“You would have me believe it's my heart you're interested in? I know that's not so, my rakish lord.” She murmured this, laughing, then caught his earlobe between her lips.
Sensation fireworked through his bodyâher mouth, the tickle of her hair against his cheek, her lily scent turning hot and lustfulâbut underneath, he went cold.
His hand went still, covering her breast like a cage. “You make a comment about my reputation every time we start removing our clothing.”
“Only a joke,” she murmured, her mouth trailing to the pulse beneath his jaw. His heartbeat thundered there, desperate.
And she thought it was a joke.
He'd once joked about it himself, saying he had no heart at all. But he hadn't realized Louisa thought so, too.
She had said she wanted him just as he wasâbut Lord Xavier cast too long a shadow, and even now, they hadn't escaped it. Twice now, she'd twitted him about his reputation. Neither of them could forget it. Neither could leave it behind, even when they were alone.
His chest gave a heave; his eyes prickled.
“Alex, won't you continue your poem from
The Tempest
?”
A poem spoken by the sprite, Ariel, who was forced always to use his abilities as others wished. “There I couch when owls do cry,” the song continued.
He almost felt that he could, too.
But Xavier had a Numbered Expression for every occasion. This one was Number Five: Mocking Drollery. He put it on. It fit well on his face; as worn smooth as an old slipper.
He gave Louisa the end of the little poem: “âMerrily, merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'”
That was what the world expected of him, wasn't it? Merrily, merrily, should he live.
“That's what I was waiting for,” she murmured.
Her hands slid downward, making his abdomen hitch, then his cock throb. Ah, God, she was stroking him through his clothing, and his thoughts were dissolving into hot need.
“You have the bough,” she whispered. “I have the blossom. Should I hang upon you?”
Through his breeches, her thumb rubbed over the swollen head of his shaft. He craved her touch again; he craved
her
. He wanted to feel her slick heat clenching around him, the heat that he'd worked his fingers in until she woke to her own passion.
He wanted her to hang upon him, rest on him, stay with him and remold him. As the graceful oval of her face filled his weak vision, as her breasts still peeked from her bodice, exposed for this touch, and her hand worked wonders with his needy bodyâhe could so, so easily let himself go, take what she offered him.
And he'd end by debauching her, or marrying her, or both.
Oh. Hell. No. No, he couldn't.
He'd never considered such a thing. Had no
right
to.
He'd once been waylaid by five drunken men in a tavern. He'd shot a highwayman in the arm. He'd wagered a fortune on the turn of a card. But her trust scared him more than any of those things. How could he possibly deserve it?
He couldn't. Not Lord Xavier. Not even she thought so, for she had called the idea of
something proper
âa betrothalâridiculous, when he'd done no more than hint. Neither of them knew this new Alex creature well enough to rely upon him.
So all he said was, “No.”
Her hand stilled at once.
Before he lost his resolve, he scooted back in a frantic untangling of limbs, bumping a stack of books as he moved. He ignored the thump of bindings over carpet and sought to bring his body under control, her face into focus. Just a foot backâthere. Now he would be able to read every nuance of her expression and . . .
All right, he was looking at her breasts again. This wasn't helpful at the moment.
He turned his head to one side and gingerly reached out a hand toward her. His fingers found a soft curve of unseen flesh; the edge of her breast. He trailed his fingers downwardâ
her skin was so warm and softâ
until he found the edge of her stays. With a tug, he drew the snug garment upward, until her fingers closed over his.
“I'll do it,” she said.
He darted a glance at her from the corner of his eye. The seductive scholar, the inventive intellectual. She had turned slightly to one side and was pulling her garments back into place.
It was safe to look again, then.
Except it would never be safe, because now he was noticing things he'd never noticed before. The tension in her neck. The stillness of her face as she coaxed her clothing back into order. As though she felt nothing; neither humiliation nor joy.
Like himself, she had Numbered Expressions to hide her true self. No matter how much of her skin he caressed, there were depths to her that he could not touch.
