Unlacing Lilly

The girl opened her fan and began moving it indolently, not an artifice or affectation in the sultry night, but a genuine attempt to cool herself. Devlin could easily see the girl’s appeal—beauty, natural grace, self-possession and a proud bearing. Yes, she was everything Devlin could never have and that Olney would expect as his due.

“Even so,” the girl said, “I think he would not like it.”

Olney seized her hand and jerked her around to face him. “I must have you. I cannot countenance the way other men are watching you, courting you, sniffing around you like curs after a…”

Devlin nearly snorted his amusement. He knew the rest of that sentence and doubted the estimable Miss Lillian would appreciate being likened to a bitch in heat. But then he heard the girl’s giggle and realized she knew full well what Olney had been about to say. Amused rather than insulted? Was Miss Lillian a bit saucy?

Olney straightened his lapels and continued. “The long and short of it, Miss Lillian, is that I am not willing to wait. If father does not give his blessing, we shall make a dash for Gretna Green. He will accept it after ’tis done.”

Good God! The dolt meant it! He was willing to wed the girl just to bed her. Well, why not? That was as good a reason to marry as any, as far as Devlin knew. The Rutherford heir did not need a dowry, nor did he require a titled bride. If she came with connections, that would be enough. But the girl’s next words dashed that conclusion.

“I can only offer you a mediocre dowry, and we have lived so long in Ireland that we have no connections but there. Indeed, we only know a handful of people in town. I have nothing to offer you.”

Olney stood, gazing down his long nose at a girl he would certainly consider his social inferior. Even at this distance, his desire was clear. “Father’s health is flagging. Marry me, and you will be a duchess one day soon. At the least, you will be a marchioness the moment you marry me. Grace my home, my table and my bed, and I will not ask anything more of you. But I must have you.”

The old man was ailing? Then time was growing short. Drat. Devlin would have to make a move soon if he was to succeed.

Miss Lillian’s pause disappointed Devlin. The prospect of being a duchess was undoubtedly more than any woman in her position could resist, but he’d hoped she would prove different. Yes, he would very much like to see Edward Manlay thwarted.

“I am mindful of the honor you have done me, Lord Olney, but good sense urges me to decline.”

“I will have you, father’s consent or not.”

The arrogant bastard took her hand and lifted her to her feet so that he could crush her against his chest. Devlin held his breath. He would like to rescue her, but he never interfered, never gave his presence away. The coy chit would have to defend herself.

She pushed against Olney’s chest with determination but she was no match for him. He subdued her quickly. Too quickly? She ceased her struggles and allowed Olney to kiss her, though he’d have wagered a good sum that she did not give him access to the full sweetness of her mouth. Clever girl. Keep him wanting more. He was liking this Miss Lillian more and more by the moment.

Satisfied with her tentative surrender, Olney loosened his hold and she stepped back. Had she known he would release her if she granted the kiss? Canny, coy and saucy—a lethal combination for a man like Olney.

“I will speak with Father at once,” he said, stepping backward onto the stone path. “Wait for me here, and we shall celebrate.”

Devlin could guess how Olney would choose to celebrate. He wanted his Miss Lillian badly enough to defy his father and common sense to have her? This, then, would be the woman to bear the Rutherford heir? Ah, he’d waited patiently for years for something like this—and just in time, given that the old man was ailing. What a stroke of good luck this was—and one not to be squandered.

Lilly heaved a long sigh as she sank to the little stone bench again, watching Lord Olney disappear through the French windows to go find his father. He’d been most persuasive. She hadn’t meant to encourage him, nor had she intended to aim as high as a marquis or a duke, but when faced with the possibility, she’d been hard-pressed to deny him. Her every instinct told her to proceed with caution, but her intellect told her that such a marriage to the Rutherford heir could be salvation for the O’Rourkes. And he certainly treated her well enough.

Life since coming to London had been such a trial. Her poor sisters! Cora dead by betrayal, Eugenia withdrawn to the point of seclusion and Isabella wed suddenly by license to the infamous “Lord Libertine” even before their mourning period was over. As Lady Vandecamp, their sponsor in London, had said, what was to become of them if something drastic was not done? That “something” had fallen to Lilly.

