Up went Delacorte’s hand boldly. He didn’t offer an explanation apart from righteously raised brows.
Predictably, up went St. John’s and Lady Claire’s hands, as did the corners of their mouths. Siblings being siblings.
And then, in an interesting twist of plot, up went the countess’s hand.
Lillias’s stared at her balefully. “Et tu, Mama?”
“I voted in favor because you ought to stand and move about the room, dear. For heaven’s sake. You’re not doing a thing but sitting.”
Lillias sighed heavily.
Hugh noticed that Mrs. Pariseau had not raised her hand.
“Mrs. Pariseau?”
“I feel a lady ought to utter an epithet now and again, if only to experience the feeling,” Mrs. Pariseau said, quite modernly.
Lady Vaughn’s eyes widened.
“Is it a good feeling, Mrs. Pariseau?” Claire asked somberly. She darted another glance at Lillias.
“Don’t worry, Mother, Mrs. Pariseau is just discoursing spiritedly, as per the rules,” Lillias said tautly. “Very well, then. If I put a pound in the jar, may I buy one hundred epithets?”
“Lillias,” her mother warned again.
“I’m bound to learn one hundred new ones by the time we leave here,” she said, quite pointedly. “It seems a wise investment.”
Delacorte aimed a somewhat pleading look at Hugh.
“One pence is the penalty,” Hugh said firmly as a magistrate. “The people have spoken. The penalty is now due.”
Chapter Four
The look Lillias fixed him with was fueled by the fires of a thousand silent epithets.
And then she had her revenge on him.
Lillias did not so much rise asbloomfrom her chair in a way that compelled him to watch every moment of that motion, which seemed to last forever and yet not long enough.
And regally as a queen about to go to the gallows, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and moved.
And time seemed to slow in a both merciful and punishing way as Hugh watched the silk of her dress fall into soft folds and contours which would have prevented Galahad from ever setting eyes on the grail, so impure would have been his thoughts.
She moved across the room, and every one of his muscles tensed as though they were getting ready to pin her to a mattress.
And he knew with almost a sense of doom how Hades must have felt when he’d seen that girl in a meadow picking flowers.I must have her or die.It was that simple.
She put a pence in the jar, neatly.
Then returned the way she’d come.
Watching her return offered the same baffling, exquisite torment.
“Satisfied, Mr. Cassidy?”
“It was well done, indeed,” he said softly. Subdued and baldly earnest.
Color moved into her cheeks again. She turned away abruptly, offering him a three-quarter view of her profile.
