She considered her response with care. “He still has my book in his possession, and I’d like it back.”
“Oh dear Lord, Bo.” Her sister’s gaze was knowing, disapproving. “Please tell me it wasn’t one ofthosebooks.”
Drat. Why did her sisters—every sainted one of them—always know her so well? It was a blessing and curse all at once. Cleo had caught her reading one of the bawdy books she’d pilfered from their brother Bingley’s stash and had forced her to turn it over like spoils of war. Her elder sister hadn’t known, of course, that Bo had about ten more volumes, all surreptitiously removed from their brother’s chamber over time, to which she could turn for further edification.
But she was no fool when it came to the protection of her cache of lewd, outlawed books, and she wasn’t about to reveal that she had more to a sister who wouldn’t be above scouring her chamber and confiscating the rest. Not to mention informing their parents. Bo was curious. She had much yet to learn.
She blinked. “Poetry, do you mean? Truly, Cleo, marriage has turned you into a dreadful prude. What can be the harm in Lord Byron?”
Alex took in the exchange between the two of them.
Cleo glowered. “Boadicea Harrington. You know what I refer to.”
Bo pursed her lips. “It was the Bible, if you must know, and it’s most vexing because I’d only reached halfway through Genesis when he thieved it from me. I am clamoring to know what happens next.”
Her sister made a sound low in her throat. “Bo.”
Well, and what did Cleo expect? That she would own to reading a journal whose printing had landed the publisher in jail? That she would admit she’d been reading about the lord of the house’s swelling member in the presence of his sister’s comely governess? That she’d eagerly learned new, wicked words like slit and pearl and tumescence? That she would never again think of walks in the woods in the same manner ever again?
Or libraries, for that matter.
A frisson of something unwanted and curious simmered through her and settled between her thighs, rather like the aches she’d read about. She banished it.
“I won’t marry the Duke of Disdain,” she insisted. “He is cold and arrogant and unfeeling. I have no intention of marrying any man, let alone one who would insult me, look down his nose at me, and then kowtow to the sense of propriety of a vicious old biddy.”
“I’m afraid you may have no choice,” Alex interrupted gently, his tone stern but his eyes flashing with sympathy. “Bo, what you’ve described to me, taken in consideration with the duchess’s words and those of Bainbridge himself, convinces me that this was no innocent tableau. It must be rectified.”
Rectified.
The blood leached from her face. “You intend to force me to marry Bainbridge? Alex, how could you?”
“I’ll not force you into anything.” Caution steeped his voice. “But marrying him may be the only way to squelch the impending scandal before it’s unleashed. You are not the only one who will be affected, Boadicea. Keep that in mind.”
“And there is the matter of your Lady’s Suffrage Society to consider,” Cleo pressed, always knowing what to say. “If you are ruined and must withdraw from society, all your efforts will be for naught. How are you going to give voice to your cause if you allow yourself to be silenced?”
Blast. Her sister was right on that count, but marriage still seemed like every bit as much of a mistake as allowing herself to be become a pariah. “You do not think marrying Bainbridge will silence me just as well?”
“No, dearest sister.” Cleo’s voice softened. “Far better to be a duchess than an outcast, for your sake just as much as for your cause.”
Bo swallowed, and the knot inside her grew until she couldn’t bear one moment more of this interminable interview. Shooting to her feet, she excused herself and fled from the chamber before she embarrassed herself by bursting into tears as the full effect of her own recklessness collapsed upon her.
pencer cooled his heels in his mother’s favored salonfor intimate familial gatherings. Decorated in shades of green—from the damask and the sylvan oil paintings on the walls to the silken drapes and thick carpets—it resembled nothing so much as a depressing venture into an old thicket. But it was private, ensconced deep in the north wing, its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake and gardens that gave Boswell House part of its distinction.
The day had dawned unusually bright and rainless, the sun glinting through those windows now with a brilliant cheer that seemed to mock him. He’d woken before dawn, torn from the old nightmares he’d hoped he’d shaken forever. Shuddering, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, he’d been certain his dead wife had called his name in those moments as wakefulness and sleep melded into something indistinct and hazy.
But it had been the dreams again, where he relived watching Millicent raise the pistol to her temple. Where he could see the cloud of smoke, the spatter of blood, the final expression on her face. Where he tried to reach out and was immobile, attempted to speak but could not force his tongue into action.
He paced across the salon, hands clasped behind his back to stave off their trembling, awaiting the last woman he wished to see. At most recent glance of his pocket watch, she’d been thirty-eight minutes and twenty seconds late. He had requested she meet him at eight o’clock. In private, so that they could discuss a plan of action.
But Lady Boadicea Harrington, devotee of lascivious books, didn’t appear to have any inclination of meeting him. She had not replied to his note. He had gone anyway, thinking her lack of response down to her stubborn nature.
It would appear, however, that he was wrong.
That in a matter of less than half an hour, he had undone his every careful attempt to distance himself from scandal, weakness, women, and the madness that threatened to close in on him ever since Millicent’s death. That he had compromised a lady who had no compunction about reading smut in his library or cupping his cock through his trousers—tentative though her touch may have been—and that said lady was wearing his madcap brother’s heart like a battle victory on her bosom, and yet didn’t even feel a hint of compassion for what she had done, for what she would yet do, if she refused his suit, if she—
The door to the salon opened, and in swept Lady Boadicea Harrington in a seductive whisper of silken skirts and soft footfalls. Her auburn hair was coiled into a series of braids, a fashionable fringe on her forehead, and the luscious beauty of it struck him, fiery and glinting in the sun.
She wore a vibrant morning frock of purple velvet, silk, and taffeta shot with cream that should have rendered her gaudy against the green confines of the chamber. Instead, it had the opposite effect, complimenting her, showing her to advantage. She put everything else in the room—hell, she put every woman he’d ever seen—to shame.
