Dimples. Lord Darlington haddimples.
Cecilia stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. “Oh.”
Isabella’s wide, irresistible grin, that grin Cecilia adored, the one that always coaxed an answering grin from her…it was heruncle’ssmile.
The sweet curve of Isabella’s lips, the brightness in her eyes, those fetching dimples at the corners of her mouth…it mirrored the smile now gracing Lord Darlington’s lips. Isabella didn’t look like him, but she’d learned to imitate his smile.
How could Cecilia not have seenit before now?
Because I’ve never trulyseen him smile.
His smile faded into a look of uncertainty as she continued to stare at him. “Is something wrong?”
“I…no. No, my lord, it’s just…well, Isabella’s smile is just like yours.”
Lord Darlington went quite still, his eyes going as dark as a midnight sky. His fingers flexed at his sides, and for one wild moment she thought he would come to her. Cecilia’s breath stopped, every inch of her aching for him.
He didn’t, but he didn’t turn away, either. Impossibly, his grin widened. “I might even venture a laugh if you sing “The Fair Maid of Islington” to me.”
Cecilia stared at him. Was heteasingher? “Oh, no. I couldn’t. It’s terribly improper.”
“As opposed to Down Among the Dead,” which I’ve heard sung in drawing rooms all across England.”
Oh, he was certainly teasing her. Cecilia had never been teased by a marquess, or by any gentleman, really. She wasn’t certain what to do, so she just stood there like a peahen, her cheeks on fire and a foolish grin on her face.
He didn’t seem to expect her to do anything more, however. He gazed at her as if her smile was enough to please him, before he straightened and eased away, murmuring, “It’s late. Go to sleep, Cecilia.”
He crossed the room and went into his own bedchamber, but Cecilia stopped him before he could close the door between them. “My lord?”
“Yes?” His face was half-lost in shadow, but she could just discern the quirk of his lips.
She wanted to say,I’ll sing you any song you like. She wanted to say,I believe you’re a good, kind man. She wanted to say,I wish for you to have more reasons to smile.
But in the end, she didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she drew in a quick breath and said, “Good night.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was a day for being overwrought, it seemed.
After those breathless moments with Lord Darlington—moments in which she’d had to fight an overwhelming urge to trace her fingertips over his lips to commit that rare smile to memory—Cecilia knew sleep would elude her for the rest of the night.
After pacing from one end of her bedchamber to the other with the words of the blasted “Fair Maid of Islington” echoing in a wearying loop in her head, she climbed under the coverlet, eyes wide open, and reconciled herself to a sleepless night.
What would Lord Darlington’s lips feel like under her fingertips? They looked soft. Were a gentleman’s lips soft? They were full, temptingly so, his lower lip a trifle plumper, just the tiniesthint of a pout.
Goodness.
She tucked the coverlet closer as a delicious warmth settled low in her belly. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was just embarking on a scandalously delightful dream about Lord Darlington’s lips when she was startled awake by Seraphina, who suddenly woke from her nap at the foot of Cecilia’s bed, let out a growl, and leapt to the floor.
“Seraphina?” Cecilia reached for the cat, but Seraphina darted away before she could get a hand on her. “Whateveris the matter?”
That was when she heard it. It was muffled, so faint she nearly missed it, but itsounded like a—
Scream.
Cecilia shot upright as another scream, this one much louder and edged with panic, shattered the silence of the castle. Seraphina let out another yowl, and scrambled across the floor to the door leading to the hallway, clawing in a frenzyto be let out.
Cecilia vaulted from the bed, tripping over the hem of her night rail in her panic to get to Isabella, but the scream hadn’t come from her, nor had it woken her. She was curled up in her bed, sleeping the sound, peaceful sleep of a child.
