The Lady Most Willing

“I believe we’ve seen the last of the snow for a while,” Catriona said as easily as if returning teary gentlewomen to a state of modesty were an everyday occurrence. “What’s already fallen won’t last long. It never does. I expect within a few days most of it will have melted.” She finished wrapping the curtain and stepped back, looking over her endeavors with a critical eye. “There now. How’s that?”

Cecily looked down at her faded dress with its bilious embroidery and drooping roses, and at the ragged velvet curtain. “Awful,” she said. “Simply awful,” and then she clamped her hand over her mouth, staring at Catriona in contrition because she hadn’t meant to be ungrateful, it was just that—

“It really is, isn’t it?” Catriona agreed, her gaze on the dress. “Completely and unutterably hideous.”

Catriona lifted her head, and something in her exaggeratedly woeful countenance made Cecily smile and then grin, and then the two of them were laughing like loonies.

“Now, we shall have a nice cup of tea and one of Mrs. McVittie’s scones,” Catriona said when their laughter had died down. She linked her arm through Cecily’s, drawing her into the room where breakfast was being laid out. “And then you can tell me what all this is about.”

And so Cecily did.

An hour or so later, Cecily sailed forth from Catriona Burns’s bedchamber much restored in spirit and body. Catriona Burns, soon to become Duchess of Bretton—and a lovelier duchess one would have a hard time imagining—had found stacks of boys’ clothing in the trunk brought to her room, including an antique tiger’s uniform, and insisted Cecily try them on. Throwing propriety to the wind, she had, and was gratified to discover that she and the tiger were a similar size and shape except for a certain constriction in the jacket. And about the hips. And her backside. In anticipation of finally being able to get a breath of fresh air after being castle-bound for so long, she’d finished her toilette by donning a knit cap found in the trunk.

Bolstered by Catriona’s encouragement and her own exhilaration at doing something as scandalous as wearing boy’s clothing, Cecily struck out, determined to find her would-be lover and recommence her seduction of him. The only problem was she did not know where he might be and she could hardly ask someone where his chambers were. As daring as she’d grown these last few days, there were some lines she was not prepared to cross. That was one of them.

And she had become daring, she thought, walking along the corridor, cracking open doors and peeking inside. Who among her acquaintances would ever imagine she’d be so audacious, trading bon mots with a rake, planning to seduce that same rake, and donning boy’s clothing preparatory to doing so? None.

In fact, for the first time outside the small circle of her immediate family, she felt wholly and comfortably herself. A chill traveled through her. What if she had never come to Scotland, what if she had said yes to one of those worthy men who’d courted her? What if she’d never been kidnapped and she had never met Robert Parles, Comte de Rocheforte?

She would have spent the rest of her days living a life removed from herself, experiencing emotions at a distance, cocooned and indistinct, like bumping a well-bandaged wound. Not painful, precisely, but not alive, either, a dull layer of conventionality and unmet expectation standing between her and her heart.

The chill grew deeper, colder. What if Robin refused her? What if he would not wed her? What then? Could she be satisfied with something less? Could she wed for convenience and hope that something more might eventually grow out of the union? Would she choose spinsterhood and the memories of a very intense, very few minutes over the promise of a family?

Her footsteps slowed and her earlier ebullience faded. She needed to clear her head.

She frowned and looked about. Lost in thought, she’d made her way toward the back of the castle, near the kitchens, and was standing next to a narrow window looking across a snowy yard toward the stables. Next to the window, a low door led outside.

She lifted the latch and pushed the door open, finding herself at the top of a short flight of stairs leading down into a thick blanket of snow. Above, the morning sun blazed in a robin’s-egg blue sky, setting the pure white field sparkling. The tang of pine reached her nostrils and the sound of birdsong filled the air.

As she stood there, the stable door opened. A couple emerged, a tall blond man with his arm wrapped protectively around the shoulders of a red-haired woman. With a start, Cecily recognized Lord Oakley and Fiona Chisholm, whose hair tumbled down around her shoulders and whose laugh tinkled in the air as she looked up at him with a teasing expression. Even at this distance, Cecily could discern the tenderness with which he returned her regard.

There wasn’t any possible way someone could misconstrue what Cecily was seeing. Blood rushed into her cheeks. The most disturbing thing was that she didn’t really feel shock . . . she felt jealousy.

She started to turn away, embarrassed at having unwillingly encroached upon their privacy. But Oakley spotted her and raised his hand in greeting. Without saying a word to Fiona, he bent down and swung her up into his arms. She gave a little shriek, but by then Oakley was already cleaving a path through the thigh-high snow, making his way toward the door where Cecily stood.

A moment later he was standing just below her, showing no inclination to put Fiona on her own feet. “Lady Cecily!” he said, with a broad smile of a sort she had never imagined seeing on the earl’s face.

“Lord Oakley.” She inclined her head, waiting for him to chastise her about her apparel. But it instantly became clear that he did not care, perhaps did not even notice, what