The realization made him watery-kneed, so he could hardly struggle to his feet.
As she stood to face him, she formulated a smile. “Thank you for your restraint. When we've both calmed down, we'll be glad for it.”
He could only nod. What was there to say? He wanted to be so much more than Lord Xavier, but also more than simply not-Xavier. And, unwise though it was, he wanted Louisa most of all.
“Louisa.” He summoned a few hopeless words. “Please, do consider leaving the house party. For your own sake.”
And mine
.
“I understand why you're asking,” she said. “But I will not do it.”
He didn't understand her. Maybe he never would. Hell, he didn't even understand himself.
Politely as strangers, they finished putting their clothing to rights, and he took his leave of her, and the library.
But he was determined: his leave was the last thing he would take from her, as long as he was trapped in this role he'd so long and so carefully portrayed.
He meant well. He meant to be honorable. Yet when the library door closed behind him, leaving her behind, he felt as though he had sealed off the best part of himself.
Hell and damnation.
For a man who'd always had all the advantages in the world, there was no longer any way to win.
Chapter 20
Containing the Ingenuity of Lady Irving
The long table in the dining room looked wrong to Xavier.
Oh, it was laid as perfectly as ever, sparkling with crystal and china, laden with dishes of succulent food. It was flanked, as always, by two long rows of talkative guests. Some of whom held cigarillos at the table. Some of whom were so deep into their cups that they had nodded off into their plates.
This was not the part that looked wrong.
No, it looked wrong because some of the guestsâone of the guestsâLockwoodâ
of courseâ
was sitting far too close to Louisa Oliver, murmuring God-only-knew what sort of rubbish into her ear.
Her lovely little pale peach shell of an ear, that had heard Xavier sayâ
“Cat got your tongue, you young rogue?”
What? No. Not that.
He blinked, shaking himself free of his thoughts, and then turned to the person who had addressed him from his right side.
Lady Irving. Louisa's aunt, though they bore each other little resemblance. Where Louisa was sleek and elegant, showing her claws only when provoked, the countess was everything gaudy: bright fabric and tinted curls, loud speech and sharp tongue.
He flashed his widest smile. “I'm quite well, my lady. And you? Are you finding the dishes to your liking?”
Usually his smile was viewed as charming, though the Oliver women seemed never to receive it in the proper spirit.
“You've got something in your teeth,” Lady Irving commented.
“I did that intentionally,” he replied. “I get hungry while the other men are drinking port.”
The countess snorted and adjusted her vivid yellow turban. “Good for you. I was beginning to think your reputation for wit was all puffed up out of proportion.”
A startled sound escaped Xavier, and he gulped wine to force it back down. “Dry throat,” he said, trying out his smile again.
Lady Irving looked at him askance, then turned her attention to her fricassee of chicken. “I don't believe all of it, mind.” She took a bite, then pointed her fork at Xavier's chest like a sword. “Your reputation. You've treated my niece well, and I thank you for that.”
Xavier felt his smile go crooked. His throat seemed entirely blocked by his furtive knowledge of
how
he'd treated her niece. Bringing Louisa to the first orgasm of her lifeâwas that good treatment? Cutting off her request for a seductionâwas that? Keeping his distance from her in the hours since then?
It didn't feel as though he'd treated her well. It felt as though he'd bumbled, but he had no notion how to rectify matters.
He stared down at his plate. Somehow most of the food had vanished from it, but he had no idea when, or how, or what the food had been.
“Thank you for sharing your opinion,” he finally said.
“I always do.” She popped the bite of chicken into her mouth with a flourish.
As Xavier met her gaze again, the resemblance clicked into place.
The eyes
. Louisa's eyes were darker than her aunt's, but both women noticed everything.
The deliberate way Lady Irving regarded him nowâit reminded him of the way Louisa had studied him the first time he'd escorted her into the library. While he'd fidgeted about with his beloved old Dante, she'd simply watched, and he'd seen her:
Gauging me, her deep eyes pityingâ
But pity false or true, I could not tell.
