AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her gaze remained bewildered on the door long after he left.
A
Edmund sat in the Duke of Brunswick’s drawing room watching as Otilia and Carlton stood at a far corner talking in low tones. She wore a demure high-waist green frock with front pearl buttons, and her hair was in an elaborate bun held by a modest tiara, wisps falling around her exquisite face. He was becoming more obsessed with her. He couldn’t stop thinking of her. No one else seemed to matter
Though the Duchess of Brunswick, Lydia, was in confinement, Titus enlisted the help of the Dowager Duchess, his mother for the occasion. They invited him and Otilia to a dinner party at their house. The meal elapsed with its usual chit-chat, followed by the ladies retiring to the drawing room, and brandy and cigars for the men. Both groups reunited not half an hour ago, forcing Edmund to witness the closeness between his siren and the Viscount.
“My lord, may my daughter and I sit by you?” Frances Whitman, daughter-in-law to the Marchioness of Mandeville, pulled a none too eager Lady Edwina. The girl inherited the looks of her grandmother, the dowager.
With a distracted smile, he stood for the ladies to sit.
His siren? No, she was not his, goddamn it! His mind insisted on the wretched pronoun.
“Spring seems to be setting in, at last,” Mrs Whitman started. The Earl turned reluctantly to her. “My Edwina enjoys walks in the park at this time of year.” As if Brentwood would take the bait.
Edmund and Otilia had seen little of each other these last few days. She did not avoid him precisely, but she did not seek him out either. Why would she? They met at dinner and for outings as she had been holding herself cool after their conversation in the library.
He had gone in search of her there because he had not tolerated staying away. As for a reason for the latter, he had not the slightest idea. The view of her in quiet writing clubbed him in the guts with her beauty and serenity. Her presence in his house became all too comfortable, almost as if he took it for granted. He had to refrain himself before asking Dawson for her whereabouts every time he left or arrived.
“The park is always a wise choice, Lady Edwina,” he commented with indifferent blandness before darting back to the couple in the corner. Again, Edmund’s thoughts had returned to Otilia.
The morning after the ball he got up after an agitated night. His self-catering release had done nothing to pale his craving for her. He awoke with a sensation that something was missing, even groping around his rumpled sheets for Otilia. The disappointment of not finding her vanquished only by the disappointment of not having carried the woman to his bed and giving what they both hungered for.
She spent the morning in the park while he sat in his study trying hard to concentrate on work. He tried not to remember the previous evening—any of it. And he failed, of course, which made him leave its confines for the library not long after he heard her entrance in the house. He found her bent over letters without a care in the world. As if what they did the night before meant nothing, as if he meant nothing to her. The possibility sobered him and then annoyed him. How did the siren melt in his arms one moment and treat him with so much indifference the next?
He had entered the library and did not even find anything to say, just standing there absorbing the view of her while she did not deign to notice his presence. When she did, she answered his question and went back to her writing, dismissing him. Dismissing the Earl of Thornton, for pity’s sake!
Their conversation had been watery compared to the undercurrents crisscrossing the room as their eyes met. He careened close to ravishing her there and then. Come to think of it, he was finding it more and more difficult to keep his hands off her. Even the faint touch of her hair was better than the alternative. Distance, coldness. Or the bloody politeness she treated him with after fairly enthralling him with those spellbinding eyes.
She drove him insane.
“What is your favourite pastime, my lord?” Mrs Whitman, wife to the Marchioness’s second son, Lawrence, insisted on keeping his straying attention.
Unwilling, he cast a glimpse at the mother and the girl who blushed and diverted her gaze. Could kissing a certain siren be called a pastime, he wondered? No, it would be too volcanic for such a trivial label.
Now the woman had eyes solely for her probable future husband. And why the idea caused him to want to thrash said future husband escaped him. He should be happy for her, a miss with few prospects to achieve such a match. He should be glad that the dowry he put on her helped to obtain her dreamed title at last. Instead, the ragged impulse to smash the man’s blonde looks invaded him.
“Boxing.” The look of shock on mother and daughter did not shame him. “If you will excuse me.”
No need to say he never came anywhere near Gentleman Jackson and did not know the first thing about boxing, his whole time dedicated to his business and title. Riding and fencing were more to his taste, however. At that precise hour, he would not mind learning a few hooks.
It was time for him to drag the vixen home and take her away from the blasted dandy.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Otilia stifled a sigh of relief as she entered the front hall after giving her gloves and cloak to the footman. The servant vanished with their pieces of clothing while she hurried to the stairs.
Even ten minutes in a cramped carriage with Edmund’s masculine overload proved to be a task that got more difficult by the minute. Only the refuge of her bedchamber would provide a very wished-for reprieve. Imaginary, however. The silence and the dark of the night served only to bare her rambling memories or steamy fantasies, transforming her body in a mess of unfulfilled longing. Perhaps, she ought to insist on returning to Thornton Manor until she found a position. His presence overwhelmed her with everything wicked.
“So is he coming to ask permission to court you?” The nutmeg and syrup coated her ears with lure.
Five feet from the stairs, she twisted to him, wide eyes quizzical on the tall, broad man. “Who?” Of course, she knew who he was talking about, but she did not want to have this conversation here. Or now.
Powerful legs braced, long thumbs hanging from the black waistcoat’s pockets, the view of him scattered her sensible intentions. “Carlton.” Those jet orbs studied her every
move and caused unwelcome reactions in her insides.
For goodness’ sake, she needed to get miles from him. Right away.
