Chapter 4
Half a dozen or so.
By God.
The minx had kissed half the men in the tiny mountain village outside the Swiss finishing school, and she had dared to look him in the eye with defiance sparkling in her emerald gaze and admit it with nary a hint of shame.
As Lion stewed in his study, Miss Fox’s words continued to taunt him.
I am astonished that you are thinking about my backside, she had said.
Oh, he was thinking about her backside. And her front as well.
His thoughts were bloody well consumed with the minx.
What her hair looked like flowing freely over her shoulders.
The tight little points of her nipples protruding from her nightgown.
The full swells of her breasts. The curve of her hips. Her delicate bare feet.
That mouth of hers, always smiling, uttering mockery and taunts at every turn. What he would give to tame those sultry lips with his. To kiss her until she was breathless, her eyes glazed, and there were no more thoughts of vexing him running wild in her clever brain.
At least the snow had finally stopped.
Lion ran a hand through his hair and paced the length of his study for what must have been the hundredth time that afternoon.
He had foregone luncheon to avoid Miss Fox’s maddening presence, and now he was hungry and irritable.
He ought to have listened to Stevens and taken a tray whilst he finished reviewing the bills that had been sent up from Hawthorne House in London.
The efficient running of households and estates was so damned costly, and thanks to the profligate dukes preceding him—his own father included—Lion was left in a constant state of near-destitution.
If only Lila and Violetta would find proper husbands and marry them.
It would be a great deal of weight off his shoulders.
Their father had died when Lion had been a green lad of eighteen, and their mother had gone not long after, leaving Lion to be father and mother to a pair of young girls who had grown to become wayward hellions.
They had spent most of their lives in the country, away from London and town bronze.
By the time he’d realized how woefully lacking the tutelage of their governess had been, Lila and Violetta had been eighteen and nineteen and had yet to even have their presentations at court.
He had scraped together every last ha’penny to send them to finishing school in an effort to give them the polish and elegance they would need to land suitable matches in polite society.
And then they had been summarily sent home because of the influence of Miss Adelia Fox, a spoiled American hoyden who didn’t need sophistication or refinement to recommend her when she had her father’s immeasurable fortune.
Three years of mounting bills later, and both his sisters still remained unwed.
That was what he needed to remember every time he found himself entranced by Miss Fox’s charming retroussé nose or the sparkle in her eyes. She was the source of a great deal of his present state of penury and misery.
She was—
The faint strains of music reached him, causing Lion’s strides and his whirling thoughts to both falter. Piano music. Singing.
Miss Fox.
He found himself wandering from his study, following the sound to the music room that had been his mother’s greatest pride at Marchingham Hall. Lion hadn’t played in years, but he kept the instruments tuned for his sisters’ sakes.
Neither Lila nor Violetta sang the way Miss Fox did, however.
“See the blazing Yule before us,” she crooned.
He stood at the threshold, watching her. Miss Fox’s back was to him, her golden hair plaited into an elaborate braid and then woven into a chignon high on her head. Her dainty fingers moved over the ivory keys with ease and skill as she sang.
“Strike the harp and join the chorus,” she continued. “Fa la la la la la la la la.”
It was a Christmas carol. Of course it was.
He had never seen a woman so dismayed to find a lack of Christmas trees and other maudlin decorations hanging about. And Lion couldn’t say why, but he found himself mesmerized by the lilting strains of her husky voice as she reached the final chorus of fa la las.
When she finished, he applauded, and she gave a start at the first clap. Swinging about on the piano bench, she pressed a hand over her heart.
“Oh, Your Grace, you startled me!”
At least she hadn’t called him Your Graceship, he reasoned, venturing deeper into the music room for unfathomable reasons.
“Forgive me,” he said, trying not to take note of the way the sunlight glinted off the snow beyond the window and danced over the burnished gold of her hair. “I heard music, and I couldn’t help but to investigate the source.”
“Aunt Pearl is weary from our travels as well as yesterday’s…
well.” Miss Fox sent him a wry smile. “As you can imagine, it wasn’t our plan for the carriage to become mired in the snowbank, nor for her to have to ride through the snow carrying Dandy.
