Chapter Five #2
Irene smiled as Wilfred suddenly rose to his feet.
“I do apologize, my lord, I have greatly overstayed my welcome.”
“I do not believe it possible for you to overstay your welcome even if you tried, my fine fellow,” Irene’s father said with a wry smile. “It is good, as ever, to see you. Irene, you can let the fire go out. Mrs. Kinley and the maids are in bed by now, but Dempster will see to it.”
“Yes, Papa,” Irene said as her father pressed a kiss onto her forehead. “I’ve just got to finish beating Wilfred in this game and I’ll head up.”
“Sleep tight, Reeny.”
“‘Irene’!” she called as the door closed behind her father.
“I’m not going to let you win, Reeny,” Wilfred said with a wink. “And then it’ll be bed for you!”
For some unknown reason, the statement made his cheeks pink. Irene did not pay much attention to him, however, as she sought to roundly beat him.
It did not quite work.
“The trouble with you,” Wilfred said with a lazy grin as he rose from the chair and dropped onto the comfier seat of the sofa, “is that you want too much to win.”
“And that is a problem?” retorted Irene, following him onto the sofa. It really wasn’t much of a sofa, more a large chair, and though it had fitted the pair of them easily when they had been children, it was a little more of a squeeze now.
Wilfred snorted. “You want to win so much, you forget that you’re actually not a bad player. But you get yourself tangled in knots.”
“I suppose I do. Well…” She yawned, tiredness tugging at her eyes. “I suppose I should throw you out.”
Wilfred’s chuckle was not only heard, but felt, as they were pressed up against each other so tightly on the sofa. “I suppose you must.”
“Poor Dempster will wish to retire soon, and he cannot do so until I do, and I cannot retire until you are gone,” Irene said lazily, the exhaustion of the day loosening her tongue.
Or making her speak utter nonsense. She was not quite sure which.
When she turned to look at Wilfred, however, it was not to see tiredness in his eyes but something quite different. Something she had never seen before.
It was… It was heat. How a man was able to look with heat, Irene did not know. She had never encountered such a thing before, but it was undeniable. The way Wilfred was looking at her…as though he were burning, and she was the only thing that could put him out.
Irene swallowed, her mouth inexplicably dry. “Wilfred?”
“Irene, I have to tell you something,” he said in a rush. “And you might not like it, but I have to tell you. I cannot hold it back any longer.”
Irene stared, her pulse skipping a beat as a sense of foreboding overcame her.
Suddenly, the fact that they were alone in the drawing room, that her parents did not care about chaperones for her with Wilfred when there were no judging eyes, pressed against her mind.
She needed a witness to this, surely, for Wilfred was about to admit something dreadful.
What it could be, she could not guess—but no man about to admit something inconsequential looked like that.
Her lips parted as she desperately thought what to say and for some reason, Wilfred groaned.
“Irene…”
She waited for him to speak, but apparently, there were no further words coming. Examining him closely, Irene realized the man had paid particular attention to his dress for this evening.
She had not noticed before. But was that not his father’s cravat pin, the one he only wore for special occasions? And the man was wearing matching cufflinks, a small miracle, considering his valet hardly ever managed to convince him to do such a thing. And had he—had Wilfred combed his hair?
Why on earth would he pay such close attention to his dress for a simple evening of cards with her and her family?
“Irene,” Wilfred said quietly, twisting slightly to look more directly at her but maintaining the contact between them—contact Irene was suddenly highly conscious of. “Irene, I love you.”
Though she waited for the rest of his sentence, Irene suddenly realized there was not going to be anymore. “I know. I love you, too—this is hardly news, Wilfred.”
“But it is because I don’t love you like a brother,” he said in a rush, his eyes fixed on hers in a blaze of heat. “I love you as a gentleman. As a man adores and desires a woman.”
Irene stared, her eyes widening as her lips parted in astonishment.
Well, it was a pretty poor joke. Why on earth did he think that would be funny? True, Wilfred was not one known for his particularly swift wit, but—
And then he was kissing her.
Irene gasped in surprise, the suddenness and unexpectedness of it all causing her shock and somehow, Wilfred’s tongue was in her mouth!
She struggled, squirming away, pressing her hands against Wilfred’s chest…his broad chest…as his tongue teased a jolt of pleasure through her that Irene had never felt before.
And before she knew what was happening, she was kissing Wilfred.
All thoughts scattered from her mind. Irene could not think, not while she was doing so much feeling.
His hands on her arms, her hands splayed against him, she could feel his pulse and it was rapid as his lips pressed against hers, his tongue teasing her and shooting bolts of sensual decadence through her body that awakened parts of Irene she had not even known she’d had.
Her whole body was on fire, on fire for him—on fire for Wilfred?
Irene pulled away, almost breathless, and stared into the eyes of the man she had considered for almost two decades as her second brother.
He was short of breath too, and his hair had become mussed and he looked… He looked…
Irene swallowed and tried desperately to pull herself together. She was not attracted to Wilfred. The very idea!
“Have… Have you had too much whiskey?” she managed to splutter. “Losing yourself like that, taking me for this woman you are in love with?”
The moment of silence between them eked out into awkwardness and so far through awkwardness that they seemed to come through the other side and reach a strange sort of equilibrium.
The longcase clock in the corner continued to tick. The fire, dying in the grate, crackled as a log shifted.
