Her Cinderella Season

The clouds shifted overhead and the sunbeam disappeared. Now Lily could see the man clearly. Still her pulse beat out a rapid tune. Tall and slender, he was handsome in a rumpled, poetic sort of way. A loose black sling cradled one arm and, though it was tucked inside the dark brown superfine of his coat, she noticed that he held it close as if it ached.

His expression held her in thrall. He’d spoken harshly to her just a moment ago, hadn’t he? Now, though his colour was high, his anger seemed to have disappeared as quickly as her hazy confusion. He stared at her with an odd sort of bated hunger. A smile lurked at the edge of his mouth, small and secretive, as if it were meant just for her. The eyes watching her so closely were hazel, a sorry term for such a fascinating mix of green and gold and brown. Curved at their corners were the faintest laugh lines.

So many details, captured in an instant. Together they spoke to her, sending the message that here was a man with experience. Someone who knew passion, and laughter and pain. Here was a man, they whispered, who knew that life was meant to be enjoyed. ‘Lilith—’ her mother’s voice sounded irritated ‘—have you been hurt?’

Lily forced herself to look away from the stranger. ‘No, Mother, I am fine.’

Her mother continued to stare expectantly, but Lily kept quiet. For once, it was not she who was going to explain herself.

Thwarted, Mrs Beecham turned to Mr Cooperage, who lurked behind the strange gentleman. ‘Mr Cooperage?’ was all that she asked.

The missionary flushed. ‘Your daughter does not favour…’ he paused and glanced at the stranger ‘…the matter we discussed last week.’

‘Does not favour—?’ Lilith’s mother’s lips compressed to a foreboding thin line.

Mr Cooperage glanced uneasily at the man again and then at the crowd still gathered loosely around them. ‘Perhaps you might step aside to have a quiet word with me?’ His next words looked particularly hard for him to get out. ‘I’m sure your daughter would like the chance to… thank…this gentleman?’

‘Mr…?’ Her mother raked the stranger with a glare, then waited with a raised brow.

The stranger bowed. Lily thought she caught a faint grimace of pain in his eyes. ‘Mr Alden, ma’am.’

‘Mr Alden.’ Her mother’s gaze narrowed. ‘I trust my daughter will be safe with you for a moment?’

‘Of course.’

The crowd, deprived of further drama, began to disperse. Lily’s mother stepped aside and bent to listen to an urgently whispering Mr Cooperage. Lily did not waste a moment considering them. She knew what they discussed. She remembered the haze that had almost engulfed her. It had swept away and left her with a blinding sense of clarity.

‘I admit to a ravening curiosity.’ MrAlden spoke low and his voice sounded slightly hoarse. It sent a shiver down Lily’s spine. ‘Do you wish to?’ He raised a questioning brow at her.

‘I’m sorry, sir. Do I wish to what?’

‘Wish to thank me for nearly running you down in the street while driving a team I clearly should not have been?’ He gestured to the sling. ‘I assure you, I had planned to most humbly beg your pardon, but if you’d rather thank me instead…’

Lily laughed. She did not have to consider the question. The answer, along with much else, was clear at last. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘even when you phrase it in such a way. I do wish to thank you.’

He looked a little taken aback, and more than a little interested. ‘Then you must be a very odd sort of female,’ he said. She felt the heat of the glance that roamed over her, even though he had assumed a clinical expression. ‘Don’t be afraid to admit it,’ he said. He leaned in close, as if confiding a secret. ‘Truly, the odd sorts of females are the only ones I can abide.’ He smiled at her.

She stared. His words were light and amusing, but that smile? It was wicked. ‘Ah, but can they abide you, sir?’

The smile vanished. ‘Perhaps the odd ones can,’ he said.

The words might have been cynical, or they might have been a joke. Lily watched his face closely, looking for a clue, but she could not decipher his expression. His eyes shone, intense as he spoke again.

‘So, tell me…’ He lowered his voice a bit. ‘What sort of female are you, then?’

No one had ever asked her such a thing. She did not know how to answer. The question stumped her—and made her unbearably sad. That clarity only extended so far, it would seem.

‘Miss?’ he prompted.

‘I don’t know,’ she said grimly. ‘But I think it is time I found out.’

The shadow had moved back in, Jack could see it lurking behind her eyes. And after he’d worked so hard to dispel it, too.

