Not Wicked Enough (29 page)

“Better Ginny than you,” Lily said. Eugenia laughed at the rejoinder and, well, if the laugh was at his expense, at least Eugenia had been distracted from his inappropriate remarks.

In the ensuing silence, he traced lazy circles on Lily’s palm. He
did
know how to choose an extravagant gift. Several minutes passed before he realized that all this time he’d been holding Lily’s hand. He ought to let go, but that would only draw attention to the fact that he’d been doing so all this time. Eugenia didn’t appear to have noticed.

By the time they reached the turn to Bitterward, Lily had improved to the point of taking the fan away from Eugenia and declaring she had half a mind to break it lest she turn into a block of ice.

Another carriage waited at the head of the driveway. A groom—not one of Mountjoy’s servants— held the bridle of the lead pair. A Bitterward footman had a hand on the carriage door, ready to open it as Nigel brought the coach to a halt as near to the door as he could manage.

Mountjoy got out, and, while he reached to take Lily in his arms, from the corner of his eye he saw the occupant of the other carriage emerge. Fenris. The bloody Duke of Camber’s heir. Nigel stayed in the coachman’s seat and called down, “I’ll fetch Longfield.”

He spared his brother a glance. “Thank you.”

Fenris approached, eyes wide and fixed on Lily. “My God, Mountjoy, what’s happened?” He succeeded by look and words in implying that Mountjoy had injured Lily himself. “Is she badly hurt? Is there anything I can do?”

“Fenris—”

Fenris pulled up short. “Where is your sister, Mountjoy? Has something happened to her?”

He hardly had time to register the sharpness of that last question before Fenris glanced away and saw Eugenia ready to step from the coach. He moved smoothly to the carriage door and held out his hand, cutting off the groom ready to assist Eugenia. “I’ll see to Mrs. Bryant,” Fenris said. “Mountjoy, take my cousin inside. And do try not to do her further injury.”

“Lily,” he said in a low voice as he climbed the front stairs with her in his arms. “You would be easier to carry if you didn’t behave as if you’d rather leap to your death than touch me.”

“What if someone should see us?”

“They will assume I am carrying you to your room so that you may be properly looked after.” She turned her head away from him, but she did slip an arm around his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. Doyle opened the door and Mountjoy strode inside.

She rested her head against his upper shoulder, and, well. Her bodice gaped and the shift in her position provided ample evidence of the curves he wanted so much to caress again. “I’m sorry to be a bother,” she said.

“You are not a bother. Which way is your room?”

At the top of the stairs, Lily pointed right and said, “Left here.”

He went left and moments later he’d found Lily’s room. The Lilac room. The predominant color was indeed lilac, from the canopy over the bed to the pattern in the wallpaper. He laid her down on the bed and stepped back. “You see? I did not drop you.”

They gazed at each other, and Lord, he thought he might
go up in flames. This was her room. The bed in which she slept. What would happen if he locked the door, with him still inside?

Her lips parted, and she licked her lower lip. “I didn’t think you would.”

“Nor ravish you,” he said in a low voice. He could hear someone, a servant or perhaps Eugenia, moving down the corridor. Close. Too close to risk anything.

“Were you at least tempted?” She lifted one knee, only a few inches, but that movement was enough to expose a slender ankle.

As Eugenia came in, Mountjoy held her gaze, not hiding a thing from her, and said, “Yes.” To his sister he said, “Is Fenris still here?”

“I gave him leave to depart.” Eugenia went to the washstand. A moment later, she came to the bed with a basin and a cloth. She gave him a peculiar look and said, “Go on, Mountjoy. You’re not wanted here anymore.”

He cleared his throat and bowed to her and then to Lily. “I leave you in my sister’s capable hands, Miss Wellstone. Please accept my hopes that you recover enough to join us for supper.”

“A cool bath will be just the thing,” Eugenia said. “Very refreshing.”

His gaze slid from Lily’s ankle to her face. While he’d been engaged with thoughts of her legs and regions north, she’d slipped a hand underneath her head. His eyes locked with hers again. That she understood the carnal nature of his perusal of her was no fault of hers. Or, no more than it was his. He didn’t look away when he ought to have. Neither did she, and he felt a burn of desire start up in his belly.

Christ. He wanted her still. Again. More. Much, much more. More than any woman he could recall, he wanted Lily Wellstone, fascinating, desirable, infuriating creature, in his bed as often as he could convince her to join him there.

“Shoo, Mountjoy,” Eugenia said. She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the door. Was that amusement
in her voice? “She needs a bath and to rest and you aren’t helping by standing there like you’ve turned to stone.”

“Ginny? Are you saying I am Medusa?”

“No, Lily. Of course not.” Eugenia threw him a last glance. “Go, Mountjoy. I’ll have a word with you later.”

“As you wish.”

In the hallway after Eugenia closed the door behind him, he wondered what the hell had happened to his formerly regulated life. He had only himself to blame. Lily wasn’t chasing after him. He knew what it was like to be chased after. He was the one pushing matters between them. He’d done that. Him. Because he wanted to take her to bed, and now that he had, he wanted to do so again. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to care more for her than was safe. This was a first for him with a woman—the worry that he might want more than she did.

He left the hallway and ensconced himself in his office and did a pisspoor job of responding to the correspondence his secretary had left for him to go through. Hours and hours went by, except when he looked at his watch, it had been exactly fifty-seven minutes since he’d sat down. Just over an hour since he’d carried Lily to her room. A little more since he’d come home to find that damned Fenris waiting. He returned to his letters and another eternity.

Someone tapped on the door.

Mountjoy muttered, “Thank God,” and threw the letter he was reading onto the top of the pile of correspondence he would have to read again.

