Alaric frowned. “You have been teased?”
“You do know that I’ve been attending a seminary, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “When I left, you were here, with a governess.” He looked around. “Tall, gaunt woman?”
“Mr. Calico kept bringing her letters from a gentleman whom she knew in Kent,” Betsy said. “One day she climbed on the back of his wagon and left, without a word of warning. Papa was most displeased.”
“I imagine so.”
“But it turned out for the best, because Joan, Viola, and I were sent to school, which we love, except that all the girls have prints of you on their bedchamber walls.” She wrinkled her nose.
“I apologize,” Alaric said.
“So you should!” she cried, eyes sparkling. “I can’t tell you how many girls befriended me merely because they thought I would invite them home to meet you. Or introduce you later, once we debut.”
“That is unpleasant.”
“I agree,” Betsy said, turning back to her drawing. She moved her arm, enabling Alaric to get a good look. It wasn’t the nose he saw in the glass every morning, but the likeness wasn’t bad.
“What am I doing with that sword over my head?” he asked.
“You’re fighting a polar bear,” she said. “I shall put him in this blank space once I find a picture to copy, because I can’t remember what they look like. Right now I’m just trying to get your nose right. It keeps going overly long, if you see what I mean.”
“I do,” Alaric said, nodding. “If I actually resembled your portrait, I would lose the greater part of my female admirers, which would be a blessing.”
Betsy sighed. “I tried telling the girls scurrilous things about you, but it had no effect.”
“What scurrilous things?” Alaric inquired.
“Oh, that your lover had been cooked for a cannibal breakfast, and things like that.”
“Don’t tell me you were allowed to attend that blasted play?”
“Not yet, but I’ve heard all about it. Papa says that I will be able to see it, the next time we go to London. You might as well stop taking them down,” she said, almost kindly, as she gestured at the crumpled prints he’d brought with him. “Leonidas has lots more. He bought every copy he could find. He’s adding some embellishments and then he means to put his up tomorrow.”
“Embellishments,” Alaric said hollowly. “Such as?”
“Oh, whiskers and so on,” Betsy said. “Demon horns. He has some red ink so he can make a pretty devil’s tail …”
This was all going to be marvelously helpful when it came to courting Miss Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche.
“Do you suppose there’s anything I might do to dissuade him?”
“I do not,” Betsy stated. She was sketching rapidly now. The Alaric on the page held his sword above his head in such a position that he wouldn’t be able to fight off a sparrow, let alone a bear.
“The flat of the sword does nothing in a fight,” he observed.
She glanced up at him. “Do you think I care?”
“I suppose not,” Alaric said. Truth was relative; he knew it as well as his sister did. But he had the strange feeling that Willa saw things in a less ambiguous fashion.
For her, the stream of tawdry portraits that multiplied by the day would be evidence of his ineligibility, no matter his dislike of his own fame.
He left the nursery, trying to think how to rein in the maelstrom of public attention so it was acceptable to a reserved virgin with a dislike of celebrity. Nothing came to mind.
In fact, he would say that he was the antithesis of everything Willa wanted in a spouse.
A reluctant grin curled his mouth. One thing could be said for him—for all the Wildes, it seemed.
When they went down, they really went down.
Chapter Seventeen
The following evening
Lavinia burst into Willa’s room, eyes glowing. “Let’s go! We’re playing piquet this evening.” Lavinia adored card games; Willa, less so, because she disliked the element of surprise involved.
People behaved irrationally when playing card games. They bid high when they had a weak hand. They became fearful when a simple mental tally of the cards already played would tell them that they had a good chance of winning.
“We have to be the first to arrive,” Lavinia commanded, holding the door open. “Yesterday Mr. Silly Sterling dared to inform me that ladies are never on time. You look lovely, by the way.”
Willa’s deep amber gown was designed to emphasize her slender shape by parting to reveal a saffron petticoat that frothed around her feet.
It also left most of her bosom exposed. She didn’t have Lavinia’s generous shape, but everything she had was presented for admiration. She took a last look at the glass, slipped on the striped silk shoes made to match the gown, and followed Lavinia down the stairs.
