Dilemma in Yellow Silk (3 page)

Marcus grinned. Mrs. Lancaster would be furious he’d caught them working. She preferred the family to think that fairies dealt with their needs, invisible ones preferably.

Notes of music drifted to him, so delicate his fanciful notion of fairies became real. Through the first salon, the anteroom, and then the main salon, the huge space that never got warm in winter unless they packed it with people. Then the third. The music room.

He paused. The maids chattered in the library. Some sang along with the music. Smiling, he tiptoed across the parquet floor to the connecting door and closed it as silently as he could.

Concentrating on her music, Viola nearly jumped out of her skin when a large body plumped down on the stool next to her. She shrieked, spun around, and closed her eyes. “You!”

“Why, weren’t you expecting me?”

His expression of innocence did not fool her for a minute.

“Not here, not like this. Did you run from the last staging post?” she demanded. She should not talk to the Earl of Malton like this. Right now he was less the earl and more Marcus, the boy she’d known so long ago. “Oh, my lord, sir, I’m sorry!”

She should recall her place, but she was finding the task difficult when he was wearing the same mischievous grin he’d used at nine years old.

“I couldn’t resist. Do you know what you were playing?”

The heat rushed to her face. “Yes.” No sense dissimulating. Of course she knew.

“And if you don’t stop ‘my lord’ and ‘sir’ing me, I’ll have you sent home forthwith. When we’re alone, it’s still Marcus.”

What had happened to him? Marcus had slowly moved away from her, gone from a childhood friend to a dignified, proper aristocrat. She understood the move, because he would have responsibilities to take care of, but sometimes she missed him. He’d remained a distant figure ever since, growing more pompous every time she saw him. Now he seemed to have cast all that off.

“I thought—that’s not right.”

Sighing, he shook his head. “And I’ve stopped you playing. A pity—I was enjoying that. Carry on.”

“Is that an order—sir?”

He growled deep in his throat, such a small sound she’d have missed it if he were not sitting so close to her. “Stop it. I’ll be Malton in about an hour.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve spent the last three days in a closed carriage with my father, and I want to forget the stateliness. He would, given the chance. But with outriders and men riding ahead to warn innkeepers we were on our way, we had little chance.”

“So they commit the great crime of ensuring the best bedrooms are free. The cook is bursting from his waistcoat, trying to cook the best meal he’s capable of making. If only my journeys were so tedious!”

His laugh rang around the room. “Exactly. But we’re welcomed with ‘Good evening, my lord,’ and ‘How can I serve you, my lord?’”

“You poor thing.” She should guard her tongue, but she delighted in reacquainting herself with the man she used to know.

He rewarded her with another laugh. “I know. It’s such a hardship.” Lifting his feet, he spun around on the bench so he faced the keyboard, as she did. “You got a phrase wrong. The tune is based on the traditional one, but it’s varied in the last line of each verse. Slightly different each time. Like this.”

When he demonstrated, Viola understood exactly what he meant. But with the amusement, her heart ached. She had missed him so much. At the delicate age of nine, two years after his breeching, Marcus had begun his training, and since then, he’d become engrossed in his life’s work. Before then, the laughing boy had had no cares, and they’d played together.

Until someone remembered their different stations in life, and she did not think it was Marcus.

“Your turn.”

After giving him a doubtful glance, she copied the phrase. He sang the verse along with her, his baritone blending with her untrained mezzo. At the end of the verse they continued with the next one. Then he added one she hadn’t known about.

By the end of the song, she was quite in charity with him. The years slipped away. Or rather, they did not, because never at any time did she forget that a man sat next to her, not a boy.

Viola hadn’t been this close to Marcus for years. In this lovely room, with sunshine streaming in through the windows, they could be in another world—one of their own, a place out of time.

Playing scurrilous songs on a valuable string instrument seemed part of their world. Eventually she joined with him as his infectious laughter rang around the room.

“Do you remember this?” She played a few notes. A two-handed exercise taught to children to help them accustom themselves to the keyboard.

“Ha, yes I do.”