It was Doyle, with Dr. Longfield, whom Nigel had brought to the house to look after Lily. Mountjoy stayed at his desk and waved the doctor to a seat, privately glad of the interruption. Doyle retreated. Mountjoy was very good at appearing to be busy and engaged in important matters. Matters of State, even. “How is Miss Wellstone?”

The doctor perched on the edge of the chair across from his desk. “Quite a remarkable woman, as I’m sure you know.”

“Do you think so?”

“Delightful smile and—
ahem
—extremely beautiful woman. Very well formed, I must say. Brilliant mind, too, if one can say that of a female.”

He quirked one eyebrow.

“Very spirited and amusing, which I’m sure your grace has noticed.”

Mountjoy tapped a finger on the table. He recognized in the doctor all the symptoms of infatuation with Lily Wellstone. “Since you found her spirited, am I permitted to assume that her health is no longer a matter of concern?”

“Her finger is well healed, I was pleased to note.”

“Excellent.” He forced a smile, but it wasn’t her bloody finger that worried him.

Dr. Longfield grabbed the top of one knee and rocked on his chair. “How is it she’s unmarried? A puzzling thing that at her age no man should have snapped her up.”

Mountjoy moved a pile of correspondence from one side of his desk to the other. He didn’t trust himself to look the doctor in the eye, torn as he was between wanting to laugh out loud or tell the man if he so much as breathed Lily’s name he’d find himself outside of the house looking in. “Ought we to be more concerned with her present health than with her marital status, doctor?”

“Provided she does not overexert herself, she’s as well as can be expected, which is well enough, your grace. And so I told her.”

Mountjoy stood abruptly. Ten more seconds of this prattle and he’d go stark raving mad. “You see no need for concern?”

“Very little.”

“Then thank you for coming here on such short notice.”

“I’ve warned her she’s far too delicate to stand in the sun as she did.”

Mountjoy came around from behind his desk to put a hand on the doctor’s shoulder and guide him to the door.

“She mustn’t be permitted to engage in such excess again.
A delicate thing like her. You may tell her, your grace, that I forbid it.”

“I will do exactly as you advise, thank you, doctor.” Mountjoy opened the door. “You may rely on it.”

He tugged at his coat. “Excellent.”

“You know the way out?”

“Indeed, sir.” The doctor crossed into the hallway then turned and bowed. “Give Miss Wellstone my regards, won’t you?”

“I shall.”

“Good day, your grace.”

“Good day, doctor.”

Mountjoy returned to his desk and stared at the patterns in the grain of the wood. He wanted to see Lily. Alone. He wanted to throw away all this damned correspondence and lock himself away where he and Lily would not be disturbed. He picked up the next letter in the batch he was supposed to read through. The words ran together like ants drunk on blue fire.

Half a lifetime passed and he got through precisely none of the letters. Someone knocked on the door, and he practically shouted in relief. “Enter.”

His sister came in. She was a different woman since Lily had come. So young and pretty, if one could think such a thing about one’s sister. “Mountjoy.”

He rose and gestured to the chair Dr. Longfield had vacated. “Eugenia.”

Instead of sitting she stood behind the chair, her hands resting on the top rail. “You’ll think me presumptuous for this. Oh, do sit down, Mountjoy.”

He did, leaning against his chair and picking up his pen. The ink had dried on the nib. “Yes?”

She bit her lower lip. “I’ve come about Lily.”

He picked up his penknife and set himself to sharpening the point of his quill. “Dr. Longfield assures me she’s in excellent health, though he warned me she’s to stay out of the sun.”

“He said the same thing to me. But Mountjoy, that’s not why I’ve come.”

“Oh?”

“I’m worried you’ll be hurt.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Lily is my dear, dear friend. I love her better than anyone. She’s amusing and intelligent and very, very beautiful.”

“Yes,” he said carefully. “She is all that. But I fail to see what that has to do with me.”

Eugenia licked her lips. “You won’t be surprised to know that other men have loved her.” She gripped the top of the chair. “But Mountjoy, she never cared for a one of them, and…I don’t think she ever will. She never led them on, she’s not that sort of woman. She’s like me after Robert.”

“Eugenia…”

“Please don’t interrupt, or I’ll lose my nerve.”

He gestured.

“I’ll never love any man but Robert. And Lily, she’s met the only man she will ever love.” His sister’s eyes were too bright.

“There is no need for tears,” he said. He dropped the penknife on the blotter and offered her his handkerchief.

She waved it off. “I’m not crying.”

“As you say.” He continued to hold out his handkerchief.

“I’m not.” Eugenia took it from him and dabbed at her eyes.

“I won’t disagree with you that Miss Wellstone is a beautiful and vivacious woman.”

“She is.”

“I enjoy her company. Most of the time. So does your brother. I’m glad she’s here, for she’s done you a world of good.”

Eugenia gave him a tremulous smile. “That’s true.”

“She’s made me see that I have neglected you. I have not done my duty by you, and for that I apologize.”

“Oh, no, Mountjoy. Never.”

“She took me to task for my treatment of you, and she
was right to do so, but you mustn’t think I’m angry with her for that.”

“Angry?”

He steeled himself and said, “Is that not why you came here?”

“No.” She sat on the chair, one hand over her heart. “You can’t imagine how relieved I am to hear you say that.” She shook her head. “You’ll think me such a goose. I was worried she might have engaged your affections without your knowing, that’s all.”

“Engaged my affections?”

“I apologize, Mountjoy. Of course that’s not happened. We all know you love Miss Kirk. It’s just I’ve seen it happen to other men where Lily is concerned.”