Chapter Nine #2
Irene barely knew what to say, what to think.
The almost accident with the scissors was nothing compared to the frazzle she felt within her.
There was something…something wrong, something off-balance about the way her heart was beating as she stood still held by Wilfred’s warm fingers.
Goodness, she could feel the heat of his palms through her gown as though he were touching her bare skin.
She swallowed. “I… I think it is time for me to go home.”
“Excellent idea,” Wilfred said determinedly. “I shall escort you.”
“Oh, no, she’s my cousin. The responsibility to chaperone belongs with family,” said Samuel, though Irene could not help but notice it was weakly stated.
“Nonsense. I’m going in that direction, anyway, and you can trust her with me,” Wilfred said confidently. “It isn’t as if her parents haven’t let her be alone with me many times before.”
Something like a tingling thrill passed up Irene’s spine, though she had absolutely no idea why. She had never heard Wilfred sound like that. So… So self-assured. So confident.
Samuel was shrugging as he started to leave the dining room. “I’ll not tell anyone. I have a distant relative to visit. A great-aunt who has come to Bath for the waters.”
Irene’s curiosity picked up. “Great-aunt? Do we share her?”
“Yes, one of our fathers’ distant relations, I’m told. I thought I’d look in on her. She’s bound to a chair and hasn’t been able to see much of Bath,” Samuel said with a small smile. “I thought she would appreciate the visit.”
“You’re a good man,” Irene said cheerfully, but she was halted from saying anymore by the soft murmur in her ear.
“Are you ready to go?”
There was absolutely no reason why her whole body should quiver as though warm air had been gently blown over her naked skin—and yet that was precisely what Irene experienced as Wilfred spoke.
It was ridiculous. Ridiculous!
“I… I… Yes,” Irene managed, trying to smile. “Yes, I am ready.”
It was with a rather vague sense of aloofness, like she were floating, that she walked out of the dining room and along the resplendent corridor—far more exquisitely decorated than her home, with luxurious wallpaper and gold-gilt frames around Old Master paintings—to the hallway.
And Wilfred was beside her.
Strange. He was not touching her, but Irene was somehow far more aware of his presence than usual. Was the man using a different cologne?
Irene inhaled deeply. No, it was the same scent as always.
Something uniquely Wilfred, combined with sandalwood and a sharp hint of jasmine he had started wearing when he had gone up to university.
It was so Wilfred that on the rare occasion that Irene walked past a jasmine plant, all she could think about was him.
That had not changed. So what had?
“Here, let me,” Wilfred said with a clearing of his throat, taking her pelisse from a footman at the door as she finished putting on her hat and gloves.
It was ridiculous. The man had helped her into a pelisse countless times over the years. In truth, Irene wondered whether Wilfred had helped her on with a pelisse more than her own brother. More than Dempster.
So her body should not have responded the way it did as Wilfred helped guide her arm through a sleeve, slowly lifting up the heavy fabric to rest on her shoulders, his fingers smoothing down the fabric as though he were stroking her.
Irene found her eyelashes closing, just for a moment, as she enjoyed his touch.
Then her eyes snapped open. Enjoyed his touch? Wilfred’s?
“You are fortunate the weather has held, though I think it may snow again before the day is out,” Wilfred said conversationally, as though absolutely nothing had happened between them.
Irene blinked as they stepped out into the cold afternoon air. And of course, nothing had happened between them. Nothing at all.
“Yes. Snow,” was all she managed.
Wilfred took her hand without asking and placed it on his arm as they started off down the street. “Are you certain you are quite well? You seem to have taken a bit of a turn there.”
Irene swallowed and attempted to calibrate her body back to equilibrium.
Nothing happened. Oh, she had almost speared her own foot with a pair of scissors, but Dr. Walsingham was in Bath or there would be someone else that her family could call on, should the worst have happened.
The point was that it had not, and so there was absolutely no reason to feel slightly giddy, slightly breathless, somewhat as though her legs weren’t working properly.
Irene glanced up at the gentleman beside her and the pit of her stomach did that strange melting thing again.
It couldn’t have been Wilfred, could it?
How was he different?
“Oh—careful now!”
Irene almost cried out as the sudden lack of Wilfred twisted within her. He had dropped her hand without a second glance and rushed away, and for one horrible moment, she thought it was because he had seen his precious Miss Fletcher and realized he would far rather be with her.
But that was not what had happened at all.
“This street can be particularly troublesome,” Wilfred was saying genially to a little, old lady who was standing on the edge of the pavement. “Here, please—allow me.”
Irene watched, a small smile growing into a larger one as Wilfred carefully looked right, then left, then right again, waiting for a gap in the rumbling carriages and speedily moving horses. Only when there was a significant gap did he take the old woman’s arm and slowly help her across the road.
He was just so…so good.
That was perhaps what Irene had been trying to explain to her cousin Samuel a few minutes ago. There were many words a person could use to describe Wilfred. Charming, jovial, rapturous. Perhaps even handsome, though Irene had certainly never dwelled on that fact.