My heart was kindling, ready for a blaze . . .
No. That was Petrarch, not Dante, and there was no time for poetry now.
“Tell me, then, my lady,” he said, “what is your opinion of Lord Lockwood? And what think you of his attentions to your niece?”
He tilted his head back to keep her in focus. He wanted to note every nuance of the countess's expression as she looked on Lockwood.
Who was running one hand down Louisa's arm, and with the other, waggling a spoonful of some creamed vegetable in her face.
Lady Irving considered them for a long moment. When Louisa nudged Lockwood's outstretched arm, sending creamed vegetables in a splatter down his coat, the countess turned her attention back to Xavier.
“He's a ninny.” Her brows were lifted. “But then, you knew that already. My question isâis it a family trait?”
“Knowing things?”
She returned to forking through her chicken. “I see it
is
a family trait. I meant ninny-ness, you ninny.”
Xavier's hand went slack, and his own fork clattered to the table. “Damn. Ahâsorry.”
“Never you mind, Xavier,” said the countess. “I say much worse.”
“Yes, so your niece has told me.”
“Mmm.” She took another bite, then waggled her fork at him. “That's why you're a ninny.”
“Because I speak to your niece?”
“No, because you sit here while that cousin of yours drapes himself all over her like a bolt of cheap India-print muslin.”
“She's capable of protecting herself.”
“Yes, but she doesn't have to like it.” Again she brandished her fork in the direction of his throat. “Nor do you.”
“I don't.”
“Then why don't you do something about it?”
“I have.”
“Mmmm.” That noncommittal noise again.
“I tried to.” He disliked the wheedling tone in his voice.
“Lord Xavier did no more than
try
?”
Now he disliked
her
tone of voice. “Lord Xavier is hardly infallible, ma'am. Sometimes he doesn't get the response he wishes. Sometimes he tries to avoid scandal and winds up creatingâwell. A bigger mess.”
“You talk of yourself in the third person?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Sometimes Lord Xavier does that, too. It is one of his many faults.”
“Hmmm.” The noncommittal noise had a different timbre this time. “You might not be such a ninny after all, young man.” She paused, then added, “Whoever you are.”
“I hardly know,” he said.
She gave her lemon-bright turban a pat, her brusque manner relaxing. “Not a ninny. Well, well. Don't you think you owe my niece and yourself another try?”
He couldn't see what was right before his face, but Xavier's distance vision was painfully sharp. A few yards awayâone-third of the length of the tableâLockwood had dribbled wine onto Louisa's arm and put out his tongue, as though he meant to lick it off her.
Good idea. Bad time. Wrong person.
Louisa looked more amused than unsettled. As Xavier watched, Lockwood's face contorted. He smothered a yelp and scooted away.
Louisa's right hand emerged from beneath the table, holding her ivory-handled dinner knife. She aligned it neatly with her other utensils and, coolly as though the incident had never happened, wiped the droplets of wine from her arm and took a sip from her goblet.
Over its rim, she met the eyes of Xavier and her aunt. She gave them a wink, and . . .
And something tight and shameful within his chest unknotted. He felt as though he'd been pardoned for his ungraceful departure earlier. She always saw so clearly; surely, then, she had seen his good intentions?
The answer to that question rested on a quicksand of error. The betting book at White's. Ten pounds. An unexpected invitation. Lockwood's bitterness.
A mistletoe berry, thrown away on the ground.
He hadn't always had good intentions. But he did now.
“Yes,” he said to Lady Irving. “I owe your niece a great deal. I'll make sure she knows it.”
“And what do you owe your cousin?”
Ten pounds, if I have my way about it
. “The way he's behaving? Not a thing.”
“Good boy,” said Lady Irving, and took another bite of chicken.
Â
Â
How Louisa wished she was sitting by her aunt. Though that would mean also sitting near Alex, around whom she was never able to be wise.