Lavinia’s eagerness to prove Mr. Sterling wrong resulted in their being the first to arrive in the green salon, where several tables seating four or six persons had been set out, just enough to facilitate a lively game of piquet. No sooner had they entered the empty room than Alaric appeared, Parth Sterling in tow.
“Could that man look any more wretchedly ill-tempered?” Lavinia whispered as they approached. All the same, she greeted both of them with a wide smile. She had a tendency to become even more charming in the face of bad humor.
Willa thought it was a habit she’d developed as a child because her mother, Lady Gray, was so plagued by nerves.
“Good evening, Lord Alaric, Mr. Sterling,” Lavinia said, ignoring Mr. Sterling’s cantankerous look. She tucked her arm under his, uninvited. “Do walk me around the room,” she cooed. “You are a trifle early, though not as early as Willa and I were.”
Willa shook her head. For some reason, Lavinia was bent on tormenting the poor man.
Alaric moved forward as Lavinia towed his friend toward the other side of the salon. “Your friend is a menace.”
“And yours is absurdly bad-tempered,” she countered.
“He likes to keep to himself, but Lavinia deliberately provokes him.”
“That’s true,” Willa acknowledged.
“It’s because the two of you are used to having every man in the vicinity at your feet,” Alaric said.
She shook her head. “Nothing parallel to your admirers, Lord Wilde. Any moment now, an adoring horde will surge through those doors.”
He looked down at her, eyes sober. “If I’d had the faintest idea that someone would write a farce about me, leading to this lunatic situation, I would never have written my first book.”
Willa put a hand on his arm, enjoying the corded strength under her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it. “It’s unfair. I never paid much attention to the reason for your fame, but I do see that it is unfair.”
His eyes lightened. “Do you know what is truly unfair?”
Willa’s heart thumped. When he had that expression … “What?”
“All these ladies are making pilgrimages to my home, and adoring me from afar, yet I can’t get the one woman I want to pay me any true attention.”
“I do pay you attention! We’re friends, remember?” The look in his eyes made her prickle with warmth all over her body.
He bent close. “I want close attention, Evie. Very, very close attention.”
Willa swallowed. “There are plenty of women who would give you whatever you wish.”
“Lady Biddle and her ilk are no competition for you.” Alaric’s voice was quiet. His eyes caught hers, and then he bent his head and his lips touched hers. Willa gasped, and his tongue darted between her lips, sending a lick of flame straight down her legs.
She should push him away; guests were sure to flood the salon any moment. Instead, she glanced over her shoulder. Lavinia and Parth Sterling were standing at the far end of the room, and from the looks of it, they were engaged in yet another pitched battle.
Alaric’s grin was pure, wicked fun. “No one is here to see us. Did I tell you that I haven’t given my attentions to a lady in a very long time? I might be out of practice.”
Willa’s mouth crooked up on one side despite herself. “Am I expected to offer advice?”
He bent his head to hers again. Broad, capable fingers cupped her face, tilting it just so. His were callused hands that knew how to unfurl a sail, how to climb a tree, how to scale a mountain.
Willa’s toes curled. She didn’t move, just looked into those beautiful eyes until Alaric’s mouth came down, eyes still locked with hers, and he plundered her mouth.
For a moment she luxuriated, arms wreathing around his neck, and then she began to plunder back, her tongue fencing with his. Every touch made her body tighten, like a clock being over-wound. A whimper rose in her throat, answered by a growl in his.
As if the sound brought Alaric back to himself, he moved back just enough to kiss her nose. “You’re mine,” he growled, low and sure.
“No,” she said. But she wasn’t as certain as she’d been the afternoon before. “I don’t …”
“I want you enough for both of us,” he said in her ear. The door to the drawing room opened, admitting a cluster of guests, and he stepped back. “And with all due respect to your father, Evie, I would never be reckless when it came to your safety, and I don’t make bets I can’t win. In fact, I don’t make bets at all.”