Chapter 7 #2
She gave him a similar up-and-down look. He found that he liked the way she looked, wary of him. Not afraid, but not entirely comfortable. Like his damaged leg didn’t stop her from seeing him as a man.
“I came here to ask precisely that, but now that it’s on offer, I’m not sure that I do,” she said carefully.
He moved forward, and again, she moved back; the space between them grew smaller.
“I think,” he said, “that you are not as brave as you want to appear.” She opened her tempting little mouth in outrage, and he amended his words. “Or, rather, I think that you do not want to be as brave as you appear.”
He stepped forward. She stepped back, and her spine came up against the wall.
“I think,” he went on, “that you have been taking care of yourself for too long.”
“Women can take care of themselves as well as any man,” she retorted, her voice coming out a bit breathy.
Hector took one more step. It would be as easy as breathing to reach out and touch her now.
“They can,” he agreed, pleased with the way this surprised her.
But this was another consequence of growing up far from Society’s strictures; he had seen women carry a babe on one hip and a sheep on the other shoulder.
All the girls in the family who had taken him in could offer assistance at the forge when it was needed.
“But,” he went on, “I don’t think you want that, do you? Do you maybe wonder how good it might feel to let someone take that burden from your shoulders, just for a little while? Maybe you hope you can lean on someone who is strong enough to support ye?”
“No,” she said reflexively. “No, I—”
There was nothing to interrupt her words but the stuttering of her own thoughts. Hector knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he couldn’t help but feel a dizzying rush of satisfaction when her words stopped, and her gaze dropped down to his lips.
“Oh, lass,” he murmured. She was too beautiful. Nobody could have resisted.
He brushed his lips against hers, so lightly that there was barely any contact between them, but enough that he could feel the rush of air as she gasped.
And then—no matter the herculean effort it cost him—he made himself pull back.
“Ye are not ruined yet, princess,” he said. Her hazel eyes had practically turned into dark mirrors; that’s how wide her pupils had gone. “Don’t let those vultures stop you from having what you want.”
Clio looked up at the duke’s house as she left, as though the place might suddenly sprout arms and drag her back inside.
That had … not gone according to plan.
She’d wanted information.
So, she’d gone to the duke. Just to … compare notes. To make sure that they were of one mind.
They had … not been of one mind.
That part was fine. She’d expected him to be combative. Even in their short acquaintance, she was beginning to understand that combative was the Duke of Metford’s default attitude.
She hadn’t expected him to be kind. She hadn’t expected him to encourage her to go after what she wanted.
And she sure as hell hadn’t expected that kiss … if the glancing touch of lips to lips could even be called such a thing.
At least he hadn’t agreed to marry her. She genuinely feared that, in her addled state as she’d tried to reckon with his nearness, his stone-hewn beauty, his sheer masculine energy—
God help her, if he’d said he wished to marry her, she might just have been lost enough to say yes.
Still, she didn’t feel safe from his terrible allure until his house had disappeared out of the carriage window.
When she could no longer glare forbiddingly at Metford Manor, she slumped back against the carriage seat. Good. No decisions had been made.
Admittedly, Aaron was being such a little pest about the matter, glowering and muttering about how Clio’s reputation would be restored by his honor as a duke and an admiral, et cetera.
She wouldn’t deny that she was slightly touched by his brotherly protectiveness, but it was increasingly difficult to find those tender feelings beneath the ire.
She scowled at him all the way home.
Time to talk to the person she should have approached first. Really, this … roil of emotion was her own fault for trying to get answers from men in the first place.
“Phoebe,” she wailed as she found her sister by marriage nibbling at a biscuit while she read what was no doubt a deeply scandalous novel.
Phoebe didn’t really know any other kind of reading existed.
Even so, Phoebe was sufficiently loyal that she immediately set aside her reading when Clio entered. “Phoebe, everything is terrible.”
“Oh, sweet,” Phoebe crooned, opening her arms. “Come here.”
Clio indulged in a little sulk as she tucked herself into Phoebe’s embrace.
“I know you love him and all that nonsense,” Clio pouted, “but Aaron is a complete ninnyhammer, and I hate him.”
“You don’t mean any of that,” Phoebe said amiably, “but I’m sure that he deserves your irritation. I do love him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a man.”
“Men,” Clio said darkly. Phoebe laughed.
“He will come around,” Phoebe said with a level of patience that irritated Clio more than anything. Still, she kept her temper under wraps, if only because she lacked the energy to be angry with anyone else today.
“It’s not just Aaron, though,” she lamented. “I went to see the Duke of Metford, and he—”
“You went to see the Duke of Metford?” Phoebe interrupted, startled. “By yourself?”
Clio pulled out of Phoebe’s arms enough to shoot the older woman an incredulous look.
“Yes, yes, I know how that sounds, coming from me,” Phoebe huffed. She’d spent her years before marriage sneaking to all sorts of scandalous places by herself. “But when I snuck off to meet a specific man, it was—you may have met him once or twice—your brother.”
“This is not like that,” Clio corrected.
“I just … wanted to know where he stood. Where he really stood, not where Aaron wants him to be standing. I mean, he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who listens to what others demand of him.
