“What’s the matter?” Alaric asked.
“Nothing,” she said, giving him a little push in the chest.
“Willa.”
The way he looked down at her surprised the truth out of her. “I do not believe that you are back in England for good.”
“Why not?”
“You’re an explorer—” Her voice died out because he was tracing the plane of her cheek with one finger.
“I’m getting old.” He was so close that the minty smell of his breath washed over her face.
“You are not old.” The look in his eyes suggested that she was about to be kissed.
She’d been kissed before. She and Lavinia had decided a great deal could be learned about a man by allowing a small intimacy. Both of them had been kissed by a reasonable number of men—eight in the case of Lavinia and two in hers.
Alaric’s mouth came close to hers, hovered, and waited. That was part of his allure. He didn’t take, from the pirates or anyone else.
He waited for an invitation. The nearness of him was like kindling, making pinpricks of fire spark throughout her limbs.
Willa felt the weight of her eyelashes sweeping down as her eyes closed. It was acceptance. Joyful acceptance. His hand slid under her hair, curled around her neck, pulling her closer. Finally his lips brushed hers, asking a silent question.
Willa welcomed him, opening her lips. His tongue took her mouth with an assured, slow masterfulness that made her ache with need, though his touch was still light. His hand clung to her neck but his body didn’t touch hers.
Enough, she thought. Yet reining in her desire felt like reining in the dusk. Or the rain. Something real, natural, uncontrollable.
That thought was absurd enough to make her eyes snap open. Alaric was looking directly at her, his blue eyes slumberous.
She gave him another push, her hand flat on his chest. He wasn’t wearing a waistcoat; under the fine cambric of his shirt his chest was hard with muscle.
“You surprise me, Willa.” His gravelly voice skittered along her skin and made her shiver with the sudden wish to demand another kiss.
He tilted up her chin and licked her lips, teasing her mouth open, then stroking inside. Their mouths clung together as Willa’s heart beat faster. He tasted potent, like brandy heated over an open flame.
“Willa,” he said. And then, again, heavily, “Willa.” He shook his head. “The name doesn’t suit you.”
“Wh-what?” she managed.
“Willa is cool and dispassionate. Willa kisses a man to know whether she could bear to meet him over the breakfast table.”
It was somewhat shocking to hear him summarize her justification for kissing suitors so accurately.
“I would like to call you by a name that’s known only to the two of us,” he told her, brushing her mouth with his again.
She pulled away. “There’s no need for that.”
In her basket, Sweetpea stretched and yawned, little teeth flashing briefly in the sun.
“It’s time to return,” Willa said, wondering what on earth had got into her. She bent over and picked up the basket, holding it against her chest.
“Everett,” he said, looking at her.
It was her mother’s name, and the very sound of it made her smile. “That is not a proper name to call anyone,” she said. “It was my mother’s maiden name.”
“Ah, but it suits you. In another world, you’d be a man.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“But thank God, you’re a woman,” he added, eyes alight with amusement. And desire. “Everett,” he said again. Then: “Evie!”
Willa shook her head and circled him so she could return inside. She was finished with this dalliance. She had another kiss to add to her tally, which was good.
Experience was always valuable. Before she chose the man she would marry, that is. Her brain felt oddly woozy, but at the same time, her senses were keenly alive.
Alaric walked just behind her, at her shoulder. She could feel the warmth of his body, and a hint of spearmint.
“Why do you taste and smell like mint?” she asked abruptly.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind and breathed into her ear. “Do you like the way I taste, Evie? Because I love the way you taste.” He kissed her neck.
Willa shook him off. “This is not the way friends behave.” She hesitated, then turned and told him the truth. “I don’t wish to marry someone like you.”
His face stilled.
“My father was rash and impulsive. My mother as well. They died after he accepted a bet to drive a coach and four from Brighton to Croydon in under two hours.”
“An impossible goal,” he observed.
“I would never be comfortable or happy with someone with such an adventurous nature. Please do not importune me.”
