Good girls don't go snooping where they don't belong.
But Lady Delia Scarborough never claimed to be a good girl.
Lady Delia Scarborough wants her sister back from the grave.
Since that can't happen, she'll settle for the next best thing...
Making...
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As it turned out, Kieran hadn't had to go all the way to London. The ship's captain had shown up at the halfway point, as he had family in the town, and there they had been able to conduct the pertinent business. Kieran might have been more irritated if it hadn't meant that he would be back home in half the time.
On the carriage ride back to Brixby Hall, Kieran had to laugh at himself a little. There was a time when he wouldn't have been so eager to return to his ancestral estate in the country. Now, the pleasures of London seemed to pale to bleached white when compared to spending the day with Alice and Delia.
I'm sure that at some point, the newness will wear off, and then I will find myself bored with life in the country and doting on my daughter... but damned if I can tell when that would be.
The only problem was that he was hoping to pick up a decent set of paints for Alice in London, and now he would have to send away for them.
If he were honest, Alice wasn't the only person for whom he had considered purchasing gifts. If there was one thing he was familiar with, it was presents that would delight a pretty girl, but as the carriage had rumbled ever toward London, he'd realized that that expertise was entirely wrong.
Delia had no need for beautiful jewelry or expensive scents from Paris or Milan. She wouldn't thrill to a new hat trimmed with ostrich feathers, and he could see the look she would shoot him over the top of her spectacles at the idea of receiving a pair of leather dancing slippers.
Books then, or perhaps a modiste to come and make her some new gowns. Hers are so very gray.
He was bone tired in the carriage, but when he finally gained the house, Kieran realized that he didn't quite want to sleep yet.
I can read for a little while, perhaps...
He had not expected to see a candle burning in his library, and he certainly had not expected to see Delia, clad in nothing but her shift, standing there holding it, a guilty look on her face.
"And what in the world are you doing here?"
His mind flashed from simple theft to Delia letting in thieves from her London gang to arson and to how grieved Alice would be to lose her, and then sense asserted itself. This was Delia.
"I was on my way back from the kitchen for a drink, and, well, I thought I would get something to read."
"That explains the shift, I suppose."
"You know, a gentleman might not mention it and might allow me to make my way back to my room without any odd or pointed questions."
"Is that what a gentleman would do?"
"I am sure of it!" She spoke with such indignant conviction that Kieran laughed, stripping his own light linen jacket from his shoulders.
She jumped a little when he stepped closer, but after he draped the black jacket around her, she pulled it close with all the dignity of a queen offered her regalia.
Kieran thought abruptly about the time she had mentioned reading before, when they had been discussing what went on between a man and a woman in bed, and he couldn't stop himself from grinning.
"So, you were looking for something to read?"
Something about his tone must have irritated her, because she stood up very straight and glared at him.
"I was, and now I will be returning to my rooms."
"But you have not yet found anything to read. Shall I help you?"
Delia hesitated, looking momentarily unsure, and Kieran closed the study door behind him, setting his own candle in a small depression in the wall. It was cunningly outfitted with mirrors, and the dancing candle flame set a reflection of light throughout the room
"Perhaps I can help you. It is, after all, my study."
"You needn't trouble yourself..."
"I would like to take the trouble. What do you like to read?"
Delia seemed to come to a decision, and she offered him a smile that was small but seemed genuine.
"Truthfully? I like just about everything. I like romances, of course, but I also like adventure novels, of the kind that they write for young boys. I like history and science, and I even like reading about mathematics if the writer is good at what they do."
Kieran laughed with delight at her answer. "Quite the little scholar, aren't you? Have you read all your life?"
To his delight, Delia drifted closer to him, perhaps to hear his quiet voice more clearly, perhaps simply because she wanted to. He abruptly became more aware than ever that she was only in her shift and his jacket; a thin and nearly transparent layer of cotton lawn and another layer of fine linen were all that stood between her soft skin and his hands... or his mouth...
"I have. I'm afraid I wasted many days when I should have been out playing or interacting with others in my rooms with my nose buried in a book. My mother was quite in despair."
The slight hint of melancholy in her tone wiped away Kieran's thoughts about seducing her over one of the books that were kept on the very top shelf, behind a completely innocuous copy of the works of Marcus Aurelius. He coughed slightly, wondering when he had become such a lecher.
"Well, let's see, I have plenty of adventure, not much romance, I am afraid, and plenty of history as well..."
She came closer just as he turned toward the shelves, and somehow, somehow, they ended up standing with less than four inches of space between them, Delia's back to the shelves and Kieran looming over her. He noticed that her hair, usually scraped back in a bun, was in a plait now, and soft wisps escaped to frame her face.
Without thinking, he reached up to tuck one errant lock behind her ear, and then almost as if hypnotized, he cupped her face in his hand. Her skin was terribly soft under his palm, and when she looked up at him, her spectacles slid down her nose, revealing her wide gray eyes.
"Your eyes look darker in this light, like a storm instead of a pool of quicksilver."
"Kieran..."
He wasn't sure whether she meant to urge him on or to push him back. Her voice trailed off, and underneath it, he heard a breath of longing, something with its own gravity, and heedless, he was falling.
The moment his lips touched hers, something in him was set on fire, like a burning beacon. She felt like passion, like life, like a flower blooming alone in an empty desert. He knew, somehow in his mind, that she felt the same thing, that she needed this as much as he did. When he felt her small hand reach blindly up for a handful of his shirt, grabbing the fabric and hanging on, he thought that there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for her.
Kieran wasn't sure which of them deepened the kiss, but then he was tasting her mouth more completely, her head tilted back so he could sweep his tongue between her soft lips. She was perfect... and then she pulled away.
He almost reached for her again, but then, in the candlelight, he could see her spectacles were askew and her eyes behind them were wild.
"We cannot do this! I cannot... Oh. Oh, goodnight, Kieran, I can't..."
He started to ask her what was wrong, but she snatched up her candle and pelted from the room, taking his jacket with him.
Kieran stared after her, every bone in his body telling him to run after her. Then he thought of what it would look like, the lord of the manor racing after the governess in the middle of the night, and he cursed.
