“I did not hope for a match at all,” she interrupted, indignant. “Do not dare to condescend to me, Cleopatra, or you may leave. Don’t let the door hit you in the bum on your way out.”
“Always so prickly, little sister. Why, one wonders?” A clever smile curved Cleo’s mouth upward. “What was it Shakespeare said? ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’.”
Such a wit, the Marchioness of Thornton.
Bo pinned Cleo with her frostiest look. “You are wrong. It was Queen Gertrude who said it, not Shakespeare himself. And if you insist on bedeviling me, you may proceed to your own chamber and leave me to my misery.”
“Very well.” Cleo leaned forward and bussed her cheeks with airy kisses, and her perfume, as ethereal as the rest of her, enveloped Bo in a cloud. “I daresay I am relieved that you are once more back to your prickly self. You were so pale and listless when Bainbridge first brought you back. I took one look at you, all limp and white in his arms, and swore for a moment that you were dead. If you ever indulge in such recklessness again, I shall be forced to box your ears.”
Her sister was not jesting about such a threat. Bo took one look at Cleo’s hardened jaw and knew that she’d meant every word. It would not be the first time one of her sisters had boxed her ears. Once, she had slathered treacle beneath her sister Tia’s pillow. When Tia had rushed from her chamber, she’d been met with a cup of ice water over the head that Bo had carefully rigged to drop at just the right moment.
She grinned at the memory. “My ears have already been soundly boxed on numerous occasions. You do not alarm me with such coercions.”
Cleo sighed and straightened. Even in her irritation, she was lovely, in the manner of all Harrington girls except Bo herself. Bo wished that she could hold a candle to her sisters, but she did not dare fool herself. Next to them, she had always felt as if she were an old sack being compared to a Worth evening gown.
Her sisters were light or dark, golden or raven-haired, and only Bo had been cursed with her full mane of curly auburn hair that never wanted to be coaxed into the proper styles. Not to mention her freckles. And her height was another matter.
“I want you to be happy, Boadicea,” Cleo said then, interrupting her grim musings. “You deserve to be so, and now that you have chosen your course, you must give the duke a chance. The man I glimpsed today is not as cold or as insufferable as you think.”
She did not want to hear her sister’s words, which the rational portion of her brain acknowledged could be true. For she did not like to think of the Duke of Disdain as a man who was kind or compassionate or concerned for her wellbeing. She preferred to think of him as an icy, pompous statue of a man. She didn’t like to think of the glimpses she’d seen of a man in torment, struggling with a dark past he couldn’t reconcile with his present.
No.
Because if she thought of the way he had kissed her with enough fiery passion to turn her body into flame, or the way he had taken her into his arms so effortlessly that morning, or even the stark pain in his expression when he’d spoken of his wife’s death, her guarded heart would weaken for him. If she imagined his woodsy scent, thought about him leaving his bed and sending a hundred merrymakers home so that she could rest, if she recalled the way he had touched her, running his long fingers over her collarbone in worship, she would melt.
Princess.
The mere recollection of his deep, velvety voice calling her what should have been an insult but what somehow, in retrospect, seemed to almost be a term of endearment, derailed her. She should have been insulted. Should have corrected him, reprimanded him for his cheek. It mattered not that he was a duke. He was high-handed and supercilious, and so handsome that whenever she looked upon him, an ache blossomed deep within her, radiating through her body like a lover’s caress.
You will remain here, where you belong,he had ordered her. And she had remained, as if obeying him. What had she been thinking? Why were the walls of the chamber so dratted yellow? Her head began to pound once more beneath the pressure of her whirling contemplations.
Dear heavens, the fall had rattled her mind. Cleo’s nonsensical belief in tender emotions—a symptom of her fierce love match with Thornton—was infecting her, making her weak.
“I will be happy when I am allowed the vote,” she announced, cutting through the fog of nonsense invading her brain. Yet another sin to cast upon the Duke of Disdain. Her distraction was his fault. Indeed, he was also likely the reason she’d lost her mount and currently felt as if the devil’s own blacksmith had hammered upon her spine. “I do not seek happiness in a forced marriage brought about by one regretful instant of lost inhibition. I know that you love Thornton, but do not fool yourself that the union between myself and Bainbridge will be anything like yours. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me.”
Cleo pursed her lips. “You liked each other well enough.”
Bo’s cheeks went hot. Curse her pale skin and fiery hair. She could not fend off a blush to save her life. “He excels at kissing. I won’t lie. And he is so handsome it irks me. But by and large, when he opens his mouth, I long to close it again by force.”
By force of her lips upon his.
Oh dear.From where had that errant thought emerged? Never mind—she dispelled it as if it were a troublesome fly.Shoo. Be gone.No more thoughts of kissing the Duke of Disdain. Even if she did suddenly remember how hard and hot and large he had been, beneath his trousers, against her palm. Bo’s mouth went dry.
Sweet God.
“Hmm.” Her sister seemed unconvinced. “We shall see. For the nonce, I recommend you get yourself back to bed. The doctor was firm on his orders, and you took a great fall. You cannot afford to be stubborn about the bed in which you find yourself. For one reason or another, you are here. Make the best of it.”
Bo’s brow furrowed. She had the distinct impression her elder sister was not just speaking of the duchess’s chamber or even the bed. But about something larger, and far more important. Something she did not wish to contemplate.
She flashed Cleo a brief smile. “Yes, some rest will do me in good stead, I think. You as well. Thank you for checking in on me, Cleo.”
“Of course.” Her sister leaned down, pressing a kiss to the crown of Bo’s head. “I love you, you know. Even if you are a rapscallion in skirts.”
Bo shot up in her seat. “Who called me that?”
Cleo bit her lip. “Oh dear. I do believe it may have been our sister, Helen. Good night, my love.”
And then she was gone.
