She was clinging to the banister, her face absolutely drained of color. Although she had stopped screaming, she was obviously paralyzed with fright.
"Lisette," he said, coming to the bottom of the stairs.
She looked at him, her face pathetically wan, her blue eyes huge.
"Poor scrap," he said, and held out his arms. She fell into them and he scooped her up. She put her head against his shoulder, as trustingly as if she were a child.
"Take her into the drawing room," Eleanor said. "I'll go outside and make sure that Oyster is out of sight and sound." She said it flatly, without an edge, but Villiers could read her voice easily enough.
He looked down at Lisette's spun-gold hair. She wasn't the bravest of creatures, but there was no point in defending her at the moment. Besides, Eleanor had already stamped out the door after Oyster.
So he walked into the drawing room and sat down on a sofa. After a moment Lisette eased off his lap and onto the bench beside him. "I'm quite irrational when it comes to dogs." Big tears made her eyes glisten. "I hate being such a coward."
"Many people are afraid of dogs," he said, trying to sound consoling, although sympathy wasn't exactly his forte. "There's no need to apologize."
"Oyster is likely a quite nice dog." She was twisting her fingers around and around each other. "It's just that I had such a terrible experience last year in the village. A feral dog was threatening everyone, and there were children in the square. I had to protect them."
"Terrible," Villiers said, only half listening.
"If we marry," Lisette said, "you must promise me that we will have no hounds on the premises."
"If we marry?" he echoed, snapping to attention.
It was the second time in as many days that a woman had announced their imminent marriage without bothering to wait for his proposal. In this case, he hadn't even broached the idea of marriage, which made her announcement seem truly presumptuous.
"Yes," Lisette said, apparently unmoved by the surprise in his voice. "I am truly considering it, Leopold. I like your children so much."
Of course, that was why he was considering it too: because she would be a bighearted, wonderful mother to his motley brood.
She smiled up at him. "I think we should suit, especially because you don't own a dog."
No dog but six children. Most women would run screaming in the opposite direction, so it seemed he had found the perfect woman. At least from that particular point of view.
"Why don't you kiss me now?" Lisette asked. Her eyes were the exact color of sky outside the window. Of course he wanted to kiss her.
He leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips. They were pale pink, very soft.
"I like kissing," she said, sighing a bit. She put a hand on his chest. "Do you like kissing, Leopold?"
"Of course," he said, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into. It was her fresh sweetness that made her such a perfect choice for a wife. He would have to be slow and kind, and hope that he didn't wilt from pure boredom during the act.
"Of course, I like other things about bedding men," she said.
He blinked.
"Kiss me again," she cooed, pursing her lips. He obliged, settling his lips over her soft ones. She couldn't have meant that comment the way it sounded. "What do you like about bedding men?" he inquired.
She looked up through her lashes modestly. "I'm certain that you can teach me a great deal."
Lisette was the very model of a respectable virgin. Not like infuriating Eleanor, who had clearly slept with Godless Gideon before he ran off to marry Ada. And not like her in other ways too, because Eleanor had that trick of setting a man's blood on fire just by looking at him.
Whereas Lisette's sweet blue eyes were restful.
"Kiss me again," she said, placing a slender arm around his neck.
He bent his head again and this time ran his tongue along the seam of her lips. He was a little afraid that she might be prudish in her approach—weren't virgins always
nonplussed by their first real kisses?
But she opened her mouth readily enough. They played with their tongues for a while, and she even stroked his shoulders.
They'd be fine in bed.
The fact that he kept thinking about Eleanor, and the way she uttered those absurd little noises when she kissed him...that was unacceptable.
He had made his bed the moment he allowed Tobias to be conceived. He couldn't undo those wrongs after all these years, but he could make a level-headed choice for wife, rather than choosing someone based on lust.
Because damn it, he felt lust for Eleanor. Even thinking about her made him harden. Remembering the way he bent over her on the balcony, and her bottom tucked—