He stepped back from Miss Hilgrove, releasing her, but it was too late. His sister stood at the open door of the library, her face a mask of astonishment.
Instinctively, he positioned Miss Hilgrove behind him, hiding herdishabillefrom view. But whilst his sister could no longer see the buttons he had undone or the unbound curls rioting down Miss Hilgrove’s back, the damage had been done. Nor was there any use in pretending he had not just been kissing her senseless.
Good God.He was a hypocrite. Attempting to make his sister fit into society’s mold when he had just taken a bloody hammer to the damned plaster cast.
“Callie,” he managed to rasp past the overwhelming mixture of shame and desire clogging his throat, “this is not what it seems.”
He cast a look back at Miss Hilgrove. She stood as still as a statue, a hand pressed to her lips. Her eyes were wide, glassy from passion and from the shock of being unexpectedly interrupted. Perhaps more shock than that. After all, she was an innocent. Her hand clutched her bodice, bringing the twain ends together, but her expression was vacant.
Fucking hell.This was never what he had wanted. Never what he had intended. Indeed, perhaps that was the bloody problem. He had never had a plan where she was concerned. He had simply been wild for her. And his lust had been beyond his restraint. Out of his control.
“Benny,” said his sister then, forcing his gaze from Miss Hilgrove. “What have you done?”
He met Callie’s stare, unflinching. Another wave of shame swamped him. What had he done, indeed? He had never, in all his years, lost control like this. He was a regimented man. There was a time, a place, for seduction. But Miss Hilgrove made him mindless. Mad with wanting her. She made him forget right and wrong, made him abandon his honor, his restraint, everything. Just for one more kiss. One more touch of her lips to his.
What answer could he possibly give his sister?
There was no proper explanation to be had. Other than lust. Other than stupidity. Other than his base urges getting the better of him.Dear God, he had just sullied a lady whose reputation was in his care. Before his own sister. He could not possibly sink any lower…
“Callie, wait for me in my study, if you please,” he ordered grimly.
He would have to speak with her. Alone. He would also have to make certain his unpredictable sister understood just how important it was for her to keep what she had just witnessed to herself. Callie was trustworthy; he had no qualms about that. But she also fancied herself sudden bosom bows with Miss Hilgrove, and he could not be certain his sister would not take his female typewriter’s side over his in this particular skirmish.
The look she directed at him was quelling. “Of course,Your Grace.”
Her mocking emphasis upon his title was not lost on him as she spun about and left, slamming the library door closed behind her. It snapped shut with a particularly deafening slam of finality.
He flinched.
Then turned back to Miss Hilgrove, who was in the act of frantically restoring her buttons. Her countenance was pale save for pink splotches marking her high cheekbones. “I must beg your forgiveness for the rashness of my action, Miss Hilgrove. What I have done is unpardonable. However, rest assured that I will speak to my sister. I promise you that nothing she witnessed here will ever be repeated. You need not fear word of this will travel or have a negative impact upon your school…”
His words trailed off as he realized how very hollow and ineffectual they sounded, even to his own ears. He had just compromised a female in his employ. Wickedly, desperately so. And his lady sister had caught him in the midst of his depravity.
He inhaled slowly and then exhaled on a long sigh, trying to determine what in the hell he ought to do next. Surely, he could not marry Miss Hilgrove. He had no wish to take any woman to wife. His parents’ union had been rooted in enmity, finished in hatred, and he had no wish to repeat the painful process himself. Solitude and bachelorhood suited him.
Miss Hilgrove continued furiously fastening the line of buttons marching up her otherwise unadorned black bodice. “You need say nothing more, Your Grace. I trust Lady Calliope implicitly. It is you whom I distrust.”
Her words cut him. For they were right. And he could not blame her. He did not trust himself when it came to this intriguing, vexing, delicious woman.
He reached for her, thinking to offer aid, but she shrank away from his touch as if he were an asp about to strike. He felt like the world’s greatest ass, and well he should, he supposed.
“Miss Hilgrove, I do not fault you for your lack of confidence in my word. I cannot apologize enough for my actions this morning, which were unbecoming of a gentleman.”
“Ah,” she said bitterly, fastening the final button at her throat. “But you warned me you are not precisely a gentleman, did you not? The fault is mine for not heeding your warning. For not possessing the strength of mind to resist you. It would seem I am every bit as much to blame in this folly as you are.”
Her words were cutting, finding their mark. “I will send for my personal carriage to see you home, Miss Hilgrove. After what has just transpired, I have no wish to keep you here. And neither, I think, would it be wise for you to return.”
He hated himself as he said the words.Good God, the notion of never seeing her again loomed like a horrible eternity. Such a future seemed untenable. Unacceptable. Now that he had kissed her, how could he possibly bear to let her go?
You must, said his conscience.
Make her your mistress, said the devil in him, though he knew Miss Isabella Hilgrove and Roberta were leagues apart. Roberta was a widow; she had no wish to marry again, having suffered a horrible marriage herself. She wanted unencumbered pleasure. Miss Hilgrove was the sort of woman a vicar would be pleased to make his bride.
But what a sin it would be, all that hidden passion, belonging to another…
He wrenched himself from his thoughts.
She sank to the floor, her somber skirts fluttering around her, as she began to gather her hair pins. “Pray, do not send for your carriage, Your Grace. You have already done damage enough. If I am delivered to my residence in the grand carriage of the Duke of Westmorland, my neighbors will take note. I cannot afford the slightest hint of scandal to shadow my reputation or that of my school’s. If I am believed to be an immoral woman, one who is fast and is easily swayed by the practiced seductions of a handsome man, what will be said of the ladies entrusting their futures into my care?”