Instead, the guests had shuffled themselves along the dining table, and she'd wound up next to Lockwood, who was acting like a complete ulcer: embarrassing and painful.
“Do keep your beverages off of me, my lord,” she hissed when he lunged at her with his wineglass again. Not even a knife poke could keep him in his place. The man was determined to win his ten pounds.
She remembered the sudden darkness of his manner in the ruined cellar, and the nape of her neck prickled with cold. He seemed to want something particular from her that had nothing to do with money.
He would not have it.
She selected a carving fork from a platter of beef and held it lightly in one hand, as though deciding on the slice she wanted. “Lord Lockwood,” she commented, “I do wonder if you would prefer to leave the table. You've become remarkably soiled.”
A poor choice of words. She'd given him a perfect opening. “Not as soiled as you've become, my dear Miss Oliver,” he hissed. He stretched out a hand and took the fork from her. She folded her hands, knotting them tightly in her lap.
“I don't wish to converse with you anymore,” she said. At the head of the table, her aunt was chortling over something Alex had said. When he shared in the laugh, he looked painfully handsome.
Louisa looked away from him. For now, she was trapped, but not for much longer. Only until she could leave the table without making a scene.
“Very well,” said Lockwood, at whom she was also not looking. “I shall converse with Lady Alleyneham instead.”
He raised his voice and committed the social offense of speaking across the table. “My dear lady,” he said to the countess, as Louisa studied the pale green of her creamed peas on the bone-white of Alex's china. “Have you heard any good gossip at this house party?”
“Oh my,” the countess fluttered. “I've always got my ears open, but you know, it's been a lovely event. Lovely.”
Without looking up, Louisa could imagine Lady Alleyneham's expression. Turbaned like Lady Irving, her round face would flush at the attention from a marquess. An
eligible
marquess, whom she might coax to show an interest in one of her daughters.
“No gathering could be as lovely as your daughters,” Lockwood said, as he was intended. Lady Alleyneham made a squeal of delight. Louisa peeked across the table and saw the countess's daughters pretending not to have heard, though they shifted in their seats and blushed.
Louisa returned her gaze to her plate and began picking through her peas. The sauce was delicious, buttery yet light. Much more worthy of contemplation than Lockwood's tepid flirtation.
And then he struck.
“It pains me to admit that not all ladies at this party have comported themselves as your daughters have.” From the corner of her eye, Louisa saw him tap himself on the nose. The old I've-got-a-secret gesture.
Lady Alleyneham picked up the bait. “Surely not. Why, this party is most respectable. At least, more so than in the past. Some of the guests are positively . . .”
Her words dwindled away. It didn't matter, because Lockwood's loud comment had caught the ears of others. Mrs. Protheroe. The spouse-swapping quartet of Lord and Lady Weatherby, Mr. and Mrs. Simpkins. Louisa abandoned her plate and studied the others with the same dubious expression their faces showed. No one knew to whom Lockwood was referring; each woman wondered if he was speaking about her.
Louisa could guess what he intended to say next.
She was right. “I don't want to say too much. Ladies are entitled to their fun, just as gentlemen are.” He gave a very wide smile that made him look like a shark ready to feed. “That is,
married
ladies are. But you know what they say. Once a scandal, always a scandal.”
He turned to Louisa with a solicitous expression on his face. “Wouldn't you agree,
Miss
Oliver?”
Louisa felt the weight of stares pressing on her, taking in every detail of her appearance from posture to the placement of the seams on her gown. They must be wonderingâ
was it she?
Whatever she said next would confirm or deny their suspicions.
“I would never contradict a marquess,” she said sweetly. “Unless he had no idea what he was talking about.”
She returned her attention to her plate and pretended to dissect her food with great interest. Around her, tension seemed to relax, but whispers swelled nonetheless.
They were wondering, now. Wondering why Lockwood should harass her. Wondering whether his veiled hints had referred to her, and whether she didn't deserve his respect.