Chapter Three #3
Just as if he were already taking a sip from said beverage, heat fanned his cheeks. He stepped to the side, allowing her to pass. As she did so, he caught a whiff of something light and floral, a scent like one he recalled his mother wearing long ago.
He cocked his head and frowned; the scent brought to life a memory long forgotten.
When he was young, he’d always loved to sit at the foot of his mother’s dressing table while his mother prepared for an evening out.
She’d place a droplet of cologne on her finger and then dab just beneath each ear.
He would look up and inhale. He’d thought his mother was the loveliest mother in the world.
And now, his mother wasn’t speaking to him. Instead, he was confined in a library with a young lady who shouldn’t be speaking with him right now, either.
Millie took a seat.
Neville moved awkwardly toward a chair, as if he were still that toddler playing at the foot of his mother’s dressing table. He must appear odd to Millicent, possibly even deranged. As a matter of fact, he rather felt as if he were losing his mind.
“Are you going to sit?” she inquired politely.
“Yes.” He forced his knees to bend, landing inelegantly against the chair’s cushion.
Millie glanced at the ceiling as she shook her head. “The door is open. And, in case you haven’t noticed, a maid has taken up a place on the stairs, just beyond our sight.”
Neville glanced over his shoulder, catching the swish of dark skirts.
“It’s alright,” Millie called. “Please do keep watch.” She sent him a brief, challenging look. “Although I can’t imagine Lord Neville capable of impropriety.”
“Well,” he said under his breath, “we little lordlings do tend to take our honor seriously.”
“You see?” She threw up her hands. “There’s the rub.”
“What do you mean?”
“Obviously”—she widened her eyes—“Honor is much too weighty a subject for a dull-witted young lady like me to understand.”
He frowned. “When have I ever suggested that you are dull-witted?”
She blinked rapidly. “I understand that you told my guardian I would be perfection indeed once I had the chance to enhance my intellect.”
Asquith. “I—I…” He had no explanation. “Forgive me.”
She sent him a deeply suspicious glance.
He couldn’t help but admit his earliest behavior toward her, when viewed in retrospect, formed a collective insult like the one she intended to inflict every time she called him little lordling.
He ran his hands through his hair. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“I know you find breaking the slightest rule objectionable,” she resumed her mocking tone, “but, really, there cannot be anything improper in us waiting here with a door wide open.”
“You know there is,” he interrupted in a fierce whisper.
“Only,” she whispered back, “if we were intent on a torrid assignation.”
His stomach dropped.
“But for my own part, I would rather warm myself with tea.” She smiled pleasantly. “You?”
His consternation must have shown because she looked away and did not resume her teasing.
“Torrid,” he repeated, unable to stop himself.
She had the grace to blush. Then, she angled him a glance. Her gaze moved up and down his person as if reassessing whether he was capable of anything torrid.
Ah, Millie.
If she could catch a glimpse of the invisible, inward fires he was, even now, violently stomping, she’d know he was very capable of setting them both ablaze. Something in him, something perverse and angry, made him return her lazy perusal with an overtly blistering gaze.
Her neck snapped back. Her brows knit.
“Neville?” she whispered.
The soft, confused query brought him back to his senses. He touched his palm to his forehead and closed his eyes. “Again, forgive me.”
“Well,” she said finally, “we do always tend to be daggers-drawn, do we not?”
She’d spoken louder this time, as if she were attempting to reassure the poor maid, who was likely fearful of her post.
The maid should be concerned. He doubted the duchess would be pleased, if she were to return and find him alone with her sister. As for Harbury’s part, Neville wouldn’t be surprised to feel the tip of his cousin’s flintlock pressed against his own temple.
“We do tend to lock horns,” he conceded.
“Let us prove, then, if only to ourselves, that we can be civilized.”
Civilized. As civilized as two people in the privacy of a yew maze, huddling together in the fading light of a summer’s day, as if they had just found one another after a long and desperate search.
That evening, he’d used every ounce of his self-control to push her away when all he’d wanted to do clasp her ever closer. Giving in to this…this inferno when she hated him so, could only lead to pain.
Another maid, presumably not the one standing guard just out of view, brought in a tray with a steaming pot and two cups.
“The duchess keeps the key to the tea cabinet, Miss,” the maid explained. “As she is out, the best we could do is chocolate.”
“Chocolate would be most welcome,” Millicent replied graciously. “As I’m sure Lord Neville agrees.”
He nodded, oddly struck by the novelty of her answering for him.
In a blessed instant, Miss Millicent became, not a miss at all, especially not one who held him in contempt. Instead, she was as he’d once dreamt—both his wife and his friend. Together, they became a lord and his lady, enjoying a natural, delightful, and comfortingly domestic exchange.
Millicent busied herself filling the cups. As he stared at her active hands, the strange sensation persisted, leaving him even more disoriented and confused.
As she handed him a cup and saucer, words bubbled out of her in a way he hardly recognized.
Their meaning, he did not comprehend. But fleetingly, he recognized the young lady from their first encounter.
Proper. Demure. Taking pleasant note of “the sun” which, apparently, she found “quite cheerful, despite the seasonable cold.”
He had a sudden insight…her politeness on their first meeting had been armor. She’d been nervous, not purposely deceitfully demure. What else about her had he gotten wrong?
“February,” he said, realizing there’d been a pause in her description of the weather.
“Yes,” she agreed with a slight frown. “That is the month.”
Warily, she held his gaze as they both took sips from their cups.
Asquith would have a good, hearty laugh if he could see Neville now.
That is, of course, if the situation didn’t call for Asquith’s unequivocal censure.
But, had the pretty young lady across from him had not been Asquith’s ward, his friend would have been highly diverted by any situation that trapped Neville into the use of dainty saucers, extensive weather observations, and other feminine pleasantries.
Neville felt as if his oversized body were at odds with the whole scene.
But then again, could he not use the opportunity to drop a subtle hint about Willard? She hadn’t heeded him last time, but his warning had been indirectly given.
“Miss Millicent—”
By her face, he knew he must have interrupted her mid-sentence. Ah, well. His accidental rudeness could not be helped.
“—if you would permit me to speak on a delicate subject—”
“Delicate?” she squeaked.