Work was an apt description. He was not naturally glib like his brother. He had no patience with meaningless societal rituals. A little disturbing, then, that it was no chore to speak with this woman.

She stirred his interest—an unusual occurrence with a lady of breeding. In Jack’s experience women came in two varieties: those who simulated emotion for the price of a night, and those who manufactured emotion for a tumultuous lifetime sentence.

Jack did not like emotion. It was the reason he despised the tense and edgy stranger he had lately become. He understood that emotion was an integral part of human life and relationships. He experienced it frequently himself. He held his family in affection. He respected his mentors and colleagues. Attraction, even lust, was a natural phenomenon he allowed himself to explore to the fullest. He just refused to be controlled by such sentiments.

Emotional excess invariably became complicated and messy and as far as he’d been able to determine, the benefits rarely outweighed the consequences. Scholarship, he’d discovered, was safe. Reason and logic were his allies, his companions, his shields. If one must deal with excessive emotions at all, it was best to view them through the lens of learning. It was far more comfortable, after all, to make a study of rage or longing than to experience it oneself. Such things were of interest in Greek tragedy, but dashed inconvenient in real life.

Logic dictated, therefore, that he should have been repelled by this young beauty. She reeked of emotion. She had appeared to be at the mercy of several very strong sensations in succession. Jack should have felt eager to escape her company.

But as had happened all too frequently in the last weeks, his reason deserted him. He was not wild to make his apologies and move on. He wanted to discover how she would look under the onslaught of the next feeling. Would those warm blue eyes ice over in anger? Could he make that gorgeous wide mouth quiver in desire?

‘Mister Alden.’

His musings died a quick death. That ringing voice was familiar.

‘Lady Ashford.’ He knew before he even turned around.

‘I am unsurprised to find you in the midst of this ruckus, Mr Alden.’ The countess skimmed over to them and pinned an eagle eye on the girl. ‘But you disappoint me, Miss Beecham.’

The name reverberated inside Jack’s head, sending a jolt down his spine. Beecham? The girl’s name was Beecham? It was a name that had weighed heavily on his mind of late.

They were joined again by the girl’s mother and the red-faced Mr Cooperage, but Lady Ashford had not finished with the young lady.

‘There are two, perhaps three, men in London who are worth throwing yourself under the wheels of a carriage, Miss Beecham. I regret to inform you that Mr Alden is not one of them.’

No one laughed. Jack was relieved, because he rather thought that the countess meant what she said.

Clearly distressed, the girl had no answer. Jack was certainly not fool enough to respond. Fortunately for them both, someone new pushed her way through the crowd. It was his mother, coming to the rescue.

Lady Dayle burst into their little group like a siege mortar hitting a French garrison. Passing Jack by, she scattered the others as she rushed to embrace the girl like a long-lost daughter. She clucked, she crooned, she examined her at arm’s length and then held her fast to her bosom.

‘Jack Alden,’ she scolded, ‘I could scarcely believe it when I heard that you were the one disrupting the fair and causing such a frenzy of gossip! People are saying you nearly ran this poor girl down in the street!’ Her gaze wandered over to the phaeton and fell on Charles. He gave a little wave of his hand, but did not leave the horses.

‘Charles! I should have known you would be mixed up in this. Shame on the pair of you!’ She stroked the girl’s arm. ‘Poor lamb! Are you sure you are unhurt?’

Had Jack been a boy, he might have been resentful that his mother’s attention was focused elsewhere. He was not. He was a man grown, and therefore only slightly put out that he could not show the girl the same sort of consideration.

Mrs Beecham looked outraged. Miss Beecham merely looked confused. Lady Ashford looked as if she’d had enough.

‘Elenor,’ the countess said, ‘you are causing another scene. I do not want these people to stand and watch you cluck like a hen with one chick. I want them to go inside and spend their money at my fair. Do take your son and have his arm seen to.’

‘Oh, Jack,’ his mother reproved, her arm still wrapped comfortingly about the girl. ‘Have you re-injured your arm?’

Lady Ashford let her gaze slide over the rest of the group. ‘Elenor dear, do let go of the girl and take him to find out. Mr Cooperage, you will come with me and greet the women who labour in your interest today. The rest of you may return to what you were doing.’