . . . or even something more, for a few short hours?

“I see I have no choice but to cede to your greater knowledge, La– Cecily. Until I have been told otherwise by the gentleman himself, I will be ruled by your superior understanding. Now, whatever are you doing in these inhospitable climes so early in the morning?”

“As I told you, I am looking for something to wear. Something that fits better than this,” she said, tugging at the sagging skirts. “The hunt has led me here.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed,” Robin said. “This part of the castle has been uninhabited for generations. Anything worth keeping was removed long ago.”

“Drat.”

He grinned at this small imprecation. “Exactly. I’m sorry.”

“No matter. I’ll just look elsewhere. There must be something somewhere.”

He doubted it, but why dampen her spirits when she was so obviously enjoying her treasure hunt?

“Did you have in mind somewhere particular to look?” he asked.

“Not really. I’ve already been in every room in this corridor.”

“Then perhaps you’d allow me to escort you back to a more likely hunting ground? Finovair might not be very large but it can be confusing. Purposely so.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s all part of our national heritage. All those Jacobites and Hanoverians littering the countryside, plotting and counterplotting, ferreting out secrets and squirreling others away. Small wonder Scottish castles tend to be warrens of secret passages and blind ends, priest bolts and lovers’ cupboards. And the Fergusons were the worst of the lot. As such it only stands to reason their stronghold would be one of the most abstruse. Yes. You really had best let me accompany you—”

She held up her hand, laughing. “Have done, Robin! I am convinced.”

Had he sounded so eager? He must indeed be bewitched. His sangfroid was legendary.

“And by all means, I accept,” she went on. “I should hate to end up lost in these walls for eternity. Take me where you will. I am yours!”

His heart lurched at her words and he glanced at her to see if she understood what she’d offered, but not a bit of caution clouded her face. She smiled sunnily up at him, sovereign in her consequence. No one would dare assail her. After all, she was an earl’s daughter.

Foolish girl, she was far too lovely to make such assumptions. After all, she’d been abducted, hadn’t she? Kidnapped and dragged through a storm to a heathenish, frozen castle for the express purpose of becoming its heir’s bride.

Hisbride.

The thought hovered with tantalizing effect in the foreground of his imagination. What if he stayed and wooed her? Seduced her? Used all his much-vaunted skill to try to win her for his own? Would she succumb?

Would he?

She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, unaware of the profligate impulses shivering through him.

“I admit,” she said, “the idea of being lost here does conjure an amusing image: my poor spirit moaning dolefully through the walls at your descendants, only to have them shout back that I deserve my fate for not accepting your escort. ” She peeked up at him through sooty lashes. “At least I assume that any descendants of yours would have scant pity for fools who don’t know enough to take what was offered.”

He checked, startled by an interpretation of her words that she could not possibly have meant. She gazed at him, all innocence and trust. He swallowed. “You think you know me well enough to predict my unborn descendants’ dispositions?” he asked, discovering that he likedthe idea that she knew him; he even liked the idea that she thought she knew him. Though, of course she couldn’t. His lovers had often complained that his laughter and wit deflected any hope of achieving any intimacy that didn’t involve the flesh.

But here, at this moment, with this girl in her oversized dress and bed-hanging shawl, looking like a child who had raided her grandmother’s wardrobe to play dress-up, walking along a hall where frost rimed the windows and crept like silvery lichen along the ceiling as their breath made little shrouds in the air, in this strange fairy-tale land of predawn glitter and soft, frosted sheen, Cecily’s assumption of familiarity felt warm and companionable and . . . right.

Perhaps he needn’t avoid her after all. Perhaps they really could just be friends . . .

But then he glanced at her, just a glance, and noted the way the angled light limned her full lower lip, the elegant line of her nose, the glossy sheen of her rich dark locks, and the small shadowed vale just visible above where she’d tucked the velvet material into her bodice and realized, no, they could not just be friends.

