Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
With Elizabeth’s taste still on his lips, Alasdair could not focus on anything.
He tried. God knew, he tried.
He rose at dawn, sword in hand, and went at the fencing dummy with vicious precision. He trained until his arms ached and sweat poured down his back. He went hunting with a party of visiting lords the next day, riding hard through the brush as if sheer speed might shake her from his head.
It didn’t.
Even the whisky didn’t help. He drank with Lord Penrith and a few others after supper, swallowing mouthfuls of aged amber fire, but all it did was blur her face into something even more sensual.
In his mind’s eye, she stared at him across a darkened room—chin lifted, eyes glittering with defiance. Her mouth, flushed from his kiss, parted slightly in surprise.
He could still feel her in his hands. The weight of her, delicate but strong, leaning into him when their lips met. The warmth of her body pressed to his. The way her hands had clutched his shirt like she was afraid he might vanish if she let go.
He’d felt it too, that same desperation. That ache beneath the surface that had nothing to do with lust, and everything to do with something far more dangerous.
She’d run. Of course she had. But she hadn’t slapped him. She hadn’t scolded him. She’d kissed him back.
Alasdair stared out at the darkened landscape beyond his study’s window, a glass of whisky forgotten in his hand.
The fire crackled behind him.
His whole life, he’d known how to keep things locked up. Emotion. Memory. Need.
But Elizabeth Brighton had found the key and flung the door open. Now, he couldn’t close it.
He didn’t even want to.
Elizabeth coped in her own way. Not through violence or whisky, but with ink-stained fingers and sleepless nights.
She tried to banish him from her thoughts. She threw herself into every invitation, every call, every chore Lady Grisham assigned. She smiled through conversations, flirted just enough with Pomfrey, and feigned the calm of a girl in control.
But her hands betrayed her.
Her sketchbook became her sanctuary and her trap.
At first, she drew him in shadows. Broad-shouldered, standing in the dark recesses of some imagined corridor, cloaked in moonlight. He loomed at the edge of her imagination like a myth.
Her pencil moved before she could think, tracing the familiar shape of his stance, the way he carried tension in his shoulders, how he planted his feet like he owned whatever ground he stood on.
Then, the sketches became clearer. More intimate.
His face appeared next. Not at once, but in pieces. The sharp blade of his jaw. His cheekbones, high and noble. That crooked line of his nose. His mouth…
God help her, she kept redrawing his mouth.
Sometimes firm and set, other times curved into that amused half-smile. And those eyes. She tried again and again to capture the way they looked at her like she was a puzzle he meant to solve with his hands and mouth.
It became an obsession. She knew it. And yet she couldn’t stop.
One night, while sitting cross-legged on the carpet beside the fireplace in the drawing room, Elizabeth was sketching again, this time with the warm murmur of her sisters around her.
Daphne was reading, half-asleep in the armchair. Victoria, however, was not so easily ignored.
“What are you hiding, Lizzie?” Victoria asked suddenly, her tone far too shrewd for a thirteen-year-old.
Elizabeth’s breath caught. She snapped her sketchbook closed just in time.
“Nothing that would interest you,” she said lightly, even as her pulse thundered in her ears.
Victoria narrowed her eyes and lunged, quick as a cat, but Elizabeth had reflexes honed by panic. She snatched the book to her chest.
“Let me see!” Victoria whined. “Is it Wilhelmina? Daphne? Me?”
“No,” Elizabeth said, too quickly.
Victoria squinted at her, suspicious. “It is me. You’ve made me look dreadful, haven’t you? I knew it!”
Elizabeth forced a laugh and turned her body slightly, shielding the sketchbook with an innocent shrug.
“I’m just practicing lighting. Proportions. It’s nothing, really.”
Fortunately, the twins were still young enough to have the attention span of kittens.
Victoria gave a dramatic sigh, flopped back against a pillow, and declared, “Well, if I look short in it, I shall be furious.”
Elizabeth murmured a vague agreement and tucked the sketchbook safely beneath her arm.
As the fire crackled and the room faded into a comfortable silence, she allowed herself one last glance at the unfinished sketch.
She’d drawn Alasdair looking straight at her.
It wasn’t just a memory. It was a confession.
And it terrified her.
A week later, Alasdair arrived at the grand ball looking decidedly unlike himself. His normally sharp bearing was dulled, his shoulders hunched, his gaze fixed somewhere vaguely ahead as if the chandelier light pained him.
