Page 11 of A Lyon for Luck
After they finally reached the small stone-and-timber structure, he opened the door for them with a key hidden above the lintel and ushered her inside. Once she’d settled on a small and lumpily upholstered settee, still draped in holland cloths, she watched as he made quick work of the fire. There was wood laid there already, dry and ready for use. When he placed a match near it, the pile of logs ignited instantly, a warm glow spreading throughout the rapidly dimming room.
“Will it storm?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “Are you frightened of storms?”
Daphne shook her head. “No. I’m frightened of delays,” she said. “I don’t want anything to slow our progress. I’m terrified that Father and Lord Pozenby might catch up to us before it’s too late for them to intervene.”
He rose to his full height and crossed the narrow space between the hearth and the settee she occupied. When he settled on it beside her, it groaned beneath his weight. Not for the first time, Daphne was struck by his appearance. Fletcher Quill, Lord Aldwyn, was more than simply handsome. He was darkly beautiful in a way that defied description with his curling black hair and vivid blue eyes. With their thick lashes and topped by winged brows, most ladies of her acquaintance would be envious of them. Beyond that, the perfectly carved bone structure was reminiscent of ancient sculptures. He made her feel, not homely, but perhaps a bit like a little brown wren in the presence of a peacock. She was pretty enough in a very ordinary sort of way with blonde hair and soft features. But he was vivid and bold, everything about him commanding attention.
“You really are terribly handsome.”
He turned toward her with an amused expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “You say that if it was somehow a flaw.”
“It isn’t a flaw so much as… well, perhaps a bit inconvenient? I don’t mind so much that you are marrying me for my fortune. Better you than Cecil Pozenby or even Viscount Lynley. But everyone will look at us andknowthat is why you married me, and I find that ever so slightly humiliating,” she admitted.
“I am not certain that is true. I’m hardly a prize, given that I bring quite literally only myself and significant debt to the match… regardless, I’m sorry that you feel that way. I’m sorry that you haven’t been afforded the luxury—and the dignity—of being courted and wed solely for yourself. Which is, in every way, quite remarkable.”
She made a sound that was laden with skepticism. “I’m not at all remarkable. Dull. Dull Daphne. That’s what I heard some of the more unkind debutantes refer to me as during our first season out. It was true enough, I suppose. I was so afraid of putting a foot wrong then that I never dared to be myself. And now? Well, there’s no reason to behave. I can’t go more wrong than I already have.”
“Jealous cats,” he mused. “You’re a bit of a rebel, Daphne. Running away from an arranged marriage after having narrowly avoided one disastrous marriage and escaping a kidnapping scheme. I’d call you many things, but never dull.”
“That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.”
“Then they are all fools.”
The room grew quiet then. Awkwardness—no, expectation, perhaps—stretched between them. And she wasn’t so naive that she didn’t know what it meant. She might not have experienced all the things most betrothed young women had, like stolen kisses or scandalous embraces, but she’d heard enough whispers about such things that she had an inkling. And she realized in that moment that if Fletcher wished to kiss her, she very much wished to let him.
“Fletcher?”
“Yes, Daphne?”
Bolder than she had ever been, Daphne uttered a request that would change everything. “Would you mind very much to kiss me?… It’s just that… well, this is my second betrothal and no one ever has.”
Silence so thick a pin drop would have sounded like canon fire seemed to grow around them, wrapping them up like clinging vines. Regret clawed at her intensely. She’d been bold and now she knew that she’d taken it too far. “Never mind,” she finally managed. “It was a sill thin—”
She didn’t finish the statement. She couldn’t. His lips had settled firmly over hers even as his arms closed about her, hauling her against him with a kind of possessive certainty that left her as breathless as the sensation of his firmly sculpted lips moving overs.
It was at that precise moment that all thought fled. And Daphne allowed herself to simply savor the moment and the man.
Chapter Eight
Fletcher hadn’t allowedhimself to think of how much he truly wanted to kiss her. The urge—the desire—had been lying just beneath the surface, tamped down from necessity and from some sense of just how unusual their situation truly was. Regardless, there had been an awareness from the moment he’d first seen her that he found her shockingly appealing. While she was far lovelier than he could have ever hoped, it wasn’t simply that she was beautiful. It was that she wassimply her.
Soft, vulnerable, brave, determined, a bit obstinate, and still, through all of it, possessing a kind of sweetness that he’d seldom encountered in his life. But then, by and large, he’d avoided young and virtuous women because he’d had nothing to offer them. No prospects. No title. No fortune. Despite that, he imagined that Daphne was singular in some way—special. So much so that it might have frightened him had he not already been in the process of running away with her to elope.
Now, with her lips moving sweetly beneath his, innocent and untutored but deliciously eager, he could no longer deny or ignore just how deep his attraction to her was. And it was the most natural thingin the world to deepen that kiss, to take it just a bit further. When he tasted the soft recesses of her mouth, swallowing her surprised gasp even as she sank against him, easing in his embrace, Fletcher immediately realized his error. It was too much. Not for her, but for him. She had no notion what lay beyond kissing, but he did, and a taste of it made him want more and more. One taste and all the reasons for restraint, for patience, were simply forgotten in the wake of need that ignited with a feverish intensity.
He became acutely aware of the surprisingly lush curves concealed beneath her clothing, of the slight tremor in her body as reaction gave way to responsiveness—to pleasure. It took concerted effort to keep his hands pressed against her back and waist, not to let temptation lead them on a journey that she was perhaps not ready for.
And then he heard it. Over the rain, over the wind, the sound of hoofbeats.
Breaking the kiss, he pulled back from her. “Go into the bed chamber. Conceal yourself however possible and do not make a sound… It’s likely nothing.”
The fear he saw in her eyes was telling enough. It wasn’t simply that she didn’t wish to marry Pozenby. She was terrified of the prospect and likely just as terrified of her father. Considering the bruises he’d seen on her arms, it was certainly easy enough to see why.
There was a forceful knock at the door and Fletcher moved across the room to answer it, positioning himself in such a way that he mostly obscured anyone’s view into the abode in the off chance that some tell-tale sign of her presence lingered. But when he opened that door, he found himself unaccountably relieved. It was a familiar face on the other side of it, though one he had not seen since he was a much younger man. A local man, Mr. Watkins, had been looking after the lodge since Fletcher had been barely out of leading strings.
“Mr. Watkins, I see you are taking care of things as promptly and efficiently as usual.”
