Chapter 2
Two
WILHEM
“This has got to be the worst plan I’ve ever heard of,” Etta grumbled none too quietly while sitting primly next to him in the hackney that they’d been driving around in for quite some time now.
“That’s absurd. There is no plan.”
“Exactly my point, Wilhem.” She shifted in her seat and her unique scent weaved its way through his nostrils, much to his dismay.
Damn brain was far too bribable. Always had been with her.
And she in her wedding dress, still fiddling with the damn lace on her bodice was enough to drive him to drink.
Or back to France. Far away from her. His best-friend-turned-nemesis’ sister.
Damn it was complicated. More complicated due to the wedding dress.
He never expected to see her in one. Alone. In this close proximity for this long.
“What are you planning to do here? Drive around in this carriage all day?”
Averting his eyes from her heaving bosom, he huffed, “God, no.” He’d hardly last an hour alone with her before something truly scandalous would happen.
And there was little doubt in his mind that he’d be the cause of it.
“We’ll drive around until just enough time has passed for your groom to be too embarrassed to take you back, but not enough time has passed to ruin you. Then I’ll return you home.”
“To my fuming brother?”
“Better you than me.” Truer words, and all that.
“Can we at least drive out in the country rather than stalling every few feet in the bustling streets of London?” She asked, back to fiddling with the lacey strips on her bodice.
It looked as if tugging them at just the right angle may undo a lot of what was doing its job of covering her breasts. He refocused on the topic at hand.
“And risk something happening? I think not.”
“Please, Wilhem.” He could feel her peering over at him. Don’t look up. Do not look up. Whatever you do, do not meet her eyes.
He looked up. Hell and damnation.
Her honey brown eyes instantly melted his resolve. It was a damn good thing that she had no clue the power she had over him else she could take him for a whole lot more than a ride in the country.
“Fine,” he mumbled just before calling out new instructions to the driver. “Are you happy now?”
In response, she crossed her arms and pouted her kissable lips. Forbidden lips. Lips he’d been warned off of long ago. Lips that still met him in his dreams, wrapped around his—
“Converation,” he blurted out. “Let’s converse.” Noise of any kind had to be better than his silent depraved thoughts. “Why on God’s green earth did Leland think you and Ralph would suit?”
She turned her pushed out lips to face him and it took a hell of a lot of willpower to refrain from devouring her.
He should have never given in to Tilly’s request—plea, threat—that he rescue her best friend from an unwanted marriage.
Especially since that opened Tilly up to possible scandal while remaining in France without him.
God only knew what kind of trouble she would get up to on her own, but she had insisted.
“If you must know,” Etta pushed a stray strand of hair from her face, “Leland felt that Ralph was the most stable, reliable, and safe option for his little sister.”
Each word catapulted into his chest. Yes. Stable. Reliable. Safe. Everything that he wasn’t. Of course Leland would choose Ralph as protection for his little sister, despite Etta being braver and stronger than her brother thought.
“He would choose a man like Ralph for you,” he muttered to himself.
“What kind of man?”
The opposite of me. He wanted to shout. But of course he didn’t.
In everything else in life, he could be whoever and do whatever he wanted.
Around her, he had to hold his cards close.
He’d already caused enough tension for a lifetime when he’d made the mistake of asking Leland for permission to court his sister.
His best friend (at the time) had laughed his ass off until he realized that Wilhem was serious.
At that point, he’d nearly called Wilhem out; instead, he swore off their friendship and kept an incessantly weary eye on him.
And the cherry on top? He’d reminded Wilhem of Etta’s desire to settle down.
Build a permanent home. Plant roots. Again, everything that he wasn’t planning to do.
“A boring man. That’s what kind of man,” Wilhem responded finally, needing out of his own thoughts.
“Just because he doesn’t impulsively travel the continent and generally live his life on a whim doesn’t make him boring.” See. She thought him impulsive and reckless. Leland had been right. They weren’t meant for each other. Still, that couldn’t stop his desire.
“Does to me,” he argued, feeling like his hands and lips were tied from doing what he really wanted.
“By that logic, I must be boring as well.”
Anything but, he wanted to reply. He only shrugged.
For some time, the carriage rolled on in silence, edging them further into the countryside, bumping along—each jolt of a rock or from a divet renewing within him a sense of guilt.
“I just think—”
CRACK!
The carriage lurched to the side, throwing Etta into his lap. His arms flew around her, pulling her close, tucking her blonde head under his chin. It was a miserable thought, but she fit perfectly in his lap.
“What’s going on?” Her warm breath tickled his neck, and he made a great effort not to move. Especially since he could feel her hands twiddling against his chest. She was probably fidgeting again with those damn tempting lacey bits on the bodice of her dress.
“Sounded like the carriage wheel snapped.”
“That cannot be a good thing.”
“It’s not,” he murmured, refusing to look down at her, knowing she was so vulnerably settled in his lap.
Knowing that one glance in the downward vicinity would give him an ample view of her creamy white mounds nestled in her bodice.
The vision would give him far too many sleepless and dissatisfied nights of attempted self-gratification.
Instead, he needled her. “But you wanted a ride in the country.”
Her body stiffened slightly, which was exactly what he needed. He needed her to be appalled with him so he could respect her brother’s boundaries.
“Well, if you had devised a better plan—”
“I had a plan—”
“Aha! So it was a plan—”
“Are you arguing with me over whether or not I had a plan?” Incensed, he growled.
But he also made the irreparable mistake of looking down as he said it.
God. He panted. The tops of her breasts were right there.
Lickable. Desperately, wild eyes tore away from the vision, only to land on a more powerful view.
Inches.
Inches from his face.
She was mere inches from his lips.
Double damn and blast it all to hell. She released a soft—though maybe angry—puff of air right against his chin.
It was his undoing, and it unraveled his resolve.