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The stage was familiar. She entered this library every day to dust, to sweep, to slip another book under her arm to while away the long nights when she could not sleep, despite her bone-weary exhaustion.
But the song… She’d never heard this melody before. The promise of a kiss. The flustering headiness of an unexpected flirtation. She hadn’t had much reason to sing since the death of her parents, but for the first time in over a year, her life was showing signs of music once again.
She was glad it was with the Earl of Eagleton. With him, one knew where one stood. He was a lord; she was a pauper. His warning that there would be no offer of marriage was superfluous. She hadn’t even expected an invitation to attend Lady Quinseley’s soirée. Bianca knew better than to presume herself one of the ton, no matter who her father was.
Even if Bianca had been born a lady, the Earl of Eagleton would still be the ideal man for a first kiss. He was an accomplished rake. He would begoodat kissing. And there would be no lies between them. For him, it would never be anything more than a stolen kiss. No pesky emotions, no inconvenient feelings, no dwelling on could-have-dones and might-have-beens. After tonight, she wouldn’t enter his mind again.
It was just one moment. Here. Now. A kiss she’d never expected to experience. A chance she would likely never have again.
For him, forgettable.
For Bianca… a memory to cherish when her back ached from stooping and sweeping and scrubbing, when her feet swelled from being sent up and down every flight of stairs over and over.
The next time she crawled into her cot in the stifling attic to try to sleep, when her mind raced and refused to rest, at least this time the memory would be one worth keeping.
That was, if he ever got around to the kissing. For an infamous rake who’d unsubtly managed to wrangle her alone in a library, the subsequent moments had been confusingly devoid of licentious innuendo or inappropriate caresses.
If anything, he looked… Not tortured, exactly. Indecisive. Angry. Conflicted. Resigned. Hesitant.
She could not imagine what was going through his handsome, tousled-ginger head. The fact that any thoughts were going through his brain at all was a worrying sign. Was henotgoing to kiss her, after all? Even though he was a rake, even though she’d agreed to his terms, even though they both knew they would have no future together, had the earl suddenly decided there was no point in wasting even a few paltry seconds?
The flattered hope bubbling in her chest flattened and fell. Of course he didn’t need to kissher. The parlor on the other side of the closed door was full of more suitable options. Richer, whiter, legitimate ladies without calluses on their hands or fingernails jagged and broken from daily work.
Had he brought her here as some sort of jest? One everyone else was in on? And she, the butt of the joke, the overeducated housemaid who had actually believed, just for a moment, that she might find a place to belong. That this handsome rakehell might look at her as a woman to desire, rather than an object of pity.
That did it. She was counting to ten, then turning away. If she’d read him wrong, if the earl’s interest was in embarrassing her rather than embracing her, she would not stand about waiting to be humiliated. For that, she could return to a soirée in which everyone else correctly believed themselves to be her betters.
Or she could take the side door and run back upstairs to her stifling little room and its rickety cot, where a novel full of romance and adventure awaited her.
She took a shaky breath, and began to count.
One…
Two…
Three…
“Miss White.” The Earl of Eagleton’s blue eyes were intense.
The numbers fizzled and popped in Bianca’s head. Was this the moment? Was he about to kiss her after all?
“Yes?” she said breathlessly.
“Miss White,” he said again, and took her hands in his.
This was it! She closed her eyes, lifted her chin, and puckered her lips—
“Miss White.” He squeezed her hands urgently.
She squinted open one of her eyes, then stopped puckering her lips. His face was no closer than it was before. Perhaps a little further away. And lined with… Guilt?
“Run away,” he ground out.
She blinked in confusion. “From you? But you brought me here.”
His grip tightened on her fingers. “Flee from here. Escape while you still can. Never return to this house, never return to Lady Quinseley—”
“But she is all that is gracious,” Bianca protested loyally. “She may not spoil me with luxury, but she was not obligated to offer me anything at all. If it weren’t for her—”
