Page 37 of Wicked By Design

“No, but I’m certain he’ll turn up—”

“Like the bad penny he is?” suggested a laconic voice from behind them.

Despite telling herself it was pointless to get in a silly state over a man who was determined to keep her at arm’s length, Cilly’s heart performed a happy little dance in her chest.

“I should more likely say a rare coin, perhaps something Roman and ancient and not often seen,” Cilly replied with a teasing smile, determined not to appear cross, but equally determined not to let him get away with behaving like a thoughtless oaf.

He walked to her and took her hand, bowing over it. “Forgive me. I have neglected you.”

“Yes, you have,” Hetty said tartly, before making a buttoning motion over her lips as Cilly glared at her. “Fine. I won’t interfere. Now your betrothed is here, I shall return to Gideon. See you in church, Cilly dear—presuming the place doesn’t get struck by lightning when his lordship sets foot in the door.”

She smiled sweetly at Damian and blew them both a kiss before she disappeared.

“I believe she is displeased with me? Can you credit it?” Damian said with mock indignation.

Cilly sighed and shook her head. “I suppose you will tell me it's none of my business if I ask where you have been?”

He said nothing, just watched her, and Cilly got to her feet, moving to stand in front of him. His expression was as closed off and unreadable as ever, but she sensed tension thrumming through him.

“Is everything all right, Damian? Did… Did something happen?” she asked, for as much as she had missed him and fretted he had changed his mind about wedding her, she had worried about him too.

“Nothing at all,” he said lightly, and turned to the piano, sitting down and playing a few notes.

She dithered, standing beside him, not knowing quite what to do or say but needing to do or say something. “I know you do not wish me to be a wife to you, Damian, but I promised I would be your friend. I would help, you know, if you are… troubled.”

He made a darkly amused sound but said nothing, instead turning his attention to the keys. Cilly’s breath caught as he began to play one of Field’s nocturnes. It was pretty and light and so out of character she could not help but smile.

“You play beautifully,” she remarked.

He said nothing but kept playing and she dared to take a step closer. His hair gleamed in the light from the windows, thick and such a rich shade of blond. Cilly itched to stroke it, to comb her fingers through it, but she did not dare. She felt like she stood beside something wild in a cage, that might lash out if she reached for it, but he was the one who had put up the bars, not she.

You did this, she reminded herself. He owes you nothing. You took away his choices. Now, you must live with that choice, no matter how it hurts. It did hurt though. It hurt a little more each day that she spent in his company and discovered more about him, about what he liked, what made him laugh. Conversely, not seeing him at all had made her utterly wretched.

She dared to reach out and lay her hand on his shoulder. He stopped playing abruptly.

“Well, I imagine everyone is ready by now. Shall we wait in the entrance hall?” he asked.

He got to his feet and offered her his arm.

It felt like a rebuke. This far, and no farther.

She sighed. Patience, she reminded herself. He had no reason to trust her after what she’d done to him, and trust took time. Though she was not the least bit patience by nature, she promised herself that for Damian, she would wait.

Damian walked with Celia on his arm, the rest of the household a little way ahead of them.

He’d rather hoped she would be angry with him for staying away for so long without a word, just so he could throw her anger back in her face with the fact she’d trapped him. But she hadn’t been angry, and now he was simmering with an unwelcome mixture of guilt and frustration. He did not know what to do. Staying away had solved nothing. He’d wished to see her. Without him noticing, the wretched woman had become his friend, and he had missed her.

Damn her eyes.

Damian assured himself that friendship was exactly what he wanted. The best of both worlds, in fact. He got to enjoy her company with none of the messy business of having a wife. He could always find a willing mate to warm his bed, after all.

They walked to church in silence and, despite Hetty’s words, there was no plague of locusts, and the ground did not open to reveal a fiery pit under his feet. Pity. That might have made things somewhat easier.

The sermon was surprisingly entertaining. Reverend Honeywell was a fine orator who kept his audience enraptured with laughter and his own wry but sharp interpretation of the Bible and how it applied to their lives. So, instead of spending the time bored to death, it passed quickly, and Damian even enjoyed the hymns, rather delighted to discover that Cilly could not have held a tune in a bucket if her life depended on it.

“What is it?” she asked as he offered her his arm.

“Nothing.”