In a Lavender Daze (The Life of a Wallflower #3)

Prologue

Miss Lydia Whitby smiled at the very handsome gentleman who had just swept her through the final figures of the country dance.

It was not an insincere smile. Mr. Pennington had danced well, possessed perfectly respectable manners, and if his conversation had wandered rather too frequently toward the virtues of his new curricle, there were certainly worse faults to be found in a gentleman.

Under different circumstances she might even have enjoyed herself.

Unfortunately for Mr. Pennington, he was not Lord Oliver Hartwell.

Oliver was at that very moment dancing with another young lady, a pretty blonde Lydia vaguely remembered being introduced to earlier in the evening.

She had no reason whatsoever to dislike the girl beyond the simple fact that she presently occupied the place Lydia would much rather have claimed for herself.

It was unfair, and Lydia knew it. The poor girl had done nothing except accept an invitation to dance.

Still, Lydia found herself resenting every moment society insisted they spend apart.

Becoming engaged, she had discovered, did not exempt one from the rule limiting a couple to two dances together during an evening.

Lydia had once considered that perfectly sensible.

Since accepting Oliver's proposal, she had concluded there was nothing sensible about it at all.

The evening itself had reached that pleasant hour when the rigid observance of society's rules began to soften around the edges.

Champagne had flowed freely throughout the past hour, and even the most observant of chaperones appeared rather more interested in their own conversations than in counting precisely how many minutes their charges spent in the company of eligible gentlemen.

Guests drifted toward the supper room while others lingered beside the ballroom walls.

Oliver eventually found her and, with quiet confidence, murmured, "The line is so crowded that if we slip away now, we might have ten minutes alone before anyone realizes we're not in it. Come with me?”

"Where?" she asked.

"Does it matter if we're alone there together?”

She smiled. "No. It doesn't matter at all.”

Together they slipped into the moonlit gardens, where conversation turned to Hartwell House, Lady Charlotte's decorating schemes, and the infamous blue drawing room.

"I walked into the blue drawing room this morning to find my mother, your mother, and you all standing in different corners of the room looking at the walls as though they had personally offended you.”

"Oh, Oliver, you couldn't be more wrong. The walls are perfectly fine. It's the atrocious paper covering them that offends me... and every sighted person who has ever stepped foot in that room.”

He cocked his head, one brow arching. "How can a thing as passive as a wall covering offend anyone?”

"It's chartreuse. In the blue room. You call it the blue room and nothing in it is actually blue, Oliver.”

"It used to be... before Mother got hold of it.”

Lydia shuddered. "Yes. It's become abundantly clear to me why your house is in such need of redecoration. Chartreuse and flocked in purple. I have never seen such.”

Oliver laughed, and for a little while the cares that so often occupied him seemed to disappear.

But as it always did when they found themselves alone together, temptation proved too much.

He leaned in, his lips hovering near hers for just a moment—long enough for her to protest if she chose.

Naturally, she did not. How could she when she craved his kiss the way a starving person craved sustenance?

His mouth pressed against hers, firmly yet with the gentleness she’d come to expect from him.

The rasp of his evening beard against her skin was a sensual delight.

It felt so different from her own flesh, so wonderfully, perfectly masculine.

Then the kiss deepened, her lips parting beneath his with the ease of familiarity.

The sweep of his tongue left her shuddering with pleasure.

Had they been anywhere else, she would have begged him to simply take her—to end the misery of not knowing what came after those drugging kisses.

But they were not. They were in a garden, mere yards away from a room full of people who would eagerly bear witness to her disgrace.

But while the kiss could only go so far, and while the notion of making love remained a strangely abstract concept to her despite her repeated interrogation of several servant girls, she would have begged him just to take her.

And without the constraints of a social gathering to hold them, he would do so.

His hands moved from her waist, sliding upward until his thumbs pressed against her stays just beneath the swell of her breast. Had she been bolder, she would have begged him to touch her there.

It was a desire she barely understood, and certainly one she was incapable of expressing.

So he remained a gentleman, kissing her only.

But what a kiss it was! Heated and seductive, alluring and tender all at once.

In that kiss, she found every aspect of their love story reflected in some way.

The sudden rustle in the hedge shattered the moment so completely that Lydia drew back before she had consciously decided to do so.

Her heart, already racing, seemed to stop altogether before beginning again with alarming force.

She reached instinctively for the curls that had escaped their pins, then smoothed both hands over the front of her gown in a futile attempt to restore some appearance of order.

It was hopeless. She did not need a mirror to know she looked exactly like a young woman who had been standing in a secluded garden allowing her betrothed to kiss her far longer than any respectable lady ought.

Another rustle disturbed the leaves.

From the hedge emerged an orange tom cat—well fed and quite rounded with it.

The cat paused for a moment, looked at them with a disdain that was uniquely feline, and then sauntered off, leaving them as forgotten as the mouse he must have been chasing.

Relief gave way to laughter. They joked that they had been judged and found guilty by a cat, lingering together for another few precious moments before common sense asserted itself.

Oliver escorted Lydia back toward the terrace, remaining behind while she slipped into the supper queue alone.

After a respectable interval he followed several places behind.

Though she told herself she would not look back, she did anyway, and found him already watching her.

The warmth of his gaze sent her pulse racing almost as fiercely as his kiss had only moments before.

In only a few weeks, she told herself, there would be no more stolen moments.

They would have the rest of their lives.

The laughter lingered between them as they made their way back toward the house, fading gradually until it settled into the easy silence that had always existed between them.

Neither seemed inclined to hurry what little remained of their stolen reprieve.

The lights spilling from the ballroom grew brighter with every step, bringing with them the music, the voices, and all the ordinary expectations of polite society.

Lydia found herself slowing almost without realizing it, reluctant to surrender these last few moments when Oliver belonged only to her.

They reached the terrace together and stopped just beyond the circle of light cast from the open doors, the supper queue already stretching well into the ballroom beyond.

She scarcely needed to look at it to understand what they must do.

Had they appeared together after disappearing for so long, every mother in attendance would have reached precisely the same conclusion.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she gave voice to something she knew would shock him.

"I've been half tempted to suggest we elope and have done with it all.

" Glancing sideways to gauge his reaction, she knew instantly that it was not a suggestion, even in jest, that he could imagine.

Oliver was staunchly traditional in many ways, and the look of genuine surprise upon his face proved she had succeeded rather better than intended.

Laughing softly, she squeezed his hand before continuing.

"I know we could not really. My mother would never forgive me, and yours would never speak to either of us again.

It's just..." Her smile softened as the laughter gave way to the truth that had prompted the remark in the first place.

"...it's just that I want to be your wife.

Not your intended or your betrothed. I simply want to be yours, and for you to be mine. "