Lillias suddenly realized she didn’t quite want to leave The Grand Palace on the Thames yet, either. The whole place seemed suspended in time, though being confined to the place for smoking a cheroot had something to do with that. But it had begun to feel a bit like the withdrawing room at a party, during which one retreated to repair a trodden hem or hair that was coming out of its pins, life and music and merriment going on faintly outside the door. The time between her life had unraveled and... whatever her life would be after the Landover Ball.
A time that contained a big American who had quietly sat beside her while she drank in the view of London from the rooftop, lectured her, and refused to kiss her.
Her cheeks went hot all over again.
She held her tea up to her face so her mother would only suspect steam if she noticed the rosiness.
But oh, he’d wanted to.
And that wasn’t all he wanted to do.
I’ve never before been alone in the dark with a woman who wasn’t beneath me, begging me to take her faster and harder. That, Lady Lillias, is a singular pleasure.
It was yet another infuriating version of, “Go inside, little girl.” He’d said that in order to both unnerve and enthrall her. It had worked on both counts.
But it had enthralled more than unnerved. Burning with curiosity and jealousy, her very sheets against her skin were a sensual torment as she imagined his beautifully battered body covering her own.
I should hate for any harm to ever come to you.
He’d also said that.
Of course he worried. How on earth was he still able to face each day, knowing how ephemeral life was? Let alone climb a ladder to the roof, lecture her, make her laugh, and refuse to kiss her.
What was thematterwith him?
What was the matter withher?
Maybe shewasquite mad. His will was stronger than hers. Largely precisely because life had buffeted him quite a bit. Absurdly, this infuriated her. How was she ever going to get the better of him?
And yet in some ways she already had. It had nearlykilledhim to take his hands from her waist after he’d lifted her down. She’d felt the war he waged with himself humming in his body.
Why did this make her want to... protect... him?
He was from an entirely different world. He was practically a brute, albeit one possessed of a nimble vocabulary and a startling swift wit. And yet, in the dreamlike world of the roof, in the dark, outside of time, Hugh Cassidy sitting beside her, she had briefly made sense to herself.
Why should any of this make her feel close to tears? It was all a bit too much, and she had only herself to blame.
“So where is Father now?”
“Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand have him down in the receiving room and it looks serious, indeed.Oh, and St. John was locked out last night, as he missed curfew. He hasn’t yet come home.”
Claire and Lillias exchanged an uncertain glance. Lillias’s stomach tightened again.
“Oh, St. John is a grown man. He can look at his watch now and again, for heaven’s sake. He’s been out all night before. Docks or no docks. He’s not anutterfool. I’m certain he’s just fine,” her mother said firmly.
Lillias knew her parents loved all of them. What degrees of fortitude must one possess to allow their children to do what they did—ride horses, shoot rifles, stay out all night? How didanyonemanage the fortitude to love anyone? It was fraught with peril and pocked with hazards one could not foresee. She’d never before asked these questions of herself, but suddenly she understood it was why Hugh Cassidy had such an expansive plan for his life. She suspected this was how he’d imposed order on chaos, and gave content to emptiness, and form to dreams. Because lately, this was what her sketchbook had become to her. It was the only place in which she could shape anything at all to her satisfaction. The one thing she could control.
“I suppose we’ll just have to await the verdict,” the countess said. “I think some more tea to settle our nerves would be in order.”
She refilled her daughters’ cups.
Lillias could have told her that she’d become an old hand at anticipation, that more genteel word for dread.
“The maid brought up the newspaper with the tea.” Her mother rattled the pages open. “Oh, would you listen to this. ‘The whole of thetonwonders what that heavenly heartbreaker Lady Lillias Vaughn will wear to the ball.’”
Claire rolled her eyes.
“And there’s a bit about Gilly, too!” her mother exclaimed. “The rumors about Lord Bankham’s impending nup—”
