Chapter 2 #2
When he didn’t say anything else, she felt obliged to add, “But we do not know the earl’s family very well.”
The impoverished relations of a mere baronet’s wife did not call upon Lord Wyden at will.
Others had asked similar questions when she’d related her place of origin, and she’d cheerfully admitted to a lack of intimacy with whichever family they’d inquired about. But it was difficult to do anything cheerfully before Lord Wrenworth: He had seen how dazzled she was by him.
Her besottedness had meant nothing to him, she was sure.
But she was not one to share her sentiments.
She didn’t mind letting it be known that she liked the neighbor’s new puppy or that she thought three weeks of continuous rain verged on bothersome.
But anything strong enough to be labeled an emotion—fear for Matilda’s future, fear of a failed London Season, fear of another inexplicable bout of romantic idiocy—those she could bear only by keeping them locked away, far from prying eyes.
But there was no concealing anything from his ridiculously beautiful prying eyes.
She felt cornered.
“A shame,” he replied softly. “I know the earl’s sons very well. We’d have met much sooner had you been acquainted with them.”
She was staring down into her plate, but at his tone, which made her feel strange things, she could not help turning her face, looking into his eyes for the first time since she saw him across the drawing room, before the start of dinner.
Instantly a fierce heat swept over her. Had she thought that there was nothing erotic in the attention he directed her way? That must have been a different lifetime altogether. For this gaze of his made her think of…skin. Flesh. And, God help her, unnatural acts.
When she had assessed herself for her chances on the marriage mart, it had been immediately apparent that her décolletage needed help. A great deal of help. But did bust improvers, in this regard, constitute flagrant cheating? She’d agonized over that seemingly minor decision.
Then she had overheard Lady Balfour gossiping to Mrs. Cantwell about her black-sheep brother-in-law’s new mistress. A flat-chested little thing, and not even that pretty—but I hear she is willing to take part in the most unnatural acts in the bedroom.
Growing up, Louisa had occasionally been allowed to visit her paternal great-aunts, two sisters who lived in a charming little cottage in Bournemouth, on a bluff overlooking the sea.
And by the time Louisa was thirteen, she’d come to the realization that those “maiden” aunts had once practiced the oldest profession in the world—as a team, no less.
The elderly women would spy on the gentlemen’s bathing section—where the bathing suit was one’s own skin and nothing else—with a field glass, and cackle gleefully between themselves.
Their reminiscences, when they believed Louisa otherwise occupied, had taught her a great many things that Mrs. Cantwell would have considered grossly indelicate.
The existence of unnatural acts in the bedroom, for example. And the fact that a woman could outlast such acts with her good humor perfectly intact.
So should Louisa’s future husband find out that she had far less chest than he’d been led to believe, she could redeem herself by being lax in her standards in the bedroom—and not be particularly worse off, if her great-aunts’ examples were anything to go by.
She had immediately set out to study every bust improver in the house, speculating on just how much more they could be padded without making her look ludicrous. Unnatural acts she’d never thought of again—until now.
There was nothing openly lascivious in Lord Wrenworth’s contemplation—Lady Balfour, glancing approvingly their way, clearly saw only an appropriate interest. But Louisa read in those same eyes a disastrous knowledge.
He had perceived that she was not as indifferent to him as she’d like to be—if only they hadn’t run into each other outside the bookshop! But now, instead of regarding her as utterly beneath his notice, he enjoyed making her betray herself.
“Would you like me to introduce them to you?” he asked.
She could see both of his hands, exactly where they ought to be. Yet somehow it felt as if he had touched her, before all the other dinner guests.
“Introduce…whom to me?”
“The Marsden brothers, Lord Wyden’s sons,” he said, his manner kind and helpful. “Excellent gentlemen, one and all.”
Then he smiled slightly, because she was so flustered that she forgot what they’d been talking about only seconds ago.
It was, she realized, going to be the longest dinner of her life.
* * *
It was, Felix realized, going to be the most riveting dinner of his life.
And possibly the most arousing.