“Am I presumptuous?” she asked, not looking the least abashed. “I’m sorry.”

“Not at all,” he said easily. “I am just appalled that my predictability is so blatant you can foretell what traits my descendants will inherit.”

“You are kind, Robin,” she said, studying him.

Her words made him uneasy. He was a rake and a ne’er-do-well. And a pauper. She must know that.

He drew her back to his side and they proceeded at a leisurely pace, as if they were strolling in St. James Park during the height of the season, not a frozen corridor in a ruined castle in the dead of winter.

“You might well be correct about my presumed offspring,” he said. “ Iffuture Comtes de Rocheforte were to be found lounging about the castle. But I doubt they will be.”

“How so?” she asked. “The older gentleman gave me to understand that you will inherit Finovair.”

“The older gentleman? Oh. You mean Taran. Hardly a gentleman, though definitely older. And yes, my mother having been so shortsighted as to have given birth to me prematurely, and thus two weeks before Byron’s mother bore him, Taran has deemed me next in line to have this great pile foisted upon.”

He spoke with a great show of amused indifference. “But even I at my most persuasive—and I can be most persuasive”—he angled an amused glance at her, and was rewarded with a faint blush—“even I would be hard-pressed to talk any lady into living here, let alone raising her children in such a place.”

“Why?” She stopped and looked up at him, by all appearances sincerely confused.

Why?His gaze swept down the length of ruined gallery. A vine had crept through a crack in one of the windows and hung bare and twisted as a witch’s finger from the ceiling, pointing accusingly at a broken chair tipping woozily against a water-stained wall. She was being disingenuous. She had to be.

“The latest fashions,” he said with supreme insouciance, “eschew blue lips. Or so I am told. And I refuse to have an unfashionable wife.”

She burst into laughter and he could not help but notice that her lips were, indeed, touched with a violet hue. Wordlessly, he shrugged out of his jacket and, without asking permission, draped it over her shoulders.

She backed away a step as he performed this unasked-for service, clearly startled by the liberties he’d taken. He took the opportunity for even more, tucking the collar around her neck and gently teasing a tress of hair free from under his jacket. Then he smoothed it along her shoulder, smiling down at her as he slowly followed her retreat, step by step. Her shoulders bumped into the wall behind her.

“My pardon, Lady Cecily,” he said, coming to his senses. “I am simply doing my part to see that Scotland stays au courant with London. Your lips were turning blue, m’dear.”

He didn’t mean to do anything more. But her golden eyes trapped him in time, and all he was aware of was the beating of his heart, the sound of his own labored breathing, and then, amazingly, impossibly, she leaned forward, tipping her head back, her eyelids slipping shut, and her lips pursed in a delicious invitation.

A kiss. Something to remember her by. What harm a kiss?

He could no more have declined that wordless offer than he could refuse to breathe. He lowered his head and carefully, gently pressed his lips to hers.

Chapter 22

Desire exploded at the instant of contact, shooting like lightning through Robin. He stepped closer, keeping his hands knotted in fists at his sides, wanting more but certain that if he reached for her, she would bolt.

More kisses. That was all he sought. It was hardly anything, nothing at all, really, just . . . everything.

She made some lovely, half-surprised, half-ravished sound, a sigh and gasp all at once, and reached up, steadying herself with a hand flattened against his chest.

He edged closer still, his legs entangling in her heavy skirts, but trying not to startle her. In an effort to restrain himself, he braced his forearm on the wall above her head, angling his own to better access the perfect ripeness of her lips, to flick his tongue along the sweet seam until—mercy!—her mouth opened and her tongue found his own.

He groaned, surrendering to the pleasure of her untutored exploration. For long, glorious moments he kissed her until he felt her hand creep up his chest and she linked her arms around his neck, her fingers sifting through his hair. In reply, his body turned rock-hard. Only a few inches separated her from becoming manifestly aware of his state of arousal. He wanted to kiss her, not shock her. His jaw tightening with frustration, he stepped back, releasing her mouth.

