Chapter Six #3
“You see?” he soothed. “When I stand just so you are safely concealed. No one in the pit or the other boxes can see a thing.”
“How…gallant.” Though his point suggested he’d been aware she could be seen in a compromising position just a few moments before. “Am I truly safe from scandal, now?”
“Perhaps.” He reached over her head, further adjusted the curtain, and the shadows around them deepened. “Then again, perhaps not.”
Had she heard menace in his tone? She wasn’t sure, as Willard was as smiling as ever. She gazed up into his eyes, startled she could still see them from the light spilling around the curtains’ edge.
Or maybe, along with menace and peril, she was only imagining their deep green glitter, too.
What was the word Emily had used for Willard’s eyes?
Mesmerizing.
Was she mesmerized right now? Her limbs certainly felt heavy. She willed them to move, but her body remained stationary.
Strange.
Shouldn’t she be inching toward the door just beside her?
“Better now?” His voice was ever smooth and calming.
“Better,” she found herself repeating.
“In a way, we are so ve-ry luck-y mot-her felt her-self ov-er-come with heat…”
What a sing-song voice he had, a lulling cadence.
“Lucky?” she prompted, when he seemed disinclined to continue.
“I am, I think we can agree, of above average intelligence.” The right corner of his lip quirked up. “But even if had I schemed for days, I could not have come up with a better plan to be alone with such tempt-ing love-li-ness…”
Heat rose in her cheeks.
“…And in such a romantic place.”
“Ro-man-tic.” She swayed as she recreated the rhythm he’d given the word.
Dullardish, she’d become. Quite odd, indeed. But her sudden transformation only served to widen his smile. He approved.
“Let me see what I can do to further enhance your appearance.” He withdrew a long thin bit of ivory from his pocket.
While he kept his eyes on her, not his implement, as he pulled open the mechanism, her gaze was drawn to a slash of polished metal. Gaslamp light winked off the blade. Small etchings along the knife’s scintillating edge suggested recent sharpening.
Her gaze followed the shank up, up as he lifted his arm toward the garland of fake flowers just above their heads. He sliced off a single, white bud. Then, with knife still aloft in one hand, he tucked the bud behind her ear with the other.
Millie kept herself very still.
“Pretty,” he said.
She flushed again. Not, as she first thought, a threat, then, but a sweet deed. Was it not?
She wet her lips. “You’re standing very close, Lord Willard.”
“How kind”—he further crowded her against the wall—“to invite me to come closer still.”
Her mouth fell open. She’d intended to tell him she’d made no such suggestion, but she couldn’t quite form the words.
After her accidental stumble against Neville in the yew maze, she’d been pressed up against him even closer than she was against Willard now. But she wasn’t feeling any of the same sensations. In fact, she felt somewhat uneasy.
But she’d been deeply hurt when Neville had roughly cast her aside with a scold. Uncomfortable as she was, she didn’t want to cause Willard that same embarrassment and pain.
Then again… Her gaze moved back up and to the right, focused entirely on the blade, even as he adjusted the flower in the hair.
“Better now. Everything is better, now. Don’t you agree?”
Everything is better…?
“Millicent”—he touched beneath her chin and then guided her face—“you must answer me when I ask a question.”
Her brow troubled. “Must I?”
“Only polite,” he added.
That, she supposed was true. “What did you ask me?”
“I asked if you liked my gift,” he replied.
Had he? She didn’t think he had. “You mean the flower?”
“Yes, Sweet.” He spoke slowly, as if she were doltish. “The flower I chose and cut for you myself. The flower I just placed in your hair.”
“Yes.” She frowned, studying his sluggishly moving lips. “I suppose.”
Where had the knife gone?
He’d brought his hand down by her side, but she hadn’t heard a closing click. Surely that couldn’t be the blade’s length she felt against her leg….
“Millicent…Ah, Millicent…”
She felt his puff of breath with each overpronounced t.
“Will you forgive me?” he questioned in a murmur.
“Shh, shh. Don’t trouble yourself to answer.
” He’d come even closer. “My question, this time, is rhetorical. A peer does not need to ask for forgiveness.” He moistened his lips.
“Nor, I think, is pardon required. We find ourselves in a simple situation. I’ve selected a delectable dessert.
Who could possibly blame me if I take a taste of what has been so clearly proffered to me? ”
Had that question been rhetorical, too?
His voice had gone up at the end, but she wasn’t sure what he’d just asked. She’d been trying to follow his logic. However, his deep, lilting, melodic flow kept her focused on and hearing his words but unable to fully understand them.
She certainly did not expect what happened next.
His lips came down over her own. She struggled to comprehend as he forced his wet, closed mouth against the seam of hers. What in heavens was he—
A kiss. From far away, the word sparked in her mind.
Her first kiss. And she felt…
Nothing.
No shock. No heat. No passion. And—were it not for the small corner of her mind still wondering about his knife—she would not even be feeling fear.
Wait just a moment.
Was she afraid?
Was that the creeping coldness at the back of her neck? She should probably be afraid. If they were caught right now, she would be ruined. Only, all she could think of was how the hand with the blade had simply disappeared, and the pressure against her belly was certainly not flat.