She decided to nap this afternoon with Dandy, and I chose to go exploring.
When I discovered the piano, I couldn’t resist.”
She was rambling, he realized, bemused. Could it be that Miss Adelia Fox, the most brazen and unapologetic woman he had ever met, was embarrassed to have been found commandeering his music room and singing as if she had an audience the size of a cathedral instead of only herself?
Lion stopped just short of the piano bench, near enough to catch the faintest hint of her scent and yet far enough away that he couldn’t be tempted to do anything more than observe.
“You are talented at playing and singing, Miss Fox,” he said. “Although I may find fault with your choice of song, the melody was delightful.”
“You find fault with my choice of song?” she sounded affronted. “What is wrong with ‘Deck the Halls,’ sir? I think it perfectly agreeable at this time of year.”
“This time of year?”
“Christmas, of course.” She spoke to him slowly, enunciating as if he were an infant struggling to understand.
At last, he was the one who was vexing her. Lion was quite enjoying himself.
He shrugged. “I must say, aside from the obligatory visit to the pew, I’ve never paid much notice to it.”
Miss Fox gasped as if he had announced he had recently committed a murder and had been keeping the bloodied knife used to perpetrate the crime hidden beneath his bed.
“Never paid much notice?” she repeated. “Poor Letty and Lila. Little wonder they were desperate to join me in New York City for a Fox family Christmas. Mama hosts a wonderful ball. I would have dearly loved for them to attend. Only the cream of high society is invited, naturally. You needn’t have feared that Letty and Lila would have found themselves unacceptable American beaus.
Mama is wretchedly haughty when it comes to these sorts of things. ”
“The ball wasn’t the reason I denied them the visit,” he said and then could have kicked himself for the way Miss Fox’s lovely face instantly fell.
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” She gave him her customary sunny smile, but it appeared forced. “The reason you wouldn’t allow them to come to New York City for Christmas was me.”
He held her stare, annoyed with himself for the pang of guilt that went through him at her pronouncement.
Why should he feel badly for protecting his sisters?
It wasn’t as if his concerns were without merit.
The hoyden had confessed to kissing half a dozen Swiss lads before Madame Mallette had charged into the tavern and saved Violetta and Lila from certain ruin.
Lion frowned. At least, he hoped they had been saved from ruin. He had never thought to question either of them too deeply on the matter. Questioning one’s maiden sisters about kissing made a man deuced uncomfortable. It wasn’t proper.
“I’m afraid it was your conduct,” he said gently. “I could never, in good conscience, send my sisters away to another continent under the aegis of the hellion who was responsible for their rejection from the Académie Clairemont.”
She crossed her arms and huffed indignantly. “Did you come to the music room with the sole intention of insulting me, Your Graceship? If so, you might have just as easily remained hidden away in whatever little ducal dungeon you’ve been occupying since you stormed away at breakfast.”
The sheer daring of this woman.
“I don’t have dungeons, ducal or otherwise. And I most certainly wasn’t hiding.”
Actually, that last bit was a lie. He had been hiding. Hiding from her, specifically. But he would sooner choke on the table scraps she’d been carrying away to her mongrel than admit it. Because it was far too damning. The implications…he couldn’t even allow himself to turn them over in his mind.
Miss Fox gave him an arch look and then turned back to the piano, settling her fingers over the keys. Without a word, she began to play another song.
“It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old…”
Her voice soared. It moved over him like a caress. Held his rapt attention. He remained, listening. Drinking in the sight and the sound. And he hadn’t an inkling why.
Half a dozen village lads, he reminded himself bitterly.
But it didn’t matter. Because when Adelia Louise Fox sang, it was with a voice to rival the angels.
He wanted to bask in it. To capture it somehow so that he could listen to it again and again.
Lion knew that he ought to quit the room.
That he should return to his study and cease lingering about, listening to her musical efforts.
And yet, he lingered.
When the song was over, she moved on to “The First Noel” without missing a note, singing it with equal beauty. Despite himself, he was entranced. She was bold and maddening and quite shockingly improper, her lack of manners nothing short of astounding.
But he admired her just the same.
She finished playing and turned back to him, her expression challenging. “You’re still here.”