The Lady Most Willing

that the unfailingly demure Lady Cecily was neither so demure nor so tractable as they assumed, and that she had been encouraged since birth to follow her heart. When it came to choosing a husband, she’d been told to wait for “someone special,” and when she’d asked how she would know who that was, had been assured by her mother that “when you meet him, you will know.”

Unfortunately, the only sort of men she attracted were somber, dignified fellows who mistakenly thought they’d found in her a matching gravitas, and after three seasons, Lady Cecily had begun to fear she would never meet the man her mother had promised she would know on sight, and end up a spinster. With this specter in the forefront of her mind, this past season Lady Cecily had decided to put aside dreams of heated kisses, easy laughter, and passionate nights and concentrate on achieving more realistic goals: a nursery full of beloved children, and earnest conversations with a . . . a really very nice man.

So she’d told her father to give his consent to the man he liked best of those who’d asked for her hand. At which point, her father had whisked her and the rest of the family off to Scotland, where, away from the distractions of London, she could “make your own drat choice.”

Which is how Cecily came to be standing in Bellemere’s newly refurbished ballroom when a group of large, gray-bearded men clad in none-too-clean kilts burst in and tossed her and some other young ladies over their shoulders and carried them off to the appreciative applause of the other guests, who’d assumed it was all part of the entertainment.

Though Cecily well knew being kidnapped had not been part of the entertainment, she had not been particularly frightened. First, because one of her fellow kidnappees, Catriona Burns, obviously knew the men and had declared them harmless; second, because the Duke of Bretton was soon discovered to be sharing their—or rather his—well-sprung carriage; and finally, because upon their arrival at Finovair Castle, a scandalously handsome man with a head of loose black curls and a wicked smile had taken her hand and looked down at her with beautiful, black-lashed, laughing eyes, and she had realized, Mama was right.

For in that moment, an odd welling had arisen from deep within Lady Cecily’s heart alongside a bone-deep sense of rightness, of finally having arrived at a destination she hadn’t even known she’d been journeying toward. So it was that Lady Cecily Tarleton, the dutiful, proper daughter of the Earl of Maycott, recognized with absolute certainty that she’d found in Robin, Comte de Rocheforte, unapologetic scoundrel, self-proclaimed pauper, the scandalous Prince of Rakes, the man she would marry.

She’d known who he was and all about his reputation, of course. He had been pointed out to her on the streets of London. It didn’t matter. The only question was what she was to do about it.

It was a question that had her hourly more anxious, especially since Robin had spent the last two days as conspicuous in his absence as, well, Marilla was conspicuous in her availability. In point of fact, his determined nonappearance was beginning to substantially threaten her plan to marry him. Which is what she planned to do, because having finally found love, she saw no reason to relinquish it.

However, she couldn’t just tell him that she loved him. Since birth, it had been deeply ingrained in her that a lady waited for a gentleman to notice her and then commence his courtship. That wasn’t going to work here. Time was of the essence. Soon the storm would end, the passes clear, and her father arrive.

So when Robin had once more failed to appear for dinner, she’d gone looking for him and now stood in a dark hall outside the castle library, her cheeks scalding and tears welling in her eyes. It had taken all her self-control to keep from stomping back into the library, shoving Marilla Chisholm out of Robin’s arms, and taking her place.

Only one thing had kept her from doing so: what if Robin did not want her to take Marilla’s place?

She had no reason to believe he did. She had nothing on which to base her certainty that he felt this . . . this connection, too, other than the way he’d looked at her outside Byron’s carriage, the profound awareness that had penetrated his amusement and left him, for one telling instant, looking staggered and vulnerable.

She edged away from the doorway and began walking, her thoughts floundering between hope and despair. She didn’t note the direction her feet took until she heard a masculine voice hailing her.

“Lady Cecily. Are you all right?”

She turned to find Lord Oakley striding toward her. He looked anything but pleased to see her.

“Did you take a wrong turn? Are you lost?”

“Pardon?” She glanced about and realized that in her distraction she’d wandered into a part of the castle she didn’t recognize. The hallway was unlit and uncarpeted and chilly. “I may be.”

“You must be near frozen,” he said.

“No. I’m quite comfortable,” she said, which was true. The velvet material she’d scavenged from her room to act as a shawl was warm if not fashionable.

Beneath the shawl she’d once more donned the dimity blue ball gown in which she’d arrived, the black morning dress having fallen apart at the seams earlier in the day.

“I doubt that,” Oakley said, recalling her attention. “Allow me to see you back to a warmer part of the castle.”

His attitude was impatient, and clearly, his thoughts were on other matters.