Chapter Seven #2
“Perhaps.” He shrugged, keeping his gaze on the shifting crowd of people filling the drawing room. Anything to avoid looking at Lucy again and feeling that strange tug of emotion.
“I thought I could help you.” She leaned forward. “Perhaps I could write some letters for you to use to woo another lady...” She stopped. Robert looked at her. That eager, appealing look was still on her face and it made him feel a scoundrel because he knew exactly how she could help him.
“It would probably be better if you did not,” he said.
Her face fell. “I suppose not. Tactless of me.” She bit her lip. “Well, if you think of anything...”
“I will be sure to let you know.” Robert smiled at her, deliberately changing the subject.
“Lord Brodrie was quite annoyed to discover so much of his finest claret had gone missing, by the way.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I assumed you had consumed it. I apologize if my kisses drove you to drink. Not the outcome I would have desired.”
Lucy was pulling threads out of the silver tassels on the cushions. Her fidgeting fingers were all that betrayed her discomfort.
“Must we speak of it?” she asked.
“That bad?” Robert queried.
She looked up and met his eyes. “I drank the claret for the shock,” she said.
“Worse and worse,” Robert said. “I had no idea that my technique lacked so much finesse.”
Lucy flicked a hunted look around the room. “I would ask you not to mention it,” she said. “My reputation—”
“Would surely suffer more if it became widely known that you attend lessons in Eastern dancing or life drawing,” Robert said. “What an interesting society the Highland Ladies must be! I can quite see why its workings are secret.”
Two bright spots of color burned in Lucy’s cheeks. She looked charmingly annoyed. “The Highland Ladies wish to learn and broaden our experience,” she said. “Our pursuits are entirely educational.”
“Well, that is one word for it, I suppose,” Robert said.
“You have double standards,” Lucy said. “No one reproved Rubens for painting nudes. No one reproaches the gentlemen who frequent the Edinburgh clubs for their pursuits. People are quick to judge.”
Robert scrutinized her thoroughly. She looked exquisite this evening in another demure debutante gown of white silk laced with silver thread, her vivid red hair piled up with diamond pins, so elegant, so discreet.
“It is curious,” he said slowly, “that you are so determinedly proper on the outside, Lady Lucy, yet you write erotic poetry, you drink claret and you find music and dancing sensual. Is your propriety all for show?”
Now there was no doubt that he had provoked her. He saw a flash of anger in her eyes and something else, something different. Surprise. Panic?
“I am proper,” she said. “A perfect lady. Everyone says so.” Her fidgeting fingers were playing with the struts of her fan now. Robert heard them creak in protest.
“Everyone thinks you are proper,” Robert corrected.
“Unless, of course, you are deceiving yourself along with everyone else and you genuinely believe that you have no passion in you.” He leaned closer to her.
His fingers brushed her bare arm above the edge of her glove and he felt her shiver.
He smiled. He suspected that Lady Lucy was in denial of her own passionate desires and he would be very happy to point out to her what it was she truly wanted.
“Tell me,” he said, “what it is that you would look for in the man you chose to marry?”
She looked startled. Then her lashes swept down, veiling her expression.
“Why do you ask?” she said.
“I’m curious,” Robert said, recognizing evasion when he saw it. “Humor me. You have rejected many suitors. Why?”
There was a strange expression in Lucy’s eyes.
Suddenly they were a blank blue, as though she had erected a barrier to keep him from reading any emotion there.
“It’s true that I am considered very particular,” she said.
“I was betrothed once. Lord MacGillivray was my perfect ideal of a gentleman. I do not expect to wed as I do not expect to meet his equal.”
She spoke smoothly, as though she had said the words many times before. Robert wondered why he did not believe her. Something did not ring quite true. It was not that he thought she lied, more that she had become so accustomed to saying the words that she had started to believe them herself.
“A perfect ideal?” he said. He tried and failed to keep the skepticism from his voice. “Forgive me, but I never heard such rubbish in my life. There is no such thing as a perfect ideal.”
Lucy stiffened. He saw surprise reflected in her eyes, and confusion.
It was quite clear than no one had ever challenged her on the subject before.
“Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, Lord Methven,” she said, after a moment.
Her voice was sharp. “I had forgotten how very abrasive you could be.”
