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Then, before he had a hint of what she meant to do, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “Goodbye, Will,” she whispered, and kissed him.
He might not yet have figured out what to do about the surprise she’d just sprung on him, but it took him no more than an instant to respond to the feel of her in his arms.
He bound her against him as if she belonged there, pressed to his side, her lips on his. Then gasped, nearly overwhelmed by a surge of desire as she shocked him by probing his lips with her tongue and delving within.
Lust and lack of air made him dizzy as, moaning deep in her throat, she kissed him with a desperate urgency he had no trouble reciprocating. Blood pounding through his veins, he devoured her lips with a greediness born of long denial. With her bonneted and buttoned up to the chin as she was, he invested into the only bit of her flesh he could touch all the passion and anguish of his love.
He could have kissed her forever while the stars glimmered toward full brilliance in the night sky, but all too soon, she pulled away.
Giving him a tremulous smile, she disengaged her arms from about his neck. “May you find a lady worthy of you, dear friend,” she murmured, then turned and stepped away.
“Allegra, wait!” he cried as, off-balance and still dizzy, he managed to catch her shoulder. “You cannot go roaming about London in the dark. Let me escort you home.”
Shaking her head, she detached his hand. “’Tis unnecessary. I paid the jarvey to wait. Will, I must go. I’ve a hundred things left to do and time is short.”
Despite her obvious dismissal, he followed her back to where the carriage was indeed waiting. “What will you do?” he asked as he helped her into it.
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know when I decide.”
In the soft glow of the carriage lamp, he saw both her cheeks and lashes were wet with tears. He wanted to seize her and pull her back into his arms, pledge to shelter and protect her, but before he could decide what to do, she shut the door and the jarvey whipped up his horses.
Will stood back as the carriage swept off into the deepening night. Not until he could no longer see its outline in the dark did he recall the note she’d pressed into his hand. With a violent oath, he balled up the paper and threw it to the ground.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AN HOUR LATER, Will slumped at his desk back at his lodgings in Chelsea. After one look at his face, Barrows had set off for brandy, a bottle of which now sat at his elbow beside a half-full snifter. In front of him lay a blank piece of vellum, ready for him to compose the apology he owed Lucilla along with his promise to call on her.
He’d not yet written it because he hadn’t been able to decide when he might pledge himself to call. Sighing, he gazed at the crumpled note Allegra had penned to him, which he’d smoothed out and propped against the back of his desk.
He smiled as he read down the list. He recognized the surnames, though he wasn’t acquainted with the young ladies themselves. All came from wealthy families; all had been on the town for at least one Season and might therefore be expected to have grown less choosy about their suitors. To each name, Allegra had added a little note.
“Shy, but sweet-natured,” read one. “Enamored of fashion, but modest and agreeable,” read another. Each girl had been selected, she’d added in an addendum at the bottom of the page, because Allegra felt that the young lady possessed not only the necessary dowry, but also a kind disposition and cheerful spirit that should make her a comfortable wife—and lacked the vanity and self-importance that marred the character of so many ton Beauties.
Putting down his pen after once again not having written a syllable, Will took a sip of brandy and let the liquor’s scorching heat slide down his throat. Though he knew he owed it to Brookwillow to marry an heiress like one on this list, his thoughts kept drifting back to Allegra.
He tried to imagine what it might feel like to learn that Brookwillow didn’t belong to him after all, that owning it had merely been an illusion in which his guardian had allowed him to indulge, one that could be stripped from him if he did not meet the earl’s expectations.
In which case, he would have lost it long since. The thought made him ill. Destitute though he was, he’d always known he owned something and might belong somewhere.
Allegra had literally been left with nothing.
Worse yet, she’d been beggared and repudiated by the very man she’d hoped would come to cherish her…who had struck the final blow by announcing his intention to marry someone else.
The more Will thought about it, the angrier he became. Bound by blood to the family, as devoted as a daughter to the late Lord Lynton, Allegra deserved better than this callous…betrayal. How could Lynton have so thoughtlessly wounded the girl whose care had been entrusted to him?