He was very decisive when the carriage crashed, you understand.
He hauled himself up the side of the carriage like it was nothing, then lifted me out—practically with one arm!
Do you know any gentleman who could lift a lady with one arm? ”
She glanced at Phoebe to punctuate this point, but found herself facing down a deeply irritating smirk.
“It is not like that,” Clio reiterated.
“Of course,” Phoebe said, not remotely convincing. “I understand. I just recognize these feelings …”
“If you say ‘from my brother,’ I am going to slug you,” Clio threatened.
Phoebe didn’t say it, but she went about not saying it in a highly ostentatious manner.
“I’ll grant you that Aaron never pulled me from a dangerous carriage,” Phoebe said. “It sounds like something out of a novel. Tell me how it happened.”
Clio grinned, tucking her leg up beneath her so she could look directly at Phoebe.
“Oh my goodness, it was so sudden!” she exclaimed. “I was just riding along and then all of a sudden, the world was tilting to its side. I covered my head and curled up, of course, so I wasn’t hurt.”
“Thank the Lord,” Phoebe murmured.
Clio shot Phoebe a smile. “Indeed. But I’ll admit that it was rather frightening to find that the bottom of the carriage was now the side. And every time I moved, the whole thing felt very … wobbly.”
Phoebe’s hand went to her chest in alarm.
“And then …” Clio couldn’t hold back her smile.
“All of a sudden, someone appeared at the window, even though it was now atop the whole conveyance.
He climbed like it was nothing! And—did you know that he has an injured leg?
You wouldn't know it from the way he climbed, though. Like it was nothing!”
“You said that,” Phoebe observed, clearly amused.
“Yes, well.” Clio sounded more than a little bit defensive. “It was impressive. That’s all.”
“I’m certain it was,” Phoebe said blandly.
“It was!”
“Of course,” Phoebe said.
“I mean it,” Clio insisted.
“I’m agreeing with you.” Phoebe’s smile was like an attack.
Having a sister was so irritating … but lovely, too, Clio supposed.
“Anyway,” Phoebe said when she let her triumph hang in the air for a moment, “tell me more. I need the details! Paint me a picture; make it like I was truly there.”
Even when Phoebe was driving Clio to distraction, she still adored her sister by marriage. Besides, she liked a dramatic story as much as the next person; she might as well enjoy herself while she was in this safe environment, as Phoebe would never share gossip that would harm Clio’s reputation.
“Well,” she said, leaning forward, getting into the spirit of the thing. “He lifts me out of the carriage, and the whole thing moves again, and then he lowers me down again to the street.”
“Without even breaking a sweat?” Phoebe asked, and Clio knew that Phoebe would use this information to tease her later, but she couldn’t lie.
“Not for a moment,” she said. “And it all wasn’t a moment too soon, either, because no sooner had he put me down on the cobblestones than the whole conveyance tips over with an almighty crash.”
Phoebe’s gasp was extremely gratifying.
“And that might have been the end,” Clio went, really getting into the swing of things, “but then who appears but this awful fellow I met on the ship voyage over, Lord Gwanton. And he starts making all kinds of … comments.”
Phoebe’s expression went dark. “Comments,” she echoed crossly.
“Comments,” Clio agreed. There really wasn’t anything else to say; she wasn’t about to repeat any of the vile things that Gwanton had said. “And then—” She paused; this was the best part. “And then the duke punched him.”
Phoebe let out a little squeak that was honestly even better than the gasp had been.
“It was incredible,” Clio admitted. “And I know it’s very satisfying, since I had also punched Gwanton earlier that day.”
Phoebe, who had been reaching for a biscuit, did an elaborate double-take. Really, she was simply chock full of wonderful reactions today.
“You what?”
Clio waved a hand. “He’s the kind of man who goes around making comments that make him very, very punchable.”
One of the wonderful things about Phoebe was that she was the kind of person who accepted this logic without any further questions.
“You have to admit,” Phoebe said slyly, “that it is sort of romantic that the two of you punched the same man on the same day. Think about all the stories you can tell your grandchildren about how you met.”
“Our grand—” Clio cut herself off with an irritated squawk. “I don’t know where you get such ideas,” she amended with all the dignity she could muster.
“Oh, certainly not,” Phoebe said. “Whyever would I think that you encountering a man to whom you are clearly attracted—”
“I am not attracted to him,” Clio sputtered.
Phoebe ignored her.
“—and to whom you find yourself embroiled in an intriguing scandal—”
“There is not a scandal! He just rescued me!”
“—should end in a romance between you?”
This was obviously ridiculous, but Phoebe had not proved reactive to Clio’s words, so Clio resorted to the mature and adult choice of throwing a biscuit at her.
“You are an unreasonable woman,” Clio informed her sister, getting to her feet with a huff.
Phoebe was laughing so hard she could scarcely speak. “Fighting shows passion,” she informed Clio’s retreating back through her guffaws. “The same kind of passion that can lead to grandchildren eventually!”
Clio left the room, her sister by marriage’s laughter echoing behind her.
Let Phoebe have her quips and her jokes. Clio was not attracted to that stubborn arse of a duke. She wasn’t.
She couldn’t be. Not without letting all the plans for her life fall apart.