Her.
He scowled at the betraying thought.
Irritably, he pivoted to leave, and as he did so, he heard the unmistakable if faint sound of a female cursing. Relieved by the distraction, he smiled, wondering if along with all the rest of the unwelcome bequests with which Taran—damn his unfruitful loins—intended to saddle him, he would also inherit a ghost. Though he thought even ghosts had more sense than to haunt so inhospitable a place.
He looked down the hall toward where the sound had come just as a pile of russet-colored rags topped by a head emerged from a doorway.
A particularly dark and lovely head.
Lady Cecily.
It appeared he was to be haunted, after all.
Chapter 21
For a second, Robin considered pretending he hadn’t seen her—again—and bolt down the adjacent corridor. By avoiding her thus far, he had avoided sampling what he could never wholly have.
True, manners had demanded that he make an appearance at dinner the first night, but he’d seated himself at the opposite end of the table from her and escaped as soon as Marilla had commenced her campaign to win Bretton’s . . . Well, if she won anything of Bretton’s, it certainly wasn’t ever going to be his heart. But, then, any fool watching her manhandle the duke would soon realize that Bretton’s heart was never her objective.
But now Robin found he could not resist the opportunity to spend some time alone with Lady Cecily before her rescuers came thundering through the passes. When they arrived, he would be gone. He had no intention of standing by while Marilla Chisholm convinced her father that events had occurred that could only be satisfied with a wedding. Particularly if it was his own.
Besides, perhaps if he spent some time with Lady Cecily, he would discover that she was not what every fiber in his heart declared her to be but simply a young lady whose lovely visage and pretty manners summed up the total of what she was or aspired to become. At least, he thought as he strode toward her, he could hope.
“Lady Cecily,” Robin hailed her, his amusement growing with each step.
She’d exchanged yesterday’s antique morning weeds for an even older ball gown, dating from an era when women would have had to turn sideways to enter through a door. But without the support of the underlying panniers that would have once jutted out from her hips, the heavy skirts dragged along the ground on either side of her like two broken wings.
The once rich ruby red silk had turned a dull rusty color, and the heavy application of silver thread embroidering the sleeves and hem had become green with age. Huge silk cabbage roses, once white but now dingy and yellowed, hung disconsolately from her elbows, waist, and hips.
Even during the height of George VII’s reign, when low-cut dresses were in vogue, the décolletage would have been indecent, but on Lady Cecily’s slight frame it hung so loosely that she’d been forced to wrap some sort of velvet shawl around her neck like a muffler before stuffing the ends down the bodice to preserve her modesty. The effort had apparently caused her hair to fall from its neat knot, and it, too, lay tucked beneath the velvet wrapping.
An image of how she’d look had she not been so enterprising with that damned shawl beset his imagination; her hair rippling over her naked shoulders, loose curls playing at her cleavage. Heated desire quickened his body. Ruthlessly, he vanquished the taunting vision.
“Heavens, Comte, whatever are you doing here?” Lady Cecily asked.
Avoiding you, my love. “Taking my morning constitutional. My doctor prescribes clambering over rubble in frigid temperatures at least thrice daily,” he said, and she gratified him by laughing at his absurdity. “Might I inquire the same?”
She glanced down at her bedraggled skirts and gave an unexpectedly gamine grin. “One can only wear a gown twice before retiring it. Surely you know that, Comte? I found this in the trunk Mr. Hamish brought to the room and as for this . . .” She grimaced, plucking at the shawl.
His eyes widened. By God, it wasn’t a shawl she’d wrapped around her shoulders, but an old velvet bed curtain. He recognized it as coming from a room he’d once occupied as a child! Apparently, she’d ripped it from its moorings.
“I will, of course, make restitution,” she added.
“My dear,” he said, shaking his head mournfully, “I hardly know what to say. One doesn’t find relics like that just lying about, you know.”
“No,” she answered. “One finds them hangingabout.”
He stifled a chuckle, trying to look stern. “What is even more distressing than your pillaging my uncle’s home is that having torn the family tapestry from its rods to decorate yourself, you are now on the hunt for more things to loot.”
“Terrible, I know,” she admitted, her gaze unsettlingly direct. “I am afraid that when I find something I want, I will fight to the end for it.”
He looked at her with renewed appreciation. Those had hardly been the words of a model of propriety. And her gaze was too direct and her expression filled with delight and naughtiness. Indeed, her ripe lips trembled with ill-suppressed merriment.
Damn it.
“How rapacious of you,” he said, realizing he’d been staring. “But then, how can I find fault with that? Especially as I have been accused of similar failings.”
“Oh. Is it a failing?” she asked innocently, glancing at him out of the corner of her remarkable eyes. With each word and glance, she delighted him more.
This was far worse—and so much better—than he’d expected. The conversations he’d had with young ladies during his first season had been unremarkable exchanges: bland pleasantries, light chat about the latest play, the weather, the most recent exhibitions. There’d been no repartee, no subtext, no—God help him—flirtation.
He must leave Finovair before lunch.
“Besides,” she said, “your cousin claims that you are the very model of restraint.”
Once more, she’d caught him off-guard. He burst out laughing. “Either you are twitting me, Lady Cecily, or you have discovered a cousin who is entirely unknown to me and who, obviously, knows just as little about me in return.”
“He seemed quite confident. But then, you never know with men, do you?” she said. “They always appear to be certain of everything. It must be exhausting. Is it?”
“As I am not certain of anything, particularly this conversation, I dare not answer.”
“Oh, I believe you think yourself very certain of who and what you are, Comte.”
There was amusement in her voice and he didn’t quite know what to make of that. He smiled to cover his discomfort and said, “Please, the title is less than a courtesy. You must call me Robin, especially as Marilla has announced that we are all on first-name terms.”
Some of the light faded in her extraordinary eyes. “I should have liked to call you Robin at your own behest, not someone else’s.”
“It ismy request. I should like you to call me Robin.” He heard the slight imploring note in his voice, but could do nothing to prevent it. He wanted to hear her say his name in every mood: shouted in glee, whispered in intimacy, spoken with easy familiarity.
“Only if you will call me Cecily.”
“Your father would hardly approve.” The words slipped out unintended. When had he turned into such a pedant? But she really shouldn’t be giving the use of her Christian name to a rake.
“But he is not here, and I would never presume to know of what he would approve or disapprove,” she said with feigned haughtiness. “I find it rather audacious that you do.”