Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Stephen had trotted to the stables, dismounted his horse — a rather fine-looking one at that — and was handing the reins over to one of the grooms. It was hard to be angry with the lug head for long, but of all the dimwitted, addlepated, utterly ridiculous reasons he’d given her for marriage, his had made her want to strangle him!
She assumed he would wish to protect his cousin from her wrath, but she would not be thwarted. She swept into the foyer of the manor, inquired as to Flavion’s whereabouts, and turned to make her way quite purposefully toward the billiard room. “And under no circumstances,” she ordered over her shoulder, “are we to be interrupted.”
The butler’s eyebrows rose into his receding hairline, and he bowed graciously. “Of course, m-my lady,” he stuttered slightly.
Climbing the stairs hastily, Cecily was seeing red by the time she opened the door to find Flavion bending over the felt-covered table taking a shot. With an odd sense of repeating the past, Cecily reached for one of the cue sticks and headed toward her husband — or hernothusband, apparently, with every intention of bashing the louse’s head in.
The adder had gotten off easy compared to what she would like to do to Flavion Nottingham!
There were some clicking sounds as Flavion knocked one of the balls into the colored group, sending them in all directions. With a satisfied-looking smirk, but apparently sensing her presence, he turned around and looked at her curiously. “Say there, Cecily,” he said inquisitively, looking at the stick she held in her hands as though it were a cricket bat. “Can I help you with something?”
Seeing now his tousled hair and cold blue eyes, Cecily wondered how she had ever been such a fool to have fallen, even for a short time, for this travesty of a man.
“You are a beast!” she said through gritted teeth as she swung the cue and made contact with his shoulders. Oh drat, he was apparently wearing padding; her blow did not even faze him. Surprisingly agile, he took a few quick steps in order to put the large table between him and Cecily’s murderous rage.
She had been willing to entrust him with Stephen’s child! She’d been going to give him an heir! She had decided to benobleabout their marriage rather than allow her father to obtain an annulment. “You lying, deceitful cad! Did you not think anybody would discover that you had married your precious Daphne? How could you?”
Another swipe, but she missed entirely this time. The table was too wide, making it impossible for her to reach him. She chased him around the table and caught him once on the arm. He may be agile, but she was livid.
“Cecily, stop, wait! It doesn’t matter. Daphne has left the country. She no longer wants me! Desist, Cecily! Ouch!” He stopped to rub his arm, giving Cecily the opportunity to take another, more effective swing. But when she went to throw her weight into the motion, the cue would not move.
Not bothering to turn around to see what, or rather who, impeded her intentions, she merely said, “Let go, Stephen. This is between Flavion and myself.”
Stephen’s hands covered hers for a moment, and he slid them down the length of the stick a few inches. “If you move your hands down here,” he said calmly, “Your strikes will carry more force.”
And then he released her. She was once again free to bash Flavion over the head if she so wished.
Instead, she turned around.
Stephen had stepped away after releasing the cue and put his hands in the air, as though surrendering. He merely raised one eyebrow and shrugged slightly. “Give it your best, Cecily, and when you are through, I shall finish him off for the both of us.”
Flavion let out something of a wail. “Stephen! Take the cue away from her. She’s trying to kill me!”
At Flave’s words, Stephen took another step backward and then leaned casually against the brocaded wall. Crossing one foot in front of the other, he shook his head. “Flavion, you’ve gone too far this time. You are my cousin, practically my brother, but I shall not protect you from this — from her.” He frowned. “Two wives? Flavion? How could you possibly think you could get away with it?”
Ignoring the danger of another attack from Cecily, Flavion dropped into a nearby chair and buried his head in his hands. “I did not plan it. It just… happened.”
“Weddings do not simplyjust happen,Flavion,” Stephen said sarcastically.
They both seemed to have forgotten Cecily’s presence. She lowered the cue and watched as Flavion tried to explain this all away.
“Well, Daphne and I had eloped, and then she told me that her dowry was only five thousand pounds. I told her I could not afford to keep the earldom properly. I told her I needed far more than that to pay off my debts, in order to keep the properties from falling into ruin.”
“And then?” Cecily asked acerbically. “How did you convince Miss Cunnington to relinquish her position? She was your countess, after all. I have a very hard time seeing her willingly let go of the lofty title.”
“It was her idea,” Flave said in earnest. “She even told me about you. She told me that no gentleman had been willing to take you seriously, even with your dowry.”
“Did she plan on living as your mistress for the rest of her life, then?” Stephen asked in a quietly lethal voice.
“Well, no, actually.” Flavion looked off to the side. “She said we would deal with that matter in due time.”
These words, once spoken, charged the air with a new tension.
Sensing something in Stephen she hadn’t seen before, Cecily watched as his posture came alert. It was as though he were a lion, watching his prey, waiting for a moment to kill.
“She would deal with the matter of your public wife, Cecily, in fact, how? Did you know of her plans to kill Cecily all along?” Stephen’s self-contained voice barely held back a flood of suppressed rage.
Flavion’s eyes opened wide. “But I would not really allow it! We had a row, and I told her she was going to have to live as my mistress until we could figure something else out. I told her to stop attempting to harm Cecily. You must believe me.”