Her union with a marquis and future duke could be just the solution they needed to salvage what was left of the family’s reputation and future. If her marriage to a duke did not stop the ton’s doubts, it would certainly stop their gossip.

Although she was not wildly in love with Olney, her mother had told her that love comes with time. She supposed she could wait. But, so far, all that Lilly had been able to see was that love was just another word for treachery. It had gotten Cora killed and Bella married to an unsuitable man.

“So pensive, miss?”

She gasped and whirled around to find a man in shirtsleeves standing beneath the willow. A groundskeeper or stable master. He’d frightened her half to death! But he was still a stranger, and if she’d learned nothing else in London, she’d learned to be wary of strangers. Especially one as wholly masculine and attractive as this one. She turned away without speaking.

A deep chuckle caused a little chill of foreboding to skitter up her spine. “Miss Lillian, is it not?”

“Miss O’Rourke,” she corrected without turning.

“O’Rourke, eh? So I was right to think you have a lilt in your voice. Subtle, though, as if your tutors might have schooled you not to show your roots.”

Was he suggesting that she was trying to hide her Irish blood? “I am not ashamed of my heritage, sir. No one has coached me. My mother is English and my father…But this is none of your business. I have no need to explain myself to a stranger.”

The man came around the bench and gave her an impudent smile. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, all breathless and nervous. And besides, he’d been eavesdropping. How…how déclassé.

“Top of the island, I’d say. Northern and Scottish influence. Belfast?”

She gaped at him. How could he know such things? She was from Belfast, but she’d never admit it to him.

“Yes, Belfast. Well, Miss O’Rourke, you seem to be coming up in the world, eh? By design? Or serendipity?”

She tilted her nose upward, feigning sublime indifference.

“You can speak to me, Miss O’Rourke. I promise I do not bite.”

She glanced at him again and noted that he had a well-cut expensive jacket slung over one arm and an intricately tied cravat at his throat. Not a gardener, then. But more unsettling than she’d thought at first. He was tall, had very dark hair, a strong jaw lined with equally dark stubble and the most astonishing blue-gray eyes she’d ever seen. And more subtle, there was a challenge veiled in those eyes. Something almost angry. Something dangerous.

“We have not been introduced,” she reminded.

He looked around and shrugged. “I do not see anyone to perform that task.”

And yet, she noted, he did not give his name or his business here. She glanced away again, hoping he would recognize a cut when it was given. Another time, under different circumstances, she might have ignored propriety and…No. She wouldn’t have. He did not look suitable at all. He looked…like the sort of man who had ruined her sisters.

“So,” he said, apparently undaunted by her snub. “You are to become a duchess. What good fortune for you.”

“It is all I have dreamed of since I was a child, sir.” She sniffed. “And the good fortune is all his.”

He laughed outright this time. “’Tis always wise not to sell oneself short, but an inflated opinion of one’s own worth might be just as bad.”

Oh! Was he suggesting that she was not worthy of Edward Manlay, the Marquis of Olney? “Are you a friend of his, then, come to save him from my social-climbing grasp?”

“No friend of his, Miss O’Rourke, and thus I suppose I ought just to leave him to you.”

Heat swept up from her toes. Could she even count the number of veiled—and not so veiled—insults he’d delivered in the course of scant minutes?

“Denial, eh?” He posed a thoughtful look. “Is that what makes the heart grow fonder? Have you considered if he would propose if you had given him what he wanted?”

“I am not certain I will give him what he wants even after we are wed.” She lifted her nose in the air and turned away, dismissing him once and for all.

The insufferable man roared with laughter this time. “Dear Lord! You are so pitifully naive, Miss O’Rourke. Do you know what kind of man Olney really is? Not the eager oaf who just pawed you, but the man he is when there is nothing to stop him? And, alas, when you wed him, there will be, quite literally, nothing to stop him.”

“How dare you presume to know his mind, or his nature!”

“As you say, Miss O’Rourke.” He bowed, an elegant and graceful move for one so large. “We shall meet again, and I shall look forward to hearing your experience in dealing with Olney. No doubt you will be sadder, but wiser.”

“Is that a threat, sir?”

“Take it as you will, miss, but take it you will.” And with those words, he departed, merging with the shadows and leaving her quite unsettled.