He scanned the crowd like a man hunting for an escape, not an entrance.
When he spotted Seth leaning casually against the wall near the drinks table, he made a beeline for him.
“I need brandy,” Alasdair said grimly, the words low and clipped.
“Good evening to you, too,” Seth replied, arching a brow as he handed over a generous glass. “Whatever happened to polite greetings and charming smiles?”
“Daenae ask,” Alasdair growled, and downed the brandy in a single gulp.
Seth gave a low whistle. “Noted. But I am going to ask again in about five minutes, once you’ve got a second drink in your system.”
Before Alasdair could shoot back a retort, there was a visible shift in the room’s energy. Conversations dulled, fans fluttered more quickly, and heads began to turn.
Seth tilted his head toward the entryway. “And speaking of the source of your ongoing torment…”
Alasdair followed his gaze and immediately stiffened.
Elizabeth had arrived.
She was wearing another one of those godforsaken dresses. The kind that fit her figure like a second skin and left little to the imagination when it came to her generous décolletage.
His jaw tightened involuntarily. Surely, Lady Grisham hadn’t approved that.
Elizabeth’s composure, however, was impeccable. Her chin was held high, her shoulders set proudly back, her every step measured but elegant. She was smiling politely as she greeted guests, but he could see it.
Beneath that calm surface was the same whirlwind he’d glimpsed when she kissed him back.
And yet she didn’t glance in his direction. Not once.
Before he could attempt to make his way toward her, the room gave another murmur. This time, a ripple of true excitement rolled through the guests.
Apparently, the Duke and Duchess of Oakmere had arrived.
Alasdair didn’t need to ask. From the stiffening of Lady Grisham’s posture across the room and the way Elizabeth’s gaze softened as she looked toward them, he knew instantly who they were: her eldest sister and brother-in-law.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to delay that second brandy,” Seth muttered, following Alasdair’s gaze. “Looks like the Grisham family is here for a proper reunion.”
Elizabeth could scarcely keep up with the shifting emotions coursing through her. It was dizzying—joy and tension knotted tightly together.
She was overjoyed to see Marianne again. Her sister had always been her safe place, the one person who never made her feel inadequate or invisible. But with that joy came pressure. Her sister was married to a duke. Her Season had been a resounding success.
What if Elizabeth failed again?
Lady Grisham had already arranged herself into position beside the newcomers, a smile stretched thin across her face like sugar over burnt bread.
“Lady Grisham,” said Dominic, the Duke of Oakmere, offering a graceful bow and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Elizabeth remembered well how Marianne’s husband had maintained cordial relations with their father for the sake of business before his marriage. He knew how to play a long game. His politeness now was polished and cool but laced with the subtle tension of someone restraining judgment.
“You must tell us everything you’ve been up to!” Wilhelmina said breathlessly, taking Marianne’s arm and tugging her aside before anyone else could get a word in.
Dominic turned to Elizabeth. His smile softened. “And you, Lady Elizabeth. How has the Season been treating you?”
“She’s been dreadfully busy,” Wilhelmina answered for her. “But if I’m honest, it’s been quite dull to watch. For the most part. Then again, you set an impossible standard.”
“Wilhelmina,” Lady Grisham said sharply, “we do not speak of disappointments at social gatherings. Especially not in the presence of a duke and duchess.”
“We’re family,” Wilhelmina replied, undeterred. “Where are we to speak the truth?”
Marianne gave a quiet sigh and slid her hand into Elizabeth’s. “Come, Lizzie. Walk with me. I’ve missed our talks.”
Elizabeth’s instinct was to glance toward Lady Grisham, but her stepmother, perhaps eager to avoid further spectacle, gave a tight nod of approval.
“Go on,” she said with forced cheer.
The sisters wove through the crowd, finally escaping the suffocating web of etiquette and expectation. They reached a quiet alcove, a breath of calm amid the glitter and noise.
Elizabeth exhaled. “Dominic dislikes Lady Grisham.”
“He’s trying not to let it show,” Marianne said with a soft smile. “But yes. He’s aware of how she treats you, and the girls. He’s not fond of people who disguise cruelty with propriety.”
“I wish she could be sent away like Father.”
Marianne snorted delicately. “If only exile worked twice.”
They laughed together, quietly, like they had when they were children hiding from storms under blankets and pretending they were pirate queens.
“Well,” Elizabeth continued, sobering, “I’ve decided. I’m going to marry this Season.”
Marianne blinked. “You sound quite sure.”