But everyone who knew the man could agree that Wilfred was very, very good.
Wilfred said something to the old woman, both of them now on the other side of the road, and the woman beamed and patted his arm.
She watched as he bowed to her most politely—far more politely than a duke really needed to—and waited patiently for there to be a big enough gap in the traffic for him to jog over the road back to her.
And she watched, knowing that something most strange was happening to her as she did so.
“Right, where were we?” Wilfred said cheerfully, offering his arm.
Irene took it and wondered how on earth she had not noticed his many qualities before.
Oh, she had. She knew Wilfred better than she knew anyone.
But she had never realized just how unusual he was.
Charming yet respectful. Kind yet direct if needed.
Just as polite to strangers as he would have been to the Queen of England.
“Irene?”
Irene started. They were walking again along the pavement. When had they started walking? “I beg your pardon?”
“I asked whether you had purchased all your Christmas presents yet,” repeated Wilfred with a grin as they turned a corner. “Although I suppose you have time, if there are still a few you need to choose.”
“I… Yes. No. Almost all of them,” Irene heard herself saying.
Was she—was she blushing?
She was! And she was blushing because as they had turned a corner, the most outlandish thing had occurred.
Irene had looked up at him, his side profile as they walked along together, and realized—
Wilfred Matthew Kirk Chesterham Zouch, Duke of Aynor, is an incredibly attractive man.
Not just attractive: handsome. There were plenty of charismatic people—Irene knew a few—who were not traditionally good-looking but had sufficient charm to attract notice.
But Wilfred was not one of those gentlemen. He had the Grecian profile of a statue, all chiseled and fine eyes, a sparkle in his expression and a strength of character in his gaze that meant he was a physical specimen of intense beauty.
And his figure… Irene wondered how she had so rarely never noticed it before. Tall, broad, his physique would have been imposing in another man, but Wilfred was impressive in a different way. Impressively kind. And with very nice hands in his kid gloves.
Irene almost tripped over her own feet. ‘Very nice hands’? Where had that thought come from?
“You are very quiet,” Wilfred said, dropping his voice so that only she could hear him. “Is everything quite well?”
“Yes, yes, all fine,” Irene said hastily, trying not to look at his hands, gloved as they were.
How on earth had she not noticed, for years, that her best friend was one of the most handsome men in Society?
Why had no one told her?
“It’s just, you look a tad hot—”
“Quite well, as I said,” she said firmly, cheeks blazing.
“Good. It’s important to me,” Wilfred said quietly, his smile lilting in a way that made Irene’s pulse skip a beat. “That you are well.”
Because we are best friends, Irene reminded herself as she resisted the urge to fan herself or unbutton her pelisse. They had been best friends for… Well, forever.
The trouble was, she was starting to notice things these last few weeks that she had never noticed before.
Things she would have expected to notice.
Like how safe and warm she felt when her arm was entwined with his own.
Like how her spirits always rose when Wilfred walked into a room.
Like just how envious she was of that Miss Fletcher, standing in her place by Wilfred’s side—
‘Her’ place?
“Here you are,” came Wilfred’s voice from a long way away. “Home. Your home, that is.”
Irene blinked up at the townhouse as though it had somehow erupted from the ground. “Yes. Home.”
And the thought of stepping inside, of stepping away from this man, was so suddenly repellent that Irene instinctively held tighter to Wilfred’s arm.
“Reeny?”
“Don’t call me that,” Irene said vaguely. “Wilfred, what are you doing this afternoon?”
“This afternoon?” Her best friend frowned at the question. “Escorting you home, currently.”
“I mean, what are your plans for after this?” she persisted.
This is a foolish idea. She did not even know why she was suggesting it. She did not know what to do with herself, her wild thoughts, her inappropriate appreciation of the man’s physique.
Of Wilfred’s body! It was ridiculous!
Wilfred took a deep breath, his broad chest expanding, and Irene’s heart tightened. “I have no plans.”
“Then… Then why don’t we keep walking?” Irene suggested, her mouth inexplicably dry.
“Walking?”
“Walking.”
Clearly, her suggestion was not a good one. “What, just…around Bath?”
“Around Bath,” Irene said as strongly as she could manage.
Articulating why, precisely, this was important to her was rather a challenge, but she would try it. Because she wanted to. Because she wanted him. His company.
“Alone?”
“Well, we’ve already started a walk alone, haven’t we? I’m not about to step inside and inform my mother of that fact to request a chaperone now.”
Wilfred, still evidently muddled, didn’t have a witty retort for that. “But walk some more? For what purpose?”
Irene swallowed. “For the purpose of walking around. Together.”
His brow had unfurrowed at her last word and a smile beamed out from Wilfred’s face that warmed Irene so directly, she could leave her pelisse at home and walk around in naught but her gown—or less. “Together. Yes, let’s… Let’s walk around.”
And I am not going to examine this too closely, Irene thought privately as they turned from her front door and started a meandering walk along the Bath streets. Because if she did, she was not sure that she was going to like what she found.
As long as she was with him. Wilfred. Then nothing else mattered.