They must have come free during the scuffle. The tresses were long and inky like midnight, softer and cooler than the silk of her dress. Did all women have hair like that?
“Can you lift me any higher?” Her question brought me back to myself, to the situation at hand. I could. I could lift her much higher. But… in order to do so, I would need to grip her bottom.
“I… uh… I can, but…”
Silence. “Oh.” I caught the end of a thick swallow. “Can you? I mean… Perhaps my legs instead? That might be slightly less… intimate.”
I coughed out something that sounded affirmative. Loosening one hand from her waist, supporting her easily with the other. I slipped my free hand down to grasp a thigh. A shapely thigh. The other quickly followed, pressing her still higher.
Still trapped in floral scented, wine-colored silk, I heard the click of the latch and a triumphant sound. The window above creaked with disuse as it slid open.
She pulled herself upward, making an inch or two of progress before she was beyond the reach of my help, struggling to pull herself farther.
I moved both hands down to her calves, trying to press her higher. The silky fabric slipped against her stockings, and she slipped a few inches before my grip tightened enough to catch her.
Without asking for permission, I slipped one hand then the other beneath the folds of her skirt to grasp her silk clad legs.
I earned a disgruntled sound for my efforts before she tugged once again at the windowsill.
That was the precise moment, with my hands beneath her skirt and my face pressed in the crest of her thighs, that I heard it.
The brush of the opening door against the carpeting echoed in our prison.
Light from the hall spilled into the room, bathing the wall in front of us in a bright glow. Trapped in the light, we both froze, unable to move, to separate.
From behind me, I heard a throaty chuckle. A second. A third.
“I see you took my suggestions to heart, Grayson. I didn’t mean right this second,” Parker said. Loathsome toad.
“Well now,” another voice chimed in. “I see what was taking the scotch so long. Well-done lad! If I had known the reward, I would have gone to fetch it myself.” Westfield, a letch if there ever was one.
Carefully, I knelt down, depositing Miss Summers on the ground. She turned to face me, even more disheveled in the bright hall light. Her expression wavered between resignation and contrition.
“Grayson! I didn’t think you would defile the chit in the midst of my wife’s ball!” James added. “Come on man, what happened to too much to tumble with?”
I watched the hurt slip across Miss Summers’s face before disappearing. I shut my eyes against it, willing it to stay away.
Before I turned to face our audience, I heard a ladylike voice join the chorus of raucous laughter. “What are you all doing out here—Oh! Miss Summers! Lord Grayson!”
I did not recognize the lady. I did not have to, I knew what it meant. The men, perhaps with some inducement, could be convinced to forget the entire scene before them. But a woman… There was no way I was leaving the closet without a fiancée.
Eleven
SUTTON MANOR, LONDON — NOVEMBER 25, 1813
HUGH
The damned coatwas too tight. It pulled my shoulders together uncomfortably even though I was certain it fit when I purchased it some weeks ago.
I fought not to fidget in the face of the glare I received from the bride’s brother.
My bride.
Her brother failed to comprehend the finality of the situation. Or so it seemed. Neither did he feel it necessary to explain why, precisely, he was so displeased with this union. It was a far greater match than Miss Summers had any right to aspire to, at least without her bit of conniving.
At first, I had thought Miss Summers was every bit a victim of the same situation I had been; but upon further reflection, I realized how deliberate, how contrived, it had all been.
* * *