And sitting opposite her on the sofa, both their bodies twisted now to face each other, was Wilfred. Her best friend.
Her best friend who had just kissed her soundly.
“Wilfred?” Irene said softly, hardly knowing what she was saying. “What—What was that?”
And as she waited for his answer, she was filled with conflicting emotions that roared through her like a torrent. Panic, and intrigue, and something that tasted like desire but surely could not have been.
She had kissed Wilfred. Wilfred.
Or at last, he had kissed her. It was most unaccountable. She could never have dreamed of such a thing!
Wilfred! Kissing her!
It had to have been a joke. A bad one, to be sure, connected to that silly declaration of love that he had pretended, but precisely why Wilfred would make such a jest, Irene could not tell.
What did it mean? And why was her pulse thundering so rapidly? And how could she still taste him on her tongue, sharp and spiced, like the whiskey, but also utterly different?
For a moment, Irene’s gaze slipped from Wilfred’s eyes to his mouth. His mouth, which had kissed her, and so expertly too, as though he knew precisely what she wanted, how she wanted to be kissed. She had not even known herself.
Wilfred has been my first kiss.
Utter madness entered her mind and for a moment, Irene wondered if it would feel that good, that delicious, if she kissed him again.
If that was what kissing was, she could see why so many people were enamored with it.
Maybe she should just lean forward, ever so slowly, and capture Wilfred’s lips in hers and—
“You are right! You are right, of course. Too much whiskey,” Wilfred said suddenly, launching up from the sofa so rapidly that Irene was rocked by the sudden absence of him beside her. “That’s the last time I permit your father to pour me a third glass!”
He was laughing, a laughter of genuine merriment, and Irene attempted to laugh with him as though nothing of import had happened.
And in a way, nothing had. Why, all that had happened was that Wilfred had gotten a tad tipsy—something Irene had never done, but she had seen her mother do it once and it had been rather funny.
He had said some words that he did not quite mean—oh, he meant some of it, but not like that—and he had mistaken her for this mystery woman whom Irene had very carefully not inquired about again.
That was all. It was nothing.
“Yes, my…my father’s measurements are generous,” Irene said weakly, remaining on the sofa, as she was not quite sure that her legs would hold her yet. She could still feel the press of Wilfred’s lips on hers. “You have seen the way he serves Christmas pudding.”
Wilfred laughed again and Irene joined him, but there was something different, something strange about their laughter now.
Before, it had been natural, light, warming. It had filled the space between them and told Irene that there were no better friends in the world than the two of them.
Now it was sharp, harsh, and though it still filled the space between them, it seemed to push them apart rather than bring them together.
“I had better be off,” Wilfred said suddenly, turning and marching toward the door.
Irene almost fell over her own feet in her hasty attempt to get up from the sofa and launch across the drawing room. “Wait!”
Her best friend had already reached the front door where the family footman was silently handing him his greatcoat and top hat. Both of them turned to her.
“Yes?” Wilfred said politely.
Irene stared at him, then at Dempster, then back to Wilfred. What had she wanted him to wait for? What had she wanted to say?
The thought had flittered into her mind so quickly that it had slipped through her fingers before she could adequately grasp it. Now she was standing before her friend like a fool, not quite sure what she wanted from him but knowing she wanted something.
“I’ll see His Grace out, Dempster,” Irene heard herself saying, her mouth clearly deciding that it could take it from here without her.
“As you wish, Miss Chance.” Dempster bowed, walking to the drawing room and entering quietly.
When the door shut, Irene said in a rush, “You have not forgotten that we have agreed to go shopping together.”
Wilfred smiled, and there was a sadness in his eyes despite the smile, and Irene did not know why it hurt her so much. “I will meet you on the corner of Milsom Street and George Street.”
“Yes. Right. Good.” Irene wanted to say something else but the words wouldn’t come. And what could she say? So, we are now best friends who have kissed? Please don’t tell anyone else about this? Why did you kiss me, and why do I want you to do it again?
“Perhaps you should bring Theodora this time.”
“Teddy? Bring Teddy?” Irene was quite sure she wouldn’t, no matter what he said, but words still failed her.
“It isn’t proper. To be alone together. Particularly in public.”
“Oh. Right.” Pain lanced through Irene’s chest. He had not meant that.
He did not agree with the old biddies of Society.
Why, Wilfred would never so much as look at her in that way they were all so worried about.
Well, no, he had looked at her in that way.
He’d kissed her. Even if nobody knew that. She swallowed.
“Irene?”
“Yes?” she said eagerly.
Wilfred put a hand on the door handle. “I have to go. It’s late.”
“Yes. Yes, of course you do. Of course it is.” Irene laughed awkwardly and hated the sound. Since when had she ever felt awkward around Wilfred? “I will see you soon.”
“Yes, you will. Good night, Irene.”
Something in her tightened. It was gone in a moment, but she could not pretend it had not happened, nor could she understand why it had. “Yes. Good night, Wilfred.”
He had stepped through the door and closed it before Irene could say another word—not that it mattered.
She could not think of another word that she could utter.
Instead, she leaned against the door and sank slowly to the ground.
With a shaking hand, she raised her fingers to her lips and touched them.
Just moments ago, Wilfred had been kissing her.
How on earth was she ever to see him in public again?