She surprised him again. He had expected her at the very least to pull away and more likely to slap him or resort to the verbal attacks she had engaged in at Hollywell, but instead she smiled and for a moment he had the sensation of the sun thrusting conclusively through the clouds. It certainly had the same effect—a need to narrow his eyes to protect himself.
‘They often don’t,’ she admitted. The tension seeped out of her hand, but she didn’t remove it from his grasp. She was doing absolutely nothing, but the sensation of her gloved hand in his was spreading through him like dye in water, swirling and expanding. It hadn’t occurred to him his teasing would circle back and take his flank with a full attack of lust. He waited for it to peak and settle into place as all surges of physical attraction did. These pleasant sensations came and went and meant very little in the end. He had outgrown the need to pursue and indulge them, preferring to find physical release with a few very select female friends who knew the rules of the game as well as he and who could be trusted to be discreet and clean and emotionally detached from the act. He had nothing against window shopping, but he no longer bought anything on a whim, certainly nothing as expensive and impractical as a malapert, opinionated heiress.
He dropped her hand and returned to the gargantuan and very ugly fireplace, seeking a mental rope with which to haul himself out of this particular pit, something that would categorically drive her away.
‘What do you think? Is it big enough for my harem?’
* * *
Lily watched as Lord Ravenscar ran his hand along the dark marble mantel that topped the oversized fireplace, his fingers rising and falling over the moulding. She clasped her own hands together, quashing the tingling heat that lingered from his clasp and made her gloves feel too tight. She had needed just this kind of comment to centre her. It was her fault for initiating the game in the first place. It took her three breaths to find her place again in the order of things. Lily Wallace, heiress. Needs no one and no one tells her what to do. Certainly not a rakehell like Lord Ravenscar.
Almost an hour had passed since they had arrived in Saltford and so far every one of her attempts to uncover his objective had run aground. The only thing she had learned was that he enjoyed dangling decoys and watching her twist to his taunts. She turned resolutely to inspect the fireplace.
‘The fireplace? If you like your women short and round, it might fit three.’
He smiled and she felt petty, like a child who was being ignored by her elders and who had just thrown something merely to draw attention to herself.
‘Do you like it?’
The change in his tone shoved her further off balance. He had done that before, reach inside her with his voice, set her insides reverberating like the cavern of a bell.
‘What?’
‘The house, Lily. Do you like it?’
She turned away from the focused force of his eyes and the taunting intimacy in his use of her given name. She was being ridiculous. For the past hour she had trotted after him, provoking and needling, and now that she had his full attention on her, she felt a panicked need to deflect it. She could hardly imagine he was being serious about a harem. He was just poking fun at her thwarted curiosity. But those questions had rumbled, no, purred through the cold room and shot heat through her just as that short clasp of her hand had. She could feel it in her cheeks and in her chest, like brandy swallowed too fast.
Do you like it?
She went over to the window just in time to see the sun lose its battle against the clouds, casting the overgrown lawn into shadow with the suddenness of a dropped blanket. It made the world, the house, the room, smaller. Maybe these peculiar sensations were a sign she, too, was falling ill. It would almost be a relief. No one would expect anything of her if she were ill. She could hide in her room and embrace oblivion, and maybe when she came out the other end of the tunnel, this discomfort would be gone and by some miracle her fate would be decided for her.
‘It’s not a complicated question, Lily. Do you like the house?’
He was standing directly behind her now.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Why not?’
She breathed in and answered only the question.
‘It feels sullen. Everything is a little too small, a little too low. I would stifle here. The only thing generous here is the fireplace.’
‘You need space.’
Yes, so move away, you’re crowding me. She didn’t say the words aloud because that would be to pander to his vanity. She frowned up at the clouds. They were gathering in the east. That way was Bristol and ships heading out towards the West Indies and what had once been home but could never be that again.
‘Don’t you?’ she asked.
‘I am used to making do with what is at hand.’
‘I see. We are back to that. I’m spoilt, I suppose.’
‘Most heiresses are. It’s not a matter of choice. Or rather it is a matter of too much choice. They can’t help themselves from expecting more than they need.’
‘How kind of you to be so understanding of my flaws.’ Lily thought of the life she had led until her mother’s death and wondered what he would have made of their spartan existence on the island or in the mining towns in Brazil. As far as he was concerned, she was the product of the life she had led in Kingston.
He moved to her side, looking out over the grass and weeds as they snapped back and forth in the rising wind. He was so close she felt the fabric of his coat against the sleeve of her pelisse. She wouldn’t turn to look because that would give him the satisfaction of knowing how aware she was of him. How many times had she played this game in the drawing rooms and ballrooms of Kingston? She was good at it. It was just another tactical game. His move, hers, his move, hers. In the end she always won because for her it was merely tactics, she had no strategy, nothing she wanted to gain. What she wanted from life had no connection to that game any more than it had to a game of chess. Less. But now that her father was gone she knew those games were over. Now, when Philip Marston returned from Birmingham, she would likely concede and start her new life.
‘Since I have so many flaws myself, it would be rather hypocritical to be intolerant of others,’ he answered. ‘Besides, perfection is vastly overrated. My closest friends are deeply flawed and much the better for it.’
‘I will hazard a wild guess there are no spoilt heiresses among them.’
He laughed and his coat brushed against her arm, raising and lowering the fabric against her arm, and her skin bloomed with goose pimples.
‘Not one. One very unspoilt heiress, but she is married to one of my closest friends.’
That was a good excuse to turn towards him and put some distance between them. She was also curious. There was something in his voice. The same tone as he employed with Nicky—intimate and affectionate; a combination that didn’t match what she knew of him.
‘So you admit the possibility of an unspoilt heiress?’
‘There are always exceptions to the rule. In this case Nell wasn’t spoilt by being society’s darling for years.’
That struck home. She couldn’t deny that that was precisely what she had been since her father had brought her to Jamaica after her mother’s death when she was fourteen and especially since she had been introduced to Jamaican society four years after that. Not that she had ever believed it meant more than an avid appreciation of her father’s fortune.
‘Once you start admitting exceptions to rules, you rather undermine the whole point of having them. How do you know I’m not an exception as well?’
‘Are you?’
‘That