He joined in, taking the upper part of the tune. It was simple but capable of infinite variations. At the end of the piece she changed the pitch and they continued. Four times they went around, until she stopped with an emphatic chord.

She rested her palms on the edge of the harpsichord. “This was tuned last week. I was only supposed to check it, not play it until it’s out of tune again.”

“Do harpsichords lose their tuning so easily?”

He really didn’t know? “It’s a harpsichord. The strings are delicate. Even damp can send them completely wrong. Each quill has to be checked and replaced if necessary. Don’t you know anything?”

He shrugged. “I know how to address a duchess and how to dance a minuet. I can shoot straight and use a sword.”

“So can I. The last part.”

He widened his eyes. Such a perfect shade of blue they were. She hadn’t seen them this close for years. Far too long. “You can fence and shoot?” he said, his voice rising.

“I shoot better than I fence, but I know one end of a sword from the other. I know how to stop someone taking it off me.” Considering her position, her father had considered the training useful. The daughter of a land steward, especially an only child, needed to know how to take care of herself.

“I will certainly test you on that.” He patted his hip. “But I don’t generally travel with a sword at my side. We have them in the carriage, though. Shall I send for them?”

She bestowed a jaded smile on him. “No. Or fetch them yourself, come to that.”

His cheek indented slightly, as if he were biting it inside. Stopping laughter? Then she was a source of ridicule? No, he wouldn’t do that, not the Marcus she’d known.

But she had not known him for years. Only seen him at a distance and occasionally exchanged polite nothings.

He shook his head as his smile faded. “Why did we not tell my tutors to go to the devil, Viola? What harm did our friendship do?”

“They were teaching you to be an earl, and eventually a marquess.”

“Ah yes. That. But you continued to play with my brothers and sisters.”

She lifted one shoulder. “I hardly missed you at all.”

That was a lie. She had missed him very much. His way of talking, the way he would say what he was thinking without hesitation—but he would hardly do that any longer. People hung on his every word, at least some people did. The people wanting the ear of his father, or for Marcus to do them a favor.

“I missed you,” he said softly. “I would like us to be friends again, as we used to be.” He covered her hand with his own.

Startled, she stared at it, but she didn’t move. His warmth seeped through her, heating more than her fingers. He’d been her childhood sweetheart, but they had both known they were only playing.

He did not mean it in that way. Occasionally she’d allowed herself to dream of him, but never allowed her fantasies to creep through to real life.

Marcus had grown up tall and handsome, and unlike most men she knew, he wore his own hair tied back in a simple queue. He rarely powdered, his one concession to his wishes rather than the dictates of fashion, but he would consent to wear a wig on ceremonial occasions.

The first time she’d seen him dressed for a grand occasion had served to distance him completely from her. Without those glossy dark brown locks, and dressed in the finest London could provide, Marcus appeared a different person, one Viola didn’t know at all. So when he said he missed her, he probably meant the carefree days of his childhood.

Viola could not pass this opportunity by. She turned her hand and curled her fingers between his. He clasped her hand warmly.

She stared at that symbol of friendship, as if it weren’t her hand. “I missed you, too.”

“You’ve grown up a beauty, Viola,” he said softly.

She shook her head vigorously. “No. I’m ordinary. You’re—” She cut off her words, fearing she would give away more than she meant to.

“Your hair is darker than mine, and it shines like a raven’s wing. Your eyes are fathoms deep.”

His words made her laugh, but that was to prevent her heart cracking. Once she’d dreamed of a man saying such things to her. But now she knew better. She would never hear that in love. Friendship would have to serve. “My face is too narrow, and I’m too tall.”

“You are only too tall for short men,” he said. “I’ll show you. Stand up.”

His voice did not ring with command, as she knew it could. Nevertheless, she pushed against the floor and got to her feet, rounding the end of the stool to avoid stumbling. She wanted to put something between them, because her emotions rose until she was barely able to keep her features still.

Their hands were still linked. “Satisfied?” She made to pull her hand away, but he only gripped it more firmly.

“Not nearly.” He stood too, and then stepped over the bench so they were close.