He was silent as they headed back toward the front door of the castle. Once in the entry, he paused to tell Prism about the roses.
“Your maid is waiting for you in your chamber, Miss Ffynche,” the butler said.
“What’s this?” Alaric asked, staring at a print stuck to the wall behind Prism.
Willa hadn’t seen that particular one, but the subject was clear: his jaw and eyebrows were all too familiar.
“It’s entitled Something Wilde,” she said, smiling as she took a closer look. “My goodness, just look at that bull you’re riding. What a rakish hat.”
“Why is it on the wall, Prism?” Alaric asked, his voice even.
“They’re hung all over the house, my lord,” the butler said, hastily taking it down. “As soon as I discover them, your brothers put up more.”
“My brothers?”
“Master Leonidas returned home with a great many prints in his luggage,” Prism said. “As you know, Mr. Sterling bought Mr. Calico’s entire collection yesterday; Master Spartacus claimed them, I believe. The nursery is papered in prints of Lord Wilde and they are multiplying about the castle like mice.”
Willa had been in danger of forgetting the reasons why Alaric was the wrong man to kiss, but the world intervened with a reminder just when she needed it.
“My lord,” she said, curtsying. She turned without further ado to climb the stairs.
A hand caught her elbow. “Evie,” Alaric said in a low voice.
She steeled her heart against those blue eyes. “Good afternoon, my lord.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wherever Alaric looked, he found the hellish prints. The escutcheon on the dining room side table boasted two, the candelabra in the drawing room was doing duty as a picture hanger, and the fireplace in the morning room was adorned with three versions of himself with Empress Catherine.
He tore them all down as he went. When he reached the breakfast room—hearing giggles floating from just outside the door—and found two more images of himself (entitled Wilde Revealed), he gave up.
It wasn’t the prints making emotions rampage around his chest. It was the look in Willa’s eyes.
For a moment she had looked stricken, and then her eyes had gone utterly blank. Courteous, but blank. The empty face that she presented to the world: that of the governed, perfect lady.
His kiss had only momentarily shattered her façade.
But he was coming to realize that he had shattered more than her reserve. Something inside himself had changed, too. He felt a sudden, desperate need to turn back the clock. Push her, force her, into acknowledging Alaric, rather than Lord Wilde.
She disliked Lord Wilde. No, stubble it: Willa didn’t dislike anyone. She observed them, with the same friendly curiosity with which he observed people in other countries.
She was curious about her fellow Englishmen.
But … and this was a huge but … he thought she showed only her friend Lavinia her dizzy sense of humor. Remembering the way she looked at the little skunk—a stinky animal bred to be a fur scarf—made his chest tighten with crushing weight.
Willa deserved a peaceful life with a man who would keep her safe from vulgar eyes and gossiping tongues. A man whose face was plastered across half of England was ineligible. His notoriety meant that whoever married him would always be in the public eye.
Most of the guests were upstairs in their chambers, engaged in the elaborate process of dressing for dinner, the same process that would spit forth his brother as varnished and polished as a seashell. If he encountered one of those guests right now, especially a lady, the odds were that he would be greeted with a mixture of vulgar curiosity and awe.
Looking down at the prints in his hand, he went in search of his younger siblings. They’d been giggling outside the door only moments before, but now they’d vanished.
He found his sister Betsy alone in the nursery, where she seemed to be working on a large drawing.
“Where are they?” he demanded, tossing the prints to the side.
“The boys? I have no idea.” She bit her bottom lip as she concentrated.
Alaric felt a wave of affection. Betsy had been a mere girl when he’d left England, and now, at sixteen, she was nearly grown.
“What are you drawing?” he asked, coming closer.
She scowled at him and covered it with her arm. “Don’t!”
“No wonder there are so many of these things around the house,” he groaned, catching sight of her subject. “You’re creating them.”
Betsy grinned with all the evil mischief that his siblings had in force. “It’s only fair!” she cried. “Do you have any idea how much teasing I’ve endured because of you?”