Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
It was a nightmare. A bad dream, that was all, Betsy tried to tell herself.
Her hand was sweating, her grip on the door handle starting to slide as she attempted to open it again. She must not be twisting it right, that was it; all she had to do was perhaps twist it the other way?
No matter what Betsy did, the door did not open, and with each passing second, she was acutely aware of the handsome gentleman behind her who had so recently been teasing her.
“I think you want very much to be kissed by me. I think you saw me watching you out there, in the drawing room, and wished every other person in that room to be gone, leaving only you and I.”
She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how nervous she was, Betsy told herself. why, in just a moment the door was going to open and she would be able to escape him.
Escape this strange tension that had blossomed between them. escape the sense that he knew her far better than she had ever permitted anyone to know her before.
Betsy shoved none-so-gently at the door as she pulled the door handle again. Then she pushed it, just for good measure.
“Oh dear,” came a voice that was far too delighted for her liking.
Very slowly, Betsy raised her gaze to Rupert and tried to think.
Panic was not going to help here. Yes, she was locked in a room, which she did not like at the best of times. Yes, she was locked in someone else’s room, which meant she had no idea where a key would be.
Yes, she was locked in someone else’s room with a gentleman who seemed far too happy about it. a handsome gentleman, one who just for a moment there, she had been convinced was about to…
Betsy resolutely pushed the thought away. he had not been about to kiss her, he would surely not even consider something so scandalous, she was sure of it.
He may not be a true gentleman, but if he had been invited to Lady Jarrold’s card party, he at least had some sense of decorum and respectability, even if he ignored it.
And she had certainly not been about to kiss him.
Betsy swallowed, trying not to think of the strange heat which had rushed through her when Rupert had got so close to her, so close she had been sure for a heartbeat that he was going to lean forward and put into practice what he had been speaking of.
Most scandalously speaking of.
There were gentle noises through the door, she could hear them. Lady Jarrold and the rest of her guests were still there, and it appeared no one had noticed she had gone missing.
Drat that George, and his courtesan! Betsy could not help but thinking. If he had just stayed for five minutes more, then he would have been able to get her out of this scrape!
As it was…
“Well, we shall have to get to know each other a little better, I fear,” came the cool, slightly teasing voice behind her.
Betsy drew herself up to her full height and glared at the gentleman she blamed entirely for this predicament.
“This is all your fault,” she pointed out.
Rupert raised an eyebrow, making himself if possible even more handsome than he had been before. It was most irritating. How dare he do such a thing!
“My fault?” he repeated. “I hardly think a malfunctioning door can be laid at my feet.”
Betsy’s hand was still on the doorhandle, and desperate to leave the library, she tugged at it again to no avail. Her gaze darted about the room; it was well-proportioned, well furnished, and rather elegant. Its only failing, as far as she was concerned, was that it had no other door.
No way out.
“You intended this from the start,” said Betsy, narrowing her eyes at the gentleman. “You must have known this door would stick!”
Rupert grinned blandly. “I had no idea.”
She snorted and turned back to the door, listening hard.
The chatter of the guests was still there, and for a wild moment she considered calling out for help.
Someone would have a key, would they not?
Lady Jarrold’s butler, or housekeeper. Someone who could rescue her from this ridiculous situation.
Betsy bit her lip. But then she would have to explain, wouldn’t she? Have to explain how it was that she had allowed herself to get into such a predicament in the first place.
And Rupert would arguably most correctly state that it had been her, Betsy, who had dragged him in here. As though she had any thoughts to something scandalous!
But that would not matter, would it? the scandal would be in their being alone here in the first place, with no one, no chaperone, no witness to prove that nothing untoward had occurred.
No, she could not cry out for help. Unless—
“Now then, let us go through,” came a quiet voice through the door.
Betsy started. it was Lady Jarrold! Was she to be her rescuer; was she about to take her guests into the library, discover the jammed lock, and release her?
“I have laid out the ballroom for our card games, far more room than here,” came Lady Jarrold’s voice.
