Page 66 of A Flaming Lady's Secret Valentine
Raphael was much more reserved in her father’s home, adjusting his cravat, not daring to touch her. She liked watching him squirm. It empowered her. “Until four o’clock today, my lady.” He cocked his head. “Why?”
“I thought you might want to accompany me on an excursion later, Mr Travers. I’ve a hunger for some exercise.”
For the first time in their acquaintance, Raphael blushed. “Cecilia . . .” he said warningly, wearing a smile. He looked over his shoulder and opened his mouth to say more.
“Cecilia?” a new voice sounded behind them.
The pair quickly pulled apart, though thankfully they had not been in too compromising a position. Cecilia glanced at Edward, who had just come in from the hallway.
“What is it?” she asked as Edward sidled up beside them.
“Morning, Travers,” her brother said a little disparagingly. “Do you plan on working on the stairs? If not, father’s study awaits.”
Raphael cleared his throat and walked away, shooting a naughty glance at Cecilia as he left. Edward clicked his fingers before her face.
“Meanwhile,you aregoing nowhere. Father wishes to speak with you in the drawing room.”
“You make a perfect lackey.” Cecilia sighed and shrugged. “All right, I will go.” Edward fell into step beside her. “But for what it is worth,” she clicked her fingers in the air, “thiswill win you no favours next time.”
With her despairing escort, Cecilia entered the drawing room. Her father was where he always was after breakfast, mulling over the post and papers before the fire. He sniffed and turned the page of what seemed to be the fashion columns and landed on the property notices.
The room smelled of coffee and ash, and Cecilia took a deep breath in before speaking. “Edward says you wish to speak with me, papa.” She turned to her brother mockingly. “You’ve done your bit and may go now.”
“One could wonder what is put you in such a good mood,” Edward retorted. “That being said, I am staying put for this.”
Cecilia quirked a brow, but her father cut them off by standing to his feet. He slapped his folded newspaper down haplessly. “No, you are coming with me, Ed.” Whistling, he motioned for the door.
Before Cecilia could ask what was happening, the duke pushed Edward out of the room, closing the double doors behind them. Her heart leapt to her throat when she heard a familiar footfall in the library.
Gregory ambled into the room. His expression was unreadable, but Cecilia did not need to know his feelings to understand what was about to happen. Her father would not allow the two to be aloneunless he was certain there would be no need for a chaperone soon.
“Lady Cecilia, it is good to see you,” Gregory said. He circled the chairs in front of the fire and leaned against the one her father had been occupying. “Did you sleep well?”
“What are you doing, Lord Radcliff?” Reflexively, her hands gripped the fabric of her skirts. She needed to find purchase somewhere before he opened his mouth and spelled her destruction. “Is my father listening at the door?” she added loudly.
A retreating set of footsteps suggested that she had been right.
Gregory smiled mirthlessly. “Would you like to sit?”
“I think I shall stay standing.”
“As you wish.”
Gregory rubbed a hand over his face, and it almost made her think he did not want to go through with it . . . but hemusthave if he was here, looking at her in the same way she looked at white soup.
“Cecilia, after our promenade earlier this week, I was unsure whether this sojourn had been worth the trouble. I am no fool and I am definitely not deaf. I heard you when you said that you did not want to marry me. Only I chose not to listen because I know what is right for us.”
“What is right for you,” Cecilia corrected. She planted her feet firmly on the ground, though her head was spinning. “Why ask this question when you know my answer will be unfavourable to your cause?”
“Because I think that in time you will see that I have the right of things,” Gregory said.
Cecilia was not sure which ‘right’ he meant: the right to her hand? the right idea? She could not decide which was worse. His persistence was not endearing, nor some simple quirk of his character that could be ironed out. It was dangerous, entrapping. Cecilia could see no way out, not without the backing of her father.
“I am not a patient man,” he added,“yet I have waited for you for years. Imagine how taxing this has been on me . . . I shall explicit again that I will wait however long it takes for you to realise that this is what you desire for yourself as well.”
He gripped the back of the armchair and his knuckles turned white. “You may not love me, but the life I offer you is the one you were born for. Why resist?”
It was a sensible enough question. If she did not feel such visceral hatred for Radcliff she might have even considered it. More women than not married for the sake of convenience. The fate of infants was decided sometimes before they took their first breath, born to be tools with which their fathers forged allegiances. Was it so wrong to want to be more than that?