He could forgive Lynton wanting to see Allegra well settled. He could not forgive the man his indifference to her desires and his blind ignorance in failing to recognize the treasure right before his eyes.
For a few minutes, Will contemplated finding some pretext upon which to challenge Lynton to a bout at Gentleman Jackson’s, where Will might repay in some small measure the pain Lynton had inflicted upon Allegra.
Then a much more intelligent idea occurred to him.
He could not help Allegra by marrying her. But perhaps, at the end of his fists if necessary, he might persuade Lynton to fulfill his duty to his kinswoman by giving her something that was truly her own.
A glance at the mantel clock informed him ’twas too late this evening to catch Lynton at home; Allegra’s cousin, she had told him, always dined at his club.
After downing the last fiery sip, Will put the brandy away. He’d need a clear mind and a steady hand when, first thing in the morning, he called on Allegra’s erst-while guardian to see if he could persuade him into offering Allegra a fairer solution to her dilemma.
WILL’S KNOCK early the next morning was answered by Hobbs, who blinked in surprise at the visitor on his doorstep. “Lord Tavener!” he exclaimed. “I fear, my lord, that the ladies are still abed.”
“I’ve not come to visit the ladies,” Will said, walking past Hobbs into the entry, “but to call on Lord Lynton. If he is still abed, I shall wait.”
Hobbs bowed. “If you would step into the parlor, my lord, I’ll inform the master of your arrival.”
“Do that,” Will replied. He’d chosen to come early so that the matter might be concluded, if possible, without the ladies learning anything about it. As he paced around the parlor to which Hobbs conducted him, tension and anticipation built within him, as they always did before a match.
He thought of Allegra in the dusky park, the tears on her lashes sparkling like the glimmer of the gathering stars, and his simmering anger intensified. Flexing his fists, he envisioned the satisfaction of planting them at the center of Lynton’s smugly arrogant face.
Lynton must have been still abed as well, for ’twas nearly half an hour later when at last Will’s quarry appeared on the threshold, his cravat, Will noted with amusement, looking as if it had been hastily tied. The expression on Lynton’s face—a mixture of distaste and disdain, as if some disgusting rodent had invaded the pristine purity of his parlor—presented such a perfect invitation to fisticuffs that Will was hard-pressed not to slug him before even saying hello.
Regretfully choosing politeness, he bowed. “Lynton.”
“Tavener,” Allegra’s guardian replied with an insultingly small inclination of his head. Without offering Will refreshment or a chair, he walked into the room.
“Please,” he said, holding up a hand, “make me no speeches. Allegra has already informed me of your intentions. Rather than start a discussion which must be embarrassing for you and distasteful to us both, let me just state straightaway that under no circumstances would I give my permission for you to marry her. I am sorry you’ve roused yourself so early—or is it just that you’ve not yet been to bed?—upon what a man of any discernment would have known was a fool’s errand. Good day, sir.”
“You sanctimonious prig,” Will said before Lynton could walk out. “Were you too stupid to recognize what that bequest meant to Allegra—or are you just too arrogant and selfish to care? Oh, yes,” he continued, advancing on Lynton until they stood nose to nose, “I already know you refused to consider my suit.”
Lynton stiffened in surprise, his sleepy eyes snapping open and his irritated expression turning to the alertness of an experienced commander sensing a battle to come. But although Will had all but raised his fists into a boxer’s stance, he had to give Lynton credit, for the man neither flinched nor retreated an inch.
“If you mean to try to cajole me into reconsidering my decision, insulting me is hardly the way to go about it,” Lynton said. “Unlike some men, I take my responsibility to my dependents quite seriously.”
“Allegra is more than a ‘dependent’ and a ‘responsibility,’” Will flashed back. “She is a person with a warm and caring heart who has lovingly devoted herself to this family. Have you the slightest idea how deeply you have wounded her?”
For the first time, Lynton looked uncomfortable. “You cannot take me to task for wounding sensibilities I gave her no encouragement to develop.”