She blinked, startled by his sudden desertion. He looked away, taking a deep, steadying breath. His emotions were chaotic and unfamiliar, an uncomfortable mix of desire and the desire to protect. She shouldn’t be here with him. This was a mistake. A foolish, masochistic indulgence.

“Good heavens, you areadroit at this seduction thing, aren’t you?” she whispered breathlessly.

“You didn’t know? Of course I am. My dear, I am the Prince of Rakes.” He glanced back at her sardonically, the once amusing sobriquet coming like a curse to his lips.

Her arms slipped from around his shoulders. He looked down at her, prepared to offer an arrogant curl of the lip, but the sight of her ruined the attempt. She looked puzzled and somber, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and unnervingly candid.

“Of course you are,” she said. “I mean, I had heardthat. You do have a far-ranging reputation. But one hears so much about so many people, and then when one meets the individual, one realizes that rumors have simply exaggerated what is, in fact, not all that extraordinary.”

He laughed, startled out of his dark mood. She confounded him, robbed him of his intent, his sangfroid, his reputation. She stripped away all his preconceptions about young ladies, leaving him without a clue to guide him. She fascinated and mystified him. What was she doing? What was she about?

“I see,” he said. “Rather a letdown, am I?”

“Oh no! Not at all. You quiteexceed expectations,” she hastened to reassure him with such artlessness, such solicitous concern for his rakish reputation, that he could not help but laugh again. “I have never been kissed so . . . so convincingly.”

“Now ’tis you who are kind, Lady Cecily,” he said, though something about her use of the word “convincingly” nettled him. She thought he’d been playing a role. In truth, he had never before been so lost in a simple kiss and it annoyed him that she did not realize it.

“But then, perhaps you should ask Miss Marilla’s opinion,” she said. “She may have a different judgment.”

He started and stared, stunned she had alluded to the kiss she’d witnessed. A little ember glowed in the depths of her amber-colored eyes. Jealousy?

Then she smiled at him with such dazzling unaffectedness that his breath caught in his throat and he lifted his hand to touch her, but she’d already turned away and started down the gallery. He hastened to her side, once more offering his arm. She took it with a nonchalance that startled him, coming so close on the heels of their heated kiss. At least, he thought in growing consternation, he’dconsidered it heated . . .

“Truth be told,” she continued as if there had been no break in the conversation, “I don’t know many rakes.”

“I should hope not,” he said, once again caught off-balance by the turn of the conversation. She should be blushing or berating him for taking advantage of her, or perhaps enticing him to try his luck again, responses he was used to and expected. She should notbe acting as if the preceding moments hadn’t happened, as if their kiss were insignificant. It was significant to him!

He’d never been in such a situation before. She had him at sixes and sevens, his assumptions challenged, his body taut with desire, his aplomb all but vanished, and his heart thundering with something that could only be described as a mad craving . . . to touch her, to kiss her.

“In fact,” she went on, “I’ve only known two bona fide rakes: you and a far-removed cousin whose exploits we only speak of sotto voce.”

“Do not tell me there is a rival for my crown?” he said, struggling to match her insouciance. “Surely his reputation does not equal mine?”

“Oh, it is far worse than yours,” she said comfortably. “I have it on good authority—those being the miscreant’s own words—that he has seduced upwards of eighty of the ton’s most well-respected ladies.”

“He toldyou this?” Robin asked, surprised she had been allowed to converse with a known rake, let alone that the conversation had been on such a subject.

“Yes,” she said. “Though not when anyone else was about to hear. Certainly not within earshot of my parents. Oh no,” she said, surprising him by chuckling, “they would not have been happy to hear about thatconversation. Not at all.”

Nor was Robin. Acid-bright jealousy curled in his belly. Had this unknown libertine kissed her? And, afterward, had she been this cavalier?

