Page 107 of Wild Lily
She wriggled in glee, her feminine folds yielding to the quest of his fingers. “Lead on.”
“Right you are.” And he continued his seduction of his willing, wanton wife.
* * *
“Lady Elanna is definitely not a happy bride.”
Lily wished she didn’t agree with her younger sister, Ada. The eighteen-year-old, along with her father, brother Pierce, and Marianne had also been invited to this pre-wedding ball given by the Duke and Duchess of Seton and they’d returned from Paris for the occasion.
“Doesn’t her family see this?” Ada waved her fan, anxious for Elanna.
“They know.” Lily watched Julian’s sister in the far corner talking with her intended husband, Lord Carbury.Are they arguing? Here?“They approve of him.”
“Even though she doesn’t love him?”
Pierce, the younger, slimmer version of their tall, brusque, Black Irish father, gazed at the bride with a cool detachment. In his formal attire, the black and white highlighting his sharp bone structure, he was devastatingly handsome. Like their father, he moved quickly, decisively. He appeared a brash American who could enthrall or repel with one glance. “She’s quite luscious. A perfect China doll. I see why the man wants her. Who wouldn’t?”
Ada sniffed. “I think it’s slavery.”
Lily bristled, leary that a few guests who stood close by might overhear. “Do be discreet, my dears. This is my family now. Yours too.”
Ada inched nearer Lily. “I know but this is terrible for her to have to marry him. To see them together is torture. We attended a dinner here last night, Lily. If you could have seen them. Horrid. He smothers her. She avoids him. Ignores him.”
“Hates him,” Pierce added and turned his back on the sight. Instead, he focused on Lily. “Tell me. I must learn. How are you, Lady Chelton? Well, I hope.” His blue gaze, a shade lighter than her own, pinned her with ribald interest.
She took a sip of her champagne. “I am, thank you, quite well.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “You’re sure? No discomforts? Irritations? Lack for anything, do you?”
“Nothing.” She understood Pierce’s concern—and his probe. After all, he hadn’t met Julian until the day before their wedding and as her older brother, protector as he’d always thought himself to be, Pierce needed reassurance. Particularly now that he so obviously was appalled at Elanna’s situation.
Pierce twitched his nose. “My new brother-in-law is kind?”
“Very. A gentleman. You will see.”
“He has enough of our money to make him a gentleman, if not king of England.”
“Please, Pierce.” She hated that he was so put out. But he was used to stating his mind. “You’re here to make an impression. Win friends. Make money. Gather your manners.”
“I will when I see you are safe.”
“I am.”I question to what degree if I am only desired.She donned an assured face and arched a brow at her brother.
“I’ve no reason to trust any of them. Stuffed prigs, the lot of them.” He placed his empty flute down on a passing footman’s tray and took another full one. “Our groom-to-be there,” he said with a withering look at Carbury, “grabs her arm with a longshoreman’s grip. What kind of father permitsthatto marry his daughter?”
A poor one.“This is not our choice.”
“Not what we would do,” Pierce said.
Ada nodded. “I won’t buy a husband I can’t stand.”
Lily shook her head. “Papa would not ask you to, Ada.”
The girl tipped her head, considering Lily. “You’re sure?”
“I am. Stop this, the two of you. There are finer things to do this evening than complain about others. Ada, you have a few admirers here. If you stop pouting, I think after Lady Elanna and Lord Carbury lead the first dance, you’ll have worshipers at your feet.”
“Oh, yes!” Ada sighed and clasped her fan to her chest, “I long to waltz. Do you think the orchestra will play that?”
