In the Dark with the Duke by Christi Caldwell Page 0,91

wiggled the gossip column as a prize, and the babe’s tears instantly gave way to excited cooing. “Very well,” Lila’s sister went on. “If you insist on meeting him, I intend to join you.”

Sylvia would insist on joining her. Lila, still the youngest March, being coddled and protected. And for how long had Lila herself allowed her family that role? But then, after her return from Manchester, with her refusal to leave their household in London, hadn’t she all but thrust them into the roles of caregivers? “No, you’re not, Sylvia,” she said as her sister started for one of the bell pulls. She’d allowed them to play nursemaids long enough. “I’m meeting him alone.”

“But—”

“I don’t require a chaperone. I’m capable of handling this . . . on my own.” A feat she’d never believed she’d be capable of again.

Vallen continued to slap at the pages of The London Inquisitor with both hands, hopelessly wrinkling and ruining those damnable words about the Lost Lord and other poor subjects of that rubbish paper.

Indecision flared in Sylvia’s eyes, and then she reluctantly moved her focus to Mansfield. “That will be all.”

He bowed and, as if fearing he’d find himself once more in the middle of a debate between the two ladies, rushed off with a speed better suited to a man ten years his junior. “He’s going to find out,” Sylvia said when Lila started for the doorway.

“Of course he will.” She’d used to care more than she ought about her family’s opinion of her and her actions. It’s why she’d lied to them about attending St. Peter’s Field. Just as she lied to them in failing to speak of her aspirations. Pausing, she looked back.

Worry bled from Sylvia’s eyes. “Henry will have my head,” she whispered.

“He won’t.” He was in the country, absorbed with the birth of his first babe. “But . . . if”—when—“he finds out, is it really his place either way to make a determination about what decision you or I should make?” Henry had accepted his wife as a proprietress. Why should he not support his sisters in whatever decisions they made?

Sylvia wrinkled her nose, and then stopped her frantic twisting of her perfect, unbroken digits. “No, I suppose, when you put it that way.”

With her first real smile since that morning in Hugh’s East London apartments, Lila walked the remaining length of the ivory Aubusson carpet with measured steps. Once in the hall, she hastened her steps.

He is here.

How she’d missed him. Despite his palpable fury and the anger he’d directed at her that night he’d stolen off, she’d missed him and their exchanges. And simply being herself with him . . . another person.

Perhaps he’d had a chance to think about what she’d proposed and wished to partner with her.

Or mayhap it was even more than that, and he longed for her, as she’d him.

Lila quickened her strides, the brisk pace she’d set sending her noisy muslin skirts whipping about her ankles.

As she neared the Gold Parlor, she made herself slow her steps, then paused until her breathing was even. All the while her belly danced in an eager anticipation.

Lila stepped into the doorway, and with his back to her, she took a moment to drink her fill of him.

He was stylishly clad in a navy-blue frock coat, his garments bearing no resemblance to the ones he’d worn when they’d last been together. The fine wool, however, drew taut across his broad back, accentuating each muscle. Back when she’d taken part in a Season, gentlemen had padded their garments in order to craft a pretense of muscle.

Her heartbeat gave her chest a drubbing.

For there was nothing illusory in the powerful figure before her.

And here she’d believed it impossible that Hugh Savage could be any more spellbinding than he’d been in his bare shirtsleeves.

How very wrong she’d been.

Suddenly, he turned.

“Good morn . . .” Her greeting withered upon her lips, taking her smile with it.

For on the heels of giddy joy born of the letter Mansfield had handed her, reality reared its ugly head.

He smiled. Only his smile was colder. Harder. Much as it had been when he’d come upon her outside his arena, and not in the days following. Just a few they’d had together. “Hullo, Flittermouse,” he purred.

That latter word bore only a distant hint of the endearment it had once been on his lips.

He wanted something.

Of course he did. Hadn’t he said as much at their last parting? Back when he’d made it