There were murmurs of grateful assent, happy chatter, chatter that seemed to be getting quieter and quieter…
“No,” whispered Betsy, tugging at the door despite knowing there was no possibility now of it moving.
Her only chance to be found before real scandal was laid at her door was disappearing, and if she did not have the bravery to cry out now, to request help, to demand that someone release her—
“Elizabeth?”
Betsy swallowed. there was silence on the other side of the door. They were gone, gone to the other side of the house, and it would be hours before anyone dared to leave a card table of Lady Jarrold.
And even then, the guests may just go home. There would be no one looking for her, George would just assume she would call her carriage and be off home. Perhaps her driver would assume George had escorted her home.
And that meant…
“Elizabeth?”
Betsy rounded on the gentleman she blamed squarely for this whole debacle. “Lady Elizabeth! The very least you could do, now you have got me into this mess, is address me with the proper title!”
For some reason, that seemed to amuse him. “I could say the same to you.”
She snorted and strode away from the door, heart beating frantically as she looked around the library—her prison, she could not help but thinking. As though a man like that had a title!
And then an idea occurred to her—an idea that should have occurred to her the moment she realised the door was not budging.
Of course, this was all his doing.
“Give it to me,” she said smartly, turning to Rupert.
He grinned. “My word, I did not think you would ask for a kiss that easily.”
“Not a—you brute, you know that is not what I meant!” said Betsy, heat rushing through her chest at the very idea. “The key!”
“Key?” repeated Rupert blandly.
Betsy swallowed down a rather rude retort that no lady should ever utter in public, and tried to get a hold of herself. he had the key, she just knew it!
“You have the key to the door, don’t you?” she said quietly, glaring at the man who had got her into such a scrape. “You must have locked the door, I know not when, I was paying so little attention to you—”
“You wound me, Elizabeth.”
“Lady Elizabeth!” she would not repeat it, this was getting ridiculous. “Give me that key!”
“I have no key.”
Betsy glared at the miscreant before her.
Why did he have to make everything so difficult?
All he had to do was admit that he had tried for a kiss, failed, and hand over the key.
Betsy would be able to slip into the ballroom, whisper to a lady that she had attempted to find a toilette and got lost, and all would be well.
No scandal would be attached to her name whatsoever.
“You have the key,” said Betsy slowly, “and I demand that you hand it over.”
A slow smile was spreading across Rupert’s face, and Betsy’s heart sank.
“If you do not believe me, then I suggest you search me,” Rupert said easily.
Heat pinked Betsy’s face and she dropped her gaze at such a suggestion. The very idea of—what on earth was the man playing at?
Did he not see that he was in just as much danger from a scandal as she was? Heaven forbid they were discovered…did he not understand that they would, if the news got out…be forced to wed?
It was all Rupert could do not to groan with desire.
Would she actually search him? Oh, the thought of Elizabeth’s delicate fingers carefully moving over his body, prodding and poking, searching for a key that did not exist…
Rupert’s mouth was dry, but no matter how many times he swallowed, it was not possible for him to gain any calm.
They were locked in. for a short moment, before she had revealed her very clear distaste for being locked in the library with him, he had wondered whether the minx had locked them in herself.
A clever tactic, from any lady, to get a little more time with a gentleman that would be considered proper.
But there was no falseness in the look of abject horror on Elizabeth’s face that she was trapped in the library with him.
No one could falsify those wide eyes, that panic tugging at the corners of her mouth, the way her whole body recoiled at the idea that she may have to spend the rest of the evening in here with him.
Such a shame, Rupert mused. He could not think of a better way to spend a night.
Well. Perhaps one.
“You have it,” Elizabeth said, accusingly.
Rupert spread out his arms and attempted his most charming smile. “As I said, you are most welcome to—”
“You must be mad!” She had moved even further away from him now, as though the cavernous library was not quite large enough for the two of them. “You think you can just entice me to—”
“Entice? Now that’s an interesting word,” said Rupert with a wry smile.
Perhaps she did know who he was, after all. he had not thought it possible that any lady did not, the news of his arrival had been plastered all about town for weeks, as far as he could see.