Lord Livingstone.
The last visitor in the world she wanted to see at the moment.
Three hours later, she was seated in a damask chair in the drawing room, clean and dry. Hot soup churned in her stomach. She tried to focus on the conversation, the hum of words between Father and Lord Livingstone, but her eyes kept drifting to the fire.
Heat flamed in her cheeks as stealthily as it flamed in the hearth. She was back in the rain. Cold, wet, shaking, with his hands clamping her cheeks and his lips closing in on her mouth. The memory took her breath.
More than that. It took her good sense. Her reasoning. Her sanity.
“Do you not agree, my dear?”
Pulling herself from the reverie, she focused in on Father’s face. His eyes narrowed, as if he sensed she was not herself. “Agree to what?” she asked.
“That sea bathing is most invigorating. We visited the resort in Scarborough two summers past and quite enjoyed ourselves, did we not, dear?”
“You cannot expect me to enjoy memories of swimming in cold water at such a moment as this.”
“Quite right. I have forgotten your ordeal today. Are you warm now?”
She assured him with a smile, though it did not lessen the worry line between his brows. “Quite.”
“Perhaps a turn about the room might warm you,” said Lord Livingstone. He stood and offered his arm. “Shall we?”
A refusal sprang to her mind but did not make it to her lips. She accepted his arm, and together they walked along the perimeter of the drawing room, their footfalls soft thuds against the colorful Axminster carpet.
“That was not Camilla you rode in today.”
She glanced at him, startled. “How could you have possibly—”
“I was in the window when I saw you dismount at the stables.”
“Yes.” She shivered. “Camilla was frightened by the storm.”
“A noble footman you must have had in company.”
What to say? She glanced back at Father as they turned with the corner of the room, hoping to direct conversation away from today’s tragedy. If it could be named as such. “Father is looking well. However did you arrive here together?”
“Is that chagrin I sense?” His dark eyes bore down on her, capturing her, thronging her with guilt. Had he not rescued her at the risk of his very life? In the worst situation imaginable, had he not considered her reputation and aided her without imparting one stain to her respectability?
She owed him much. Besides that, he intrigued her, Father doted upon him, and he was wealthy enough to meet every expectation. Why should she not marry him?
Perhaps she would.
Perhaps sheshould.
“Well?”
“No, I am hardly chagrined.”
“Dare I hope my arrival is welcome?”
“Any guest of Father’s,” she said, dipping her head, “is welcome in my regard too.”
“You must know such a speech encourages me.”
A warning trickled through her, aroused from all the emotions of the past, but she pushed the notion away. Lord Livingstone was everything she had ever visualized for herself. She had misjudged him for one reckless kiss.
But surely she could forgive that.
