Unlacing Lilly. Gail Ranstrom

tilted her nose upward, feigning sublime indifference.

      “You can speak to me, Miss O’Rourke. I promise I do not bite.”

      She glanced at him again and noted that he had a well-cut expensive jacket slung over one arm and an intricately tied cravat at his throat. Not a gardener, then. But more unsettling than she’d thought at first. He was tall, had very dark hair, a strong jaw lined with equally dark stubble and the most astonishing blue-gray eyes she’d ever seen. And more subtle, there was a challenge veiled in those eyes. Something almost angry. Something dangerous.

      “We have not been introduced,” she reminded.

      He looked around and shrugged. “I do not see anyone to perform that task.”

      And yet, she noted, he did not give his name or his business here. She glanced away again, hoping he would recognize a cut when it was given. Another time, under different circumstances, she might have ignored propriety and…No. She wouldn’t have. He did not look suitable at all. He looked…like the sort of man who had ruined her sisters.

      “So,” he said, apparently undaunted by her snub. “You are to become a duchess. What good fortune for you.”

      “It is all I have dreamed of since I was a child, sir.” She sniffed. “And the good fortune is all his.”

      He laughed outright this time. “’Tis always wise not to sell oneself short, but an inflated opinion of one’s own worth might be just as bad.”

      Oh! Was he suggesting that she was not worthy of Edward Manlay, the Marquis of Olney? “Are you a friend of his, then, come to save him from my social-climbing grasp?”

      “No friend of his, Miss O’Rourke, and thus I suppose I ought just to leave him to you.”

      Heat swept up from her toes. Could she even count the number of veiled—and not so veiled—insults he’d delivered in the course of scant minutes?

      “Denial, eh?” He posed a thoughtful look. “Is that what makes the heart grow fonder? Have you considered if he would propose if you had given him what he wanted?”

      “I am not certain I will give him what he wants even after we are wed.” She lifted her nose in the air and turned away, dismissing him once and for all.

      The insufferable man roared with laughter this time. “Dear Lord! You are so pitifully naive, Miss O’Rourke. Do you know what kind of man Olney really is? Not the eager oaf who just pawed you, but the man he is when there is nothing to stop him? And, alas, when you wed him, there will be, quite literally, nothing to stop him.”

      “How dare you presume to know his mind, or his nature!”

      “As you say, Miss O’Rourke.” He bowed, an elegant and graceful move for one so large. “We shall meet again, and I shall look forward to hearing your experience in dealing with Olney. No doubt you will be sadder, but wiser.”

      “Is that a threat, sir?”

      “Take it as you will, miss, but take it you will.” And with those words, he departed, merging with the shadows and leaving her quite unsettled.

      

      A glimpse of Olney returning along the garden path ended Devlin’s interview of Miss Lillian O’Rourke rather abruptly. Alas, it would never do to run into the cub. As doubtful as it was that Olney would remember Devlin after twenty years, it was a risk Devlin was not willing to take.

      A pity his interview had been cut short, though, since he’d been quite amused by his conversation with Miss O’Rourke. And quite drawn by her natural appeal. There was something compelling in those unusual blue-green eyes of hers. Something hidden and mysterious. Alas, that had to be his imagination. Miss O’Rourke was far too young and far too gently born to have a “past.”

      He resumed his position behind the ancient willow, wondering what verdict Rutherford had given. Yea? Or nay? Was the lovely Miss Lillian about to become the Marchioness of Olney? Soon, if Olney had been telling the truth, to be the Duchess of Rutherford? Though she couldn’t know it, Devlin’s own future hinged on the answer.

      “I am to ask you if you wouldn’t be content with a generous sum settled upon you and your family to make yourself available to me for as long as I pleased.”

      A mistress? How would the proud minx answer that?

      She blinked. Several times. “Lord Olney, you cannot mean what I think you meant. You cannot be suggesting…”

      Olney shrugged. “I told him you would not consent, but I promised I’d put the proposition to you.”

      So, Olney considered Miss O’Rourke inferior, but knew she would not consent to an illicit liaison. And he obviously wanted her for more than his usual single conquest, else he’d have forced her, as he’d forced others against their will, if the whispers were true. Better and better. A plan so devious that it would pierce Olney’s pride for the rest of his life and embarrass Rutherford began to take shape in Devlin’s mind.

      “You may tell him that you made that insulting offer, and that I refused. In fact, I refuse you, your lordship.”

      “What? But why?”

      “That you could even make such an offer tells me that the ‘tender regard’ you have professed does not extend to my best interests. Only yours.”

      “Here now, Miss Lillian! Did I not say that my father bade me to ask? Have I not been willing to wed you all along?” Olney’s smile betrayed his father’s verdict. He sat beside Miss O’Rourke and took her hand. “I will not say that my father was pleased, my dear, but pending your refusal to what he termed ‘a more suitable arrangement,’ he gave his consent.”

      “Then…then he was disappointed in my dowry?”

      The cub laughed. “My dear, the dowry was less a consideration than your…ah, humble origins. Father had pinned his hopes on a merger with a more prominent family.”

      Even from his position, Devlin could see Miss O’Rourke’s deep flush. That, at least, he could understand and sympathize with. He’d spent a lifetime with an even worse taunt than “humble origins.”

      Devlin grinned when Miss Lillian contrived to look mollified, though the outcome had never been in doubt. No chit would refuse a marriage offer from the Rutherford heir. In fact, he was considered by those who did not know his true nature to be a stellar catch for any ambitious miss.

      “What else did your father say?”

      “Come, Miss Lillian. You may call me Edward now that we are betrothed.”

      “Are we betrothed?”

      “We shall be on the morrow. Lord and Lady Vandecamp are shut in the library with Father at the moment, discussing the details. They are your sponsors, are they not? Lady Vandecamp said she would put the offer to your mother tomorrow. And, if all is agreeable, the first banns will be read as soon as can be. Just think! We should be married by the eighteenth of next month.”

      “S-so soon?”

      “Come. Do not go all missish on me now, Miss Lillian. In just over three weeks’ time, you will be the Marchioness of Olney. We shall have such a wedding night as the gods would envy. You will lack for nothing, my dear.”

      Then why did she not look happier, Devlin wondered. She had dropped her gaze and would not meet the cub’s eyes. More coyness? No doubt Olney had expected her to sigh and swoon into his arms to seal their bargain with a kiss. Miss Lillian, it would seem, knew how to keep her suitor eager to advance.

      “Yes. Yes, of course…Edward.”

      “Three endless weeks. How shall I wait that long, Lillian?”

      And before she could answer, Olney took matters into his own hands. He pulled her against his chest and crushed her to him, pressing his lips to hers in an even more forceful manner than he had earlier. Miss Lillian