“Because I am honest?” Robert said.
“Because you are rude and brusque,” Lucy corrected. “Your manner is in no way elegant or polished.”
Robert was amused. “I imagine, then,” he said, “that I in no way fit your ideal of the perfect husband.”
“Certainly not,” Lucy said with crushing politeness. “You are far too frank and unrefined.”
“And? Surely I have other faults?” Robert cocked a wicked eyebrow, tempting her to further indiscretion. He waited, watching her struggle between innate good manners and the desire to give him a resounding set-down. She fell for the provocation.
“You are too tall,” she said. “And too wide.”
Robert bit his lip to stifle a smile. “I agree,” he said, “that I am both tall and wide, but there is little I can do about those things.”
“You are not a scholar,” Lucy said. Now that she had started enumerating his drawbacks, it seemed as though she had quite a list. He was interested that she had thought about him in so much detail.
“I could only marry a man of intellectual attributes,” Lucy said, “sober, academic, more interested in the cerebral than the physical. You are too forceful.”
“You underestimate me,” Robert said. “In so many ways. I may not be a scholar but I do read. I have read your love letters.” Keeping his gaze on her face, he recited:
“Exquisite beauty beyond imagining, a snare to tempt man to desire...”
He heard Lucy gasp. She shifted, as though his words were making her uncomfortable in some way. Above the neckline of her demure white silk gown, her breasts rose and fell quickly with each sharp breath she took.
Watching her, Robert continued softly. “To steal a kiss, to dare a touch, to taste and stroke and linger over every sweet caress...”
Lucy ran her tongue over her lower lip in a quick, nervous gesture. There was the glitter of heat in her gaze as she lifted it to his face.
“To nip and lick and pluck and take a bite of sweetness to the core.” Robert lowered his voice, keeping his eyes fixed on her.
“To dip deep and drink up every drop, to plunder and ravish in sensual excess...”
Lucy made the softest sound in her throat that had his body hardening into instant arousal. He wanted to carry her upstairs, strip that demure gown from her and make love to her.
The dinner gong sounded. Robert saw Lucy jump. The dark, unfocused look in her eyes faded. Her lips were parted and she looked dazed and bemused, which only made him want her all the more.
He could see Lady Durness coming to claim him as her escort for the meal. He stood politely to greet her, hoping that he would be able to move without too much discomfort or embarrassment.
Lady Durness slid her hand into the crook of his elbow.
“We are very informal here,” she murmured, “but I take it as my privilege as hostess to claim you, dear Lord Methven.” She squeezed his arm to emphasize the point.
“I hope,” she added, turning her pale gray eyes on Lucy, “that Lady Lucy will not mind relinquishing you.”
“I shall do my utmost to cope,” Lucy said crisply. She had regained her composure very quickly. There was no hint of the emotion Robert had seen in her a moment before. She dropped him the slightest and most dismissive of curtsies. “I hope that you enjoy the meal, Lord Methven.”
Over dinner Robert heard plenty more of the activities of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society.
For a secret society they seemed to possess a number of very indiscreet members.
Activities varied from academic lectures on the arts and sciences to the less cerebral and more physical entertainments of riding, hawking and watching naked wrestling, the latter, he was told, solely for the entertainment of the widows and married ladies.
Indeed it seemed to Robert that with the life drawing class, as well, a number of the Highland Ladies seemed most anxious to get as many men naked in as many varied and exciting ways as possible.
Somehow he suspected that Lady Mairi would be present to cheer on the naked wrestlers, while Lady Lucy, presumably, was barred by her spinster status and her precise ideas of decorum.
Before dinner Robert had paid the butler a discreet sum to ensure that Lucy was seated beside him, but when they came to take their places he was quite amused to find himself outmaneuvered.
Evidently Lucy had checked the table and had changed her seat for one at the farthest distance from him.
She ate as she did all other things, daintily, precisely and elegantly.
She conversed easily with the guests on each side of her, and when she was drawn into conversation with one of the handsome young life models she parried his flirtatious approach with beautifully judged politeness, neither too warm nor too cold.
Robert began to see why she had such a reputation for perfection.
On the surface she was indeed everything that was well brought up and proper.
He wondered if that was why her passions escaped in other ways.
Being a pattern card of respectability must be damnably tedious.