Far too close. In his simple traveling clothes he had the appearance of a gentleman rather than a great lord, but that did not fool her for a minute. She could not think that way. Must not, if she wanted to keep her peace of mind. This close, closer than he’d been for years, he devastated her senses.

“See?” he said brightly. “You come up to my shoulder. Far too few ladies do that.”

“It makes me stand out too much,” she grumbled. She was not freakishly tall, though. Lanky Annie, the woman in the village who took in sewing from the hall, she was oddly tall. Six feet, her father said.

“Not at all. It makes you graceful.” He touched her chin, tilting her head up.

This close, the little black pinpricks of beard under his skin were apparent. The way his eyes shaded darker at the edge, to the brilliant shade inside. She stared in wonder, reacquainting herself with him this close.

Something else sparked in his eyes, passion and heat, passing from him to her and back again.

“A kiss of friendship, Viola,” he murmured, and suited words to actions.

Viola lifted her hands, grasping for purchase, and found his coat. She clutched it gratefully as her world spun, realigning into a new space.

When he touched her lips with his tongue she opened for him, and he tasted her. Delicately at first, licking softly, like a cat at milk, but then stronger, he entered her mouth with a mastery that made her helpless under his onslaught.

Nobody had ever kissed her like this.

She had thought he meant a kiss of friendship, a sweet salute, but this was so different as to be from a different place. He hungrily pressed his mouth to hers, and she responded in a way that came instinctively to her.

He held her in the circle of his arms, her breasts pressed against his chest. Although layers of cloth and whalebone lay between them, she felt the heat of his body. His closeness overwhelmed her, heated her from head to toe. He made those secret, private nooks and crannies of her body tingle with new awareness.

Was this, then, what Mr. Ridley had meant at the New Year’s dance when he’d told Viola that she excited him? She’d barely escaped his clumsy caresses, whereas she had gone willingly to Marcus, eager to learn whatever he wanted to teach her.

Danger!

Her mind whispered the word, and then it grew louder. Recklessness took her soul, the same kind of heedless joy as when she kicked her horse into a gallop or danced in a field at midnight, barefoot and all on her own. When she dared fate to do what it would.

She dared it now. Nobody could stop her.

Marcus led her through the blending of not only their mouths, but a forbidden closeness. She yearned for more, even as he gave it to her, and deepened their kiss. He spread his hands wide over her back, encompassing her.

A sound from the room next door pierced her senses, reminding her they were not alone. These rooms were the public rooms, for heaven’s sake!

She jerked away, breaking the kiss with a clumsy unsealing of their mouths.

Her breasts heaved as if she’d run around the house ten times, breath sawing in and out of her. Tentatively, Viola touched her lips. They felt tender, swollen, and hot.

Marcus stood completely still and watched her, his eyes wide and dark, his hair disheveled. Dimly she recalled thrusting her fingers into the silky mass, holding him to her.

He said the one word bound to push her away. “Wanton.”

Indignation swamped her arousal. “Me? What are you talking about?” How dare he speak to her like this?

“The way you attacked me.”

Had she? Honestly she couldn’t be sure, but his response to her was anything but reluctant. “So you’re the poor, helpless victim. Is that what you’re telling me?” She curled her lip. “Truly?”

“How else would you explain it? Who have you been practicing with?”

* * * *

Marcus heard his words as they left his mouth. Tendrils of jealousy curled their green fronds within him. She kissed as if she’d done it many times before, so if not with him, then who?

She tasted sweet, and the moment he acquainted himself with her taste, he realized once was not enough. He could stand here, in this gleaming polished room and kiss her all day.

A movement gave him pause, and he glimpsed his reflection in the large pier-glass hung between the two big windows. She had turned him into a lover, although he had never thought of Viola in that way before.

Liar.
Of course he had. He’d carefully kept his distance until the way they behaved with each other had changed. She’d left his life when he’d left the nursery. But he’d seen her at a distance, watched her grow into the lovely woman standing before him now, her breasts swollen under the clean but no longer neat fichu tucked into her bodice.