“No,” she continued, “he waited until he had me all to himself at my parents’ country ball in Surrey last year. They were occupied with greeting their guests when Marmeduke convinced me to walk out onto the terrace with him.”

Marmeduke?She was on such intimate terms with this blackguard she called by his Christian name?

“There was no one else about and he took ruthless advantage of our unexpected privacy.” She darted a glance at him. “I suspect I should have left at once. We were absent from the ballroom for far too long. But his stories were so fascinating that I couldn’t resist staying to listen. I am sure our guests must have begun wondering what had become of us,” she finished.

He doubted this, if only for one compelling reason: had Lady Cecily disappeared onto a terrace with a known debauchee long enough to provoke questions, her reputation would never have survived. Yet, apparently, it had.

He’d made a mistake. He had misjudged her. He’d thought her awake to all suits, an uncommonly sophisticated ingénue, but she seemed as unaware of how close she had skirted disaster as a toddler hurtling by a steep flight of stairs. She was a danger to herself. Someone should have been guarding her reputation, and clearly, no one had been.

Far be it from him to interfere, but he could not allow her to go careering about society with no one to guide or protect her. When her father showed up to collect her, Robin would see to it that they had a chat wherein he outlined the gentleman’s paternal duties for him.

What was he thinking? He wouldn’t behere when her father arrived. But . . . but he could go to London.

Tongues wagged quite freely in London’s less salubrious gentlemen’s clubs during the off-season, when there was little else to do but gossip. As soon as he returned to town, he would find this . . . this Marmeduke and have a conversation with him and make sure that the bastard understood the meaning of discretion. Because while Robin’s reputation for seduction might be exaggerated, his reputation as someone not to be trifled with was not.

“What is my rival’s full name, may I ask?” Somehow, he managed to sound no more than curious.

“Marmeduke, Lord Goodhue.”

He frowned. He could have sworn he knew every roué in London. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met the gentleman.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. He rarely visits London, staying solely in Surrey,” she replied.

“He lives near your family’s country estate?” he asked. Wherein Surrey? He’d always meant to visit Surrey.

“Not nearour house. Inour house. He became our permanent houseguest after having become insolvent a few years ago and having nowhere else to go. Indeed, my parents assigned him chambers right next to mine.”

He stared at her, an odd sensation rising within him. Damnation, he believed he was shocked. He hadn’t been shocked since he was fifteen and the Latin teacher’s wife had offered him different sorts of lessons.

“Well, we couldn’t very well put him in the servants’ hall,” she said defensively. “Though I have little doubt he’d much prefer it. The chambermaids are always threatening to give notice as it is.”

It wasn’t simply a marvel the girl’s reputation was intact; it was a bloody miracle.

“Damn, you say,” he muttered under his breath, and she burst out laughing. Her whole face bloomed with merriment, her eyes dancing, the laughter bubbling from her lips, her teeth flashing in an open grin. She took his breath away.

“Of course, as he’s eighty-three years old and suffers from gout, he stands a better chance of winning the Derby than he does catching a housemaid,” she managed to say between giggles. “Or me. Not that he’d ever make an attempt. He has some standards, as do all rakes.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Or so Marmeduke assures me.”

She started laughing again and damned if he didn’t join her. She’d been leading him along all the while, paying him back for making her praise his kisses.

“ Touché, ma petite,” he said, when they finally stopped laughing. He offered her his arm and she took it, and once again they commenced their much-protracted journey down the frozen hallway.

For long companionable minutes they were silent and he drank in the sensation, the warmth of her fingers resting on his arm, the elusive scent of vanilla and jasmine that tickled his nostrils every so often, the simple pleasure of her company . . .

“It may be chilly, but Finovair does have considerable charm,” she said after a while. “Yet I take it you think your bride will be happier in London than here.”

He should have demurred, let her comment pass without replying but he needed to tell her—no, he needed to remind himself of how very far above him she stood.

“Bride?” he echoed. “My dear Cecily, I have even less to offer a wife in London than here.”